Get fit: Fitness gurus you can work out with for free on YouTube – Daily Commercial

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By Kaitlyn McLintock / Tribune News Service

Instead of neglecting our workout (and the mood-boosting benefits that come from it), we schedule ourselves a little one-on-one workout time with YouTube. The workouts are time-flexible, accessible and expert-led. In other words, its basically a treasure trove of fitness.

A quick search unearths everything from yoga to Pilates to HIIT training routines; whatever type of sweat session you prefer, YouTube likely has it. Thats why we decided to put together a list of our favorite online fitness channels just to help you narrow your search a little bit.

YOGA WITH ADRIENE

Adriene Mishler is the light-hearted yogi behind this YouTube channel. Her yoga videos range from targeted practices for anxiety, depression, sleep and pain (like this one for neck and shoulder relief) to power flows for strengthening and lengthening. Her goofy yet calming presence is enough to make you change into comfortable clothes, drink a cup of tea and relax into a yoga routine.

CASSEY HO OF BLOGILATES

Cassey Ho has been a mainstay on the YouTube fitness scene since she started uploading Pilates videos in 2009. Her website, Blogilates, provides fitness and nutrition advice, along with body-positive inspiration and sporty merchandise.

She specializes in workouts that build and tone muscle using nothing else but your own body weight. The workouts are hard but fun. Her bubbly and outgoing personality almost makes you forget your arms are screaming in the middle of a 15-minute workout (almost). Stay dedicated to her videos, try your best, and youll see real change.

TARA STILES

Although she does have videos fit for beginners, chances are that youll love Tara Stiless yoga videos if youre an intermediate or advanced yoga devotee. Her no-frills approach is quieting, calming and strengthening for both the body and mind. (If youre not super into yoga, check her videos out anyway, because they might majorly inspire you; shes the most graceful human being weve ever seen).

JEANETTE JENKINS

Jeanette Jenkins is a celebrity personal trainer (responsible for training A-listers such as Kelly Rowland) who posts a variety of different workouts designed to increase strength. Many of her videos are extremely short think no longer than 30 seconds just so she can show a few reps of effective moves. Then, depending on how much time you have, you can make it an extended workout, or just do a few circuits. Take this Zumba video, for instance. Its solely concentrated on planks and high knees for an intense cardio sweat.

THE TONE IT UP GIRLS

Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott started their Tone It Up empire to share workout, nutrition, and even lifestyle advice. Many of their workouts take place in front of a beautiful backdrop of the Pacific ocean, so you can kind of feel like youre working out while on a SoCal vacation (better than working out at home, right?).

Theyre also regular Byrdie contributors. Check out all of their stories. (Personally, we love this piece on the 5 exercises you should do if you sit all day).

XHIT DAILY

XHIT Daily is a YouTube channel that regularly posts workout videos ranging from Crossfit to Pilates. The three hosts are incredibly knowledgeable, reminding their viewers how to correct their form and get the most from their workouts throughout.

THE RUN EXPERIENCE

Weve covered yoga, Pilates, and strength training workouts, but this one is for any runners out there. The Run Experience has almost 70,000 YouTube subscribers, to which it shares motivating running tips, tricks, and advice. They have videos on everything from hydration and nutrition to race-day prep. Regardless if youre a runner or not, they share super-effective targeted workouts that are great for doing on the go.

WHITNEY SIMMONS

Simmons posts regularly on YouTube, so youll never be without a new workout to try. The best part? You dont need a ton of equipment. Many of her videos use your body weight, and maybe a dumbbell or two to target specific muscle groups. Plus, she produces videos on healthy meal prep, to keep you going throughout a busy week.

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Watch The Heart-Stopping Moment A Biker Cartwheeled In Front Of A Car – Car Throttle

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Drifting a motorcycle is a fine art. It takes a tremendous amount of skill, and if it goes wrong, its probably going to hurt. With that in mind, we really cant recommend you try it on the road. On a busy residential street. With pretty much no safety gear other than a helmet.

Unfortunately, thats precisely what this guy did in Newcastle, New South Wales, with the ever-scary Dashcam Owners Australia YouTube channel uploading the moderately terrifying footage for our viewing displeasure.

Hes thrown off the bike but initially stays upright, with the momentum forcing him into an almost graceful cartwheel - right in front of an oncoming car. Fortunately, the car in question - which recorded the whole thing via a dashcam - was able to stop in time.

The driver had this to say about the crash:

Fella took the corner a little to fast, but seemed fine afterwards - although there was a little bit of shock, as he rode off without a chance for me to get out of the car (short conversation through the window). He apologised, and no damage was done to my car. I noticed a fair bit of fluid pouring from the bottom of his bike as he drove away.

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BEING THERE: Virtual reality lets therapy patients return to the scene of their fear – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

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By Cade MetzThe New York Times

Dawn Jewell recently treated a patient haunted by a car crash. The patient had developed acute anxiety over the cross streets where the crash occurred, unable to drive a route that carried so many painful memories.

So Jewell, a psychologist in Colorado, treated the patient through a technique called exposure therapy, providing emotional guidance as they revisited the intersection together.

But they did not physically return to the site. They revisited it through virtual reality.

Jewell is among a handful of psychologists testing a new service from a Silicon Valley startup called Limbix that offers exposure therapy through Daydream View, the Google headset that works in tandem with a smartphone.

It provides exposure in a way that patients feel safe, she said. We can go to a location together, and the patient can tell me what theyre feeling and what theyre thinking.

The service recreates outdoor locations by tapping into another Google product, Street View, a vast online database of photos that delivers panoramic scenes of roadways and other locations around the world. Using these virtual street scenes, Jewell has treated a second patient who struggled with anxiety after being injured by another person outside a local building.

The service is also designed to provide treatment in other ways, like taking patients to the top of a virtual skyscraper so they can face a fear of heights or to a virtual bar so they can address an alcohol addiction.

Backed by the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, Limbix is less than 1 year old. The creators of its new service, including its chief executive and co-founder, Benjamin Lewis, worked in the seminal virtual reality efforts at Google and Facebook.

The hardware and software they are working with is still very young, but Limbix builds on more than two decades of research and clinical trials involving virtual reality and exposure therapy. At a time when much-hyped headsets like the Daydream and Facebooks Oculus are still struggling to find a wide audience in the world of gaming let alone other markets psychology is an area where technology and medical experts believe this technology can be a benefit.

As far back as the mid-1990s, clinical trials showed that this kind of technology could help treat phobias and other conditions, like post-traumatic stress disorder.

Traditionally, psychologists have treated such conditions by helping patients imagine they are facing a fear, mentally creating a situation where they can address their anxieties. Virtual reality takes this a step further.

We feel pretty confident that exposure therapy using VR can supplement what a patients imagination alone can do, said Skip Rizzo, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California who has explored such technology over the past 20 years.

Facing the trauma

Barbara Rothbaum helped pioneer the practice at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and her work spawned a company called Virtually Better, which has long offered virtual reality exposure therapy tools to some doctors and hospitals through an older breed of headset. According to one clinical trial she helped build, virtual reality was just as effective as trips to airports in treating the fear of flying, with 90 percent of patients eventually conquering their anxieties.

Such technology has also been effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans. Unlike treatments built solely on imagination, Rothbaum said, virtual reality can force patients to face their past traumas.

PTSD is a disorder of avoidance. People dont want to think about it, she said. We need them to be engaged emotionally, and with virtual reality, its harder for them to avoid that.

Now, headsets like Googles Daydream, which works in tandem with common smartphones, and Facebooks Oculus, the self-contained $400 headset that sparked the recent resurgence in virtual reality technologies, could bring this kind of therapy to a much wider audience.

Virtually Better built its technology for virtual reality hardware that sold for several thousands of dollars. Today, Limbix and other companies, including a Spanish startup called Psious, can offer services that are far less expensive. Limbix is beginning to offer its tools to psychologists and other therapists outside its initial test. The service is free for now, with the company planning to sell more advanced tools at some point.

After testing the Limbix offering, Jewell said it allowed patients to face their anxieties in more controlled ways than they otherwise could. At the same time, such a tool can truly give patients the feeling that they are being transported to a different locations at least in some cases.

Standing atop a virtual skyscraper, for instance, can cause anxiety even in those who are relatively comfortable with heights. Experts warn that a service like the one offered by Limbix requires the guiding hand of trained psychologists while still in development.

