Lately there’s been a lot of fuss about Social Media. There are conferences dedicated to it (such as SMX Social) and different aspects of if (such as the upcoming Blog World Expo). There are blogs dedicated to it such as Pete Cashmore’s Mashable, and there are portions of forums dedicated it to it as well like on Cre8asite Forums. All of these talk about Social Media and their individual parts, however it’s rare that any of these actually talk about incorporating Social Media as part of an overall strategy for online marketing.
To look as Social Media as a boost for you SEO, quite frankly, is foolish. Social Media touches so many other aspects of an online marketing strategy. It isn’t just about gaining links to raise your PR or even your ranking in the results on Google, Yahoo, Live or Ask. If that is the sole reason to use social media, you might want to start thinking about finding another “quick fix”. Soon enough, the search engines will probably take a hard look at the effect of social media and will start devaluing the power links from places like Digg have (there are some reports that this has already begun to happen).
So if the search engines start devaluing the links from these big well known social media hubs like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon, what is and SEO to do. Well if you are just and “SEO” and not an online marketer, it’s off to make sure that website is fully optimized. If you are an online marketer, you probably have already seen the value beyond SEO for Social Media.
Beyond the mass amount of links that a successful social media campaign can provide there are several other areas that Social Media touches within an internet marketing strategy.
PPC – When Social Media is strategically combined with PPC it can effectively reduce the cost of some campaigns. If you are advertising in the content network, utilizing social media can help you cut back on some of those costs. It’s a matter of watching your analytics closely in this case, as Social Media is not a replacement for PPC, it can certainly help to reduce some of the costs.
Branding – Social Media is a great place to work with branding measures. If your company is new, and you need to get the word out in a cheap, efficient way, social media is the place to start. Talking to your audience, participating in a niche community, speaking to people who are already interesting in the type of product or service your offer all are a great way to get the conversation started.
The list above demonstrates just a few ways that shows Social Media isn’t just a stand alone strategy. It needs to be worked into an full online marketing plan if you want to have the successful results you are hoping for. Understanding how every aspect interrelates is just as important with social media as it is with working PPC and SEO together. Having an experienced online marketer who understands all aspects is going to be key to your strategy, the last thing you want to do is leave this in the hands of an intern. So take the time and not only plan, but budget for social media, make it a part of the strategy all on its own, not just a part of SEO.
This entry was posted in Social Media and tagged marketing plan, Online Marketing, online plans, Social Media, strategies, strategy by Liana "Li" Evans. Bookmark the permalink.


I have a child of a MDI container and I don't want the user to be able to close it, or maximize, or minimize it. But I do want the user to be able to resize it and drag it around and will. So I want to get rid of the close, minimize and maximize buttons but retain the blue strip.
Where "this" is some form, you may find yourself with a control lacking a blue strip to move the form around! The solution to this problem is to enter some text in the text field.
And that seems to be how it's done. Of course there are other ways override the message handler or using PInvoke (yes I tried Google before working this out for myself) but you really don't need to.
You can always add a delegate to listen for the FormClosing event.


All About Federal Student Loans

Federal student financings are a wonderful method for pupils to give financial support for their education and learning. Federal student lendings are typically considered to be secure and also safe mode of monetary assistance. These government finances have lots of advantages and is available at both undergraduate and also college students. Several countries, consisting of Australia, USA, UK, India as well as various other countries supplying the car loans government student monetary help or welfare programs for pupils in colleges or college.

Federal student lendings normally have lower interest rates, numerous mortgage choices with adaptable settlement choices and also the loan help to students looking for financing for education and learning. For a lot of situations, a federal student loan can be a really affordable for college. There are sites like government student money that details all facets of government student lendings and consequently serve for students to get all the helpful info they require student lendings or monetary assistance.

Types of Federal Student Loans

There are 2 types of student financings, which are government financings as well as personal student mortgages. A few of these lendings are for moms and dads of students for their monetary requirements. Each of these types of fundings are targeted at various individuals as well as relies on numerous variables, such as area or courses taken. The types of government student lendings are –

Federal Stafford

These finances are approved by the federal government or any type of third-party instructional company. These loans are provided on the student’s monetary need and could be provided by a bank or credit union or any of the government workplaces.

Federal PLUS

These loans are given to parents whose kids are performing their training programs at their corresponding colleges or universities. The loan, the extra you give on the basis of credit rating or ranking and also the expense of attendance. The Federal PLUS Loan has a low interest rate as well as very easy payment alternatives have payment as well as usually begins within 60 to 90 days after dispensation of the loan.

Federal Perkins

These fundings are usually approved to pupils with high financial demand and also gives intense and also deserving pupils. These car loans have extremely low interest rate repayment options with great as well as simple. An economic advisor can inform you if you qualify for a government Perkins loan or otherwise you could look for a Federal Perkins Loan. Anybody who is not in case of default in settlement of government Perkins car loans, as you may damage his/ her credit score seriously. Federal Perkins Loan is figured out by variables such as time of application, the level of funding and also the financing level of the institution/ college.

Rates of government SL Passion

The rate of interest on federal financings are lower compared with personal student fundings are rate of interest is generally dealt with. Rate of interest of various kinds of federal home mortgage, like Stafford or Perkins credit is different. Such as rates of interest Federal Perkins Credit is smaller than other kinds of car loans, but it is tough to obtain. They have lots of advantages such as easy settlement choices and a longer holiday redemption and also settlement in installments that can be subsidized or unsubsidized.

Advantages of Federal SL Federal student fundings have numerous advantages over personal mortgages or otherwise. Government home mortgage could be combined with other types of fundings to one loan that would certainly be a single interest rate and also the student will pay the solitary combined loan. It minimizes the troubles of taking care of various finances and the repayment of various types of fundings. The federal loan consolidation is very valuable for students and also parents with most of the finances. Several of the benefits and also benefits of federal student fundings is offered below.

They have reduced rate of interest and taken care of.

Might be delayed in some cases and also can also be forgiven under particular situations.

Insurance coverage strategies are totally free.

They have very easy regular monthly payment choices and also have strategies to give or aid.

Federal student financings generally have lower passion prices, many mortgage alternatives with versatile settlement choices and also the loan help to students seeking funding for education. There are internet sites like federal student finance that provides all facets of federal student finances and as a result are beneficial for trainees to obtain all the valuable info they require student loans or monetary help.

There are two kinds of student financings, which are government lendings as well as personal student mortgages. The interest price on federal lendings are lower compared to exclusive student loans are interest price is usually dealt with. Government home mortgage can be consolidated with various other types of fundings to one loan that would be a single passion rate as well as the student will certainly pay the single consolidated loan and refinancing is easy using AAACreditGuide.com.

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I am Callie Givens, and this is my website. This page is about me although you will find complete info regarding the site in the Colophon. I am in my late twenties, and live in the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, northern England, in the little market town of Sowerby Bridge.


GMP+ Feed Safety Standards Certification with Kiwa: prove the quality of your animal feed processes, reassure your customers and have positive impact on people & animals.
Relevant to any organization involved in the animal feed chain.
Whatever your position in the feed chain, if you want to show that the animal feed you produce or work with is high quality and free from toxins, GMP+ Feed Safety Standards certification can help your organization.
The Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) scheme combines a set of requirements covering production facilities, storage, transport, staff, procedures, and documentation connected to feed manufacturing. With GMP+ certification, you can guarantee the safety and sustainability of your feed, strengthening relationships with your customers and creating opportunities for new business.
GMP+ ensures the innocuousness of fodder throughout the feed chain by taking a systematic approach to reduce risk and improve quality. This helps your organization comply with legislation and meet international standards, opening up the global market.
GMP+ is suitable for any organization in the feed chain, including those involved in production, transport and storage. It sets out the requirements that guarantee the safety and sustainability of feed, enabling you to identify risks and manage the quality of the feed.
GMP+ incorporates HACCP principles and certification requires you to adhere to ISO 9001 quality management standards.
With the increasing demand for clean feed that keeps the food chain safe and healthy, certified quality helps give you a license to operate in the international feed sector. More than 13,000 companies in more than 70 countries use GMP+ to guarantee the feed they produce, transport and store complies with internationally and industry agreed standards.
Certification involves an on-site audit, which is repeated annually to ensure you continue to comply with the requirements. By partnering with Kiwa for your certification, you can ensure your quality management systems are optimized, improve your performance and meet your customers’ needs to boost your business.
Boost your profits – by helping you improve processes and meet customers’ needs, GMP+ can help boost your business.
Improve processes – with GMP+, you can identify areas for improvement in your management processes, ensuring they are internationally accepted.
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Demonstrate your commitment to sustainability – GMP+ helps you focus on your impacts on people and the environment, not just the bottom line.
Improve competitiveness – GMP+ is a requirement for doing business in the European feed market and is internationally accepted.
Identify risks and reduce impacts – GMP+ helps you identify and manage key business risks, ensuring your feed business benefits animals and people.
Streamline your standards – GMP+ covers ISO 9001 quality management and HACCP, saving you time and money.


