Source: http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56335
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Friday, April 5, 2013
Into Internet Marketing - Small Business Brief
We have grown our business on passive income internet sales. We are to a point that we could spend more money on SEO or SEM marketing or use that money for some offline marketing. I like the idea of staying with what works, but it has taken years and years to build our client base with internet sales. Any ideas on faster offline techniques that offer a high ROI?
Bryan Hoddle helps wounded vets run ? and dream ? again
He's more than a track coach: He's a counselor and a friend, listening to a life story.
Track coach Bryan Hoddle (l.) runs with Steve Baskis, a blind Army veteran, at the 2013 Introduction to Paralympic Sports Camp at the Lakeshore Foundation in Homewood, Ala.
Bernard Troncale/Lakeshore Foundation
EnlargeStrangely, this is where the inspiring transformation often begins ? on a track.
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It's here, with Bryan Hoddle coaching and shouting encouragement as a group of wounded soldiers begins to run, that something extraordinary occurs. These men, many in shorts and running on high-tech prosthetics because they are missing one or both legs, begin to redefine who they are.
"They start to see themselves as athletes again," Mr. Hoddle says. "These guys, who have lost so much, start to think, 'Yeah, I can do this.' "
It's a special moment. And it's one that he has been part of for nearly a decade.
Since 2004, Hoddle, who once served as the head track coach for the United States Paralympic Team, has helped soldiers wounded while fighting in the Middle East get their lives back by teaching them how to run again. He also teaches them how to cope and dream again.
A couple of times a year Hoddle visits either Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C., or the Lakeshore Foundation in Homewood, Ala., to work with wounded vets. He figures he has spent time with more than 1,000 of them, helping them get their lives back.
"I do it because my grandfather was a soldier in World War II, and he is my hero," says Hoddle, a middle school history teacher in Bellevue, Wash. "It's my way of honoring him. Plus, I love the military big time."
On the last weekend of February, Hoddle, who lives in Olympia, Wash., flew to the Lakeshore Foundation to work with 24 wounded vets. The ambitions of these soldiers, coupled with increased government funding and huge improvements in prosthetics, have made sports a more prominent part of rehabilitation than in previous wars.
"Bryan gives a lot of them hope and helps them to see something they might not be able to see in themselves," says Mandy Goff, associate director of athletics and recreation at the Lakeshore Foundation. "We always ask him back because he has a high level of knowledge of track and field. He does a great job."
The whole premise of Lakeshore is that sports can make a big difference. "We love to see lives changed through sports," Ms. Goff says. "So does Bryan."
On his recent visit to Lakeshore, Hoddle told one soldier who lost his leg in a bomb blast in Afghanistan that he had the talent to make the US Paralympic Team.
"He was so shocked," Hoddle says. "He said, 'My life is about to change.' "
Steve Martin was blown out of a Humvee when it hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan Sept. 24, 2008, and incurred severe injuries to both legs. Another soldier, who lost his left foot in the blast, shot and killed several Taliban insurgents, saving Mr. Martin's life.
In the next 14 months, Martin underwent 14 surgeries in an attempt to save his legs. Finally, realizing he'd never be able to walk, he underwent a double amputation below the knees.
"It was actually a very easy decision for me," Martin says. "I didn't want to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong. I wish all this wouldn't have happened. But it wasn't a hard decision. I've moved on."
Martin was a speedy sprinter in high school, running the 400 meters event in 47 seconds. Later he played wide receiver on a junior college football team for a year before enlisting in the Army.
A year and a half after his amputation, Martin ran his first marathon. He's planning on running a half marathon with Hoddle, who has flown to Martin's home in Arizona several times to help him with his running form.
The two send texts back and forth, with Martin often wanting tips on training. "The guy really knows his stuff," Martin says. "He knows how to coach. He's been a huge help."
Eric Keller of Ohio can't remember a specific explosion that left him with a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq with the Army's 1st Infantry Division in 2004. But 17 months after coming home, he had a stroke at age 23 on Oct. 3, 2007, hospitalizing him and temporarily paralyzing his right leg.
"Before my stroke I was doing a couple hundred push-ups and sit-ups a day," Mr. Keller says. "And I was running."
Then suddenly he couldn't do anything. He was angry, Keller says. "But I decided I was going to run again."
Within a week, Keller was 98 percent recovered, and he soon began running. At Lakeshore, he met Hoddle.
"Bryan was a big help," Keller says. "We've stayed in contact. I'll call him, and we'll talk. We've become friends."
Danielle Green's reminders of war aren't just memories. There's also the prosthetic that has replaced her missing left arm, the one she used to call "Bread and Butter" when she played basketball at the University of Notre Dame.
