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Painful day for RBs Foster, McFadden, Sproles
Arian Foster, Darren McFadden and Darren Sproles all went down with injuries on a painful day for some of the NFL's most versatile running backs.
After missing practice during the week with a hamstring injury, Foster started for the Houston Texans on Sunday night but quickly injured his back and was ruled out for the rest of the game against Indianapolis.
Foster played on Houston's first series, but did not have a carry. He soon left the field and was taken to the locker room.
A blowout loss was extra painful for the Oakland Raiders because of injuries to a pair of top players on offense.
McFadden left with a hamstring injury early in the second quarter of a 49-20 defeat against Philadelphia, and quarterback Terrelle Pryor came out in the fourth with a knee problem that he does not believe is serious.
The injury-prone McFadden had five carries for 12 yards and one catch for three yards before re-aggravating a hamstring that kept him out of one game already this season.
New Orleans also lost a slippery back when Sproles left a 26-20 loss to the New York Jets with a concussion and didn't return.
Sproles headed to the locker room early in the first quarter, and the Saints announced he was out for the rest of the game shortly before halftime.
It was unclear when the injury occurred, but Sproles had a 2-yard catch and was hit hard by Antonio Allen before leaving. He was replaced by Travaris Cadet on kickoff returns and Lance Moore on punt returns.
"What it does is it eliminates a handful of your plan that he's going to be involved in," Saints coach Sean Payton said. "You just have to quickly be able to say, 'All right, here's what we're going to get to, and here's how much we'd like to do with Cadet that we might normally have done with Darren.'"
A key player on New York's offense went down as well: Leading receiver Jeremy Kerley was knocked out of the game with an elbow injury in the second quarter.
Allen left in the third quarter with a possible head injury, and linebacker Garrett McIntyre also didn't return after leaving with a knee injury. Jets linebacker Calvin Pace left the game late, but said he was just "banged up" and was fine.
Cleveland quarterback Jason Campbell briefly left in the first half with a rib injury before returning to lead the Browns past Baltimore 24-18.
Seattle center Max Unger left in the fourth quarter with a concussion, but the Seahawks rallied to beat winless Tampa Bay 27-24 in overtime.
Buffalo has more injuries to contend with on offense after rookie receiver Robert Woods hurt his lower left leg during a 23-13 loss to unbeaten Kansas City.
Bills coach Doug Marrone had no definitive update on Woods' status following the game except to say tests were negative. The second-round pick was hurt late in the third quarter when he dived for a pass and tumbled into the right sideline.
Woods had difficulty putting any weight on his leg while being escorted to the locker room.
Fellow rookie receiver Marquise Goodwin did not return after hurting his hamstring late in the game.
Buffalo is already down two quarterbacks, rookie starter EJ Manuel (sprained right knee) and backup Thad Lewis (bruised ribs).
Raiders right tackle Matt McCants injured his foot and was replaced by rookie Menelik Watson in his first action of the season.
Carolina lost starting right guard Chris Scott and backup Jeff Byers to injuries, forcing the Panthers to use former defensive tackle Nate Chandler at that spot during a 34-10 win over Atlanta.
Three Patriots players didn't return after being injured in New England's 55-31 win over Pittsburgh — defensive end Rob Ninkovich (foot), safety Steve Gregory (thumb) and wide receiver Austin Collie (knee). The team provided no update on their conditions. For the Steelers, linebacker Vince Williams and cornerback Ike Taylor sustained concussions and right tackle Marcus Gilbert had an ankle injury.
AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org


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Food columnist Judi Leaming and her husband, Spence, have backed up the RV and headed out to Wisconsin. She offers up a few favorite recipes from her travels.
We've now been on the road (which definitely means not in the kitchen) for 10 days, and so I haven't had the opportunity to test new recipes to share with you.
We arrived in Wisconsin by following a rather illogical set of travel directions that first took us to Virginia Beach, Va., where we met up with our Lazy Daze RV friends for four days of laughs, kayaking, museum visiting and even recipe sharing.
Therefore, I'll pass along to you recipes that my RV friends shared with me. We happen to be compiling a cookbook of the recipes that we serve at our rallies and you may recall that I have shared recipes from this group before.
A Lazy Daze is what is classified as a Class C motor home, meaning that it has an RV body built onto a truck chassis with the truck cab poking out in the front. Lazy Daze is a family-owned company based in Montclair, Calif., and they have been making pretty much the same styles in the same colors for the past 50 years.
Donna and Bob Shockley live most of the year in Wolfeboro, N.H., and their dog, Elton, accompanies them on most of their travels. Donna contributed the recipe for Donna's Mandarin Salad to our recipe collection. Like many of the rest of us, winter finds them using their Lazy Daze in Florida.
Berlin, Mass. is the home base for Mary Ellen and Barry Matthew, who also spend 10 weeks of each year as campground hosts' at a Florida State Park in north central Florida. They often pass through Delaware because Mary Ellen has a cousin who lives in Milford and she loves to shop at Byler's in Dover. Her recipe contribution is for a Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole.
Virginia Beach, Va. is where Carol and H. T. Pohlman call home when they aren't out on the road traveling. Carol is known for bringing chocolate pies or this wonderful Icebox Coconut Cake to our rallies. They love to travel and H.T. especially loves to check out new restaurants, especially "dives."
Donna's Mandarin Salad
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
Dash Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 head iceberg lettuce
1/2 head Romaine lettuce
1 cup chopped celery
2 scallions, chopped
1 (11-ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained
Prepare Dressing by whisking all ingredients together. Place in an airtight covered container and refrigerate. Prepare salad by placing almonds and sugar in a small pan over medium high heat and stirring constantly just until the almonds are coated and the sugar is dissolved. Watch constantly so that they do not burn. Cool and store in an airtight container if not using right away. Tear lettuce into bite-sized pieces and place in a large bowl. Add celery, scallions and drained mandarin oranges. Just before serving, add almonds and dressing and toss. Serves 4 to 6.
Mary Ellen Matthew's Chicken & Wild Rice Casserole
1 box of regular Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch pepper
1 (14-ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (12-ounce) can chicken broth
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 to 2 cups cooked and cubed chicken
1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed (1 1/2 cups)
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1/2 cup butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook rice according to directions on box and set aside. Combine cornstarch, salt and pepper in a large saucepan and mix together. Gradually stir in milk and broth. Bring to a boil and add 2 tablespoons of butter and onion, stirring constantly. Cook for 1 minute (or until mixture thickens). Add chicken and rice and pour into a lightly greased 2-quart shallow baking dish. Top with crushed cracker crumbs. Sprinkle poppy seeds evenly over all and drizzle with the melted 1/2 cup butter. Bake uncovered for 30 to 35 minutes. Serves 6.
Carol Pohlman's Icebox Coconut Cake
1 box Duncan Hines deluxe yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups water
1 cup milk
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon coconut flavoring extract
1 (8-ounce) container Cool Whip, thawed
1 (6-ounce) container Baker's Angel Flake Coconut
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch baking pan. Combine dry cake mix, eggs and water in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 2 minutes. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until center springs back when lightly pressed. Meanwhile, combine milk with sugar in a small saucepan and, stirring frequently, bring to a full boil (be sure all sugar is dissolved). Remove from heat and stir in the coconut extract. Remove cake from oven and pierce with a fork in at least 12 places evenly over the cake. Pour hot milk/sugar mixture over the cake immediately and put in the refrigerator until completely chilled. When cake is chilled, frost with the Cool Whip and sprinkle with the coconut, pressing it down lightly into the Cool Whip. Cover and chill until ready to serve. Best if made a day ahead.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tue, Apr 15 2014
LeTourneau University engineering students will showcase free demonstrations of ingenuity and creativity as five teams compete in the annual Rube Goldberg competition Thursday, April 17. The competition is free and open to the public and begins at 3 p.m. in the Belcher Gymnasium of the Solheim Center on the main campus of LETU, 2100 S. Mobberly Ave.
Students participating in this annual event are challenged to use a maximum number of energy transitions to create unique, yet trivial, inventions. The event is named after Rube Goldberg, an early 20th century cartoonist who was famous for making ridiculous machines to perform unimportant tasks. The idea of the demonstration is to foster the students' ingenuity and to prove Murphy's Law exists.
"An excellent example of a Rube Goldberg demonstration might be the popular children's board game from many years ago called 'Mouse Trap' by Milton Bradley," said engineering professor and Rube Goldberg sponsor Dr. Bill Graff. "In that game, there are many energy transitions, from a steel ball that travels through channels to a boot that kicks over a bucket, all ending with a mousetrap descending to trap a plastic mouse game piece.
"The Rube Goldberg demonstrations are always well-attended on campus because it's fun to see how complicated our engineering students can make even the most trivial of actions," Graff said. "Sometimes their inventions work great, but it is always a fun exercise in semi-futility that produces a lot of camaraderie among the students who build these machines."
A video screen will be set up in the gym to help viewers follow the progress of the inventions through their gyrations. Each invention takes nearly all night to set up for a five to 10-minute presentation. The students in each team and their team demonstrations are scheduled as follows:
Time Team Demonstration Name Team Members
3:10 p.m. 1 "Vinyl Melody" Dustin Brown, Sarah Greenlee, Jordan Lichtenwalter, April Paul
3:20 p.m. 2 "The Pickle Lab" Ben Caley, Matt Epp, Cody Joy, Kyle Sulek
3:30 p.m. 3 "A Rube Awakening" Abdulaziz Babulgham, Adam Lewis, Ryan Tiemann
3:40 p.m. 4 "This Should Be Good" Nickie Hogue, Dan Gohdes, Xavier Scarlett
3:50 p.m. 5 "Whatever" Logan Bryant, Josiah Cochran, Billy DeConstanza, Matthew Joslin
LeTourneau University is a Christ-centered, interdenominational institute of higher learning offering more than 90 undergraduate and graduate degree programs across a range of academic disciplines and delivery models. Students are enrolled in programs on ground at LETU's residential campus in Longview, Texas, as well as hybrid and fully online options at educational centers in Dallas and Houston.
Academic majors include aviation, business, communication, computer science, criminal justice, education, engineering, health care administration, health science-nursing, human services, kinesiology, the liberal arts, psychology, the sciences and theology.
Claiming every workplace in every nation as its mission field, LeTourneau University graduates are professionals of ingenuity and Christ-like character who see life's work as a holy calling with eternal impact. For additional information, visit www.letu.edu.