Day 226 of 365

I hope you're genuinely happy about being engaged, and not thinking too yourself that this is not what you want but you're too scared to say anything, like I was. I hope he doesn't tell you after only a week that he loves you, because he doesn't mean it. I hope you're prepared for extreme jealousy and controlling behavior with the excuse of "I just love you too much" I hope when he dedicates cheesy love songs to you, it makes you smile...because smiling won't be something you do a lot anymore. I hope you don't have to use your savings to pay off his debts and his bills, but if you do, he'll be nice to you for a while. I hope your family and friends never overhear how badly he speaks to you especially when you put so much effort into hiding it from them. I hope if you ever temporarily split up, you block his number and don't respond to any of his messages because if you do, you won't be able to hear him threaten to kill himself if you don't go and see him and sort things out. I hope you never have to get back with him to prevent him posting nasty things about you over the internet. I hope you're fully prepared to argue and fall out with your family and friends trying to defend him, because other people that are not under his influence have the ability to see his true colors. I hope you'll have the strength to say no when he persuades you to move in with him after a short time of being together, and if you don't, I hope you have time to decorate the bedroom; and surround yourself with things that remind you of your life before because you'll spend a lot of your time in there reminiscing and grieving the life you once had. I hope you never loose contact with your parents just because he doesn't like you seeing them and makes it difficult for you. I hope you don't start to become anxious and paranoid that you're being watched. I hope when you go to visit your old home to go and see your dog, he doesn't sit in the car outside the house and time how long it takes you to get the dog on a lead and back to the car. I hope you don't have any male friends that you love dearly, because you'll have no option but to cut ties with them to keep them safe. I hope he takes responsibility for his anger and aggression and doesn't blame it on you or his past. I hope he doesn't threaten to hurt your loved ones if you leave him. I hope he doesn't scare you with stories of what he's done to people in the past and what he's capable of. I hope he doesn't make you cover up because he doesn't approve of the 'revealing' clothes you are wearing. I hope he never makes nasty and degrading comments about your appearance. I hope your friends don't notice the marks on your body and start to get suspicious, because when they start asking questions, you have to distance yourself to protect them from harm, which will then result in you being even lonelier than you already are. I hope he has respect for your body and doesn't pressure you to do anything in the bedroom that you're not comfortable with. I hope that when you do finally pluck up the courage to try and leave him for the first time, he'll let you leave and not keep you in the house against your will, and I hope you get to go running back home into your mum’s arms and have her tell you that everything’s going to be okay. I hope he doesn't threaten suicide and say how it would be all your fault as way of making sure you stay with him. I hope that when he writes a lovely Facebook status about you, or runs you a nice bubble bath, or buys you a bunch of flowers, or a bottle of wine and some chocolates from the shop, it's because he appreciates you and wants to treat you nicely, and not just because he was violent the night before. I hope he doesn't tell you over and over and over again that you're crazy for thinking there’s something wrong with how he's treating you, because you're right, there is! I hope that you never believe him when he consistently tells you it’s your fault he acted the way he did and that it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn't stepped out of line. I hope you don't anxiously wait up for him to come home so you can try and predict what mood he's going to be in. I hope being with him, doesn't affect your job attendance and performance. I hope you don't have to keep your phone on you at all times to secretly text him back before he gets angry. I hope he never goes to strangle you in anger and pass it off as play-fighting. I hope he never threatens you with the knife he keeps in his bedside draw. I hope after he's hurt you, he doesn't turn on the waterworks and come up with excuses for his actions so you'll forgive him. I hope you never have to miss out on your loved ones birthdays and family events because he won't allow you to attend. I hope you never try to take your own life because it's the only way you think you can escape, and I hope when you get to hospital, you wait to speak to somebody but of course, he'll tell you to discharge yourself and then proceed to tell you that it was selfish of you and you should apologize. I hope he never stops you taking contraception, and I hope he never hides it or bins it, so that you'll get pregnant and have to stay with him. I hope he never drags you back to the car when you try and run away from him. I hope when you go to pack your things, he doesn't drag you into the house and force you to get undressed. I hope he then doesn't force you into having sex. I hope you don't notice that evil look in his eyes as he's grabbing you and pulling you back up the stairs you've just frantically run down to escape. I hope you have the strength in you to fight back and get away. I hope you aren't thinking that this is the moment your life is going to end but I hope that if it is, you have left things on good terms with your friends and family and told them how much you love them once last time. I then hope you realize that it's pointless to defy him and your chances of surviving will only decrease if you anger him any further and so I hope you do as he says and stop fighting. I hope you don't lie there pretending to be asleep and spending hours deciding whether you're going to risk sneaking out. I hope that when the morning comes, he doesn't try to convince you that you're wrong for being upset with him when actually all it is, is you finally seeing things for how they really are, ...you're seeing him for what he really is. I hope that when you finally do pick up what's left of your shattered self-confidence, pride and dignity off of the floor, he lets you leave. I hope he lets you collect all of your valuables, and sentimental items in the 10 mins you have to escape. My most favorite thing was my teddy, I used to cuddle it to sleep sometimes when I was sad and when I missed my dogs, I must have left it behind, but I hope you take yours with you. But in all honestly, my hopes and dreams for you mean nothing because even though I hope that you aren't going through what I went through, I know you will be at some point if you're not already. I still hope and pray that he may have miraculously changed for your sake, but I know and you know, he won’t, and I hope you know that you deserve so much better. I hope you know that I once wore that ring on your left hand. Of course he wasn't a monster at first, and that's why it's really hard to leave, because you want the person you fell in love with, and sometimes he even pretended to be that nice person for a little while, but it's an illusion, an act. it's not real, what's written above is the real him, and I know if you're anything like me, you won't believe anyone but him at first... but for me, it was almost too late, and I don't want you to go through that. I don't have a clue who you are or how you're doing but I hope and pray that you're okay. I hope you get out of this unharmed, and if you ever do, you'll realize how good life is when you have the freedom to be yourself and be with your family and friends. I hope you know that life does go on after him, it doesn't have to end. I'm happier now than I ever was in that relationship.

I'll forever be thinking of you and hoping that you're alright. If you ever need my help, I’m just a message away.


Upper Colorado River Leaders Wade Into Arizona Dispute
By Bret Jaspers
Published: Monday, April 16, 2018 - 6:32pm
Updated: Wednesday, May 2, 2018 - 8:16am
Jasper-debrief-041718.mp3
Bret Jaspers/KJZZ
A Central Arizona Project canal in Scottsdale. The CAP brings water from the Colorado River to central Arizona.
States in the Upper Colorado River Basin are telling downstream neighbor Arizona to get its act together.
Commissioners for the Upper Colorado River sent a letter late last week to Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke. In the letter, they specifically criticized a water management strategy of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD).
Here’s what the upper basin doesn’t like: the CAWCD aims to keep Lake Mead at a so-called “sweet spot.” If the level of the lake stays in that range, then under current agreements, more water comes down from Lake Powell.
The Commissioners’ letter expressed deep concern that CAWCD “intends to disregard the basin’s dire situation at the expense of Lake Powell and all other basin states.” Don Ostler, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said bluntly in an interview. “That kind of manipulation is unacceptable to the Upper Basin.”
The letter echoed an argument long made by Buschatzke.
“It raises important questions about actions taken by Central Arizona Water Conservation District that threaten to blow up the collaborative effort that we have been enjoying on the Colorado River for the last 20 years,” he said.
A statement from the CAWCD, in part, said, “We are surprised and disappointed to have received a letter from the Upper Colorado River Commission questioning CAWCD’s intentions in leaving water in Lake Mead. We have been reaching out to our partners in the Upper Basin, hoping to clarify apparent misunderstandings, and to facilitate in-person, collaborative discussions aimed at finding solutions that will benefit the communities and environment served by this mighty river.”
CAWCD also reminded people of the water the agency has conserved on behalf of Lake Mead, “at a significant cost to CAP water users in terms of water and water rates.” CAWCD runs the Central Arizona Project canal system, which delivers water to the Phoenix and Tuscon areas.
The Upper Colorado River Commissioners also urged Arizona to get its internal house in order so all seven states and Mexico can plan for long-term drought.
“The seven Colorado River Basin states and Mexico are connected at the hip in this river,” Ostler said. “And what is going on with regards to one state, its failure to make progress, is having an effect on all seven states.”
Buschatzke and Gov. Doug Ducey are trying to get big-ticket water legislation through the state Capitol this year. But time is running out on the legislative session.
This story is part of Elemental: Covering Sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between Cronkite News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky Mountain PBS and PBS SoCal.