Limbix combines technical and medical expertise. One key employee, Scott Satkin, is a robotics and artificial intelligence researcher who worked on the Daydream project at Google. Limbix also works with its own psychologist, Sean Sullivan, who continues to run a therapy practice in San Francisco.

Sullivan is using the new service to treat patients, including a young man who recently developed a fear of flying, something that causes anxiety simply when he talks about it. Using the service alongside Sullivan, the young man, who asked that his name be withheld for privacy reasons spent several sessions visiting a virtual airport and, eventually, flying on a virtual plane.

In some ways, the young man said, the service is still less than perfect. Like the Street View scenes Jewell uses in treating her patients, some of this virtual reality is static, built from still images. But like the rest of the virtual reality market, these tools are still evolving toward more realistic scenes.

And even in its current form, the service can be convincing. The young man recently took a flight across the country here in the real world.

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UPS is developing virtual reality tech to train its drivers – TechCrunch

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UPS drivers preparing to get behind the wheel will soon be using virtual reality to do so.

The companys new VR training program will be rolling out next month at nine of the companys training facilities, simulating some of the uncertainties and challenges of delivering packages on city streets. Trainees will interact with the content using voice commands to identify obstacles while wearing headsets.

Virtual Reality offers a big technological leap in the realm of driver safety training, said UPS exec Juan Perez in a statement. VR creates a hyper-realistic streetscape that will dazzle even the youngest of our drivers whose previous exposure to the technology was through video games.

While companies like Walmart have signed onto programs with enterprise-focused startups like Strivr Labs, UPS will be building its training materials in-house.

Virtual reality may be a more immersive technology but, when done poorly, training videos can be just as unbearable as more traditional instructional materials. The big issue right now is that making custom, realistic VR content able to take advantage of everything the medium has to offer really isnt worth the effort.

Enterprise software companies could build (and some have) game engine-rendered content that allows you to move around and interact with the environment, but they often end up with dumpy PlayStation 1 graphics that wander too far from the real-world. Largely for this reason, most companies are opting for more realistic but less interactive 360 video.

While VR may not be as revolutionary as, say, drones to a company that ships packages across the globe, it can still be an effective tool for getting prospective employees ready before they get out on the job. Its also important because UPS drivers are a clear candidate for utilizing AR headsets in the future to more easily keep track of shipments hands-free while preparing for drop-offs and pick-ups.

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Will AI Blur the Lines Between Physical and Virtual Reality? – Futurism

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The Notion of Reality

As technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), big data, 5G, and the internet of things (IoT) advance over the next generation, they will reinforce and spur one another. One plausible scenario is a physical world so enhanced by personalized, AI-curated digital content (experienced with what we today call augmented reality) that the very notion of reality is called into question.

Immersion can change how we interact with content in fundamental ways. For example, a fully immersive AR environment of the future, achieved with a wide-field-of-view headset and full of live content integrated with the built environment, would be intended by design to create in the user an illusion that everything being sensed was real. The evolution toward this kind of environment raises a host of ethical questions, specifically with attention to the AI that would underlie such an intelligent and compelling illusion.

When watching a movie, the viewer is physically separated from the illusion. The screen is framed, explicitly distinct from the viewer. The frame is a part of traditional art forms; from the book to the painting to the skyscraper, each is explicitly separated from the audience. It is bounded and physically defined.

But with digital eyewear, things change. Digital eyewear moves the distance of digital mediation from the screen (approximately 20 feet) to the human face, which is at zero distance, and almost eliminates the frame. It starts raising inevitable questions about what constitutes reality when much of ones sensory input is superimposed on the physical world by AI. At that stage of the technologys evolution, one could still simply opt out by removing the eyewear. Although almost indistinguishable from the physical world, that near-future world would still be clinging precariously to the human face.

The next step would be moving the source of the digital illusion into the human body a distance of less than zero through contact lenses, implants, and ultimately direct communication. At that point, the frame is long gone. The digital source commandeers the senses, and it becomes very hard to argue that the digital content isnt as real as a building on the corner which, frankly, could be an illusion itself in such an environment. Enthusiasts will probably argue that our perception is already an electrochemical illusion, and implants merely enhance our natural selves. In any case, opting out would become impractical at best. This is the stage of the technology that will raise practical questions we have never had to address before.

At that point, what is real? How much agency are we humans deprived of when we are making decisions based on AI-generated content and guidance that may or may not be working at cross-purposes to our needs? How would we even know? In the longer term, what happens to our desire to control our own lives when we get better outcomes by letting those decisions be made by AI? What if societal behavior became deliberately manipulated for the greater good, as interpreted by one entity? If efficiency and order were to supersede all other criteria as ideal social values, how could an AI-driven AR capability be dissuaded from manipulating individual behavior to those ends? What happens to individual choice? Is a person capable of being good without the option to be bad?

Perhaps the discussion surrounding the next generation of AI-informed AR could consider the possibility that the ethical questions change as the source of digital content gets closer to the human body and ultimately becomes a part of it. Its not simply a matter of higher-fidelity visuals. First, the frame disappears, which raises new questions of illusion and identity. Then, the content seems to come from within the body, which diminishes the possibility of opting out and raises further questions about agency and free will.

This combination of next-generation technologies might well find its ultimate expression after we have collectively engaged questions of philosophy and brought them right into the worlds of software development and corporate strategy.

Movies, advertising, and broadcasting have always been influential, but there was never a confusion between the content and the self as we will likely see in the next generation. Having these conversations about ethics and thinking through the implications of new technologies early in their development (i.e. right now) could help guide this remarkable convergence in a way that benefits humanity by modeling a world that reflects our best impulses.

Jay Iorio is the Innovation Director for the IEEE Standards Association.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Futurism or its affiliates.

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Will AI Blur the Lines Between Physical and Virtual Reality? - Futurism

A first in China cryonics: Dead woman put in deep freeze – EJ Insight – EJ Insight

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A 49-year-old Chinese woman who died from lung cancer has been put in deep freeze in the hope that she will be brought back to life and reunited with her husband once science has found a cure for her fatal illness.

Thecryonics procedure was performed at Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute in Jinan on May 8, several minutes after Zhan Wenlian died at Shandong Universitys Qilu Hospital, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reports.

Zhan and her husbandGui Junmin had agreed to put her through the procedure, which involves low-temperature preservation of a person whose life can no longer be sustained under current science and medical knowledge, with the hope that he or she can be resuscitated and restored to full health in the future.

While some people suspect that the procedure is just another hoax, Gui expressed in a letter of consent that he knew it was not possible to revive his wife in the near future but he still he would like to give it a try.

He said he and his family believe that future advances in science and medicine will enable experts to revive his wife.

The cryopreservation was the first for a whole human body in China, although a female writer in Chongqing had had her brain frozen and preserved in 2015.

The procedure was done by Aaron Drake, a specialist in cryogenics, in cooperation with doctors from Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute and specialists from the hospital.

After more than 60 hours of work, Zhans body temperature was lowered to below minus 190 degrees Celsius before she was kept in a liquid nitrogen tank that provides a stable temperature of minus 196 degrees.

The procedure is said to cost more than 7 million yuan (US$1.05 million) plus an annual charge of 50,000 yuan for the refilling of liquid nitrogen.

But Gui only needs to pay a small portion of the amount since his wife volunteered.

Jia Chunsheng, who is in charge of Shandong Yinfeng, said cryogenics projects remain asserious scientific studies and the institute has no intention to commercialize the procedure anytime soon, news website hk01.com reported.

Jia also praised Zhan for being willing to contribute her body to scientific research, adding that her consent fuels the hope that dead people can be revived and restored to full health in the future.

In the United States, there have been about 250 people placed in cryopreservation as of 2014.

Contact us at [emailprotected]

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A first in China cryonics: Dead woman put in deep freeze - EJ Insight - EJ Insight

Treating your cancer with all-natural alternative medicine may double your risk of dying – Mic

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Treating curable cancers with alternative medicine techniques is a choice that at least one in three Americans makes, including former Apple CEO Steve Jobs before his death from a curable form of pancreatic cancer in 2011. But even if treating the body with these natural methods sounds appealing, a recent study suggests that using alternative medicine to treat cancer more than doubles the risk of dying within five years.

Scientists examined a decades worth of medical records and found 281 patients with curable forms of breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancer. All of these 281 patients decided to try alternative forms of medicine instead of more conventional treatment such as chemotherapy, surgery or radiation. Compared to the 560 patients who opted for regular treatment, the alternative medicine patients overall were two and a half times more likely to be dead five years later. Among specific cancers, that rate was higher breast cancer patients were 5.68 times more likely to die, while those with colorectal were 4.57 more likely to die.