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Do you have a favorite BB moment?Mine is from BB8 and the Final 3 comp when Zack and Evel Dick held onto a key in pouring cold rain for eight and a half very long hours. Not one of the houseguests since that comp has dared to endure that kind of torture.
BB 14/ Dan convincing BOTH Ian and Danielle to throw the part I endurance competition to him....tied with his 24 hour solitary then funeral.
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Caleb Trotter Headshot (V)
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Peter Stavrianoudakis, et al., v. United States Department of Fish & Wildlife and California Department of Fish & Wildlife
Peter Stavrianoudakis is a longtime licensed falconer in California who just wants to do what people have been doing for thousands of years—raise and train falcons. But state and federal regulations have become so restrictive, he and fellow falconers around the country are left to choose between their falcons or their constitutional rights. Pacific Legal Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Peter and other falconers, as well as the American Falconry Conservancy, challenging the constitutionality of falconry regulations enforced by both the California and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Departments.Read more
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PLF Files Amicus Letter Urging California Supreme Court to Clarify Public Trust Obligations
This morning, PLF filed an Amicus Letter urging the Supreme Court of California to grant review of the court of appeal's decision in Environmental Law Foundation v. State Water Resources Control … ›


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IBS Group Member Announces New Cloud-Based Platform Empowers the Smart Grid with Targeted Consumer Engagement
Jan 29, 2013, 10:30 ET
RAMSEY, Isle of Man, January 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
IBS Group, a leading software development and IT services provider in Central and Eastern Europe, announces that Luxoft, a member of IBS Group and a global provider of advanced application and product development services, introduced DMMessenger at the DistribuTECH 2013 in San Diego, California. DMMessenger is the energy consumer analysis and engagement tool that processes and segments high-volume meter data. Luxoft created DMMessenger specifically for Smart Grid solution vendors who want to empower their products with an active consumer engagement engine, meter data processing, cloud-based storage, social network integration, and two-way consumer messaging.
"Smart Grids is not about making people to consume less, it's about efficiency. Smart Grids enable people to consume energy in a green and a more sustainable way," said Michael Minkevich, VP Technology Services at Luxoft. "In order to proactively engage customers, utilities want a more effective means of communication with them and need software products that include extensive customer engagement functionality. DMMessenger, that analyzes large volumes of consumer data and identifies the target groups amongst millions of clients is just the tool that allows the software vendors to rapidly develop such solutions. By engaging these groups utilities can achieve a more efficient grid operation, especially in critical peak times, to save money for the consumer and the supplier."
With the rollout of Smart Meters the enormous quantity of data and the need for high quality accurate data create a completely new problem for meter data analysis. Traditional systems, such as Meter Data Management (MDM), are not designed to provide a fast analysis of Big Data (large complex datasets that cannot be processed by traditional database management methods). DMMessenger's architecture solves the Big Data problem by transferring the new reads to cloud-based distributed storage that grows as needed. A distributed analytical engine is used to process millions of interval reads in real-time and in parallel.
Using DMMessenger's innovative processing engine, utility companies can classify consumers by their load profiles, location, and other parameters and then select consumers who are likely to provide the biggest curtailment benefits. No sensitive information is stored in the cloud and all customer data is completely secure. Once customers have been segmented and targeted, DMMessenger provides the utility company with a rich and entertaining tool for engagement and two-way communication. DMMessenger is tightly integrated with Customer Information System (CIS) using open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to query the CIS database for customer records, including the contact data used to subscribe the consumers who can choose the way they want to receive the information: phone call, text message, email, or Facebook. Demand management events can be in the form of an alert or notification about a program start, a critical peak pricing event, or an outage event. Energy games can be set up on Facebook, giving consumers who opt-in for engagement the chance to earn bonuses and to post their game results on Facebook. You can learn more about DMMessenger by visiting http://www.luxoft.com/energy.
About IBS Group Holding Limited
IBS Group is a leading software development and IT services provider in Central and Eastern Europe. Through its two principal subsidiaries, Luxoft and IBS IT Services, it offers a wide variety of information technology services, such as software development and IT services outsourcing, IT infrastructure and business applications implementation. IBS Group has business operations in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, Vietnam and Singapore. IBS Group employs more than 8,300 people worldwide. In the year ended March 31, 2012, the Group reported US GAAP consolidated revenues of USD816.3 million. IBS Group's Global Depositary Receipts are listed on the Regulated Market (General Standard) at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Bloomberg: IBSG:GR; Reuters: IBSGq.F)
For more information about IBS Group please visit http://www.ibsgr.com
The information contained in this press release is not for publication, distribution or release, directly or indirectly, in any jurisdiction where such publication, disclosure or release would be unlawful. This press release does not constitute an offer for the sale of securities in the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Japan or any other jurisdiction in which an offer would be subject to legal restrictions.
SOURCE IBS Group Holding Ltd


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|John H. Dillinger
He was born John Herbert Dillinger in the Oak Hill section of Indianapolis Indiana on June 22, 1903. His parents were John Wilson Dillinger, a grocer, and Mollie Lancaster. Dillinger's mother died when he was three. His father remarried when John was nine, but he bitterly resented his stepmother.
|Dillinger Farm - Mooresville, Indiana
|Beryl Hovious
|Indiana State Prison - 1927
|Dillinger's Fingerprint Chart
Dillinger and his gang began staging bank robberies throughout the Midwest. The FBI became involved, due to the dangerous nature of Dillinger and his group. Armed with machine guns, ammunition and bulletproof vests, Dillinger and his gang began knocking over banks in earnest. They were apprehended on January 23, 1934, along with $25,000 in cash.
|Dillinger with Gun
The gang continued robbing banks, until FBI agents located where the Dillinger was staying. When agents tried to arrest Dillinger, someone armed with a machine gun sprayed the hallway of the apartment building and Dillinger escaped, along with Van Meter. Green later died of his wounds.
|Baby Face Nelson
|Little Bohemia Lodge
|Melvin Purvis
|J. Edgar Hoover
|Wanted Poster
|Anna Sage
|Biography Theatre
|Dillinger's Gun
|Crowd Viewing Body
|Dillinger Family Stone
|John Dillinger's Grave
~ Joy