Instead of looking at the root cause of 'depression' people tend to be satisfied with symptom relief. What they don't realize is that it always comes with a price; chemical lobotomy in the case of Paxil/Seroxat..good luck with THAT!
Of course and especially teenagers shouldn't take those antidepressants either, their fragile brain is still developing so why sabotage that? Because your psychiatrist think it's a good idea?


There are bigger and more famous towns along the Appalachian Trail (AT), but the folks in Duncannon, PA, happily view their designation as an Appalachian Trail Community as a way to protect and preserve their part of the AT.
In the coming years, the Duncannon Appalachian Trail Community Advisory Committee hopes that our slogan "Promoting, Protecting and Preserving Our Outdoor Recreational Resources for Future Generations" will carry over into all changes being considered for the Duncannon Borough, including improved river access and beautification of the town.
We support the efforts of the Trail Clubs maintaining the AT in the Greater Duncannon Area, including MCM (Mountain Club of Maryland), SATC (Susquehanna Appalachian Trail Club), CVATC (Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club), and YHC (York Hiking Club).
DATC plans monthly meetings, an annual festival and fun events, such as the hike they've planned for Saturday, July 20, 2013.
It's a scavenger hunt on the Cornerstone Christian Trails, and it's a hike for the whole family (five and up, please).
This leisurely paced 1.14 mile hike wanders through woods and fields on easy terrain. The goal is to find as many things as you can to check off your scavenger sheet.
Take a hike! With the good folks in Duncannon, Pennsylvania.
Published Sep 17, 2014. The trail to Hawk Rock, near Duncannon, PA, and the iconic rock itself were defaced by graffiti ... until if was removed by DATC volunteers.


https://spectator.org/american-nationalism-is-a-good-thing/ By Rabbi Aryeh Spero Over the last month, President Trump has been assailed by shrieking critics within the U.S.
Does Obama dislike Israel because of Netanyahu? Or is there something deeper?


It was supposed to become a white elephant, but it is a very different animal now. We are talking about Sepang International Circuit (SIC) which, in human terms, has disowned a once-favourite son and embraced its stepchild — and has never looked in better shape.
Sceptics who said it could not survive without the glitzy circus of Formula One, should have been there last Sunday. The presence of over 103,000 ecstatic fans did not just confirm a regular pulse, it points to a long and healthy future. And they even had local boy, Hafizh Syarhin, to cheer on as he made a heroic dash through the field. It was an historic first on home soil.
The prophets of doom could also drop by any day of the year and see not just a happening motorsport hub for the entire region, but an all-purpose venue for entertainment, concerts, running, cycling, obstacle events and even weddings. And all because of the money freed up by letting F1 go after 19 continuous but cash-haemorrhaging years of playing host.
Masterminding the transformation is SIC CEO Datuk Razlan Razali, who first had to escape the clutches of F1. He explains: “The last extension of the F1 contract was over three years (2016, 2017 and 2018), but the government agreed with us that we should try to reduce it by one year, finishing a year earlier.
“We managed to do this without a penalty, which would have been the cost of two Grands Prix, basically. And if we had staged the race this year, it would have been close to US$60 million, not forgetting that before we entered into a fresh agreement of three years in 2015, we were paying close to US$80 million a year.
“We took a portion of the budget provided for us by the government for 2018 and put it into talent development. We told them that it was important for us to keep on developing the industry and also to commit to the rehabilitation of SIC.
But when Razlan invited Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to switch on the new circuit lights back in August, he was asked what might have been an awkward, if not entirely serious, question.
“So, when are we going to bring back F1?” the PM quipped.
Of course, F1 was Mahathir’s idea in the first place and a hankering for nostalgia was understandable. But Razlan told him: “No, Tun, we are not [bringing it back] because the decision [to cancel] was purely SIC’s — it wasn’t the previous government’s. It’s the economics that don’t make sense now. The number of spectators, especially locals, has dropped significantly.
The argument bore the kind of financial prudence the new government had been preaching and Mahathir was convinced. F1 had been his “baby” and, in the early years, was a great success with huge crowds and a genuine buzz around Kuala Lumpur. Car manufacturers showed off new models, the vroom of a Ferrari rattled the windows of Bangsar bistros; there were shopping carnivals, cultural festivals and the beautiful people went full throttle.
But in the mid-2000s the novelty wore off and from an event that had put Malaysia on the map, it became a loss leader in need of a GPS — going nowhere but still gobbling up most of the budget.
It was in 2008, two weeks before the GP and only a few painful months after the global financial crisis that he arrived in the hot seat. He is not strapped in and doesn’t wear a helmet, but there have been times when he might have called out the safety car.
Singapore had muscled in to steal Malaysia’s overalls with a night race, SIC lost the Japan Super GT race and the sport itself was losing its captivating glitter. Advances in telemetry meant races were now controlled more and more from the garage, where a dominant troika of constructors made it all too predictable. Constantly tweaking the rules has not helped either.
Fernando Alonso spoke for many when he said: “It’s not fun anymore and the action of the track is very poor.” So poor that it has driven him out of the sport. Start times, too, were altered for Europe’s TV audience and Malaysia couldn’t even get it finished after storm delays in 2009.
But it was 2014 when Malaysia suffered what Razlan calls, “a double whammy”.
Having Moto GP as the new flagship event has certainly been different. Once seen as the poor relation that attracted a low of 15,000 fans, the bikes have grown as the cars have withered. Fans, and particularly Malaysian fans, can identify more with the riders. Unlike their corporatised F1 counterparts, these guys fall off their machines and get back on to joust again in hi-octane, knee-scraping combat.


During the first two weeks of September KBC in partnership with First Baptist Church of Belton, TX had built five new cabins at the camp Tropos bringing the total number of new cabins to ten. Each new cabin will accommodate four beds allowing to increase the number of campers by five more young people every shift. This was made possible because of the financial support of many FBC Members and KBC friends. We are very grateful for the sacrifice and effort of each person involved and for the prayers lifted on our behalf.
Camp Tropos allows KBC to organize early summer camps. The camps include English Study Camps, Youth Sports Camps, Teen Outreach Camps. family camps for various churches, etc. All the camps conducted by KBC have the underling purpose of sharing the good news with unbelievers. Over five hundred children are able to participate in the camps throughout a summer season. The plan in 2015 is to introduce an Apologetics Discipleship camp.


The Republic of Bulgaria covers a territory of 110 993 square kilometres. The average altitude of the country is 470 metres above sea level.
The Stara Planina Mountain occupies central position and serves as a natural dividing line from the west to the east. It is a 750 km long mountain range stretching from the Vrushka Chuka Pass to Cape Emine and is part of the Alpine-Himalayan mountain range. It reaches the Black Sea to the east and turns to the north along the Bulgarian-Yugoslavian border.
The Black Sea is the natural eastern border of Bulgaria and its coastline is 378 km long. There are clearly cut bays, the biggest two being those of Varna and Bourgas. About 25% of the coastline are covered with sand and hosts our seaside resorts.
The southern part of Bulgaria is mainly mountainous. The highest mountain is Rila with Mt. Moussala being the highest peak on the Balkan Peninsula (2925 m). The second highest and the mountain of most alpine character in Bulgaria is Pirin with its highest Mt. Vihren (2914 m), followed by the Rhodope Mountains and Vitosha.
The plains and the lowlands in the country cover large areas to the north and the south of the Stara Planina Mountain. The Danube Plain is the biggest, bordering Yugoslavia to the west, the Dobroudzha region and the Black Sea to the east, the river Danube to the north and the Balkan Mountains to the south. Its relief is noted for the numerous plateaus, hills and river valleys cutting through the mountain.
The Rose Valley is located to the north between Stara Planina and the long and low mountain chain of Sredna Gora Mountain. Besides the widespread crops, the valley is typical for the oil-yielding rose grown there. It is one of the patents of the unique climate of Bulgaria. Another is the world-famous Bulgarian yogourt, made with the help of the yeast-type “bacillus Bulgaricum” (Lactobacterium Bulgaricum Grigoroff).
The Thracian Lowland is the second biggest in the country, starting from the mountains that surround Sofia to the west and reaching the Black Sea to the east. It stretches between the Sredna Gora to the north and Rila, the Rhodope Mountains and Strandzha to the south. Crops typical for the southern longitudes are grown there and sometimes two harvests are gathered.


Can't say I'm surprised by this. The Phantom Pain will be the first entry in the Metal Gear series to have a fully featured open world, and Kojima did want his new engine to have the capability to handle extreme nonlinear environments.

Personally, I would be ecstatic for an open world Silent Hill. Being able to explore every nook and cranny of the town has, from what I can recall, been a pretty big desire from a good portion of the Silent Hill community.

