http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/health/lifestyle/the-patch-that-kills-smoking.html http://www.articletrader.com/health/lifestyle/the-patch-that-kills-smoking.html Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500 -Brokeback Mountain, 2005

Webster defines “vice” as “an abnormal behavior pattern in a domestic animal detrimental to its health or usefulness.” Evil as it may sound, vice is coupled with another evil, which comes in the form of what we call “withdrawal symptom.” It starts as soon as you stop a vice, therefore making it difficult for you to take control over it.

Smoking, being one of the most widely practiced vices, is one jealous lover... It haunts the smoker, making it almost impossible to part with puffing. The nicotine in it creeps through the bloodstream, much like a poison, controlling and defeating the host.

Nicotine, by the way, is a poisonous alkaloid that is the principal active ingredient in cigarettes. It is addicting, habit forming and is responsible for negative emotions such as depression, anger and lack of concentration.

But the God of the 21st century - technology - has given hope! Recent studies have found ways to neutralize the luring effect of withdrawal symptoms, completing every long-life-and-healthy-living advocate’s fight force against the ill effects of smoking. Every aspiring quitter’s inherent want to stop smoking is now made easier by the wonders of nicotine patches.

I am talking about a skin patch much like a topical sticker, which contains a pad of nicotine. Because the skin is a natural absorbent, once the nicotine patch is applied, the skin absorbs the nicotine from the pad to the bloodstream. Over a period of time, the nicotine patch maintains and ensures the presence of nicotine in the blood, therefore, avoiding the onset of withdrawal symptoms. But nicotine levels are kept low enough so that it won’t substitute cigarette smoking. The patches just supply a minimum amount of the substance in the body to combat the withdrawal symptoms while the person recuperates. It acts as a stop smoking aid that provides a dose of nicotine that’s gradually lowered over a period of a few weeks to eliminate dependency.

In an article written by Jarred Mitchelle in an emagazine, he further pointed out that, “Nicotine patches come packaged under varying trade names - most popular being Habitrol which are predominantly round in shape and are available in varying strengths - twenty one, fourteen or seven milligrams of nicotine per patch and the efficacy period of any particular Habitrol patch being twenty four hours. Conversely Nicoderm CQ patches are rectangular in shape and come in are available in varying strengths of twenty one, fourteen or seven milligrams of nicotine per patch with a efficacy period of twenty four hours which makes the two patches but a variant of identical concepts and the efficacy spectra could well be identical - there being little to choose one over the other.”

But let it be known that these patches are not the absolute treatment. It only aids and lighten up one’s burden during the adjustment period. In the end, it has to work hand in hand with self-help groups, other treatment modalities, professional counseling and most of all, one’s inner desire to break smoking habits.


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Other articles from the same author:

How To Finally Be Nicotine Free


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/health/fitness/when-avian-flu-persists-wildlife-may-sound-tamer-than-birds.html http://www.articletrader.com/health/fitness/when-avian-flu-persists-wildlife-may-sound-tamer-than-birds.html Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
According to the World Health Organization, similar Flu Pandemics were experienced three times in the 20th Century. Subsequent research showed that in 1997, a sub-strain developed from the mixture and exchange of genetic materials between Human Influenza and Type A Influenza Viruses. This resulted into the discovery of H5N1 strain of influenza virus which affected 18 and killed 6 in Hongkong. In 2004, bird flu was reported to have infected 44 people in several south Asian countries, killing 32.

The H5N1 strain, according to genetic studies, is said to mutate rapidly and is passed through direct contact with poultry and water birds excreta. This explains why the outbreaks first occurred in predominant poultry-producing countries in Asia such as China and Vietnam. The strain is also said to be passed on from person to person through direct contact and in some cases, airborne through droplet infection.

Signs and symptoms include sudden onset of fever, sore throat, cough and in fatal cases, respiratory distress secondary to viral pneumonia. Anti-virals (Amantadine, Rimantadine, Oseltamivir, and Zanamivir) are drugs of choice for treatment and prophylaxis of influenza. These drugs have proven activity against the HN51 viruses. However, there are other influenza strains that can be resistant to these drugs.

World Health Organization’s list of prevention techniques include, proper hand washing and food handling, thorough cooking of poultry products such as chicken, ducks and turkeys, and avoidance of direct contact with bird excreta especially in public markets and poultry farms.