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You are here: Root > By Topic > Graphics > Graphical User Interface > CLIMView the dependency graph for this library
An implementation of the Common Lisp Interface Manager (CLIM) user interface management system. It is distributed under the GNU LGPL license.
Although infrequent stable release are available for download, users are advised to get the latest CVS sources. McCLIM is still under development, and the CVS sources fix many problems in the released tarballs.
|Web site
|Mailing list
|0.9.3 - Thursday, 02 November 2006
|OS compatibility
|Linux, MacOS X, Windows
|ASDF installable
|Official Download
|Mirrored Download
|Source code repository
CMUCL | Scieneer Common Lisp | SBCL | CLISP | OpenMCL | LispWorks | Allegro Common Lisp
Autowrite: a tool for handling term rewriting syst... | ernestine | FTD - The Flexi-Trivial Dired | RestorDoc | CLIM text style selection dialog | cl-wav-synth - Express noises as you think | ESA | Autowrite | Define-Window-Manager | DefEditor | org-davep-cldict | RT-CLIM | Springtail | Portable Hemlock | Clim-Desktop | Maxima-repl | Sb-sprof-ui | Connect 4 | clim-lastfm | beirc | Tab Layout Pane
Gilbert Baumann | Timothy Moore | Robert Strandh
CLIM | Libraries | Linux | Mac OS X | Windows family | LGPL
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McCLIM works under Win32
McCLIM is reported to work with CLISP under Windows XP and Xming. See: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.mcclim.devel/1107
Submitted by amoroso 21/05/2006 15:21:52
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How To Achieve Fighting On A Romantic Vacation
Over at TresSugar, there's a smart and informative article about how to avoid fighting on a romantic couples vacation.
But since we have a sneaking suspicion that fights may erupt no matter how hard you try to prevent them, we wonder what would happen if you not only embraced the likelihood of arguing when you're supposed to be being romantic, but indeed did things to encourage it to happen. Here are some ideas to test that theory:


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Before Ormond Beach native Jackie Parr left to be a contestant on the 17th season of The Bachelor, her father gave her two pieces of advice: Don't drink too much and don't cry.
Before Ormond Beach native Jackie Parr left to be a contestant on the 17th season of The Bachelor, her father gave her two pieces of advice: Don't drink too much and don't cry.
The 25-year-old makeup consultant said it was the latter part of her fathers advice that proved most difficult.
"It might be a television show but the emotions are really there," Parr said.
Parr is one of 26 contestants trying to win the heart of bachelor Sean Lowe during the next season of the reality series, which premiers Monday at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Parr got a call from producers after she sent an audition tape to the studio. Parr said her sisters helped her make the video after she broke up with her boyfriend. Parr said she was just trying to have fun and cheer herself up.
"We weren't really taking it seriously," Parr said. "I had a crush on the guy who was on the show. That's why we made the video."
Parr flew to Los Angeles for an extensive audition and background check for the show. When she got a call in September from producers informing her she had been selected, Parr had less than two weeks to get ready.
She took a leave of absence from her job at MAC Cosmetics in Boca Raton for an anticipated nine weeks of filming. Like the other contestants, Parr was responsible for her own wardrobe and makeup. Luckily Parr had the makeup part covered. The Father Lopez High School graduate attended cosmetology school at Daytona State College.
Parr took her makeup tools to the show and helped the other contestants get ready for dates.
"I got them get ready to go out on a date with my boyfriend," Parr joked.
While on set for the show, Parr's mother, Dawn Parr, said contestants are not allowed to have cellphones or any contact with the outside world. That was the hardest part for her because she wasn't able to call her daughter on her birthday.
"I'm used to calling her whenever I want to talk to her so it was hard not being able to talk for a long period of time," Dawn Parr said.
But it was the seclusion that helped the contestants form deep bonds, Jackie Parr said. "This brings out the best of people and the worst of people," she said. "You are spending 70 percent of your time with these girls and if you don't try to make friends you are going to be miserable."
Parr isn't allowed to divulge the details of what happens on the show but she said it was it was an overall positive experience.
Parr and her family plan on watching the premier together Monday night. They have even designed T-shirts for the occasion with the words Team Jackie.
"It was nice having time to focus on yourself and what you want in life," Parr said. "It's an amazing journey and you get so close with the other girls. They become your best friends."


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Please Note: By clicking a link to any resource listed on this page, you will be leaving this site.
American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunologyhttp://www.aaaai.org/ The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology offers up-to-date information and a find-an-allergist search tool.
American Lung Associationhttp://www.lungusa.org The American Lung Association is the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease, through research, education and advocacy.
Allergy and Asthma Networkhttp://www.allergyasthmanetwork.org/patients/ AAN's mission is to end the needless death and suffering due to asthma, allergies and related conditions through outreach, education, advocacy and research.
American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunologyhttp://www.acaai.org Learn about asthma, its symptoms, and how to find relief through allergist care and treatment.
Note: All information is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
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Images provided by The Nemours Foundation, iStock, Getty Images, Veer, Shutterstock, and Clipart.com.


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The strong belief that every person is a child of God has led a Norwich, Conn., orthodontist to become one of the world's most respected humanitarians and advocates for those less fortunate.
Rising from humble circumstances, Dr. Jeremiah J. Lowney Jr. credits the strong faith and values instilled in him by his parents, teachers and the Catholic Church as the source of inspiration for his missionary work that has transformed hundreds of thousands of people living in one of the world's most impoverished nations.
Lowney, a Knight of Malta, is the founder and president of the Haitian Health Foundation, a Norwich-based organization that provides essential medical care, housing, education, employment and other vital services.
While the 77-year-old philanthropist counts world leaders, including Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, among his friends, Lowney has never forgotten his humble roots. Growing up in Fall River, Mass., in a family with 11 children, he credits the late Msgr. James J. Gerrard, then-pastor of St. Mary's Cathedral and later auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, for paying his tuition so that he could attend a Catholic high school and continue to build upon the strong foundation provided by the Sisters of Mercy.
Lowney first visited Haiti in 1982 in a group led by Bishop Daniel P. Reilly, then-bishop of Norwich, Conn., and later bishop of Worcester, Mass., in response to a plea made by Blessed John Paul II for North American Catholics to reach out to their less fortunate brothers and sisters struggling in developing countries.
During that trip, Lowney performed dental care in one of Mother Teresa's clinics and, after witnessing the dire need for all forms of medical care, subsequently returned every three months to extract infected teeth and provide other dental treatment.
Three years later, after Mother Teresa addressed the lack of health care in rural southwestern Haiti, Lowney and a dedicated corps of benefactors and volunteers constructed an outpatient clinic in Jérémie, and the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF) was born. Soon after, the U.S. Agency for International Development approached the HHF about establishing public health outreach to outlying villages where health care was often inaccessible.
The outreach program initially served 38,000 individuals in 34 villages and now provides medical care for more than 230,000 people in 105 villages.
When the volunteers arrived in Jérémie almost three decades ago, a Missionary Sister of Charity remarked, "No one ever comes here. God must have sent you."
Bishop Reilly described Lowney as "one of the most remarkable men I have ever met."
He recalled the orthodontist's early days where he sometimes extracted teeth on "church steps and in backyards" to accommodate long-suffering people who had walked miles seeking dental care. "He is a true member of the Catholic Faith," the bishop, who has traveled to Haiti more than 25 times, told Our Sunday Visitor.
With the help of benefactors, last year the HHF was able to vaccinate almost 30,000 children, give more than 24,000 doses of vitamin A to children ranging in age from 6 months to 7 years, provide 14,424 prenatal consultations, treat more than 2,500 cases of malaria, offer more than 1,500 diabetes consultations, conduct 31,563 laboratory tests and take more than 2,100 X-rays that were used to diagnose cases.
Lowney said that the foundation provides modern obstetric care, including sonograms and ambulance runs to outlying villages using a foundation-owned vehicle that travels along primitive roads to Jérémie — once unheard of in this remote part of the world. The HHF continues its efforts to support pediatric and maternal health care, two areas of critical concern in Haiti.
Since 1989, members of the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, based in Springfield, Ill., have ministered at the Jérémie clinic. The HHF's other accomplishments in 2012 included the construction of 120 new homes in a slum area in Jérémie, each built at a cost of $5,000, which replaced the squalid hovels that once filled a slum area.
Noting how education proved the key to his own family's success many decades ago, Lowney told OSV that the HHF also founded St. Pierre School, which provides an education for 900 students in grades K-9. In addition to empowering these children with skills and knowledge, the students also receive a hot meal, which for many is their only food for the day. The foundation also provides an education for 1,500 additional elementary and high school students living in Jérémie and has funded post-secondary education for several academically gifted students to obtain degrees that have enabled them to obtain gainful employment and become community leaders.
In addition, Lowney's wife Virginia oversees the Save-a-Family Program, which, for an annual donation of $300 per year, helps support a Haitian family. According to Marilyn Lowney, executive director of the HHF and daughter of the founder, a $4 million operating budget, much of which is raised from private donors, supports these initiatives.
Lowney said that the worst poverty that the Haitian people face is lacking the imagination that today is going to be any different than yesterday.
"We bring hope to these people," he said.
Lowney, who has received four honorary doctoral degrees for his humanitarian efforts, was one of 12 individuals honored by the White House earlier this year with "A Champion of Change Award" for the positive difference he has made in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Msgr. Thaddeus Malanowski, a retired pastor in the Diocese of Norwich, has served on the board of directors of the HHF for 30 years.
Now 91, he attends board meetings and raises funds for the organization.
He recalled that as the board was being formed, the group went on a retreat to Assisi and prayed to St. Francis for guidance.
"We tried to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis," he told OSV, adding that since he always wanted to be a missionary but God selected him to become a parish priest, working with the HHF for three decades has "been the fulfillment of a dream."
Brian J. Lowney writes from Rhode Island. For information, call the foundation at 1-860-886-4357 or visit the website at haitianhealthfoundation.org.
Copyright © 1996-2018 Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.