Nice. I liked that part about Downpour, where you had the option to explore the town rather than follow a linear storyline all the way through. Hopefully in the new game they'll be able to expand on that more.

The problem is, open world in Silent Hill doesn't mean a lot. Being able to explore every building could be detrimental to the experience, and even if you could, what would be put in there? Downpour sort of tried this and it didn't really do much for the gameplay. It's also significantly more expensive to develop such a game because you need a stupid amount of assets, unless you repeat them like crazy just like Downpour (which was one of the most annoying things about the game.)

All I am expecting is a linear-ish story, perhaps with a bit of choice in what order you complete the levels, and a few doors opened in the town for you to enter and explore. Silent Hill is not an RPG and open world just isn't that good for it.

As long as it's not a huge map and "post-campaign" isn't in this open-world then things should be fine. Just imagine the player finishing the story, getting the ending and then said player is still free to explore the game after the credits... It just doesn't work for SH.

I like open world things when done well, but not everything needs to be open world. I didn't think MGS needed to go open world and I don't think SH needs to either. Some types of games benefit from a linear design, despite how some people have begun treating linearity as a negative.

That being said, I loved Downpour and one of the things I loved the most about it was exploring the town and doing the side quests. If they do something like that but add more to it, then I'd be very fine with that.

Plus, I really don't want to have to hear people saying "Skyrim Hill" if it's an open world game. You know they will.

Semi-open world would be better, IMO. Open world either means a lack of focus, which would be detrimental to the story, or crappy mission based gameplay. I don't want either of those things. Take the Dark Souls / Super Metroid approach, have a critical path with some side areas to explore and maybe the potential for sequence breaking. Or what also might work is a plot where you have to gather up a set amount of mcguffins, which allows you to takes areas in any order.

I like open world things when done well, but not everything needs to be open world. I didn't think MGS needed to go open world and I don't think SH needs to either. Some types of games benefit from a linear design, despite how some people have begun treating linearity as a negative.

That being said, I loved Downpour and one of the things I loved the most about it was exploring the town and doing the side quests. If they do something like that but add more to it, then I'd be very fine with that.

Plus, I really don't want to have to hear people saying "Skyrim Hill" if it's an open world game. You know they will.

I don't think MGS is open world in the way that most people are thinking it will be, from what it sounds like the world is open, but you're there doing missions. I don't think Kojima would make Silent Hill totally open world, but giving room for exploration would be good.

This link has been posted before. Just FYI this website might not be a reliable source of info, considering nobody else has reported this and there has been no other Q & A with Kojima outside of his appearences at the Sony and MGSV gala with Keighley and one Konami Q&A with submissions from their Facebook page.

I agree with Tillerman that the game should ony be semi-open. I liked the structure in Downpour but the side-quests felt too obvious and gamey. If there are side-quests in Silent Hills they shouldn't be labelled as such and there should be more incentive to compete them than a trophy.

Desiring 'Open World' for Silent Hill, just means that sections and areas aren't sectioned off with completely different loading areas that makes traversal seamless.

Games like GTA and Red Dead are more correctly called 'Open World Sandboxes' where you can pretty much do anything and keep playing.

MGSV is following the Peace Walker model in that you go places from a hub only with very large maps and there will be side missions there.

What FOX will basically provide is the experience Downpour was going for, where you can seamlessly go between areas.

SH will obviously not need to be as big as GTA or Afghanistan. It'll be a much smaller town. And even with an 'Open World' or rather an open-level design with side-missions like Downpour had, areas can still be artificially sectioned off to keep a linear flow going.

Being open-world doesn't necessarily mean the game will offer what GTA of MGSV do. It's just an idea that the town is an open level for more seamless traversal and exploration, where perhaps you can seamlessly go indoors and outdoors with minimal to no-loading.

We still have absolutely no idea what Kojima has in mind though, so most likely only the outdoors part is 'open' when when entering indoors or going to 'other places' these will be separate sections and not part of one seamless map.

A large open SH game sounds nice. Linear gameplay is annoying. It shouldn't be too different from any other SH game other than being able to walk all over the game world. I remember how stuck I got on the first SH walking all over town. That would really suck in a GTA size SH. Bring it on! lol

Personally, I'm sick of open world stuff. I don't want freedom anymore. I've had my fill of it, really. I'm not even being facetious. I prefer linearity--it results in a more focused experience with less empty, shallow filler.

Take me from point A to point B, like in older SH games. Sure, there can be nooks and crannies to explore for extra medkits or an Easter egg or two, but don't waste time on ghost side stories or fetch quests. I feel they add little to the game and divert attention away from the main storyline.

Personally, I'm sick of open world stuff. I don't want freedom anymore. I've had my fill of it, really. I'm not even being facetious. I prefer linearity--it results in a more focused experience with less empty, shallow filler.

Take me from point A to point B, like in older SH games. Sure, there can be nooks and crannies to explore for extra medkits or an Easter egg or two, but don't waste time on ghost side stories or fetch quests. I feel they add little to the game and divert attention away from the main storyline.

I'm in total agreement here. Linearity is a storytelling tool as much as a gameplay tool. I wouldn't mind having a different ending if the player explored more, a la Silent Hill 1, but the "central hub with spokes" (the Room) kind of kills the narrative flow for me.

I would love to be able to just explore silent hill freely, but it would need to be done very carefully. I think I would go just a bit more open than sh2 while still stopping you from spoiling the surprises. The problem I have with open sandbox games is I can't resist free roaming and experimenting so much that by the time I get back to story mode I have the game figured out and nothing surprises me.

We wouldn't have GTA-like elements; I would hope we wouldn't have (human) pedestrians roaming the street or cars to drive. Don't waste processing power on physics sandbox stuff....

What open world elements could possibly added? Day/night cycles could work if done right, as long as Silent Hill is never blue again (I hate when they do that). There could be a great dread factor of trying to get where you're going before the sun goes down and it gets pitch black like certain outdoor scenes in sh2.

Even collect-em-all puzzles like the picture scraps in PT could be a non-intrusive bonus for gamers without negatively affecting the game. I think it was very neatly integrated and apparently isn't necessary to beat the game. Maybe little hidden secrets around the town could give extra back story or just added creeps.

The town itself could be freely explorable with map leading to your objectives like sh2 (a pattern is emerging) and as story dictates, they can just have something change (you find a key to a locked area, a road becomes a cliff). So basically, like sh2, but more freedom to do "urban exploration" if you really want to. If done right, the open world would be so scary players will want to go to their objectives to get the hell out of it.

And with Silent Hill, the designers have the advantage of being able to suddenly change the environment however they please just to mess with or nudge the player in a certain direction.

I think I've just talked myself into it. Just please don't show me all the good stuff right away. Make me work for it.