"Yeah, I lost my Bread and Butter," she says as she rubs her prosthetic. "But I'm here. I look at it that way. That I'm here. That puts it all in perspective."
Ms. Green's left arm was blown off by a rocket while she was providing security on a rooftop of a police station in Baghdad. She's gone from athlete to soldier and now, she hopes, back to athlete again. Green came to Olympia to talk with Hoddle.
"It's about giving them hope," Hoddle says.
Hoddle started coaching Paralympic athletes in 1996, when he met Tony Volpentest, who was born without hands and feet. At the time, Mr. Volpentest was the Paralympic champion in the 100 and 200 meters. That eventually helped open the door for Hoddle to become the US Paralympics head track coach.
Hoddle made his first trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in September 2004, going there directly from the summer Paralympics in Athens. He wasn't prepared for what he saw as he walked into a room to meet wounded vets.
"I see a soldier who has a head injury stacking wood blocks," Hoddle says. "Another guy sitting next to him doesn't have an arm and a leg. I remember stepping out of the room and thinking 'What am I getting myself into?' It overwhelmed me to see all of these guys and their injuries. Roadside bombs are brutal."
On that first trip, Hoddle made an important discovery about the role he could play. He wasn't just a coach, showing a former soldier how to run on a prosthetic. He was also a counselor, a friend listening to a life story.
"That's the one thing I've learned on my trips," Hoddle says. "I'm there to listen."
At the Lakeshore Foundation, which emphasizes the beneficial effect of physical activity on those with disabilities, Hoddle first meets the wounded vets he will be working with at a dinner.
"I spend most of my time just talking with guys," he says. "I'll get my food, and guys will come around. And by the end of my time there, I'll know almost everyone's story."
One of the first things Hoddle asks the veterans is whether they were involved in sports before they were injured. Typically, they had been. Hoddle then dangles the idea of competing in track, whether it's running or throwing the shot put or discus.
At Walter Reed, he met a soldier who had lost a leg and was a huge baseball fan. Hoddle gave him a Seattle Mariners baseball cap signed by one of the coaches.
"Before his injury, this guy could do a 360 [spin and] cradle dunk a basketball," Hoddle says. "He was a tremendous athlete. I watched him run, and I thought he could be a Paralympic gold medalist. He was special."
Hoddle told the soldier that, giving him a dream. "If we learned anything from Vietnam, it's to give them something to shoot for," Hoddle says. "It's giving them a goal."
More than 43,000 US veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been wounded in combat. "These guys have been in hell," Hoddle says. "What I really want to do is give them hope and give them direction. It's important that they know that they're still the same person they were."
Helping victims of war
UniversalGiving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations worldwide. Projects are vetted by Universal Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause.
Here are two groups selected by UniversalGiving that aid victims of war. One also retrains US combat veterans to help:
? Team Rubicon provides quick-response mobile teams that travel to disaster zones. Project: Support the Clay Hunt Fellowship Program, which helps US combat veterans transition into disaster relief work.
? International Medical Corps is working to restore infrastructure in Libya following a civil war. Projects: Help Libya rebuild after war. Or bring emergency food and health care to people affected by persistent violence in Congo, as intense clashes between rebel troops and government forces continue to threaten the health of millions.
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Thursday, April 4, 2013
Avoid impulsive acts by imagining future benefits
Apr. 3, 2013 ? Why is it so hard for some people to resist the least little temptation, while others seem to possess incredible patience, passing up immediate gratification for a greater long-term good?
The answer, suggests a new brain imaging study from Washington University in St. Louis, lies in how effective people are at feeling good right now about all the future benefits that may come from passing up a smaller immediate reward. Researchers found that activity in two regions of the brain distinguished impulsive and patient people.
?Activity in one part of the brain, the anterior prefrontal cortex , seems to show whether you?re getting pleasure from thinking about the future reward you are about to receive,? explains study co-author Todd Braver, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences. ?People can relate to this idea that when you know something good is coming, just that waiting can feel pleasurable.?
The study, which was published in the first issue of the Journal of Neuroscience this year, was designed to examine what happens in the brain as people wait for a reward, especially whether people characterized as ?impulsive? would show different brain responses than those considered ?patient.?
The lead author of the study was Koji Jimura, then a postdoctoral researcher in Braver?s Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Laboratory, and now a research associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Japan.
Unlike previous research on delayed gratification that had people choose between hypothetical rewards of money over long delays (e.g, $500 now or $1,000 a year from now), this Washington University study presented their participants with real rewards of squirts of juice that they chose to receive either immediately or after a delay of up to a minute.
?It?s kind of funny because we treated the people in our study like researchers that work with animals do, and we actually squirted juice into their mouths,? Braver says.