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Last-Chance Viewing for Members
No events currently scheduled
By popular demand! Join us for one last members-only viewing of selected major exhibitions.
Present your membership card in the Museum's main lobby for entrance. Member guest admission tickets will be available for purchase. The Bar Room at the Modern restaurant will be open for dinner or drinks until 10:30 p.m.
Become a MoMA member. Join online today.


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On a treadmill, humans switch from walking to running beyond a characteristic transition speed. Here, we study human choice between walking and running in a more ecological (non-treadmill) setting. We asked subjects to travel a given distance overground in a given allowed time duration. During this task, the subjects carried, and could look at, a stopwatch that counted down to zero. As expected, if the total time available were large, humans walk the whole distance. If the time available were small, humans mostly run. For an intermediate total time, humans often use a mixture of walking at a slow speed and running at a higher speed. With analytical and computational optimization, we show that using a walk–run mixture at intermediate speeds and a walk–rest mixture at the lowest average speeds is predicted by metabolic energy minimization, even with costs for transients—a consequence of non-convex energy curves. Thus, sometimes, steady locomotion may not be energy optimal, and not preferred, even in the absence of fatigue. Assuming similar non-convex energy curves, we conjecture that similar walk–run mixtures may be energetically beneficial to children following a parent and animals on long leashes. Humans and other animals might also benefit energetically from alternating between moving forward and standing still on a slow and sufficiently long treadmill.
1. Introduction
Imagine you wish to go from your house to the bus stop and have very little time to do so. You would likely run the whole distance. If you had a lot of time, you would likely walk the whole distance. If there was an intermediate amount of time, perhaps you would walk for a while and run for a while. While it is not immediately obvious that using a walk–run mixture is advantageous here, it seems consistent with common experience. In this article, we make this anecdotal experience precise by performing human subject experiments. Most significantly, we then interpret the experimental observations using metabolic energy minimization, without appealing to fatigue or poor time-estimation as mechanisms. We review and extend various mathematical results related to metabolic energy minimization and locomotor choice, deriving, for the first time, predictions for travelling finite distances and for travelling on treadmills of finite lengths, in the presence of costs for the transients, using analytical arguments and numerical optimization. In these models, the key mathematical criterion for obtaining walk–run (and walk–rest) mixtures is non-convexity of the energy cost curves. Assuming similar energy curves, we conjecture that similar walk–run–rest mixture strategies may be energetically beneficial in superficially diverse situations: children walking with parents, animals on long leashes or long slow treadmills, non-elite marathon runners, etc.
2. An overground gait transition experiment
2.1. Background
Humans have two qualitatively distinct 'gaits', walking and running. Some treadmill gait transition experiments have shown that a person walking on a slow treadmill switches to running when the treadmill speed is slowly increased [1–3]. When the speed is decreased, the person switches from running to walking. Historically, most such gait transition experiments have been performed on a treadmill. Because an ideal treadmill (with perfect speed regulation) is an inertial frame, treadmill locomotion has the potential to be mechanically identical to overground locomotion [4]. However, treadmill locomotion is different from overground locomotion in two key respects. First, a treadmill with a short length limits voluntary speed fluctuations by the subject. No such strict speed constraint exists in real life. Second, a typical treadmill provides no visual flow, the feeling of objects moving past one's eye (but see [5]). Thus, in part to make these experiments more ecological, we introduce a simple non-treadmill overground gait transition experiment.
2.2. Experimental protocol
In the 'basic protocol' of our experiment, the subjects had to go from a starting point S to an endpoint E, separated by a distance Drequired, in a given time duration Tallowed. The subjects carried a stopwatch that counted down to zero from the total time duration Tallowed, so they could see, when necessary, the time remaining. The subjects had to reach the endpoint exactly when the stopwatch ran out, rather than arrive early or late. The subjects received no further instructions.
By constraining the total distance and the total time, we are prescribing an average speed constraint Vavg = Drequired /Tallowed, without constraining the speed at any moment. Each subject had 15 trials, with different Tallowed resulting in prescribed average speeds Vavg from 1 to 3.8 m s−1. All subjects were video-taped and instrumented for stride frequency. Some subjects were instrumented with a global positioning system (GPS) device for speed measurements. Some subjects performed indoor trials, and others, outdoors.
Variants of this 'basic protocol' were performed for small subject numbers, using longer and different distances, allowing some trial repetition, and allowing arriving early, to check if the results change substantially with protocol details. See §7 at the end of this article and electronic supplementary material, §S5 for more details.
2.3. Experimental results: walking and running fractions
The subjects were able to travel the distance on time, with the mean and standard deviations of late arrival just over a second. If the subjects approached the destination too early, they slowed down to arrive on time. As expected, for low prescribed average speed Vavg, the subjects walked the entire distance. For high Vavg, the subjects ran almost the entire distance. For intermediate Vavg, a majority of the subjects used a mixture of walking and running (a walk–run mixture).
Figure 1a shows the fraction of running as a function of the prescribed average speed Vavg, for all the subjects involved in the basic protocol. A single data point (red dot) in figure 1a is the fraction of time spent running by one subject in one trial, obtained from the video by counting the seconds spent running; also shown are the median running fraction as a function of average speed and a (pink) band containing 50 per cent of the data points. Here, running is defined as any gait with a flight phase, in which the hip goes down and then up when one leg is in contact with the ground, as if the body bounces on a springy leg [6]. In walking, the hip vaults over on the leg more like an inverted pendulum and at least one foot always contacts the ground [7].
Unlike on a treadmill, there is no sharp gait transition speed here. Instead, there is a 'transition region' between average speeds of 2 and 3 m s−1 (roughly), in which a majority of the subjects use a walk–run mixture, transitioning from walking most of the time to running most of the time. The average speed with equal amounts of walking and running (running fraction = 0.5) is about 2.2 m s−1 in figure 1a, which is close to, but slightly higher than the treadmill gait transition speeds in the literature [1,3]. At the highest average speeds, the running fraction is not quite 100 per cent, but this might be because the subjects walked one or two steps before running the rest of the way; longer Drequired may find higher running fractions.
The indoor and outdoor trials (figure 1b), while yielding qualitatively similar trends appear to be slightly different; outdoor data's median is close to the indoor data's 25th percentile. These differences could be due to small differences in protocol (having to turn around indoors), and increased visual flow indoors due to nearby walls, resulting in higher perceived speed, shifting the actual gait transition region to lower speeds [5,8]. The data from the protocol variants, taken as a whole, are not qualitatively different from the basic protocol (figure 1c); 75 per cent of the protocol variants' data points fell within the centred 50 per cent band of the data from the basic protocol.
2.4. Experimental results: speed variations within a trial
When the subjects used a walk–run mixture, the walking speed was low and the running speed was high, so that the average speed is as prescribed. Figure 2a shows the trial-by-trial distribution of speeds pooled over all the outdoor subjects with GPS speed measurements. As we would expect, with increasing prescribed average speed, the speed distribution slowly shifts upward to higher speeds.
Significantly, the speed distribution is double-peaked for Vavg between 2.0 and 3 m s−1. Such double-peaked distributions indicate (many) subjects walking slow and running fast in a walk–run mixture. At Vavg = 2 m s−1, the lower speed walking peak has a higher enclosed area (in the histogram) than the higher speed running peak, suggesting that subjects walked for most of the time. The relative sizes of the peaks are reversed at Vavg = 2.97 m s−1, when subjects ran most of the time. For Vavg below 2 m s−1 and above 3 m s−1, we observe only a single peak in the speed distributions, indicative of walking or running the whole distance.
Figure 2b shows the raw GPS-derived speed as a function of time for five subjects, for the Vavg = 2.39 m s−1 trial, which is in the walk–run transition region. For three subjects shown (subjects 4–6), we see two distinct speed plateaus, corresponding to running and walking. Not all subjects had such distinct speed plateaus in the transition regime. To illustrate subject-to-subject variability (also seen in figure 1), we show one subject (subject 7) for whom the plateaus are less distinct, and another subject (subject 8) who used roughly the same speed over the whole trial.
The stride frequency histograms shown in figure 2c also show a speed region (about 2–3 m s−1) in which the stride frequency distribution is broader, overlapping both walking and running stride frequencies. In this region, however, the histograms are not as distinctly double-peaked, perhaps both on account of larger subject-to-subject variability and higher measurement errors in the stride frequencies (see the electronic supplementary material).
3. Energy minimization as a candidate theory of gait choice
3.1. On a treadmill, switch to save energy
Margaria [2] and others found that walking requires less energy at low speeds and running requires less energy at higher speeds, as also suggested by mathematical models of bipedal walking and running [7,9–11]. Example walking and running metabolic rates as functions of speed, based on published data [12–15], are shown in figure 3a. On a treadmill, humans switch between walking and running close to the intersection of the cost curves (Q). While some researchers [1,16,17] found a small difference (∼ 0.1 m s−1) between the energy-optimal and measured treadmill transition speeds (and also a slight difference between the walk-to-run and run-to-walk transition speeds [1]), others [18,19] did not; see [9,20] for possible explanations.
We now describe what metabolic energy minimization predicts in the context of our non-treadmill experiment, first ignoring, then considering the cost for transitions between walking and running.
3.2. Human locomotion energetics preliminaries
For the rest of this article, we will simply use the curves in figure 3a. The qualitative predictions are preserved as long as the curves have approximately the same shapes. We use the notation and 'rate' to refer to energy per unit time. The walking metabolic rate data is adequately fit by a quadratic function of speed [12,15]: ; we used a0 = 1.91 W kg−1 and a2 = 1.49 W (ms−1)−2. For running, while it is hard to statistically distinguish between linear [2,21] and quadratic models [14] using metabolic data, we used a quadratic model , with b0 = 5.17 W kg−1, b1 = 1.38 W (ms−1)−1 and b2 = 0.34 W (ms−1)−2 [13,14]. Finally, humans consume energy while resting (that is, not moving), modelled here as a constant rate erest = 1.22 W kg−1 [21].