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A look at the leading health information technologies hospitals told HIMSS Analytics they plan to buy in the next 12 months.
Seven years since the HITECH Act's meaningful use incentives turbocharged hospitals' information technology purchasing plans, providers are still investing big money in their IT infrastructure. Having moved well beyond basic electronic health record systems, they're now looking for efficiencies in communication, data storage and security, analytics, asset tracking, bed management and more.
We consulted with HIMSS Analytics to spotlight technologies that have the greatest predicted buying activity for U.S. hospitals in the coming year.
"These are the technologies that are showing the most potential for growth for 2017," said Matt Schuchardt, director of market intelligence solutions sales at HIMSS Analytics.
While the market has cooled off a bit since earlier in the decade, and "there are going to be fewer buyers than there were around HITECH, 300 or so hospitals is still more than 5 percent of the market, and represents a significant number of buyers in the space for a single year."
Here, then, are the technologies most on the radar for 5,461 hospitals across the U.S. in 2017. (Number of predicted installs in parentheses.)
Transfusion Management System (375) and Specimen Collection Management System (398)
"These are really for advanced laboratory systems – managing how things are transfused, whether blood or even breast milk, and then labeling these things from a specimen management perspective: Making sure that thing are being barcoded when the phlebotomist takes it, and those barcodes are being tracked throughout the hospital, making sure you're testing the right specimens and running the right tests," said Schuchardt.
While other innovations such as laboratory outreach services – making sure people are actually getting their lab tests – and genomics are also seeing growth (more below), "overall adoption of that is significantly lower than things that make your regular lab system more efficient, like managing transfusions and managing specimen collection better," he said.
Infection Surveillance System (405)
"This is about what it sounds," said Schuchardt. "Working on reducing hospital-acquired infections, managing and monitoring that better. It's part of the CMS (quality) scores and they're doing a better job monitoring that, making sure the taxpayers aren't paying for HAIs. Monitoring that will continue to be important on an ongoing basis, as there are more and more people hired for that role."
Anesthesia Information Management System (237)
"If you think about where risk is, hospitals really focus around surgery," said Schuchardt. "Making sure they're monitoring anesthesia is really important: It's the most dangerous part of any hospital stay, other than staph infections. Hospitals are looking at that, and you can see the current adoption rate is under 2,000, but we expect that to grow pretty substantially."
Medical Necessity Checking Content (424)
"We think there's still a lot of growth there. It's really about making sure the hospital is going to get paid for the procedure prior to doing it. I expect growth there to continue. It still surprises me that a lot of hospitals do these procedures with the hope of getting paid as a strategy."
Laboratory - Outreach Services (298)
"This is making sure people are getting the tests that they need," said Schuchardt. "You see the see the TV ads for biologics all the time that may cause liver damage: Are these people coming back in and having their levels checked on their liver while they're taking them? This technology manages the process – making sure people are being notified of the results, notified for follow-up work, and things like that."
Laboratory - Molecular Diagnostics (113)
This is HIMSS Analytics' term for precision medicine. "We see some growth there," said Schuchardt. Specifically, he sees more health systems moving to a "hub-and-spoke model" for genomics capabilities, with larger medical centers with the technology and the personnel serving smaller hospitals. "There are large health systems that are adopting precision medicine, and there are specific ones, like oncology, where almost every cancer hospital has it in place," he said. "But I suspect we will see precision medicine installed at hub hospitals, so the actual blood work and tests may be done at the academic medical center that's the center of the healthcare system you go to – but probably never will be done at your local hospital."
Radiology 3D Image/Display (348)
"As imaging capabilities increase, being able to see those images gets more and more complicated," said Schuchardt. These days, after all, a three-dimensional mammogram is can be as large as a terabyte or more. "As these images get more discrete, the volume and size of those images grows pretty rapidly," he said. "Being able to manipulate a giant 3D model like that requires special monitors, special software to make sense of it."
Cardiology 3D Image/Display (178)
Similar to the radiology display but focused on cardiology, this are "will have less adoption, always, than radiology, as there are a number of hospitals that just don't offer cardiology services," he said. "But there's a similar growth curve with a cap on it, in that not everyone is going to be offering cardiology."
Nurse Communication System (420)
"Nurses are, for most hospitals, the majority of employees," said Schuchardt. Making sure they're in the right places and doing the right things and taking care of patients at the right moment is going to continue to be important as nurses will continue to be the primary caregivers in the hospital."
Physician Assessment Software Tool (140)
"This one is really interesting," said Schuchardt. "It's about monitoring the effectiveness of your docs. One of the things they track now is hospital-acquired infections, suture-site infections, bloodline infections and things like that. Monitoring whether particular doctors have higher instances of that or not, making sure you're watching those sorts of things, leads to some better outcomes. I know there's probably some resistance from physicians in terms of being watched, but what gets measured gets done, and measuring the outcomes for individual physicians, preliminary analysis shows, has a very positive effect on reducing hospital-acquires infections. There are still fewer than 2,000 hospitals using this kind of technology."
Asset Tracking/Management (342)
"This is really an IT function: Tracking the certificates on your Windows machines, is everything up-to-date, are all your updates in place, are you tracking the depreciation of your servers and things like that? Certainly, as you get more tablets and things like that, tracking where they are and that they're secure is going to be important."
Bed Management (296)
Business intelligence toosl focused on bed usage are increasingly important, said Schuchardt. "The value of beds, the types of patients who are in those beds, are you getting the most of them, what's your census rate like, what's your average number of patients to a bed. We suspect that, like all other BI and analytics tools, we'll continue to see growth." (+)
Source: http://linkis.com/healthcareitnews.com/EE35q


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Alyn Cosker - Traps the Drum Wonder's successor
Actors dream of playing King Lear and Hamlet. A great soprano will likely have had Verdi and Puccini’s heroines in her sights from an early age and a jazz drummer, well, jazz musicians generally want to find their own voices but for a drummer one of the ultimate challenges has to be filling Buddy Rich’s shoes.
The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s resident drum stool occupant, Alyn Cosker certainly thinks so. Cosker, who will be the main focus of attention in the orchestra’s Buddy Rich tribute, Traps, the Drum Wonder, this weekend has been in awe of Rich since his father showed him a video of Rich guesting with Frank Sinatra, just after Cosker took up the drums at the age of thirteen.
He has listened to Rich’s recordings avidly, studied videos and DVDs of him in action and found both solace and healthy doses of reality in going back to his favourites. So when the SNJO’s director, Tommy Smith, brought up the idea of a Rich tribute, Cosker was over the moon. Then he remembered those listening sessions when he’d thought he was making good progress, only to be brought back down to earth with a bump, and almost had a panic attack.
“I can remember my dad putting on that Sinatra video for the first time and just not being able to believe what I was seeing and hearing,” says Cosker of Rich whose career began at the tender age of eighteen months as Traps, the Drum Wonder and included spells with Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey in the big band era as well as gigs and recordings with fellow jazz icons Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Art Tatum.
“I’d been listening to a lot of Mitch Mitchell, Roger Taylor from Queen and things like Rush, which were all quite dynamic from the drumming point of view. But here was Buddy, playing West Side Story, which we’ll be playing on the tribute concerts, and he just had such style and gracefulness. He had incredible technique and he was a real showman, of course, but what knocked me out immediately were his breadth of dynamics – he could play with the subtlest of touches as well as making all these bombastic explosions – and his immense musicality. When he played a solo, sure, there was lots going on but through it all you could hear the melody and the form of the tune he was soloing on. It just seemed to flow out of him.”
The drums weren’t Cosker’s first instrument. His dad, Jim, played piano and encouraged Alyn to follow suit, but after beginning piano lessons at the age of six, he found too many extra-musical attractions until his older brother, also Jim, took up the drums. At school in Ayrshire there was a band called the Dream Teddies, whose drummer, Ross Cooney, Cosker remembers as “the coolest guy on the planet.” Here was a role model and as soon as Jim senior realised that Alyn was serious about emulating his local hero, drum lessons were arranged.
Just how seriously Alyn applied himself can be judged by the offer of a scholarship from Berklee College of Music he received following auditions in Glasgow when he’d been playing drums for just three years. He didn’t actually take up the chance to go to America’s most prestigious music performance school – he felt he was too young at the time - and even after re-auditioning later, he decided that he would do just as well on Strathclyde University’s applied music course.
“By that time I’d had a lot of good advice from people like my original drum tutor, Chris Killen, who was a professional player, and I was already getting good experience with different bands,” he says. “So I never really felt that I missed out by not going to Berklee, although a lot of people from Scotland have obviously now benefited from going there.”
Cosker’s passage from Strathclyde student to full-time professional was almost seamless. A player who adds as much to a band by listening to his colleagues as he does through his alert and finely tuned playing, he quickly became established on the Scottish jazz scene and his versatility found him work as a session musician and as the regular drummer with popular folk-rock band Wolfstone. Hue & Cry, Isobel Campbell, of Belle & Sebastian, Martin Pellow, of Wet Wet Wet, singer-songwriter Amy McDonald and former Young Scottish Traditional Musician of the Year Emily Smith are just some of Cosker’s other clients from the rock, pop and folk worlds.
It’s the range of his work with SNJO since joining in 2004, and memorable gigs playing the ultra-demanding rhythm patterns of Venezuelan pianist Leo Blanco at Aberdeen Jazz Festival in 2007 and inspiring Norwegian master double bassist Arild Andersen at Edinburgh Jazz Festival last August, however, that make Cosker a natural for the Buddy Rich role. Already having a reputation for solid preparation – his command of his parts for SNJO’s Stan Kenton tribute has been remarked upon often – he has been boning up on Rich at every opportunity since Tommy Smith told him to put the gigs in his diary.
“Tommy and I discussed the programme early on, so I’ve had quite a long time to go back and listen to all the CDs involved and think about how to approach it,” he says. “But you learn so much from watching someone like Buddy and there are things he does, little things like the way he holds his sticks differently on certain passages, things that I might not normally do but I’m going to bring them in. The idea is to give a good snapshot of the period, so I’ll change the way I set up my kit and incorporate cymbal patterns that were popular at the time but are maybe not used so much now. I’m never going to be Buddy Rich but it’s fascinating trying to get into his character.”
So does stopping short at becoming Buddy Rich mean that he doesn’t get to harangue the band on the bus after the gigs, as numerous tapes and YouTube clips will attest was Rich’s wont?
“I think they’d just laugh at me if I tried that,” says Cosker, who follows up the Rich tribute with an album and tour in May by his own trio. “Buddy was pretty fierce, although he could also be a charmer and he had a great sense of humour – you can hear that in his playing – and he could laugh at himself. There’s a great clip of him being interviewed by Michael Parkinson and being shown a picture of himself as Traps, the Drum Wonder and he says that it was so long ago that it could have been a different person but at least he was holding his sticks right.”
From The Herald, March