Results show that a brain region called the ventral striatum (VS) ramped up its activity in impulsive people as they got closer and closer to receiving their delayed reward. The VS activity of patient people, on the other hand, stayed more constant.
The researchers interpreted these different brain responses to mean that impulsive people initially did not find the prospect of waiting for a reward very appealing. However, as they approached the time they?d receive that reward, they became more excited and their VS reflected that excitement.
?This gradual increase may reflect impatience or excessive anticipation of the upcoming reward in impulsive individuals,? says Jimura. This was unlike patient people, who were likely content with waiting for the reward from the start, as no changes in VS activity were observed for them.
The most novel finding of the study concerned the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC). This is the part of the brain that helps you think about the future. Here, we found that the patient people heightened activity in the aPFC when they first started waiting for they reward, which then decreased as the time to receive the reward approached. Impulsive people didn?t show this brain activity pattern.
?The aPFC appears to allow you to create a mental simulation of the future. It helps you consider what it?ll be like getting the future reward. In this way, you can get access to the utility and satisfaction in the present,? says Braver.
By thinking about the future reward, patient people were able to gain what economists call ?anticipatory utility.? While their reward was far away in time, they were giddy with anticipation in the present. Conversely, impulsive people weren?t thinking beyond the present and so did not feel pleasure when they were told they had to wait. Their excitement built only as they got closer to receiving their reward.
Overall this study suggests that people may be impulsive because they do not or cannot imagine the future, so they prefer rewards right away. This research could be useful for assessing the effects of clinical treatments for impulsivity problems, which can lead to issues such as problem gambling and substance abuse disorders. A similar brain imaging approach as was used in the Washington University study could allow clinicians to track the effects of an intervention on changes not only in impulsive behavior but also changes in patients? brain responses.
?One possible treatment approach could be to enhance mental functions in aPFC, a brain region well-known to be associated with cognitive control,? says Jimura. By increasing cognitive control, impulsive patients could learn to reject their immediate impulses.
Impulsivity occurs not only in a clinical setting but also every day in our own lives. Applying his research to his personal life, Braver says, ?When I?m successful at achieving long-term goals it?s from explicitly trying to activate that goal and imagining each decision as helping me achieve it, to keep me on track.? Perhaps adopting this strategy of focusing on the long-term could help us move past present distractions and move toward our future goals.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis. The original article was written by Melanie Bauer.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- K. Jimura, M. S. Chushak, T. S. Braver. Impulsivity and Self-Control during Intertemporal Decision Making Linked to the Neural Dynamics of Reward Value Representation. Journal of Neuroscience, 2013; 33 (1): 344 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0919-12.2013
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/pS3TfVvi2hs/130403200020.htm
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NASA flies radar south on wide-ranging expedition
Apr. 4, 2013 ? A versatile NASA airborne imaging radar system is showcasing its broad scientific prowess for studying our home planet during a month-long expedition over the Americas.
A NASA C-20A piloted aircraft carrying the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is wrapping up studies over the U.S. Gulf Coast, Arizona, and Central and South America. The plane left NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., on March 7. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., built and manages UAVSAR.
The campaign is addressing a broad range of science questions, from the dynamics of Earth's crust and glaciers to the carbon cycle and the lives of ancient Peruvian civilizations. Flights are being conducted over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.
UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometry that sends microwave energy pulses from the sensor on the aircraft to the ground. This technique can detect and measure subtle changes in Earth's surface, such as those caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and glacier movements. The radar's L-band microwaves can penetrate clouds and the tops of forests, making it valuable for studying cloud-covered tropical environments and mapping flooded ecosystems.
"This campaign highlights UAVSAR's versatility for Earth studies," said Naiara Pinto, UAVSAR science coordinator at JPL. "In many cases, study sites are being used by multiple investigators. For example, some volcanic sites also have glaciers. The studies also help U.S. researchers establish and broaden scientific collaborations with Latin America."
Volcano scientists will compare UAVSAR's images taken during this campaign with new imagery collected in 2014 to measure very subtle sub-centimeter changes in Earth's surface associated with the movement of magma deep beneath active volcanoes. These results are expected to improve models used to understand and potentially mitigate volcanic hazards. The volcanoes being studied are in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru.
UAVSAR glacier data from South America's Andes Mountains will be combined with ground measurements and airborne lidar data to determine how much these glaciers move during summer and from year to year. The U.S. Geological Survey is leading the collaborative project with the Chilean government to understand glacier processes within the context of climate change impacts from human activities. The glaciers being imaged by UAVSAR provide freshwater for the residents of Santiago and water for regional agriculture.