We now have evidence to suggest that using alternative medicine in place of proven cancer therapies results in worse survival, study author and oncologist Skyler Johnson said in a release. It is our hope that this information can be used by patients and physicians when discussing the impact of cancer treatment decisions on survival.

Alternative medicine is a loose term, but it can encompass anything from hypnosis, yoga and aromatherapy to ingesting herbs and dietary supplements. Steve Jobs reportedly tried hydrotherapy, consulting psychics and limiting his diet to just fruits and vegetables before his death at the age of 56, according to Scientific American. But at the end of his search for cutting-edge treatments, Jobs reportedly regretted his choice to delay traditional surgery for alternative medicine, biographer Walter Isaacson told CBS.

He said, I didnt want my body to be opened. I didnt want to be violated in that way. Hes regretful about it, Isaacson said. I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you dont want something to exist, you can have magical thinking. And it had worked for him in the past.

The study also showed that some people are more likely to try alternative medicine than others. It may be counterintuitive to survival rates, but those who chose alternative medicine generally had the advantages of higher incomes and higher education levels, plus they tended to be much younger.

These patients should be doing better than the standard therapy group, but theyre not, James Hu, the studys senior author and the director of Yales prostate and genitourinary cancer radiotherapy program, told MedPage Today. Thats a scary thing to me. These are young patients who could potentially be cured, and theyre being sold snake oil by unscrupulous alternative medicine practitioners.

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Alternative Medicine Treatments for Cancer Linked to Lower Survival Rate – Laboratory Equipment

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Patients who choose to receive alternative therapy as treatment for curable cancers instead of conventional cancer treatment have a higher risk of death, according to researchers from the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) Center at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Cancer Center.

The findings were reported online by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

There is increasing interest by patients and families in pursuing alternative medicine as opposed to conventional cancer treatment. This trend has created a difficult situation for patients and providers. Although it is widely believed that conventional cancer treatment will provide the greatest chance at cure, there is limited research evaluating the effectiveness of alternative medicine for cancer.

While many cancer patients use alternative therapy in addition to conventional cancer treatments, little is known about patients who use alternative therapy as their only approach to treating their cancer.

We became interested in this topic after seeing too many patients present in our clinics with advanced cancers that were treated with ineffective and unproven alternative therapies alone, said the studys senior author, James B. Yu, associate professor of therapeutic radiology at Yale Cancer Center.

To investigate alternative medicine use and its impact on survival compared to conventional cancer treatment, the researchers studied 840 patients with breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer in the National Cancer Database (NCDB) a joint project of the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society. The NCDB represents approximately 70 percent of newly diagnosed cancers nationwide. Researchers compared 280 patients who chose alternative medicine to 560 patients who had received conventional cancer treatment.

The researchers studied patients diagnosed from 2004 to 2013. By collecting the outcomes of patients who received alternative medicine instead of chemotherapy, surgery, and/or radiation, they found a greater risk of death. This finding persisted for patients with breast, lung, and colorectal cancer. The researchers concluded that patients who chose treatment with alternative medicine were more likely to die and urged for greater scrutiny of the use of alternative medicine for the initial treatment of cancer.

We now have evidence to suggest that using alternative medicine in place of proven cancer therapies results in worse survival, said lead author Dr.Skyler Johnson.It is our hope that this information can be used by patients and physicians when discussing the impact of cancer treatment decisions on survival.

Its important to note that when it comes to alternative cancer therapies, there is just so little known patients are making decisions in the dark. We need to understand more about which treatments are effective whether were talking about a new type of immunotherapy or a high-dose vitamin and which ones arent, so that patients can make informed decisions, added Cary Gross, co-author of the study.

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Dr Libby: How to get the most out of food supplements | Stuff.co.nz – Stuff.co.nz

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DR LIBBY WEAVER

Last updated14:45, August 15 2017

Istock

While nutritional supplements can help to bridge any gaps or to address deficiencies, they cannot replace a nutritious way of eating.

Nutritional supplements are very common these days.

For some people, supplements are necessary to cover nutritional gaps that can arise from excluding certain foods from their diet, regardless of whether this is by choice or necessity. For others, supplementation is something they view as an insurance policy, to ensure their nutrient intake is adequate if they don't always eat as well as they know they should.

Perhaps you choose to take a multivitamin to top up your intake of a range of nutrients, or maybe you take a specific vitamin or mineral that is lacking in your diet. Or you might take an omega-3 fatty acid supplement, or use a greens powder as a convenient way to increase your vegetable intake.

Good quality nutritional supplements are a financial investment, so you definitely want to be sure you are getting the maximum benefit from what you are taking.

READ MORE: *The problem with vitamin pills and supplements *Why this naturopath won't take supplements *Ask Dr Libby: the best supplements for joint health

If you're not effectively absorbing the nutrients from your supplements, you're not going to be getting all of the potential benefits from these. The old adage that you are what you eat isn't quite correct. You are what you eat, absorb and assimilate, and this is something to consider when it comes to supplementation, too.

Let's consider some common nutritional supplements and how you can get the most out of these.

IRON

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world, and it can be difficult to restore depleted iron levels without a supplement. Many iron supplements lead to constipation, but most people find this does not happen with liquid iron supplements.

If you take an iron supplement, avoiding tea, coffee or red wine within at least an hour of taking your supplement is essential, as the tannins inhibit iron absorption. Consuming calcium-rich foods away from iron-rich foods and iron supplements can also make a difference to iron absorption, as iron and calcium compete for absorption in the gut.

If you take a calcium supplement, it's important that this is taken at a different time to your iron supplement. The same goes for zinc supplements to maximise absorption, they should be taken at a different time to iron supplements.

Vitamin C, however, significantly enhances the absorption of iron. So if you take an iron supplement, you might like to check the label to ensure it also contains vitamin C.

ZINC

To maximize absorption, zinc supplements are best taken away from food (before bed is a good time) and away from any iron, calcium and folic acid supplements. Tannins in tea, coffee and red wine can also inhibit zinc absorption, as can fibre, so these are best avoided for at least an hour either side of taking zinc.

VITAMIN D

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, so absorption of vitamin D supplements will be enhanced when taken with a source of dietary fat. This means it's best to take your vitamin D supplement with a meal that includes nourishing fats from foods like avocado, nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil or oily fish such as salmon. There are two different forms of vitamin D they are vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 is the more bioavailable form.

MULTIVITAMIN

Multivitamin supplements are best taken with a meal. When you eat, stomach acid is produced to help digest your food properly, and this will also enhance absorption of some of the nutrients in your multivitamin. The fats that are present in the meal will also help your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E and K). It's also best to avoid drinking coffee, tea and red wine within an hour of taking your multivitamin to get the most out of it.

While nutritional supplements can help to bridge any nutritional gaps or to address nutrient deficiencies, please be aware that they cannot replace a highly nutritious way of eating. Nothing in this world can.

Dr Libby is a nutritional biochemist, best-selling author and speaker. The advice contained in this column is not intended to be a substitute for direct, personalised advice from a health professional. Join Dr Libby for her upcoming Food Frustrations New Zealand tour. For information and to buy tickets, visit drlibby.com

-Stuff

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Australian bodybuilder with rare disorder dies eating high-protein diet – CNN

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Urea cycle disorder, which causes a deficiency of one enzyme in the urea cycle, stops the body from breaking down protein, according to the nonprofit National Urea Cycle Disorders Foundation. Normally, the body can remove nitrogen, a waste product of protein metabolism, from the blood. However, a urea cycle disorder would prohibit this. Therefore, nitrogen, in the form of toxic ammonia, would accumulate in the blood and eventually reach the brain, where it can cause irreversible damage, coma and death.

"The enzyme deficiency can be mild enough so that the person is able to detoxify ammonia adequately -- until there's a trigger," said Cynthia Le Mons, executive director of the foundation. The trigger could be a viral illness, stress or a high-protein diet, she added.

"There was just no way of knowing she had it because they don't routinely test for it," said Michelle White, Hefford's mother and a resident of Perth. "She started to feel unwell, and she collapsed."

White blames protein shakes for her daughter's death.

Since 2014, Hefford, who worked at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and studied paramedicine, had been competing as a bodybuilder.

It was only after Hefford's death that White discovered containers of protein supplements in her daughter's kitchen, along with a strict food plan. White understood then that her daughter, who had been preparing for another bodybuilding competition, had also been consuming an unbalanced diet.