Property owners with delinquent taxes can avoid further late penalties if they pay by January 2, 2004, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas said Wednesday.
Three months after the Oct. 1, 2003 due date, there were 86,961 Cook County parcels of land with a total of $182.5 million in tax delinquencies as of Wednesday.
The next round of late penalties normally would take effect Thursday. But with the New Year's Day holiday, taxpayers may avoid further penalties if they submit payments by mail with a Friday U.S. postmark or in person at the Treasurer's Office at 118 N. Clark St., in Chicago.
Three rounds of reminder notices have been sent to those with delinquencies since the first billing. The balance on any Property Index Number (or PIN) is accessible at the "payment status" section at www.cookcountytreasurer.com. Taxpayers also may check their balance at the 24-hour automated phone system at 312.443.5100.
"Ultimately, the law requires printing legal notices in newspapers and sending certified-mail notices to taxpayers. The law also requires offering unpaid delinquencies at the upcoming tax sale," Pappas said. "Taxpayers who have delayed paying should submit payments now to avoid more costs, publications, the tax sale, and simply to protect their properties."
Pappas noted that some taxpayers have delinquencies due to mortgage company errors. If a homeowner pays taxes through escrow and the lender failed to pay or paid on the wrong PIN, the taxpayer must call and/or write the lender to get it to resolve the situation. Under state and federal laws, the lender is responsible for any late penalties if it caused the delay. Taxpayers need to check, because this can happen after a refinancing, Pappas said. For that reason, our Web site also offers information designed to help borrowers work effectively with their lenders.


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Home M. H. Ross Papers L2001-05_037_06 1
Coal Miners - lifestyles, operators, 1972, 1976-1977, undated
L2001-05_037_06 1
Title Coal Miners - lifestyles, operators, 1972, 1976-1977, undated
Identifier L2001-05_037_06
Date of original 1972; 1976; 1977
Creator Ross, M. H.
Scope note The M. H. Ross Papers contain information pertaining to labor, politics, social issues of the twentieth century, coal mining and its resulting lifestyle, as well as photographs and audio materials. The collection is made up of five different accessions; L2001-05, which is contained in boxes one through 104, L2002-09 in boxes 106 through 120, L2006-16 in boxes 105 and 120, L2001-01 in boxes 120-121, and L2012-20 in boxes 122-125. The campaign materials consist of items from the 1940 and 1948 political campaigns in which Ross participated. These items include campaign cards, posters, speech transcripts, news clippings, rally materials, letters to voters, and fliers. Organizing and arbitration materials covers labor organizing events from "Operation Dixie" in Georgia, the furniture workers in North Carolina, and the Mine-Mill workers in the Western United States. Organizing materials include fliers, correspondence, news articles, radio transcripts, and some related photos. Arbitration files consist of agreements, decisions, and agreement booklets. The social and political research files cover a wide time period (1930's to the late 1970's/early 1980's). The topics include mainly the Ku Klux Klan, racism, Communism, Red Scare, red baiting, United States history, and literature. These files consist mostly of news and journal articles. Ross interacted with coal miners while doing work for the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) and while working at the Fairmont Clinic in West Virginia. Included in these related files are books, news articles, journals, UMWA reports, and coal miner oral histories conducted by Ross. Tying in to all of the activities Ross participated in during his life were his research and manuscript files. He wrote numerous newspaper and journal articles on history and labor. Later, as he worked for the UMWA and at the Fairmont Clinic, he wrote more in-depth articles about coal miners, their lifestyle, and medical problems they faced (while the Southern Labor Archives has many of Ross's coal mining and lifestyle articles, it does not have any of his medical articles). Along with these articles are the research files Ross collected to write them, which consist of notes, books, and newspaper and journal articles. In additional to his professional career, Ross was adamant about documenting his and his wife's family history in the oral history format. Of particular interest are the recordings of his interviews with his wife's family - they were workers, musicians, and singers of labor and folk songs. Finally, in this collection are a number of photographs and slides, which include images of organizing, coal mining (from the late 19th through 20th centuries), and Appalachia. Of note is a small photo album from the 1930s which contains images from the Summer School for Workers, and more labor organizing. A few audio items are available as well, such as Ross political speeches and an oral history in which Ross was interviewed by his daughter, Jane Ross Davis in 1986. All photographic and audio-visual materials are at the end of their respective series.
Biographical or historical note Myron Howard "Mike" Ross was born November 9, 1919 in New York City. He dropped out of school when he was seventeen and moved to Texas, where he worked on a farm. From 1936 until 1939, Ross worked in a bakery in North Carolina. In the summer of 1938, he attended the Southern School for Workers in Asheville, North Carolina. During the fall of 1938, Ross would attend the first Southern Conference on Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. He would attend this conference again in 1940 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From 1939 to 1940, Ross worked for the United Mine Workers Non-Partisan League in North Carolina, working under John L. Lewis. He was hired as a union organizer by the United Mine Workers of America, and sent to Saltville, Virginia and Rockwood, Tennessee. In 1940, Ross ran for a seat on city council on the People's Platform in Charlotte, North Carolina. During this time, he also married Anne "Buddie" West of Kennesaw, Georgia. From 1941 until 1945, Ross served as an infantryman for the United States Army. He sustained injuries near the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944. From 1945 until 1949, Ross worked for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, then part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), as a union organizer. He was sent to Macon, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia and to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he worked with the United Furniture Workers Union. He began handling arbitration for the unions. In 1948, Ross ran for United States Congress on the Progressive Party ticket in North Carolina. He also served as the secretary for the North Carolina Progressive Party. Ross attended the University of North Carolina law school from 1949 to 1952. He graduated with honors but was denied the bar on the grounds of "character." From 1952 until 1955, he worked for the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers as a union organizer, first in New Mexico (potash mines) and then in Arizona (copper mines). From 1955 to 1957, Ross attended the Columbia University School of Public Health. He worked for the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund from 1957 to 1958, where he represented the union in expenditure of health care for mining workers. By 1958, Ross began plans for what would become the Fairmont Clinic, a prepaid group practice in Fairmont, West Virginia, which had the mission of providing high quality medical care for miners and their families. From 1958 until 1978, Ross served as administrator of the Fairmont Clinic. As a result of this work, Ross began researching coal mining, especially coal mining lifestyle, heritage and history of coal mining and disasters. He would interview over one hundred miners (coal miners). Eventually, Ross began writing a manuscript about the history of coal mining. Working for the Rural Practice Program of the University of North Carolina from 1980 until 1987, Ross taught in the medical school. M. H. Ross died on January 31, 1987 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Subject Coal miners
Coal mines and mining--Safety measures
Coal mine accidents
Strikes and lockouts--Coal mining
Coal mines and mining--Law and legislation
Subject (names) Congress of Industrial Organizations (U.S.)
International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers
Ross, M. H.
United Mine Workers of America
Lewis, John L. (John Llewellyn), 1880-1969
Location depicted North Carolina
Series SERIES IV: Coal and Appalachia
Collection M. H. Ross Papers
Curatorial Area Southern Labor Archives
Finding aid https://archivesspace.library.gsu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1
Rights information These materials, gathered by the donor from many sources, have been digitized for preservation purposes and are being made available on the Internet for scholarship, educational, and personal use only. These materials document a thematic assemblage of manuscript, photographic, and printed research materials, and neither the donor nor Georgia State University claims ownership of the intellectual property rights for printed materials not created by the donor or Georgia State University. If you are a copyright holder of any part of the content and believe that that content should not be made publicly available, please contact Special Collections and Archives.
Citation L2001-05_037_06, M. H. Ross papers, Southern Labor Archives. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University.
Source format files (document groupings)
Funding note Digitization of the M. H. Ross Papers was funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Title L2001-05_037_06 1
Coal Miners - lifestyles, operators, 1972, 1976-1977,...
L2001-05_037_06 10