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Erika Alexia is a writer for HTTP://WWW.ABC-BIRD-FLU.INFO, an information resource for Understanding Avian Bird Flu.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/electronic-cards-a-winning-business-solution-for-keeping-the-attention-of-prospects-and-costumers.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/electronic-cards-a-winning-business-solution-for-keeping-the-attention-of-prospects-and-costumers.html Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
If cards are yielding power in keeping distant friendships and relationships stronger and longer, why not apply the same principle to our clients and business partners?

That is exactly what many successful businesses are doing. They make use of anything that is proven effective, and then try to apply it to another area.

E-cards, being a very good example of tradition and innovation fusion, are today’s Marketing Professionals’ lucky charm in attracting new clients and retaining the old ones. They use electronic cards to boost sales by sending them to clients: old and new, as a substitute for newsletters.

Since the web is chalk full of free e-card websites, this strategy is unarguably less-costly than any other marketing means. And since these cards are grouped according to occasions, we can bet there is an appropriate card for every single event. For instance, we can come up with a send-to-all card for important occasions such as Christmas, Summer vacations or Thanksgiving. Or we can personalize it by sending Anniversary or Congratulations cards to companies. We can even send “thinking of you” cards to old clients.

Being remembered and valued is on top of everyone’s list. Few other happy feelings can replace the euphoria of being remembered and valued. And this is made even more special because e-cards often come with pictures, music and poetry lines. No person would say no to something that is sure to add a smile to his day.

Think wisely. Do business passionately. Do it with e-cards.


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By Erica Alexia, a writer for http://www.selling-methods.info, the homepage for SALES SKILLS: a resource site for effective selling methods.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/seo/could-time-warner-be-using-black-hat-seo-to-help-search-rankings.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/seo/could-time-warner-be-using-black-hat-seo-to-help-search-rankings.html Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500 This is an exclusive story.

Is it possible that MarkMonitor, Inc., who call themselves “a global leader in the fast-growing market for online corporate identity” has been secretly hiding links on behalf of TimeWarner? Is this being done on subdomains of timeinc.net in order to rank high in the search engines? You decide. MarkMonitor owns the domain name timeinc.net, a site with a homepage which re-directs to the main Time.com site. So it would seem they are running this site on behalf of TimeWarner.

If you go to the timeinc site and view some of the source code of the pages, you will find error pages that have links below an image map at the bottom of the page, links which are hidden from viewers and added to increase the search engine ranking of other Time Warner properties. This link-hiding practice is often referred to as “Black Hat” SEO.

An image map tells the browser how to display an image. That is it’s only purpose. However, some of the pages on timeinc.net have links hidden to viewers next to the image maps. If one views the source of sub domains such as img.timeinc.net or i.timeinc.net, it is apparent there are four links to other TimeWarner properties.

Did MarkMonitor, Inc., a huge company and a true leader in “defending brand names” online buy this domain, redirect the traffic to Time.com and find places to hide links to other Time websites out of pure altruism? It’s possible, but hard to believe. It should be noted that there are very important subscription pages on other sub domains of timeinc. This is not a domain that was cast away and has no value for linking.

If MarkMonitor purposefully hid links as it would seem, altruism towards Time seems an unlikely motive.

There is an increasingly fine line with what is acceptable and what is not for search engine optimization. At ClickStream, we believe the last group that needs to employ sneaky techniques to rank high are fortune 500 companies. In essence, these companies are the ones that have whole “rings” of websites. Yet, search engines will ban individuals that create multiple sites for the purpose of linking to each other and creating a link circle.

Time should be able to link in a circle with its various media companies. That may seem an unfair advantage, but they are separate entities that have the same parent company. What certainly seems unfair is for them to take further advantage of the circular linking by hiding links that only the search engines can see.

The recent storm has just passed over the BMW being removed from the Google search engine pages. BMW’s German site was found using “doorway pages” to build traffic and rank for their site. Google was able to document that BMW’s German website used the search results to get a top ranking if people searched for “used car.” Searching for BMW Germany will bring no results. BMW.ge was well ranked but it dropped completely out of the Google index in a matter of 2 days.