We combine these three metabolic rates into an 'effective cost curve', shown in figure 3b, by picking the lower of the three rates at every speed; the resting rate is relevant only at v = 0.
3.3. Two choices: walk or run
In our experiment, the subjects had to cover a distance Drequired in time Tallowed. For simplicity, say a subject runs for time duration λrTallowed at constant speed Vr and walks for a time duration at constant speed Vw, such that she satisfies the distance, and, therefore, the average speed constraint of the experiment: . Here, the fraction of time spent running is λr, with . Rearranging, we have the average speed constraint
Subject to this constraint, we wish to find Vw, Vr and λr so as to minimize the total energy expenditure Etotal over the whole journey, first ignoring any costs for transients
Minimizing Etotal is equivalent to minimizing the average energy rate over the total time duration: .
3.4. Optimal solution through the common tangent construction
Alexander [9] states the correct optimal strategies for the above problem, without a complete solution. Drummond [22] presents an elegant solution via the so-called 'common tangent construction,' as described below, while analysing a closely related exercise called 'scout's pace' that mixes walking and running.
As in figure 3b, average speeds Vavg between speeds VB and VC can be obtained by walking at speed VB and running at speed VC. The average energy rate for this walk–run mixture is given by the straight line between B and C, which is also the common tangent here. Because this straight line is below both cost curves, the mixture strategy has lower average energy rate compared with pure walking or running at such Vavg. Thus, a walk–run mixture is predicted by metabolic energy minimization for a range of intermediate speeds (between VB and VC). For , it is optimal to walk the entire distance. For , it is optimal to run the entire distance.
The necessary and sufficient condition for a walk–run mixture to be optimal for this model is that the effective cost curve (figure 3b) is non-convex near the intersection point Q. Non-convexity, by definition [23], means that we can draw a lower tangent to this effective cost curve that touches it at two points B and C as in figure 3b. To contrast with such non-convexity, we devised the hypothetical walking and running cost curves of figure 3c, which give rise to a convex effective cost curve, therefore implying no direct energy benefits from walk-run mixtures; the chord DE (corresponding to a walk–run mixture) is strictly above walking and running costs between D and E, and any lower tangent will touch the curve at only one point. See the electronic supplementary material, §S1 for a discussion of convexity and related mathematics.
3.5. Three choices: walk, run or rest
In the above mathematical analysis and in our basic protocol experiments, the choice was between only walking and running. Arriving early and resting was not an option. If we allow resting, for low average speeds Vavg, a mixture of walking and resting becomes optimal.
The necessary and sufficient condition for the optimality of a walk–rest mixture is that the resting rate erest is strictly less than a0, the walking metabolic rate at infinitesimally small speeds (as is true for human walking [12]). This condition allows us to construct a lower tangent touching the walking cost curve at A, starting from the resting state (0, erest), as shown in figure 4a. Then, for , a mixture of resting and walking at VA is optimal; note, . This VA is also the constant walking speed that minimizes the 'net' energy cost per unit distance without time constraints [8].
Figure 4a consolidates the predictions of metabolic energy minimization, showing the four average speed regimes with their respective optimal behaviours: walk–rest mixtures (with walking at VA), constant speed pure walking (walk at Vavg), walk–run mixtures (walking at VB, running at VC), and constant speed pure running (run at Vavg). Figure 4b shows the predicted optimal fractions of resting, walking and running. Figure 4c shows how the walk–rest and walk–run mixtures reduce the energy per unit distance over pure walking and running. Note that the walking speeds VA and VB are not equal to, but are, respectively, less than and greater than the maximum range speed, which minimizes the cost per unit distance for walking [8].
3.6. Costs for transients, the number of switches and finite distances
In the analysis thus far, we have assumed that the energy rate is purely a function of speed and gait, assuming that neither changing speeds nor switching gaits entail an energy cost. Such transients do have a cost, associated with a change in kinetic energy or limb movement patterns [24]. Without these costs for transients, the above model implies that one can switch between gaits arbitrarily often without affecting the optimality of the walk–run mixture, as long as the walking and running fractions are unchanged.
As soon as a cost for transients is added to the mathematical model, say, proportional to change in kinetic energy, having exactly one switch between walking and running, or exactly one switch between walking and resting, becomes optimal. In the electronic supplementary material, §S2, we describe numerical optimization to obtain the energy optimal gait strategies in the presence of a cost for transients, shown in figure 5a. Thus, we find that despite transient costs, the qualitative picture of figure 4a,b is preserved, but the specific transition speeds separating the various regimes are slightly changed and depend on Drequired (see the electronic supplementary material, figure S3 expands on figure 5a). The effect of transient costs become negligible over much larger distances, again giving figures 4a,b.
3.7. Locomotion on long treadmills with transient costs
Unlike short treadmills, long treadmills allow larger voluntary speed fluctuations while imposing an average speed constraint over the long term. For treadmill locomotion, there is no explicit time constraint or distance constraint, but only a constraint that the person remains on the treadmill. In the absence of transient costs, the energy optimal strategies for remaining on the treadmill are exactly as in figure 4. However, with transient costs, substantial walk–run mixtures become optimal only when the treadmill is long enough. This treadmill-length-dependence of transition speeds is shown in figure 5b (also in electronic supplementary material, figure S4 for greater detail). These figures were obtained using numerically computed optimal walk–run–rest mixtures, subject to the constraint that the person remains within the treadmill; the numerical computation is documented in more detail in the electronic supplementary material, §S3. Thus, if the goal is to simply stay on a long treadmill (e.g. an airport moving walkway), instead of traversing it, energy minimization predicts that humans will walk or run in place for some speeds, but use walk–stand or walk–run mixtures at other speeds, moving against the belt some of the time.
4. Discussion
4.1. Numerical predictions from our model
We are able to explain the qualitative features of walk–run mixtures using energy minimization. Using cost curves from different authors [2,12–15,21,21] will result in slightly different numerical predictions, by as much as 0.2 m s−1 for each of the predicted transition speeds. Also, averaging cost curves across subjects can move transition points. Ideally, one should use subject-specific energy rate curves and test if a subject's gait choice is consistent with her specific energetics. For our assumed cost curves and no transient costs (equivalent to travelling a very large distance), we obtained VA = 0.7 m s−1, VB = 1.45 m s−1, and VC = 4.35 m s−1 (figure 4). With transient costs and Drequired = 120 m, we obtained VA = 0.7 m s−1, VB = 1.9 m s−1, and VC = 3.6 m s−1 (figure 5a); this predicted walk–run transition region overlaps with those in figure 1.
The speed VC in figures 4 and 5 is sensitive to the curvature of the quadratic running cost model, approaching the maximum running speed for a linear model (which still predicts walk–run mixtures). Because humans never use maximum running speeds, perhaps the running rate is indeed slightly curved (assuming energy minimization, not fatigue, determines speeds). The slight curvature used here is consistent with metabolic data [13,14]. We ignored other complexities in the energy models, e.g. post-exercise increases in energy and oxygen consumption [25].
4.2. Higher variability near transition
Behavioural variability in the running fractions of figure 1a–c is higher near the gait transition region than away from it (figure 6). A few plausible mechanisms could contribute to such variability: (i) within-subject variability, perhaps due to sensory or computational noise in the human motor system in deciding which gait to use; because the walking–running costs are most similar near the transition, the errors could be higher; (ii) subjects using the correct optimal fraction for an incorrect average speed (with a given speed error) will produce variability proportional to the absolute slope of the running fraction curve λr(v), maximum at the transition; (iii) pooling different subjects with slightly different running fraction curves shifted sideways will also produce variability proportional to the absolute slope of the running fraction curve. See the electronic supplementary material, §S5 for a related mathematical note.
4.3. Other overground experiments
Recently, some non-treadmill overground gait transition experiments were performed, in which subjects were asked to walk with increasing speed and then start running when they found it natural (e.g. [26] found a transition speed of 2.85 m s−1, with 0.5 m s−2 natural acceleration). In contrast, in our more ecological experiment, we did not explicitly suggest increasing speeds or gait change, allowing more choice as in daily legged travel.
Also, Hoyt & Taylor [27] and Pennycuick [28] observed double-peaked speed distributions in free-ranging animals, but there were no explicit average speed constraints in such contexts.
4.4. Alternative non-energy-based explanations
Partly to address the slight discrepancy between energy optimality and the treadmill gait transition speed, a number of non-energy-based kinematic and kinetic factors have been posited as triggering the transition [6,29–35]—usually suggesting that humans switch to running because some force, strain, velocity or stability threshold is violated while walking. None of these intra-stride threshold-based hypotheses, as stated, can explain why humans use a walk–run mixture when there is no strict speed constraint. Further, unlike energy minimization, which predicts many phenomena related to human locomotion at least qualitatively [9,11], these other hypotheses have been not systematically tested for phenomena other than gait transitions.
We mention two further alternate hypotheses. First, perhaps subjects have poor time-to-destination estimation, so that the subjects initially start to walk and then run when they realize they have very little time left (or the reverse), but it is unclear how this could explain various systematic trends in our experiments without additional assumptions. Second, we can rule out fatigue as a reason for switching to walking after running for a while, as subjects were able to run the whole way at higher speeds in other trials. Also, our trials were short enough that fatigue is unlikely to be an issue. On the other hand, in the presence of fatigue, multiple switches between walking and running may well become favourable [22]. For instance, some animals use intermittent locomotion to extend their endurance [36] at high average speeds, while briefly exceeding their maximum aerobic speed.
Finally, while we have focused on energy minimization to explain trends, we recognize that animals must trade-off energy minimization with other constraints and goals [9]. Our implicit assumption is that the cost curves used here are for movements that have already taken such trade-offs into account.
4.5. What energy should we minimize?
We have assumed that subjects minimize the total energy cost over the experimentally allowed task duration (equivalently, the whole day [8]). Instead, if humans minimize the energy to arrive at the destination, not counting resting after arriving, the predictions for large distances are identical to figure 4a,b except the walking speed VA in a walk–rest mixture is replaced by the so-called maximum range speed, the minimum in figure 4c, given by , typically 1.2–1.4 m s−1 [8].