Guy, I just finished the book Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. I’m not going to lie it was amazing. I’ve never had so much positivity spilled over me in my life and I can’t reccomend it enough.
I listened to the audio book tohrough the scribed app. Which I totally reccomend. I loved it so much that I went right out to buy the hard copy of this book.
This book has inspired me to think about the lies I believe about myself. The lies that Anxiety shouts at me on a daily basis.
This is the main reason why my blog has been let go a bit. It’s hard to be inspired to create any kind of content. Especially when you’re convinced that no one cares about what you’re creating.
One way to work around it. I care. That needs to be enough. I didn’t start blogging for every one else, I did it for me as an attempt to overcome my anxieties.
Ok, this one goes way back. For as long as I can rember I’d convince my self that I’m annoying everyone. In high school if I didn’t get to the lunch table first I wouldn’t go sit down. I would literally see the same group of kids that always sat with me, and I’d go to the empty one next to it. It didn’t matter how many times they’d make me move to join them. It never really clicked that they were my friends and I wasn’t annoying them.
One way to work around it: I remind myself that positive comments are lovely and who knows maybe they’ve had a rough day or someone online has been particularly mean maybe they need something nice said. It’s ok to reach out to friends if your bored, I mean they can’t possibly find you too annoying if you’ve been friends since first grade.
I hate “can’t” because can’t is the biggest self fufilling statement ever. There is no reason I can’t be a successful blogger unless I convince myself and quit trying. I mean I’ve proved that I can write better then my slightly dyslexic teenage self who was convinced she would never be a writer. No I don’t have 1 million readers. That’s alright because I only need one. If I can cheer up entertain or help one person then my blog has done its job.
One thing that helped me: One of my favorite quotes that I’ve been clinging to since my teenage MySpace times is “tell me I can’t, I’ll show you I can.” Can’t is the biggest lie I’ve ever believed. I try to change “I can’t” to “I’m struggling with/to.” I find it helps to find and isolate the problem then I can sort it out and do what ever I tried and failed to do in the first place.
Those are just some of the “lies” that I believe and and how I remind myself they don’t have to be. Is there anything you believed as a whole truth when really it’s not? Also please share this with a friend who you’ll think will like it. Now that I’ve finished Girl Wash Your Face I went out a bought Girl, Stop Apologizing. I’m about 4 chapters in and I’m feeling so inspired to do great things.


Introducing your Great Ocean Road Tour experience

The Great Ocean Road tour is a journey along one of the world’s most spectacular coastal drives! Twist and the wind along the spectacular Great Ocean Road enjoying awesome coastal photo opportunities. Along the way stop to see cuddly koalas in the wild and an abundance of other Australian wildlife. Witness the magnificent surf beaches. Enjoy a guided walk amongst the ancient rainforest. Then arrive at the 12 Apostles to witness the marvel of these gigantic limestone stacks located in Port Campbell National Park.

Great Ocean Road Trip – Loyd, 2019“Would like to compliment on the great service received on my GreatOcean Rd day trip“read more

“From the moment of pick up till drop off. Craig was an excellent host and guide. Very informative and entertaining. Wouldn’t hesitate to do another trip on any future trips to Melbourne.”

Full Itinerary

Travel with us along the Great Ocean Road spanning 192 kilometres from Torquay to Port Campbell along Victoria’s southern coastline. From Melbourne, we travel towards Torquay where the famous surf brand Rip Curl was founded before passing through the world famous Bells Beach. We stop for a morning tea break at a picturesqueread more

location before making our way to our first highlight, the Memorial Arch. Listed as a National Heritage, the war memorial archway is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. Stop for a photo in front of the Great Ocean Road sign before we begin winding our way along one of the greatest coastal roads in the world.

Great Ocean Road Tour | Koalas

Be guided through a Koala habitat and be awed at the wonders of nature. Spot and count the wild koalas amongst eucalyptus trees. And if you’re lucky enough, you may even see some Kangaroos. Listen to the songs of lovely birds native to Australia such as Kookaburras, King Parrots, Yellow Robins, Fairy-Wrens, and much more.

Great Ocean Road Tour | Coastal Villages

We will visit the quaint coastal town of Apollo Bay in southwestern Victoria. Located on the east side of Cape Otway, Apollo Bay is a natural resort town where you can explore its rich rainforests filled with waterfalls, streams, lush vegetation, and exotic wildlife. We will stop here for lunch at your own expense. Enjoy a cafe dining experience or a picnic down the beach the choice is yours.

Great Ocean Road Tour | Cape Otway National Park

Explore the Great Otway National Park with your tour guide and learn about this incredible ancient rainforest. Witness with towering centuries-old eucalyptus trees, thousand year old lush ferns, magnificent wetlands, a variety of native birds, and many different species of wild animals.

Great Ocean Road Tour | The 12 Apostles

Be mesmerized by the famous 12 Apostles and soak in the splendour of the rock formations’ allure and magnificence. Let the towering cliffs dwarf you as the raging waters of the surf pound on the rocks below. Witness the changing colours of the sky and sea as the sun slowly sinks behind the giant limestones. You can also walk down the Gibson Steps and snap some photos of marvellous ocean vistas — lush beaches and riotous surf. The steps are a few minutes away from the 12 Apostles. You can see the Gog and Magog from the viewing platform of Gibson Steps An incredible highlight of your Great Ocean Road Tour.

Great Ocean Road Tour | Loch Ard Gorge

Get lost in the natural beauty of Loch Ard Gorge while learning from our tour guide some history of the area’s famous shipwrecks. There had been over 200 shipwrecks between Port Fairy and Cape Otway. Hear the harrowing story of two young survivors of the Loch Ard Ship Wreck in 1878. Marvel at the formations of Island Archway, Razorback and the Saly and Pepper Shakers.

Great Ocean Road Tour | Gibsons Beach

Walk along the beach beside these awe-inspiring limestone formations and be dwarfed by 80m high cliffs. The southern ocean swell can be quite rough so conditions permitting this beach will be accessible.

Great Ocean Road Tour | Return to Melbourne

As we head back to Melbourne, we will have a stop in the town of Colac for dinner at your own expense.

In this Great Ocean Road Tour included are all entry fees. Our friendly, hospitable, and informative tour guide will point you some interesting sites and facts and will entertain you with stories and tales. We have a modern air-conditioned bus with experienced driver to pick you up and drop you off at your inner city hotel.

Bring a sense of adventure together with your warm clothes, sunscreen, hat and sunglasses, and a pair of comfortable walking shoes. Bring your camera so you can record your adventure and experience with us in this Great Ocean Road tour.

** Please arrive 5-10 mins prior to you nominated pickup time so as not to delay or miss your tour.

Cancellations

This tour qualifies for FREE Cancellations if you book via our website. Change your travel date or cancel your tour any time up until 24hrs prior to departure and receive a full refund. Failure to board tour will result in 100% loss of ticketread more

If you book via our call centre, a 3rd party website or a travel agent your booking is subject to the following conditions:

Cancellations within 48 hours or failure to board on the day of tour, will result in 100% full fare forfeiture. Cancellation within 2 to 7 days prior to departure will result in a 50% loss of the ticket price. Date change fees apply outside of 7 days $25 per person. Read Full Terms and Conditions here

Our commitment to sustainability

At Autopia Tours, we actively promote the protection of flora and fauna on our Great Ocean Road Tour. It is our duty to ensure there is minimal disturbance to this National Heritage Listed region and the species that call it home. Cultural sensitivity and respect for the traditional owners should also be shown at all times.read more

Part of our responsibility is educating guests on minimal impact practices and the importance of ensuring the safety of wildlife and the environmental sustainability of the destinations we visit.

Learn more about EcoTourism: https://www.ecotourism.org.au/

Traditional Owners

Autopia Tours would like to begin by paying our respects to the traditional owners of this country, with specific acknowledgement to the Wurundjeri people. Please be conscious and respectful of the sensitivities of indigenous culture and the spiritual connection they have with the land at all times.

Wildlife Encounters

The natural behaviours of wildlife are to be respected and not interfered with. When viewing wildlife, people should take care to avoid rapid or sudden movements, which could frighten the animal, and should keep noise to a minimum and refrain from touching, petting or feeding all wildlife including birds. Contact with people can introduce diseases to wildlife and can cause them to become aggressive.

Wildlife should not be handled or fed, unless by certified wildlife handlers. Feeding wildlife can alter their natural foraging behaviour and can lead to disease or illness through contact with people and the introduction of foods that are harmful to their digestive system. Feeding wildlife can also cause them to become aggressive toward people.

Wildlife that appears to be in distress, injured or in danger should be reported immediately to the appropriate authority, such as your Guide/Tour Leader, a National Park Ranger or Visitor Centre Staff.

Protecting our National Parks

People should remain on designated walking tracks, behind safety barriers/fences and follow all directions given by the guide/tour leader. Venturing off these can alter fragile ecosystems and can harm wildlife shelters and native vegetation. There are other dangers to be aware of too, such as cliff edges, unstable rock formations, overhanging tree branches and slippery ground cover. Remaining on tracks ensures safe visitation for guests and the environment.

No flora or fauna should be removed from their natural setting. This includes dead wood, fallen leaves, flowers and so forth, as they form part of the ecosystem of the region and their removal could cause a disturbance.