This year's study sites include coastal mangroves in Central and South America. "Much of Earth's population lives along coasts, and its livelihood and well-being depend on services provided by marine ecosystems," said JPL's Marc Simard, one of the campaign's many principal investigators. "These regions are among the most fragile on Earth. It is critical to understand how the interactions of human activities and climate change may impact the sustainability of these ecosystems."
Another principal investigator, Kyle McDonald, jointly of JPL and the City University of New York Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology Center (CREST) Institute, is leading four data collections that will support the mapping of wetlands across the greater Amazon River basin, including Pacaya-Samiria National Park in Peru. "Pacaya-Samiria contains large expanses of flooded palm swamps," McDonald said. "These ecosystems are potential major sources of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas. UAVSAR will help us better understand processes involved with the exchange of methane between Earth's land and atmosphere, and with the contribution of these unique ecosystems to Earth's climate."
UAVSAR also is supporting agricultural studies of vineyards in Chile's La Serena region. The efforts will help scientists at the Universidad de La Serena's Terra Pacific Group better understand the value of soil moisture data in grape and wine production. Another study site in Argentina will be overflown by both UAVSAR and the Argentine sensor SARAT as part of a collaboration between research scientist Thomas Jackson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Argentina's Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales. These studies assist scientists preparing for the launch of NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite in 2014.
The radar also is imaging the northern coastal Peruvian desert, where the Moche culture lived almost 2,000 years ago. Researchers are using UAVSAR's vegetation and cloud penetrating capabilities to search for unrecorded archaeological features in an attempt to preserve sensitive sites from encroaching civilization.
JPL researcher Sassan Saatchi is using UAVSAR to study the structure, biomass and diversity of tropical cloud forests in the Peruvian Andes and Manu National Park, continuing his work there during the past decade. The data will be used to evaluate how much carbon the forests contain and assess their vulnerability to human and natural disturbances.
UAVSAR also is monitoring seasonal land subsidence and uplift in groundwater basins in Arizona's Cochise County for the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Other subsidence studies in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta are aimed at better understanding what causes Gulf Coast subsidence and predicting future subsidence rates. The data can help agencies better manage the protection of infrastructure, including levees in the New Orleans area.
For more information on UAVSAR, visit: http://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov . For more on NASA's Airborne Science program, visit: http://airbornescience.nasa.gov .
The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/UmEuBty14tI/130404105924.htm
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Researchers wrangle microscopic particles with sonic lasso
When you think about it, scientists and cowboys have a lot in common. Both are frontiersmen of a sort, both wear clothes that make them easy to identify and now they both count lassos among their essential tools. Researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of Dundee have wrangled small particles and cells by using a sonic (or ultrasonic) vortex. The whirl of sound waves allowed the teams to catch, move and orient microscopic particles, all without actually contacting them physically, which makes the solution ideal for handling delicate material. Professor Bruce Drinkwater from Bristol even suggested it could one day be used to assemble human tissue (custom assembled livers, anyone?). The sonic lasso is quite a bit more complex and less portable than its rope-based cousin, involving a circular device with 16 sources of acoustic waves. If you're looking for more technical details you'll find a link to the recently published paper titled, Dexterous manipulation of microparticles using Bessel-function acoustic pressure fields at the source.
Via: Phys.org
Source: University of Bristol
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/sonic-lasso/
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Samsung partners with Best Buy to bring Experience Shops to 1,400 stores
Not content with a gazillion Galaxy phone sales, Samsung is hoping to continue winning the smartphone war in one of the biggest battlegrounds any manufacturer can face: retail. The Korean OEM has partnered with Best Buy to bring its Experience Shops to the big box retailer nationwide -- 1,400 of them by early summer (with 900 launching this month), to be precise. So what does Sammy hope to achieve? In addition to the standard shopping setup, the company wants to give customers the ability to actually use its products and get a first-hand feel of what they have to offer: phones, accessories, Smart TVs and tablets will be on display. Each shop will be manned by Samsung-employed consultants as well as specially trained Best Buy employees. This appears to be Samsung's way of offering a thorough retail experience without actually launching its very own stores across the country. It'll be interesting to see if it will be a more effective retail alternative to what companies like Apple and Microsoft have adopted, but Samsung sure seems quite optimistic about its chances. Find the press release below for the full experience.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/04/samsung-best-buy/
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Yellowhead Mining Submits Environmental Assessment Certificate ...
As quoted in the press release:
The EAO has 30 days to complete the screening of the Application to ensure it contains the information outlined in the Application Information Requirements.??Once the Application is accepted, the EAO has 180 days to complete its review. The Application then goes to the provincial and federal ministers for a decision.
Click here to read the Yellowhead Mining Inc. (TSX:YMI,OTCQX:YHMGF) press release
Click here to see the Yellowhead Mining Inc. (TSX:YMI,OTCQX:YHMGF) profile.
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