Also, in their daily life, instead of minimizing energy subject to a time constraint, it may be that humans trade-off a cost for time and energy, resulting in slightly higher speeds than predicted by pure energy optimality [37].
4.6. When should we minimize energy?
In future work, we suggest repeating our experiments over a range of distances, including much shorter (25 m, say) and much longer distances (3 km, say), to test if the results in figures 1 and 2, and other behaviour, change systematically. Over much longer distances, without practise and visual landmarks, perhaps humans will have greater difficulty judging time and distance to destination, and as a consequence, perhaps there will be greater behavioural variability.
It is sometimes argued that over short distances, humans and other animals may not move in a manner that minimizes energy because this energy would be a small fraction of the daily energy budget [38]. While plausible, this hypothesis has not been tested systematically. Below, we provide a few inter-related reasons for why humans may minimize energy even at short travel distances considered here.
First, we have shown empirically that over relatively short distances of 100 m, human behaviour seems qualitatively consistent with energy minimization. At least for steady walking, there are no major observed differences in how people walk a short distance versus a much longer distance (in the absence of fatigue); so the same principles may underlie walking both short and longer distances. Further, the walk–run strategy for minimizing energy over many thousand metres is the same as the walk–run strategy for minimizing the energy for a few hundred metres (with minor quantitative differences). Thus, one does not have to evolve or learn qualitatively different strategies for different distances.
Finally, we note that energy is a 'fungible' quantity. That is, metabolic energy saved in one task is available for use in any other task. (Fungibility is an economics concept, used most commonly as a descriptive property of money.) In the absence of other trade-offs and constraints, evolutionary processes could not differentiate between energy saved in one big task versus a hundred small tasks. Thus, energy reductions in the hundred small tasks might be as likely as in the one big task, if we controlled for the complexity of the two sets of tasks. To be sure, it is possible for human motor behaviour to be inconsistent with the fungibility of energy, just as there is evidence from behavioural economics that spending behaviour is sometimes inconsistent with the fungibility of money [39]. This is an open question for future empirical study.
4.7. Cognitive and motor mechanisms governing gait choice.
While we do not know how humans adjusted their gait strategy in our experiments, we see evidence of both feedback and feed-forward mechanisms [40]. In the short Tallowed trials, the subjects realize immediately that they have to run relatively fast to arrive on time, suggesting feed-forward mechanisms that convert the cognitively provided distance–time constraints into gait. And later in each trial, the subjects typically speed up or slow down to correct for earlier misestimations of the speed required, suggesting feedback mechanisms.
5. Related phenomena, conjectures and other applications
In this section, we discuss related situations that might benefit from similar models, make conjectures partly informed by available energy data, suggesting future experiments.
5.1. Moving walkways
Say the goal is to go from one end of a very long treadmill (e.g. an airport moving walkway) to the other, instead of just staying on the treadmill. If the goal speed is 1.2 m s−1 (say) relative to the ground, a walkway speed of 0.7 m s−1 requires 0.5 m s−1 relative to the walkway, at which average speed a walk–rest mixture may be optimal. Thus, we conjecture that faster walkways may promote more standing, possibly resulting in congestion and reduced people transport (see [8] for a similar conjecture).
5.2. Keeping up with someone else: human children, animals on a leash, etc.
Human children have a lower walk–run transition speed than adults. Extrapolating children's gait transition data in Tseh et al. [17] suggests that children with leg length of 50–55 cm will have a transition speed of about 1.4 m s−1, close to adult preferred walking speeds. Thus, while travelling with a parent at 1.4 m s−1, a small child might benefit energetically from a walk–run mixture; the walking–running cost curves for slightly older children [41] continue to show the necessary non-convexity, but such data are not available for very small children. We speculate that this energy benefit may get reflected in the child walking slowly and then running to catch up or overtake the parent, sometimes leading or lagging. While children's activity is often burst-like [42], we do not know of parent–child co-locomotion studies.
Similarly, dogs transition from walking to trotting between 0.9 and 1.3 m s−1 depending on size [43]. While we could not find walking–trotting energy data for dogs, we see evidence of the energy non-convexity necessary for walk–trot mixtures in horses and goats [27,44]. Extrapolating from these quadrupeds, we conjecture that dogs on a long leash, accompanying a walking human, might benefit from walk–trot mixtures (as might goats and horses at other speeds).
Finally, when animals (whose juveniles benefit from adult protection) migrate, juveniles and adults often travel long distances at the same average speed. For such animals, the adult's maximal range speed may (if the speeds so conspire and given the necessary non-convexity) correspond to a mixture of gaits for a juvenile, or vice versa. Such behaviour is not necessary, of course. For instance, both adult and juvenile gnus apparently use a mixture of walking and cantering [28].
5.3. Animals on very slow treadmills
Various untrained animals, especially small animals, when placed on a slow treadmill, sometimes perform a mixture of standing still, coasting to the back of the treadmill, and then scooting forward, giving the impression of being hard to train; researchers often have to use some stimulation to get the animal to move steadily [45]. We conjecture that some of this behaviour could be due to the energy optimality of walk–rest mixtures. Recall that the necessary condition for such optimality is that the resting cost be less than the extrapolated locomotion cost at zero speed, documented for white rats by Schmidt-Nielsen [46].
5.4. Walk faster if you can lie down at the end
So far, we have used a single resting energy rate erest. Given that standing, sitting and lying down have progressively lower energy costs [47], energy minimization over the whole time duration implies, surprisingly, a higher walking speed in walk–rest mixtures if the subject is allowed to lie down on arrival than if the subject is allowed to only stand on arrival. See the electronic supplementary material, figure S5. We have not extensively explored experimental protocols involving rest, except the arriving-early variant in figure 1c, in which subjects did arrive early when Tallowed was large. Also, the experiment needed to test the above prediction may not be very ecological.
5.5. Altered body or environment
The walking and running cost curves, in humans and in other animals, are affected by changes either to the body or to the environment (e.g. wearing a loaded backpack, going uphill or downhill, altered gravity). The predicted speed regime corresponding to optimality of a walk–run mixture will be affected by such changes, which can be tested by repeating the experiments herein in those altered circumstances.
5.6. Marathoners, hunters and soccer players
During marathons and ultra-marathons, runners sometimes use a walk–run mixture [48], partly explained by fatigue. But note that the average US marathon finish times including non-elite runners are 4.5–5 h, with average speeds of 2.3–2.6 m s−1, when a walk–run mixture is energetically beneficial, as pointed out earlier by Alexander [9] and Drummond [22]. Analogously, humans that run 10-min miles (2.7 m s−1) might need less energy using walk–run mixtures (extrapolating figure 4a).
Human 'persistence hunters' pursue prey for many hours, mixing running and tracking the animal. Hunts witnessed by Liebenberg [49] in the Kalahari averaged 1.75 m s−1. While energy-minimizing humans might mostly walk with a small running fraction at these average speeds (using figure 1a or 4b), it may be worthwhile to study the gait fractions used by the hunters, likely different from energy optimal owing to hunting constraints (like keeping up with the animal), resulting in extra energetic cost.
Analogously, over a 90-min game, soccer players average about 2.1 m s−1 [50]. Given various game-play constraints (defending, intercepting, etc.), which clearly supersede energy conservation, one might quantify the extra energy such constraints impose, over and above the minimum energy required at the observed average speed; also of interest may be the speed and gait distributions.
5.7. Other transport modes: flying, swimming and driving
Finally, we remark that the optimality of mixture strategies may not be exclusive to legged locomotion. For instance, bounding flight in small birds, the intermittent swimming of mammals, and extreme accelerate–coast mixtures in some cars (also called burn and coast, or pulse and glide), especially those that participate in 'eco-marathon' races, have been argued to reduce energy consumption [51–53]. It may also be of interest to see whether legged robot locomotion cost curves have the necessary non-convexity, implying energetic benefits for using gait mixtures.
6. Conclusion
We observed that humans use a walk–run mixture at intermediate average locomotion speeds and argued that this behaviour is consistent with energy optimality. We have commented on possible application of the ideas to superficially diverse phenomena in humans and other animals. Exploring these related phenomena (and the underlying assumptions) quantitatively with controlled experiments and using subject-specific energy measurements for the mathematical models would enable us to better understand the limitations of energy minimization as a predictor of animal movement behaviour.
7. Material and methods
The protocols were approved by the Ohio State University's Institutional Review Board. Subjects participated with informed consent. The subjects' (n = 36, aged 20–32, eight female) had mean body mass 74.2 kg (12 kg s.d.) and mean height 1.79 m (0.078 m s.d.).
7.1. Basic experimental protocol
The outdoor subjects (n = 19) used a relatively straight and horizontal sidewalk. The indoor subjects (n = 9) performed them in a 2.5 m wide building corridor. Total distance was Drequired = 122 m. We used 15 different total times Tallowed, giving average speeds of 1 to 3.8 ms−1: 32, 34, 36, 38, 41, 44, 47, 51, 55, 61, 68, 76, 87, 102 and 122 s, presented in a random sequence. The subjects had no practice trials specific to these time durations except for a single initial practice trial to ensure protocol understanding. All subjects wore a watch (Garmin Forerunner 305) that recorded stride frequency from a pedometer (Garmin footpod). Some outdoor subjects (n = 10) carried a high-end GPS unit (VBOX Mini, Racelogic UK) to measure speed accurately. See the electronic supplementary material for more details about the subject population, protocol and instrumentation. The outdoor experiment required the subject to travel in only one direction from S to E. In the indoor experiment, S and E coincided and the subject turned back midway.
7.2. Variants of the basic protocol
We performed minor variants of the basic protocol for a total of n = 8 subjects. For n = 3 subjects, we repeated each speed three times, for a total of five speeds in random sequence. For n = 2 subjects, each of 10 average speed trials had a different distance, ranging from 70 to 250 m. For n = 2 subjects, subjects could arrive earlier than Tallowed. For one subject, we used a fixed longer distance 244 m for all trials.
We thank Andy Ruina from whom M.S. learnt about the possible optimality of walk–run mixtures, credited here to earlier work by Alexander [9] and Drummond [22]. Thanks to Alison Sheets, Carlos Castro, Yang Wang, the rest of the Movement Laboratory, and four anonymous reviewers for insightful comments.
- Received November 26, 2012.
- Accepted January 8, 2013.
- © 2013 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.