"There's medical advice on the back of all the supplements to seek out a doctor, but how many young people actually do?" White asked.

Le Mons said, "typically, there are nuanced symptoms that just go unrecognized" with mild cases of urea cycle disorder. Symptoms include episodes of a lack of concentration, being very tired and vomiting.

"Sometimes, people think it's the flu and might even go to the ER thinking they have a really bad flu," Le Mons said, adding that a simple serum ammonia level test, which can detect the condition, is not routinely done in ERs.

It's unclear whether Hefford suffered symptoms of her condition. White, who hopes her daughter's story will serve as a warning to help save lives, believes protein supplements need more regulation.

The Australian Medical Association says there's no real health benefit to such supplements. And, while they may not be necessary for most people, they're not dangerous to most, either.

The estimated incidence of urea cycle disorders is 1 in 8,500 births. Since many cases remain undiagnosed, the exact incidence is unknown and believed to be underestimated.

"There's a myth that this disorder only affects children," Le Mons said, noting that one patient reached age 85 before diagnosis.

Regarding Hefford, Le Mons said that "this is not the first time this has happened." Other athletes, who like Hefford were unaware of their condition, have died when a high-protein diet triggered their condition.

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Australian bodybuilder with rare disorder dies eating high-protein diet - CNN

Supplement maker on FDA blacklist after deadly bacteria found in water system – Ars Technica

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Enlarge / A scanning electron microscopic image of Burkholderia cepacia.

The Food and Drug Administration advised consumers and healthcare providers Friday to avoid all liquid products made by PharmaTech LLC of Davie, Floridaafter finding dangerous Burkholderia cepacia bacteria in the water system used to manufacture its products. Those products include liquid drugs and dietary supplements labeled under Rugby Laboratories, Major Pharmaceuticals, and Leader Brands.

An outbreak of B. cepaciainfections affecting at least 60 people in eight states led the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to PharmaTech. Late last year, the agencies tracked the source to more than 10 lots of PharmaTechs oral liquid docusate sodium, a stool softener. But suspicion of contamination crept to the companys other products, and this month PharmaTech issued a voluntary nationwide recall of its other liquid products, such as its liquid vitamin D drops and liquid multivitamins that are marketed for infants and children.

B. cepacia poses a serious threat to vulnerable patients, including infants and young children who still have developing immune systems, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. These products were distributed nationwide to retailers, health care facilities, pharmacies and sold onlinemaking it important that parents, patients and health care providers be made aware of the potential risk and immediately stop using these products.

A representative for PharmaTech reached by Ars declined to comment beyondthe recall announcement. The announcement includes a full list of products affected with images.

Burkholderia cepacia poses little risk to healthy people, the CDC notes. But it can be deadly in people with weakened immune systems or other conditions, such as cystic fibrosis. Infections can cause a range of symptomsfrom little to none or to severe respiratory distressand spread from person-to-person or through the environment. The bacteria is known to lurk in health care settings and is often found to be resistant to many common antibiotics.

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Supplement maker on FDA blacklist after deadly bacteria found in water system - Ars Technica

Doxycycline time release capsules – Shelf life extension program doxycycline – Filipino Express

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Doxycycline time release capsules - Shelf life extension program doxycycline
Filipino Express
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This couple are going to get married in every country where it’s legal – PinkNews

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Fleur Pierets and Julian P. Boom

A queer couple are planning to visit every country where its legal for same-sex couples to get married and hold a wedding in each one.

The plan will seeFleur Pierets and Julian P. Boom travel the world over the next year and a half in order to tie the knot in all the legally-permitted countries.

The project was titled 22 after the 22 countries with equal marriage, but rather unhelpfully for the couple Germany and Malta have both recently legalised same-sex marriage.

The female art duo have now extended their trip to accommodate the two extra countries, taking the tally to 24. It could rise even further, if Australia votes in favour of equality this year.

Their first wedding for the project will take place in New York next month, with their final wedding planned more than a year later in New Zealand, in October 2017.

The trip will take them across the diverse range of countries around the world with marriage equality from Colombia to Canada, and South Africa to Sweden.

The pair, who first married in Belgium in 2012, explained: 22 is an art project that speaks of evolution and optimism. A time capsule that instantly refers to the possibility of change.

That captures the zeitgeist of a world in the midst of change when it comes to gender equality and human rights.

22 celebrates the places that legalised gay marriage, and highlights the work that still needs to be done in the 170 countries that dont.

At the current rate we will reach global recognition of same-sex marriage in the year 2142. Thats 125 years from now so lets see if they can get it to go a bit faster.

Of the abruptly out-of-date name, they added: Naming our project 22 shows that the world is in constant movement.

Were building a time capsule that instantly refers to the possibility of change and we ourselves dont know to how many countries we will have to go, or have to add over the 18 month course of this project.

We hope many, because this goes beyond being merely a work of art.

22 can raise levels of awareness that may lead to changing laws and giving people the equal opportunities they deserve.

The pair added:Fascinated by gender, identity and community, our research-based practice functions as a mirror in which viewers can confront themselves with ideologies or beliefs.

We are working towards cultural awareness when it comes to gender equality and gay imagery in mainstream art history.

At the end of the performance, an art/video installation will be exhibited.

As a performance piece, we are getting married in: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States & Uruguay.

You can follow their journey online.

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This couple are going to get married in every country where it's legal - PinkNews

How Did Political Terminology and Alignments Develop Differently in the US and Europe? – HuffPost

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Why did conservatism and liberalism develop so differently in Europe than in the United States? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Charles Tips, Retired entrepreneur, Founding CEO of TranZact, Inc., on Quora:

Political outlooks took different routes in Europe and the United States but developed quite similarly.

Even prior to the Age of Enlightenment, Europe was home to several republican (non-monarchical) governments. During the Enlightenment, a great variety of thinkers began to oppose monarchy and the divine right of kings with concepts formed around the republican idea of popular sovereignty. Liberalism is the name for the range of ideologies, from constitutional monarchy to the radical republicanism adopted in the United States following its Revolutionary War.

The United States at the time of that war had been home to four separate waves of British immigration, only one of which was largely Tory, or supportive of British monarchy. The others tended to be separatist in order to escape the oppression experienced in England. These waves were joined by Dutch Reform republicans, French Huguenots, German Lutherans and Swedish Lutherans (two distinct outlooks), with most of the representatives of these groups happy to have left Europe behind. Support for monarchy was to be found only in certain pockets, and, after the war, never reasserted itself.

Liberalism was strong in Europe and increasingly truculent toward monarchy. The attempt to reprise the American Revolution in France, the French Revolution, became shockingly bloody as the antagonisms on all sides were much harsher than had been the case in the American Colonies. When that revolution was followed by Bonapartism, the Counter-Enlightenment took much of the wind out of the sails of the liberal movement.

Early in the 19th century, various experiments in socialism represented an in-place effort to duck out from under monarchism. With the Revolutions of 1848 and the publication that year of The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, socialism joined liberalism as a second threat aimed at monarchism.

A generation later, however, the popular working-class revolts Marx had predicted were nowhere in evidence. Meanwhile, Otto von Bismarck, tasked with unifying the many German principalities under Kaiser Wilhelm I, noted the strong appeal of the socialist message to the people. He began exploratory discussions with certain social democrats.

Social democracy was the name for the non-revolutionary form of Marxs communism, something of a ruse made necessary by revolutionary communism running afoul of sedition laws all around Europe. Bismarck decided between the fact the social democrats had no power of their own and that the leadership seemed every bit as monarchistic as he was, just for themselves rather than the House of Hohenzollern to simply steal their platform from them and implement it in the name of the Kaiser.

After many leaders of the SPD, the social democratic party in Berlin, crossed over to work in Bismarcks government (he was by then chancellor), he simply outlawed those remaining socialists who had not. This capture of social democracy vaulted social democracy to the right, authoritarian extreme and left Marx fuming mad and declaring that the use of state power to offer state aid could only result in a dictatorship by a bourgeois elite in need of a permanent underclass to justify their rule.

Still, the paternalistic welfare state, or, sometimes, the high modern state, that Bismarck wrought, became the wonder of the world. As Bismarck later in 1880 told an American interviewer, "My idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare."