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Erika Alexia, Web Developer for http://www.top-seo.biz, your ultimate guide to Smarter Websites Marketing.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/seo/krugle-the-new-search-engine-defiantly-not-for-the-rest-of-us.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/seo/krugle-the-new-search-engine-defiantly-not-for-the-rest-of-us.html Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
A Silicon Valley startup launched a search engine in March that will allow developers to search for code and source code. Sorry Martha, (Steward that is) I’m afraid your wonderful “Docorating the Drive with Pink Lillies” will not appear in the search engine result on this site.

The name of the engine is Krugle, and it will provide simple search for retrieving information related to source code - as well as other techy info - all from an easy to use, un-cluttered GUI.

It is surely possible to use Google for programmers to find source code, but this can be a tricky task.

The new engine functions by crawling, indexing, and parsing its information from open source directories and archives. It also pulls its results from Email lists, blogs and websites. Kruggle says the site will run using open source and private technology. For open source, Apache Software called “Nutch and Lucine” is used. The parsing is done using a generator called “Another Tool for Language Recognition.”

It is similar to two other search tools called Koders and another Codefetch. What should be different with Kruggle is it will permit programmers and developers to notate the results they find, make bookmarks, and save their results in their own space (incidently, in early May, Google announced a similar feature that allowed users to save results in their own workspace).

Using the workspace gives coders exact URLs in order to share their results with others. Users will also be able to separate coding pieces to see the differences between various languages. For example, it may be that an ASP programmer could search for “ASP content management system”.


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Written by Erika Alexia, web administrator for http://www.search-engine-optimize.us. She also wrote a beginner’s guide to Search Engine Marketing.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/health/alternative/can-plastic-and-copper-prevent-pregnancy.html http://www.articletrader.com/health/alternative/can-plastic-and-copper-prevent-pregnancy.html Tue, 09 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
An intra-uterine device is a special instrument that is fitted inside of the uterus. It comes in various forms, depending on what suits the client well. Some types contain levonorgestrel, a hormone that is continuously released into the uterus to combat conception. Another type of IUD has copper wire coiled around the stem and arms of the device. Both come with a length of one and a quarter inches (1 1/2"). Each IUD has a string attached to the end, so that the woman can check if the IUD is in place and so that it will be easier for the health care provider to remove it. The IUD is inserted into the uterus through the vagina and can protect against pregnancy.

The client may experience lower backache when the IUD is inserted, and it may persist for a few weeks after insertion. Often, these pains can be relieved by over-the-counter analgesics. In addition, since IUD is a bit invasive, clients are prone to Pelvic Inflammatory Diseases especially for the first six weeks after insertion.

The IUD is a good form of contraception if the client is not prone of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases. It is best recommended to multigravid and monogamous women.

The IUD should be inserted by a licensed health care provider and during a woman's monthly period. It should be done after a thorough pelvic examination to determine the size, shape and position of the uterus and other reproductive organs. It is inserted through an opening in the cervix into the uterus using an intra-uterine instrument that guides the device flat until it is at the top of the uterus. This procedure can last up to 10 minutes. Once it has been inserted, it will stay in the uterus and one can resume normal sexual activities because the IUD starts protecting against pregnancy right after the health care provider inserts it.

After the IUD has been inserted, the client may feel strange cramping during her monthly period. When this happens, the string inside of the vagina should be checked. it is done by inserting a clean finger in the vagina all the way to the cervix. The IUD's string feels like a lightweight plastic thread or a fishing line. It should hang about 2 inches down from the cervix into the vagina. If the string can't be felt or if the IUD itself is the one that is felt during palapation, it is probably not in the right place. In cases like this, one should consult a health care provider to check on the device and to educate the client further.

An IUD prevents pregnancy by ceasing the sperm from reaching the egg. It does this by providing a somewhat detour route for the sperm. An IUD also changes the lining of the uterus so an egg does not implant in the lining if it has been fertilized. Therefore, the egg has no place to grow.

IUDs are the most effective form of nonpermanent birth control (99% effectivity rate). But contrary to the common belief, the IUD does not prevent the acquisiton of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD). It should only be used by women who are in a steady relationship with one partner. For women with multiple sex partners, they should use another method of birth control that protects against sexually transmitted diseases, such as condoms.

Absolute Guide to Chromosomal Analysis

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Erica Alexia, 21, is a registered nurse.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>