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- MFLS Forums
Forums : MFLS Central Forum Thread : 2015 World Series of Predictions
from The Laws of Lalas
on Sun 2/15 1:41 ET
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it's almost time to shuffle up and deal once again. please sign up in this thread if you want to participate in the 2015 MFLS World Series of Predictions. the MFLS WSOP rules are staying the same as last year. this is, in many ways, the simplest tournament in MFLS as all you have to do is make your prediction picks like you would every week anyways. feel free to post any questions or concerns you may have in this thread though.
here is a short breakdown regarding how the tournament will be set up. there will be 35 managers participating in the WSOP. 9 spots are already filled, 3 by the past MFLS WSOP Champions, Top Shelf (2014 and 2013), The Laws of Lalas (2012) and Mizzo FC (2011), and 6 by players who made the Final Table last year but fell short of the title (Bucks, Avengers, giggitty, Dudley St. Hooligans, Arrows S.C., and SDFC Macross).
thus, there will be 26 spots up for grabs pursuant to the qualifying rules (which will be posted via link in the next few days). the earlier you sign up, the better chance you have to participate in the tournament per the rules, so please sign up soon if you want to play. hope to see many of last year's sharks buy back in this year and hopefully some new players will sign up as well so we can have an exciting qualifying round.
2014 Results: http://mflswsop2014.blogspot.com/
2013 Results: http://mflswsop2013.blogspot.com/
2012 Results: http://mflswsop2012.blogspot.com/
2011 Results: http://mflswsop2011.blogspot.com/
good luck to everyone.
from Avengers
on Sun 2/15 3:20 ET
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I'm up for a spot at the table again this year! from Mohawks
on Sun 2/15 10:45 ET
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Count me in again. Thanks! from Seattle SC
on Sun 2/15 13:51 ET
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In from TEAM RAMROD
on Sun 2/15 13:53 ET
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In, if there is a spot at the table for me! from Plattsburgh United
on Sun 2/15 14:49 ET
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In if possible
Plattsburgh United
from Arrows SC
on Sun 2/15 18:26 ET
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Arrows SC would love to participate again. Thanks, Randall. from Port City Navigators
on Sun 2/15 22:22 ET
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Alright! I'm in.
from Warwick United
on Mon 2/16 8:52 ET
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Please include me from C�nicas AC
on Mon 2/16 12:15 ET
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Looking forward to reach even deeper depths of excellence (i.e.,
sink deeper to the bottom) in the tournament this season. Please,
count me in.
from BondFC
on Mon 2/16 13:30 ET
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BondFC would love to give it another go. from Glorydaze
on Mon 2/16 16:15 ET
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I'd like a spot. from C.C. United
on Mon 2/16 16:18 ET
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Please add me too. from FC Byrd Turgler
on Mon 2/16 18:19 ET
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In! from Cheddarheads
on Tue 2/17 9:08 ET
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Please add me to the list, if possible
Cheddarheads Rule !!!!
Pages : First, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Last