Bismarck had solved the problem socialism represented, but most of the monarchies of Europe were too benighted to grasp that. Their inability to resist the resulting popular pressures led to World War One which proved lethal to the more brittle monarchies and empires of Europe. Rising were two new socialisms on the Bismarckian authoritarian planfascism and state communism. These emergent socialisms despised each other. Social democracy was despised for having accepted capitalism and for having stayed loyal to the Kaiser throughout the war. Fascism was despised for having updated all of Marxs concepts to better fit the current zeitgeist. And state communism was despised for having stuck to the original Marxian template (the use of state authority apart) that was widely considered in Europe to be terribly out of date.

As all three considered themselves the inevitable end state of mankind and all three were attempting to appeal to the same target audience, World War Two launched as largely the rivalry between the emergent state socialisms. That war left fascism in the dustbin of history, and the ensuing Cold War began putting soon-to-be-fatal pressure on state communism. Social democracy alone retains currency, and throughout Europe even it is retrenching to more liberal economic approaches and has otherwise devolved away from its attachment to socialism, often being referred to these days simply as mixed economies.

The American Civil War had been a triumph for liberalism, ending slavery and resulting in three constitutional amendments that bolstered our republicanism. However, as the Reconstruction Era wore on, the Conservative Democrats in the South greatly strengthened their resistance in both numbers and cunning. At the same time, the North increasingly found itself inundated by farmhands arriving by train seeking factory jobs, freed slaves arriving from the South hoping for the same and teeming masses of Southern and Eastern European Catholics and Jews.

Very swiftly, the great majority of staunch northern liberals switched to an embrace of progressivism, the movement to bring Bismarckian social democracy to the United States. It was a native-stock reaction to protect Anglo-Saxon Protestant privilege that was hyper-democratic (that is, changing our laws to be more majority-rule oriented). Allied with southern Conservative Democrats and dominating both parties by the Progressive Era, progressivism caught on with some ninety percent of Western European-stock Americans, thus representing approaching two-thirds of the total population at the time.

Liberalism was flat on its back. Such facially illiberal progressive programs as forced sterilization of mental and criminal inferiors garnered only single digits of opposition. However, the many anti-liberal excesses of the Wilson administration and, especially, the swiftly growing recoil against Prohibition greatly revived liberalism while cutting progressive numbers roughly in half.

Progressives lost the boldness that came of being a strong majority and soon adopted the deceptive tactics of their Fabian cousins in the UK. One of those was that, not wanting to risk running for president under his actual label of progressive in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt cast himself as a liberal. He doubled down on that ruse beginning in 1937 once he got a majority progressive Supreme Court in the hopes of getting his positive rights agenda passed disguised as liberal rather than state socialist. The use of liberal to refer to progressives is spurious.

After World War Two, the United States, feeling that its heritage of liberalism had won the war (and not FDRs social democracy) and could best oppose state communism, had a widespread revival of liberalism in both parties, Conservative Democrats apart. The resulting civil-rights pressure from both parties destroyed the Conservative Democrats, while the turmoil within the Democratic Party and especially the rise of student radicals in the anti-war and civil-liberties movements gave rise to a third wave of progressivism, this time half again the size of the second wave and in need of alliance with the very cohorts its grandparents and great-grandparents had despised.

As progressivism peaked prior to World War One, liberalism survived in primarily academic realms and largely based on the study of the conservative outlook of Irish Whig parliamentarian Edmund Burke, who, being a Whig, was not conservative in the European sense of moderate support of monarchy. That movement survives as mainstream conservatism along with several other stances wishing to conserve our liberal heritage.

After the war in the 1920s, a stronger version of liberalism revived, largely based on the wonderment of newly arrived immigrants where Americas famous freedoms had gone. This movement referred to itself as libertarian to express the fact that it wished to go beyond our early republicanism, which, while radical, had managed to secure the Lockean social contract largely only for Western European males, and extend it to all.

Conservative, where not connected to a party as in the UK, is properly a stance; one is conservative about something. There are some dozen conservative stances in the US, most wishing to conserve our liberal heritage (though not in as radical a form as libertarians do) and some being partly statist. All of the liberal ones wish to conserve a form of liberalism much more radical than is found in Europe.

Meanwhile, our progressives have been pushing hard to change our form of government from liberal to state socialist even as their social democratic brethren in Europe retrench toward more economic liberalism. It is fair to say that while political outlooks in Europe and North America have common roots and similar development, they have little pull on each other, far less than events and developments at home, though the push toward globalism hopes to change that.

The United States moved far to the left of Europe, a position our conservatives seek to retain against the progressive desire to pull us back center-right. Europe has stayed center-right. This chart depicts the Enlightenment swing to increasing liberty followed by the Counter-Enlightenment swing back to statism.

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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How Did Political Terminology and Alignments Develop Differently in the US and Europe? - HuffPost

How to wake a sleepwalking economy – The Hill (blog)

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By one key measure, the U.S. economy looks sick. Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) the stuff that fuels future prosperity, pays for our debts and funds our government is sleepwalking. The annual growth rate is just scratching the 2.0-percent mark. GDP, the economic elixir of life, is determined by just two activities: the number of people working and their productivity. More people working and doing so more effectively yields more goods and services for all to enjoy.

Labor force growth in June was increasing at a 0.8-percent annual rate and is projected to average just 0.5 percent over the next few years. We know that labor participation is low, we also know that the Trump administration is discouraging immigration, and we know that there are more than 6 million unfilled jobs begging for workers. So the burden for GDP growth now rests on productivity.

When we add the 1.2-percent productivity increase to the current 0.8-percent labor force growth, we get a pale 2.0-percent growth in GDP. And that expected 0.5-percent labor force growth in the future spells trouble. The economy is sleepwalking, for sure, and is not likely to awaken any time soon.

By this reckoning, things look pretty bleak, but the same bad news has been flowing for a long time. From 2005-15, productivity grew at a 1.3-percent rate, but that included the Great Recession. From 1995-2004, productivity grew by 2.8 percent. But that included the microchip-based information technology revolution. And from 1974-94, the productivity count came in at 1.6 percent. Lets face it: From 1974-2015, the United States, on average, did better than what we are doing now.

Why might productivity be so weak?

Sources of the slow growth economy: over last 6 years output has grown 2.1% avg/year, labor productivity 0.5%/year. https://t.co/Njh0yePrUH pic.twitter.com/GGz2koVkbX

As might be expected, when considering human beings the ultimate resource working in a dynamic economy, there are lots of moving parts to consider. First off, the amount of new capital assets employed in the economy matters a lot. New capital investment plummeted across 2007-2013 and remains below par. Perhaps tax reform could change that, but weak is still weak.

Then, government regulation, which expanded markedly in the last eight years, has laced the economy with production restrictions. Current regulatory reform efforts might loosen some of those restrictions.

The fact that we have more than six million open jobs indicates a problem in matching available skills to the needs of a more sophisticated, knowledge-based economy. Steps now being taken to enhance the educational experience by way of apprenticeships and applied learning may improve this situation.

Finally, theres the matter of how we measure what is produced and whether measuring output has become increasingly difficult and therefore less accurate in recent years.

Is it possible that the labor force is really producing a lot more? As pointed out by Google economist Hal Varian in a 2016 Brookings productivity conference, in the last decade, a revolution in smartphones has merged phones and cameras. Meanwhile, the production of cameras, film and developing has plummeted, pushing down GDP growth. Important medical breakthroughs bring new life-extending pharmaceutical products and hospital procedures, while also shaking up the healthcare economy.

It is always difficult to properly account for new products and procedures. Last of all, there is the matter of producing things that never have been counted in GDP calculations and never will be. Things like reductions in carbon emissions and water pollution, which are not sold in the economy and therefore do not get counted.

Remember, GDP growth however it is measured provides a rough estimate of how we are doing. Given the political constraints on labor-force growth, the burden for future prosperity gains rests heavily on improved labor productivity. As a nation, we need to employ more capital physical and human and we need to reduce the number of regulatory restrictions that limit the implementation of improvements in how we produce and distribute our bountiful supply of goods and services.

Productivity matters.

Bruce Yandleis a distinguished adjunct fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Dean Emeritus of the Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Sciences, and a former executive director of the Federal Trade Commission.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Circular economy – Effective resource management | Benzinga – Benzinga

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Moon Stone International Investment S.A. from Luxemburg is a company, which has come to realize that proper waste management is a new industry for the future for those who will recognize this opportunity.