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Message 4, Questions and Answers #1:
The Word of God makes it clear that consistent and progressive spiritual growth is to be the goal of every Christian. As we practice the spiritual disciplines described in the Word of God, the Holy Spirit moves us to submit to God's will.
In this series of lectures from Ligonier Ministries' 2005 National Conference, Drs. Mark Dever, J. Ligon Duncan III, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and Derek Thomas discuss the five key disciplines of Bible study, prayer, stewardship, service, and worship. With practical sensitivity and concern for biblical fidelity, they explain how each of these disciplines contributes to our spiritual growth.
Note: Answers given during Questions and Answers sessions reflect the views of the individual speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dr. R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Here is our Statement of Faith.


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Twitter for BlackBerry v1.1 has finally made the jump from Beta Zone to app World. This update bring a newer, more fluid UI & a new branding.
**It may take a few hours before you see this update in App World**
Some of the new features include:
- Geo-tagging
You now have the option to attach your location based on neighbourhood and city to any tweet, and view others' geo-tagged tweets in BlackBerry Maps. (Note: To enable geo-tagging please follow these steps within the Twitter app, Menu > Options > Add location to tweet)
- Push @Mentions
Now you can easily stay up-to-date on who is mentioning you at any given time!
- Tweet Count Notifications
Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones 1.1 lets you know the number of new tweets that are waiting for you to view, integrated right into the tweet notification. How convenient is that?!
- #Topic Autocomplete
Similar to the functionality of @User autocomplete, you can now easily tweet #Topics with the help of the #Topic autocomplete feature. Simply begin typing the #Topic you are looking for, and Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones 1.1 will auotcomplete the topic based on your previous tweets and #Topic selections.
- DM Redesign
If you make use of the Direct Message (DM) functionality then youll definitely notice the DM redesign in this version of Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones. Direct Messages has been renamed to Messages to align with the online Twitter experience. Weve also redesigned the Messages interface to follow a threaded conversation style similar to BBM.
- Screen Refresh
Its now easier than ever to refresh your Tweet timeline while using a touch-screen device! We have implemented a new pull-to-refresh feature which allows you to simply pull down on the top part of your touch screen and release for your updated Twitter messages list. Refreshing has never been easier!
- Refreshed Twitter Branding
Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones 1.1 graphics have been updated to align with the new look of the Twitter brand more specifically, the classic Twitter T has been replaced by the Twitter bird.


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"We have come face to face with the essential problem of how to use man's creations for the benefit of man himself."
Charles A Lindbergh
"We have come face to face with the essential problem of how to use man's creations for the benefit of man himself."
Charles A Lindbergh
The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation was created in 1977, the 50th Anniversary year of Charles Lindbergh's epic New York-to-Paris flight. It was originated by friends of the Lindberghs at The Explorers Club in New York City and other friends and admirers.
The resulting national effort that established the organization was led by General James H. Doolittle and Astronaut Neil Armstrong. Also instrumental in its creation was James D. Newton, longtime, close friend of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, who was Honorary Chairman until his death in 1999.
Their intent was to honor the Lindberghs' pioneering contributions in aviation, exploration, conservation, sciences, and the humanities. Knowing the Lindberghs' vision of a balance between the technological advancements they helped pioneer, and the preservation of the human and natural environments they cherished, it was decided that this balance vision would become the cornerstone of the Foundation's programs. Ever since, the Foundation has strived to carry on the concept of balance, through the Lindbergh Award, the Lindbergh Grants Program, and other educational programs and publications.
The Foundation seeks to support present and future generations in working toward such a balance, that we may "…discern nature's essential wisdom and combine it with our scientific knowledge…" (Charles A. Lindbergh) and "balance power over life with reverence for life" (Anne Morrow Lindbergh).
Charles Lindbergh, who died in 1974, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who died in 2001, believed that true progress and a high quality of life require both the advances of science and care for nature, and that these critical endeavors must be in balance. This vision, the furtherance of which is the mission of the Lindbergh Foundation, was eloquently reflected in the Lindberghs' writings and public remarks, such as Charles Lindbergh's statement in a 1973 speech that "all the achievements of mankind have value only to the extent that they preserve and improve the quality of life" and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's expression in her book, Earth Shine, that "power over life must be balanced by reverence for life."
Charles Lindbergh


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Bart Simpson has joined Barbie on Iran's do not play list. Spidey and Superman are okay.
An independent newspaper in the Islamic Republic reported Monday that a government-affiliated agency has banned dolls featuring the yellow Simpsons characters to avoid the promotion of Western culture.
The move relegates Marge, Homer, Lisa, Maggie and presumably the rest of Springfield to the same blacklist as Barbie, which Iran called a "Trojan Horse" in 1996, The Associated Press reported.
But toys featuring Superman and Spider-Man were deemed okay because they help "the oppressed people and they have a positive stance," the Shargh daily quoted Mohammad Hossein Farjoo, secretary of policymaking at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, as saying.
Iran has tried to crack down on Western influence since its 1979 Islamic revolution, but has contended with a thriving black market.
A quarter of the country's population under age 15, and the country imported $57 million in toys last year, the AP reported. About $20 million worth of illegal toys were smuggled into the country the same year.


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Google Chairman Shares Future of Technology
Eric Schmidt recently provided his perspective on technology and the role Google is playing in leading its development.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt provided his perspective on technology and the role his company is playing in leading its development at a November 30 discussion at the University of Minnesota.
"The Future of the High-Tech Economy: How Technology is Changing Business, Education and Government," co-sponsored by the Carlson School, packed the Humphrey School's Cowles Auditorium. Attendees included members of the University administration as well as business leaders from around the community. Schmidt's talk was set up as an informal discussion session, with Steve Kelley, the director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy, providing questions from the room and online audience.
Schmidt talked briefly about how Google operates. He said the company is run by what he calls "20 percent time" in which employees can spend 20 percent of their time on ideas they like. "We have a lot of crazy ideas that we obviously encourage," he said. Twenty percent time gives employees the opportunity to work on these ideas and see where they lead. An important part of this model, Schmidt said, is the ability to handle it if something doesn't work out. "If you can't tolerate failure, you can't be at some level innovative," he said.
Given the pace of innovation, Schmidt made a point of emphasizing the importance of understanding the implications of a new product before releasing it into the market. He illustrated his point by talking about a time a young designer presented a product that would allow users to track their friends' locations in real-time on their mobile phones. "I said, 'Oh my God' and he thinks this is praise," Schmidt said.
Schmidt said he could see that any kind of real-time tracking could lead to serious privacy invasion issues. "We ultimately decided that it was OK to do a limited kind of product," he said. "It went from being accurate to being maybe accurate. This is a deadly serious issue-the issues of privacy and who retains that information."
The role of technology in fostering democracy
This then led into a discussion on the relationship between technology and democracy.
"I come to view it as we have the physical system, the world that we all understand, and we have another system, the virtual system, and each will keep the other in check," he said. Schmidt said the virtual system makes it harder for evil behavior to go unnoticed. This has been demonstrated when some countries have tried to limit or stop the flow of digital information. "One of the findings is when you do that it wakes up the whole country," he said. "To turn that off is equivalent to stopping the water supply. If you don't like what you see in the mirror, don't break the mirror."
Another important aspect of this technology is that it provides a voice for those who have never been heard from. "If you look at the math of mobile phone adoption, we have on the order of four billion. We think we can get another billion," he said. "The arrival of another billion people into the human conversation is really something. I think the benefit is very, very profound."
Schmidt on Steve Jobs
Schmidt also provided his thoughts on Steve Jobs and his legacy. "Steve I've known for 20 years. It's very hard to imagine that he's not with us," Schmidt said. "I hear his voice every day."
Schmidt characterized Jobs as one of the most important people of the century. He said there are not many business executives who have managed to found a company, have it come into trouble, and return to turn it into one of the most valuable companies in the world. He also said that Jobs was the only person he knew who could combine his technical knowledge with a sense of style and design. Jobs' legacy, in addition to millions of happy customers, is showing how important it is to have artists and designers at the same level as the system engineers. "It's sort of the defining point of how technology will go forward," Schmidt said.
A replay of the Schmidt's conversation at the University can be found at http://www.livestream.com/umntv.


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