Luxembourg (PRWEB) August 14, 2017

In recent years, efficient use of resources and a low-carbon society have become the focus of global discussions on the transition to a circular economy. Transition to a circular economy is one of the fundamental development challenges of our society, which will have an ever more important role in the future due to its environmental and climate impacts, and because of the economic potential deriving from it. Therefore, the transition to a circular economy cannot only be a vision, but is a necessity. Circular economy connects several concepts, such as green growth, the green economy, industrial symbiosis, resource efficiency and sustainable development. With wider or narrower focus, the common goals are generally three: to improve the efficiency of resource use, to ensure resilience of ecosystems and to strengthen social equity. Global demand for natural resources is rising steeply. In the 20th century, the world's population increased by 4 times, economic output by 40 times, consumption of fossil fuels 16 times, and water consumption by 9 times. The same trend will continue in the future. By 2050, the global population will increase to 9.6 billion people, and it is clear that the linear economic model will soon come to its limit as it is based on the exploitation of natural resources and the increasing production of goods with a short lifespan.

The Seventh Environmental Action Program of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union for the period up to 2020 sets out the priority objectives to be achieved during this period. With this environmental action program, the EU has committed itself to further strengthening its efforts to protect our natural capital, promote low carbon growth by effectively using resources and innovation, and protecting the health and well-being of people - while respecting the natural limitations of the planet. The program contains nine priority objectives and tasks that the EU must undertake to achieve by 2020, among which a special focus is on improving resource management.

According to Eurostat data, most EU countries are still ineffective in terms of material productivity because they use too many natural resources for the unit of GDP generated, which puts them in an extremely precarious situation in the long run from a competitive point of view. The reason for this is the overwhelming inheritance of the surviving linear model of thinking in the economy and service activities (acquired, used, discarded). We need to start thinking about how to set up a circular economic system in which raw materials, water, energy and other resources will circulate, as they circulate in nature. By introducing the circular economic system, the company will be a step closer to not considering environmental policy as a factor of limiting growth, but as a key development opportunity for a new development paradigm.

The notion of "circular economy", in which nothing is discarded, is crucial in seeking to increase the efficiency of resource use. Prevention and preparation for the reuse and recycling of waste enable the company to acquire substances or materials from existing, already produced sources. This reduces the need for natural resources, and consequently reduces the use of energy and the negative impacts on the environment. Therefore, when introducing circular economy, there is no question if, but only when the economies of the countries will do so.

Moon Stone International Investment S.A. from Luxemburg is a company, which has come to realize that proper waste management is a new industry for the future for those who will recognize this opportunity. Expert studies and operational experience of the company show that the limited processing of only certain waste by a certain technology reduces the possibility of their processing into new usable materials, the scope of the possibilities of implementing certain services is limited, while lower added value and lower operating profit are achieved. On the contrary, the combined processing of waste from different areas of their production by combining different processing methods gives the greatest possible degree of their conversion into new useful materials, the maximum extent of service delivery, unsurpassed development opportunities and the achievement of higher added value and higher operating profit. And all of this is the strategic business goal of Moon Stone International Investment S.A. from Luxembourg, which has its own business model for the efficient management of material resources based on circular economy policy as a new economic model for resource management.

Moon Stone International Investment S.A. Is mainly focused on handling large masses of waste from construction, mining, industry, energy, utilities and debris of inland water bodies. Among municipal waste, priority is given to the treatment of sludges from wastewater treatment plants, the remains of so-called unusable heavy fractions after mechanical biological treatment of municipal solid waste, and ashes resulting from the thermal treatment of alternative fuels from treated waste. The use of recovered waste as new materials, composites and soils is primarily intended for the implementation of earthworks, focusing on the implementation of remediation of degraded areas in the past, improving the quality of soil for agricultural production and for new provincial construction, with an emphasis on the implementation of measures for the construction of flood protection for threats to the operation of high flood water.

In the strategy of its operation, the company does not use the words "disposal or incineration of waste" since it is at all times looking for recycled waste with comprehensive project support at the highest level for its predominantly strategic clients under its own patent procedure and its own business model for useful permitted re-use for the purpose of implementing the circular economy strategy - efficient resource management.

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Circular economy - Effective resource management | Benzinga - Benzinga

Wall cuts his way right out of office – Winnipeg Free Press

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Saskatchewan Premier Brad Walls intuitive decision to step down one year and four months into a new mandate had some Saskatchewanians scratching their heads last week.

Others, like me, who understand the demanding electorate, observe that Wall had no other choice. It was either go now, or face leadership opposition within the Saskatchewan Party or, even worse, humiliation at the polls in 2020.

This time last year, Wall first elected in November 2007 was riding high in the polls after the April 2016 election in which he received a majority mandate to govern for the next four years.

So what happened?

One unpopular budget and the Saskatchewan Party premier, a member of the Mennonite faiths conservative wing, is folding up his evangelists tent and moving on like Steve Martin in Leap of Faith.

After the miserly April 2017 budget, Wall, who was once the most popular premier in Canada, watched on helplessly as his SaskParty approval ratings dipped to a record low of 40 per cent.

It was a small cut to the coffers and the elimination of the government-owned, money-draining Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) that left Wall stranded.

Outside the provinces major centres, if you want to get on the bus, Gus, or make a new plan, Stan, youll have to hitch a ride, Clyde, cause Uber doesnt service rural Saskatchewan.

Walls rural stronghold of conservative seniors has evaporated, since those without drivers licences and with city medical appointments can no longer ride the STC, which has been the lifeline for rural people since 1946. That senior demographic can no longer rally for Wall in Regina.

Sure, there was a literate outcry over the de-funding of libraries in that same ill-fated budget. But the library funding was soon restored for just one more year. The funding structures will be re-evaluated in 2018 after a consultation with librarians.

When Wall and his government sharpened their pencils with this most recent budget, they made a massive miscalculation: the SaskParty didnt spend money during a downturn.

Instead, the government punished the electorate with a philosophical budget that off-loaded the treasurys shortfall onto voters. Walls ill-advised April budget was an act of fiscal conservatism, which was an attempt to bolster his credibility with his conservative base a rookie move for a premier of almost 10 years.

Like other western Canadian resource-based provinces, Saskatchewans economy has been listing like an old navy destroyer. Perhaps Wall, who has always had a good grasp on the mood of the electorate, knows his party is facing imminent failure at the polls in 2020.

Still, its a kick in the teeth to the loyal voters who elected his SaskParty based on the reassurance that a moderate would be at the helm for four more years.

The majority of voters in this polarized province chose between two extremes: the socialist NDP and the free-enterprise SaskParty. There hasnt been a Liberal premier since W. Ross Thatcher (1964-1971).

The so-called polarized major political parties are more alike then theyll admit: both are dominated by prudish social conservatives who thrive on the status quo; nothing changes in Saskatchewan not even the time zone.

Wall the populist knew this, so he assumed the position of the appearance of change, without any bold policies that would set off the stuffy electorate. His moderate stance endeared him to the voting majority while alienating the far-right factions of his party.

So its farewell to Brad Wall. His 2016 winning election platform of "Keeping Saskatchewan Strong" has been an epic fail. All it did was fortify the NDP, who are now poised to steal the province from the SaskParty, thanks to the erosion of Walls rural base.

So what are Brad Walls future career options? Open a surf shop in Tofino or sit on the board of PotashCorp? Will Brad and Tami Wall buy a Class A motorhome, become roadies and tour with their 22-year-old musician son, Colter, a rising blues-folk-Americana star in North America and Europe?

Perhaps Wall knew the voters were ready to run him, and his party, out on a rail. Its the only other way out of town now that the STC has been cut. To drown their transportation sorrows, rural voters thanks to a quasi-privatization scheme for liquor stores can now buy a cheap bottle of Golden Wedding rye at the same hotel bar where the STC once stopped.

Patricia Dawn Robertson is an independent journalist in Wakaw, Sask.

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Wall cuts his way right out of office - Winnipeg Free Press

Ingram Micro to Invest $10 Million in Warehouse Automation Startup … – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Ingram Micro to Invest $10 Million in Warehouse Automation Startup ...
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HDS Global, the warehouse automation startup founded by entrepreneur Louis Borders, has lined up Ingram Micro as its first logistics customer.

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ThinkSmart Automation Platform Launches New, More Powerful Features – Markets Insider

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SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --ThinkSmart, a leading provider of Business Process and Workflow Automation software and solutions, launched new features on its Automation Platform (TAP) today expanding integration capabilities and improving the end user experience to further enable organizations to digitally transform the way they work.

In order to better serve enterprise and government, ThinkSmart has developed tools to allow users toconfigure integrations with any system that has an API ranging from Salesforce to Google, with no rip-and-replace required. Users can now configure and deploy flexible integrations utilizing the following new capabilities:

"Our expanded integration capabilities are not an afterthought," said ThinkSmart's CEO Paul Hirner. "Since day one, our platform was built to enable easy integration with nearly any system. This is a huge benefit to government entities that have to work within the constraints of legacy systems as well as businesses that need to grow and scale quickly in the cloud."

These intregration features are beneficial to companies like Australasian legal start-up, lexvoco, which provides custom legal services to in-house teams, with the aim of bringing together legal expertise and technology to enhance in-house value, effectiveness and performance. By leveraging TAP, lexvoco becomes an all-in-one management consultant, law firm and technology vendor, and offers an integrated end-to-end solution to assist its clients to automate and optimize in-house legal workflows, processes and documentation.

"The new integration features are going to open numerous new possibilities for workflow builders," said Claire Vines, Head of Technology & Senior Legal Counsel, lexvoco. "We can't wait to get them incorporated into our processes and explore what new systems we can create with TAP."

ThinkSmart has incorporated form and workflow updates to improve ease of use in a number of ways. Form updates include Google address integration, expanded field types, more flexible wizard form views, and speadsheets within a form. The Designer workflow building toolset has also been expanded and allows users to configure more advanced workflows using a wide set of features including group roles, expanded auto-submit triggers, user self-registration, enhanced workflow revision management and expanded formulas.

A new and improved Learning Center is also now available to customers and houses product support and documentation in one centralized portal. The portal includes training videos, release notes and new product and feature updates making it easier for users to find answers to common questions.

ABOUT THINKSMART

ThinkSmart LLC, a leading SaaS provider of Digital Transaction Management (DTM) software, helps people to design, deploy and build smart automated workflows that accelerate their business processes and operations and transform their enterprises. The ThinkSmart Automation Platform (TAP) provides intuitive drag and drop tools enabling companies and government entities to quickly design, build and implement any workflow with no additional IT support required. TAP easily integrates with any internal legacy system, platform, or top tier eSign solutions, making it easy for organizations that need to operate more efficiently, cutcosts and save time. TAP operates anytime, anywhere and on any device; mobile app available to download in iTunes or Android app stores.

For more information, visitwww.thinksmart.com, call +1-888-489-4284, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

ThinkSmart LLC is the owner of ThinkSmart LLC and all of its other marks. All other marks appearing herein are the property of their respective owners.

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ThinkSmart Automation Platform Launches New, More Powerful Features - Markets Insider

How 27-year-old Akash Gupta built the largest automation startup of India – YourStory.com

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For Akash Gupta, a journey which started with building humanoids has shaped into one of the largest automation companies of the world today. Our candidate for this weeks Techie Tuesdays, Akash is the Co-founder and CTO of GreyOrange, an automation startup that provides warehousing solutions.

What does it take to be the CTO of one of the largest hardware and automation startupsin India and the world at the age of 27? The secret, according to Akash Gupta, the Co-founder and CTO of GreyOrange, lies in having strong fundamentals, the ability to quickly learn and unlearn new technologies and learning from the mistakes/failures even more quickly.

A BITS Pilani graduate in Mechanical Engineering, Akashs interest in building robots (humanoids) was strong that he built one in his college days. Unlike most students who tend to get emotionally attached to college life, our Techie Tuesdays candidate of the week, Akash, was was happy to finish his degree in three years and be out of the college.

YourStory caught up with Akash recently at his Gurgaon office to retrace his journey.

Akash was born in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh, situated 400 km from Delhi. His father worked in railways and was posted at Dibiyapur railway station. He studied there till class IV. When his family moved to Kanpur he joined the Puranchandra Vaidyaniketan school there.

Akash started coding in class VI with GW-BASIC and learnt C the next year from his sisters book Let Us C. Subsequently, he developed an interest in 3D animation and learnt 3ds Max and Maya. This kept him busy in class IX and X. Akash believes that his interest in 3D animation plateaued partly because of limited exposure to algorithm at the time.

Incidentally, this geeky student was the 100m champion in school. However, the IIT JEE preparation in class XI and XII weaned him away from track and field activities forever.

Akash joined the Mechanical Engineering department at BITS Pilani in 2008. One of the predominant thoughts in his mind then was that he had solved enough problems on paper, and now wanted to do things in real life. He says,

I could draw a DC or an AC motor on paper very well, but looking at the motor of the ceiling fan, I couldnt tell which one of those it was.

Related read Meet Kiran Bhatthe man who engineered Hulk and Tarkin to win 2017 sci-tech Oscar

In his first year, Akash saw a demo of the AcYut humanoid project. To join the team, he gave the AcYut test where he was asked to make a 3D emblem of BITS Pilani on Inventor software. Being good at 3D animation, Akash made the cut easily and started working with the team AcYut in his very first month in college. He wanted to learn as much as possible.At AcYut, Akash started by designing the mechanical parts and then manufacturing them.

As a team member, he had full access to the CNC (Computer Numerical Control) Lab for manufacturing. He learnt to write G Code (input for CNC machines) and to run CNC machines. In the first year, the team made three versions of the complete mechanical structure of AcYut. Akash says,

I was so much into it that I couldnt see anything else and fortunately BITS (Pilani) gives you that flexibility.

In October 2008, Akash went to Japan to participate in a robotic competition. This was his first exposure to an international technology-based competition which helped him understand the global benchmarks for such competitions. Team AcYut was then planning to participate in the Robo Games next year (2009) for which they started building two robots. Akash picked up micro-controller programming and took his understanding of robotics further.

In AcYut-II, the team used bust motors (motors serially connected to each other using RS-485). There were two series of 16 motors each and hence, writing fool-proof protocols was not easy for them. Akash says,

In humanoids, the most complicated thing is stability. We underestimate how easily we walk (and balance). Walking is very difficult to simulate. With a lot of enthusiasm, we chose six DOF (degree of freedom) leg and then we spent good two months solving the inverse kinematics for them.

Even after figuring out the right inverse kinematics model, it took the team another six months to put it in codes and ensure that those signals go to the motors at the right time and they behave as intended. Team AcYut used ATmega1280 for controlling the complete bot and 3mm sheets of 6061 aluminium to manufacture the brackets (chassis structure on which you mount motors etc) of AcYut.

Since the workshop occupied the day time, Akash (and team AcYut) got to work only at night.

Eventually, the team won the bronze model at the Robo Games in San Francisco..The main competition at the Robo Games was humanoid Kung-Fu where the robot which can knock down the other robot three times wins.

At the end of his first year, Akash and Samay Kohli (Co-founder GreyOrange and team member AcYut) got an internship at University of Louisiana where they worked at the CajunBot Lab on an autonomous vehicle project for some time. At the university, they met Thomas Chance, CEO, C&C Technologies, which built equipment for underwater surveying. This was their first exposure to industrial robotics. The duo worked at C&C Technologies in the areas of mechanical design, electronics and microprocessors.

One of the major projects Akash worked on was the SONAR stabilising system which solved the problem of mapping the ocean bed accurately and get rid of the inconsistency caused by the waves. This included fair amounts of mechanics and electronics. Since Akash and Samay had time on their hands, they went on to build a kind of Disney ride (by joining two trailers) in a haunted house owned by Thomas. Akash says,

One could sit on a trolly and go through the rooms which were themed differently like earthquake room, laser room. More than 200 microcontrollers were working in sync with 5 computers and 1,000 air pistons (for doing a lot of actuations) to make it all happen. The entire setup cost almost $250,000.

In his second year, Akash spent a lot of time on electronics, designing and manufacturing PCBs end to end. The AcYut team won the gold and silver medal at the Robo Games. They built an exoskeleton suit wherein if a person wears this suit and moves his/her hands, then the robot will copy/replicate it. They went to the Ideen Expo in Germany with this project. Akash visited the BMW manufacturing plant there which helped him understand the importance of factors like reliability in the automation industry.

Akash recalls meetingWolfgang Hoeltgen during the visit. He is one of the earliest angels and a strategic mentor to the founding team at GreyOrange.

In January 2011, Akash and Samay were invited to take part in a humanoid hand (robotics) workshop at IIT Bombay. Soon, other colleges too invited them and thats when they started thinking about starting a company. Also, since the work had started, Akash was very keen to come out of college as soon as possible. At the time he was juggling between AcYut, GreyOrange and his studies (curriculum). He used to be in Delhi from Saturday to Monday (running GreyOrange) and back in Pilani from Tuesday to Friday (to attend the labs, as a part of the curriculum were on Tuesdays and Fridays).

Akash and Samay started making kits for the workshops which gave them an experience of doing things at scale. By now, they were done with the Robo Games and started targeting the Robo Cup. While the Robo Games had remote controlled robots, the Robo Cup had completely autonomous (robot) 2*2 soccer.

While preparing, Akash got into image processing, cognitive understanding,vision systems andstarted solving the localisation problems. He understood the complexities of gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer.

Akash finished his college degree in three years somehow and took the final-year internship at GreyOrange. In June-July 2011, he shifted to Samays house in Delhi marking the formal start of GreyOrange.

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Even though Akash and Samay were making good money through workshops, they were clear that they were not going to do it for long. Soon, they started building white labeled products for other companies. These included:

This gave Akash an exposure to different standards of coding and manufacturing. He used Qt language (application development framework based on C++) for the software. He says,

I started understanding the importance of getting the right abstraction (very well structured in programmes) from the real world. For example, while programming for a pump, youve to make sure that all the different attributes of that pump are kept in your data structure in order to perform different actions on it. This becomes even more important when were building longer-term products.

After building 3-4 white label products, Akash realised that he (and Samay) were playing with way too many technologies and products. Hence, they decided to choose an industry and build products only for that. While researching to finalie the industry, they wrote down some rules to help them choose the right industry:

They finally zeroed in on three industries:

They chose option #1 and built a prototype. They proposed the idea of maintenance of tanks to a company. They even gave them the design. Unfortunately, the company floated the tender with their requirements sharing the design submitted by GreyOrange and somebody else bought the tender. Akash recalls, Being a startup we were left with nothing. We even filed a complaint but couldnt give more time to it and had to let it go.

They then moved to supply chain. Akash visited a lot of warehouses, enough to convince him that a lot needed to be done there. He started looking at goods to person systems and found that it could be made much more efficient using Grey Pranges solution of using an elegant hardware and a complex software. The first thought was to build a bot.

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According to Akash, building a butler system is almost like bringing four large products together to make a complete system. It will have bots, pick-put stations, MSUs (mobile storage units) and a software that runs robots and business logic of inventory management. Akash and Samay spent the first few days understanding the entire problem and figuring out what the solution will be like. Akash says,

Our thought process was slightly different than what Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics) was doing. Kiva had a lot of Swan robotics which refers to distributed intelligence. Only the main server didnt have the onus of being intelligent. Bots were intelligentas well. We wanted to have a simple hardware and table up all the complexity on the server side.

This gave Grey Orange a flexibility which is desirable in the warehouses. Keeping the product software centric helped it and the hardware acted as more of generic agents.

Akash and Samay knew that its going to take them more than two years to build a butler system. And they also understood that survival of a startup for two years without revenues is very difficult. This thought coupled with an opportunity to build a sortation system for warehouses, made the duo explore it after visiting Flipkarts first ever warehouse. Akash says,

We decided to build a sortation system on the side while working on the butler system. It was a hard decision to take as we were a team of only ten people and bulter system itself was hard enough problem to solve. Technically its not advisable to do such a thing.

For two years, the team kept switching between sortation system and butler systems as working in parallel wasnt possible.

Lifting (500 kg weight) was one of the most challenging problems to be solved in order to build a butler system. The team at GreyOrange used a complex dual scissor lift mechanism to lift and built multiple prototypes. Akash says, In the hardware world, its better to build as many prototypes as possible and fail rather than getting stuck with building a perfect prototype.

Akash drew the architecture of the robot (butler) with safety system, navigation system and communication system. On server side, the team chose Erlang as the language for the main system. It was a hard decision as there were very few programmers who knew the language. Akash says,

At that point we had a dream to run 1,000 robots in a single warehouse. We couldnt find any other language or stack which allowed so many agents running in a soft real-time system.

Initially, the team used Hub motors where the motor and suspension was on wheels but later on scrapped it as it created a lot of problems. After three revisions, they got the design and production of the gear box right. Akash adds, Lack of prototyping ecosystem in India created further problems and delays. We resorted to doing things in-house as we couldnt be dependent on outside shops.

Finally, in November, Grey Orange launched its first prototype. Now, the challenge was to make them manufacturable (so that robots arent handcrafted). That took another 8-9 months. In the meanwhile, the team received an order for building sortation system. They decide to build a completely modular sortation system, so that even when one of the arms stops functioning, the rest can still work. An overall control system was designed for this. Akash says, Because PLCs (programmable logic controllers) had a lot of limitations, we built our own control systems. The sortation system was relatively less complex on the server side and fairly complex on the embedded side.

The first butler system was installed in Hong Kong. It had a small ten bot system, 200 MSUs, 2 pick-put stations, auto charging.

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Usually, sortation systems are built to sort boxes. Akash too thought so and used IR (infra red) sensors. But when he received the sample packs from Flipkart, he realised they are poly packs (and not boxes). The IR sensors behaved very differently for these poly packs. Akash adds, This was the first ever sorter built for e-commerce company in India. And outside India, everyone used a box. So, this problem was left virgin.

Akash and his team fixed the problems of motor heating, slipping of belt, incorrect counting of the package, before installing the system at Flipkart warehouse. Moving the sorter from Gurgaon to Bangalore was very challenging. It was only now that the team started thinking about transporting the machine. It was a 40-45-ft-long machine which had to be dis-assembled and transported. It was a humongous task which taught that designing to make it work isnt enough. One has to design while making sure that the system is assembled, dis-assembled, supported, moved comfortably.

From the current capacity of supporting 1,500 to 2,000 butlers (bots), GreyOrange wants to build systems which can support infinite number of bots. The team has converted its monolithic architecture to micro services based architecture to achieve scale.

For GreyOrange, if servers go down, its not just the website which will go down, but also hundreds of robots with 500 kg weight on each will crash with each other. Hence, Akash and his team has to be even more careful while writing algorithms and ensure that any path reserved by a bot isnt taken by anyone else and that the orders are optimised in the best possible ways. According to Akash, right choices of architecture, stacks, thinking it through, being flexible and ensuring that the team focuses in-depth into modules has helped the company.

Some of the key challenges which Akash and his team are solving at GreyOrange are as follows:

In the last few months, rapid expansion to multiple geographies has brought in some operational problems like translating documentation, communication, screens, APIs, databases in five languages. To solve this, the team has built a clear framework and web interface for translators who get notifications sprint by sprint of new strings that are coming.

Akash believes that the hardware ecosystem in India has definitely evolved in this decade but the change is minimal. He says, People have become more supportive of working for prototypes of startups because somewhere they have seen startups becoming big.

Four years ago, when Akash went to a company which produced suspensions for automobiles, he was turned down immediately because of the low production volume requirement (relative to what the company produced for automobiles) and a lack of understanding of startups. But a year ago, when he spoke to them again, they agreed.

In the early days of GreyOrange, Akash used to hire people who were ready to learn and had a good understanding of basic sciences physics and mathematics. Lately, he has changed his approach and now he looks for the following kinds of people:

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Akash is a big fan of flexibility and believes that the way supply chain is growing, the only way to build an efficient supply chain is by making it extremely flexible. He says,

In next three to five years, were looking at warehouses running with mobile platforms with changeable accessories. We really want to get to the point where you dont have any fixed infrastructure thats running in the warehouse. These mobile platforms can attach themselves with different accessories and can work as lifting units, or conveyers or robotic arms or static platform.

In order to get there, therere certain technology platforms that need to be built which will enable that. Akash and his team is already working on it at the moment (along with architecturing the entire solution). Once thats done, itll take another year or two to integrate with the system. The team is also working towards introducing the concept of unibots (similar to human beings) in the next five to seven years.

Akash wants to run one of the largest warehouses with 10,000 robots very soon. He is also keen to build GreyOrange as a company where he would still want to work ten years hence. Hes making sure that the company retains the culture of innovation and building new products. He adds, GreyOranges products are disruptive. For example, while other companies in the world offering linear sorters have a lead/installation time of at least three-four months, we do it in as less as four weeks.

He wants to stick to producing simple elegant hardware with extremely complex software which disrupts the industry.

Akash believes in being sincere to oneself and ones work. For the first three-four years of the company, he was always the first to reach office and last to leave. He felt it as a responsibility that till any employee was in the office, he should be there with him/her to support, to help.He says,

The biggest fear that you have as an entrepreneur is that if you fail, then you shouldnt have this in your heart that you didnt give your best.

You can connect with him on Linkedin or Twitter.

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How 27-year-old Akash Gupta built the largest automation startup of India - YourStory.com