Waste Management

All buses are fitted with waste bins. No organic waste should be disposed of onto the ground. Although organic, items such as banana peels, apple cores, bread and other food scraps, are not natural/native to the region and can introduce pest species, diseases or harm to wildlife if found and eaten. We recommend all passengers bring a water bottle with you on our Great Ocean Road Tour. Purchasing bottled water contributes large amounts of plastic into the landfill. Therefore, we ask guests to bring their own bottle, as there is access to water refill stations available on our vehicles. Please ensure you stay hydrated throughout the tour to reduce the risk of sun exposure and dehydration.

First Aid

All our guides carry a current Level 2 First Aid certificate. Please report any accident or illness to your tour guide. We recommend anyone with an existing medical condition to carry their medication with them on tour and to notify their tour guide at the beginning of the tour.

If you are a smoker! We ask you to refrain from smoking whilst in the company of other passengers and limit it to designated smoking areas. Smoking is not permitted on any of our vehicles, or in any type of accommodation including permanent campsites. We make frequent ‘comfort stops’ to allow free time for guests but cannot guaranteed smoke breaks. Please ensure you dispose of your cigarette butt responsibly and appropriately.

I booked a day trip to the great ocean road. I initially wanted to do this trip with friends over a couple of days but they couldn't make it. Im really glad I booked a tour because there is no way i would of learned so many interesting things about this region had i driven on my own. My tour guide Simon was exceptional. I look forward to coming back and booking a longer tour with Autopia Tours. Amazing!!

Mar 25, 2019

by George W on Boutique by Autopia

Brilliant Great Ocean Road Tour

No words describe the views, they were unbelievable. The guide is amazing. His knowledge of the history of the area was amazing. He pointed out all sorts of information including the flora and fauna. On the way back we stopped for a break at a rest area and spotted Koala and Kangaroo in the wild as well as some beautiful birds.

Jul 31, 2017

by Eric, UK on Boutique by Autopia

Great Ocean Road Tour

The 1 day Great Ocean road tour was fantastic! The tour guide Kurt was really great and very friendly.


Glenravel District Community and Residents Association (GDCRA) and Richmount Rural Community Association (RRCA) Portadown are two forward thinking community groups who are living proof that "celebrating difference" is definitely not boring.
This remarkable relationship started last year when Joe Garvey, Chairperson of RRCA, met Marian Maguire, Chairperson of GDCRA, during a best practice visit to discuss the development of an oil buying club which is just one of Glenravel’s many successful projects.
Impressed by the group, Joe set out to develop a cross-community project with the Ballymena Group with funding from the Community Relations Council NI. In October last year, 50 of Glenravel's “Young at Heart” group bussed it to Portadown to enjoy a day of hospitality as well as visiting sights such as Drumcree Church.
This year, with help from Gillian Forrest Liaison Officer from Supporting Communities, the group secured further funding for a second part of the programme through the Mid and East Antrim Council Good Relations Programme.
On Wednesday 2 March 2016, the good people from the Richmount Rural Community Association braved the Ballymena weather and joined the Glenravel group for a Mayor's Reception in the Braid Centre where the Mayor of Mid and East Antrim Council Billy Ashe and Cllr Paul Maguire welcomed both groups. This was followed by a tour of the Glens and a cultural event with plenty of food and laughter throughout the day.
Marian Maguire from GDCRA stated, “I would like to thank Gillian Forrest from Supporting Communities for helping us to secure the funding to make this event happen. I would also like to thank the Mid and East Antrim Council for providing the funding. Today has been so rewarding, it has been so good to work with the Portadown group who have completed so much in a short period of time and have inspired us, to build upon, and continue the good work we have started”.


CNN - Social Media/Technology
A bot can now beat poker pros at six-player Texas Hold ‘Em
Trevor Savage has played poker professionally for 15 years, winning millions of dollars in the process. While he typically takes on humans, he faced a daunting new opponent in June: a powerful bot developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook AI Research to trounce the world’s top players.
Savage and a dozen other professional poker players — all male, all playing remotely online — spent hours per day over 12 days last month, hunched over their computer screens, trying their best to beat an artificial intelligence system dubbed Pluribus. The humans were paid for their work: $50,000 divided among them, depending on how well they fared.
They were playing the most popular form of poker: no limit Texas Hold ‘Em. There were six players per game (sometimes five humans would play against Pluribus; sometimes five versions of the bot would play against one human). Over the course of 10,000 hands of poker, the AI system was a fierce competitor, winning in both types of play by a decisive margin, according to co-creator Noam Brown, a research scientist at Facebook AI Research.
Savage, who plays from his home office in West Deptford, New Jersey, didn’t do so hot, but he was impressed by Pluribus’ style.
“It was clear the bot was a fundamentally sound, winning player,” he told CNN Business. “It mixed in strategies that most of the high stakes winning players would mix in.”
The feat represents the first time AI has beaten top human players in a poker game with this many players. Brown believes Pluribus provides a benchmark for the broader question of how we can get AI to deal with imperfect information in complicated environments — whether those environments are games or in the real world. A research paper about Pluribus was published Thursday in the journal Science.
AI has been beating human players at games ranging from chess to Go to video games like Starcraft for years. Yet AI is typically attempting to dominate two-player games, and many of them (chess and Go in particular) are what are known as “complete information” games, since all the players have the same amount of information.
In poker, however, you can’t know all the information that your opponent knows, so it’s more difficult to anticipate what moves they may make — and it only gets more difficult the more players you have. These factors make poker a lot harder of a game for computers to master.
Brown created Pluribus, which is Latin for “many,” with Tuomas Sandholm, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who also founded several companies to commercialize his work in AI. The system was trained by having the AI play the game against copies of itself, without knowing how to play the game and improving as it went. The researchers previously unveiled a bot called Libratus (meaning “balanced” in Latin) in 2017 that beat four leading players at no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em, but that was in a two-player version of the game, making Pluribus’ success a clear advancement in game-playing AI.
Brown thinks the technology behind Pluribus could eventually be used for applications that can involve multiple people and hidden information: think anything from fraud detection to self-driving cars.
Michael Wellman, a professor at the University of Michigan who focuses on game theory, said Pluribus’s success against human players is a pretty big deal.
“It’s an impressive technical achievement,” he said, adding that the AI underpinning Pluribus could be used for negotiations, cyber security or military strategy.
In fact, one of Sandholm’s companies, a startup called Strategy Robot that aims to come up with government applications for his AI game-playing work, already has a contract worth as much as $10 million with the US military. Brown said Pluribus would not be used for that particular application. (He says his employer is interested in this kind of research chiefly to drive forward our understanding of AI.)
Though real-world applications for Pluribus may be a ways out, there are some poker-related tips that humans can take from it today, Brown said. For instance, it would, in some situations, bet much higher amounts of money than humans tend to — a move that pros indicated could be smart in some cases. And it went against conventional poker wisdom by determining that a strategy known as “donk betting,” where a player begins a round by betting after ending the previous round with a call, could be a good play.
“I’ve obviously gotten better, that’s for sure,” Brown said.
Businesses make sure USS Billings crew gets a warm Montana welcome
FWP to hold public information meetings on CWD in Libby


Medicaid Expansion Backers Rally At Ohio Capitol

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An estimated 2,500 demonstrators have assembled at the Ohio Statehouse to urge state lawmakers to extend Medicaid coverage under the federal health care law.

Thursday's rally follows a decision by Ohio House Republicans to strip the expansion plan from the budget.

Roughly 366,000 Ohioans would be eligible for health coverage beginning in 2014 under the expansion, and Ohio would see $13 billion from the federal government over the next seven years to pay for the newly eligible.

Online Public Information File

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Boost your Ecommerce Revenue Through Upselling and Cross Selling

Last updated on March 23, 2018

Upselling and Cross Selling is an art of sales strategy where you introduce/ recommend complementary or better products to your customer according to their need and what they are currently interested in.

These sales strategy has been used for decades by the seller’s and turns out to be an excellent strategy for not only seller’s but customers are also getting a lot of advantages.

According to Forrester research analysis, upsell and cross-sell strategies are solely responsible for an average of 10-30% of e-commerce business revenues.

Now, let’s jump into these topics and know what they actually do and are so important or your e-commerce business.

What is Upselling?

Upselling is a strategy whenever the seller encourages the customer to spend more on additional opportunities/products or services of the current consideration, for the purpose of making larger sales.

What is Cross-Selling?

Cross Selling is a strategy whenever you try to recommend your customer to spend more on additional products/services that complement their existing products (generally complements the existing product but is a different product).

Upselling Vs. Cross-Selling

You might be easily confused with these two selling strategies, however, cross-selling and upselling are different sales strategies.

Let’s get you clear about these two strategies with the help of a simple example.

Suppose, a customer is buying a laptop.

Upsell strategy: A customer selects a laptop, now the customer is presented with the options of upgrading the process of RAM and processor. Here, the seller is giving an option or more we can say trying to sell equipment to make the laptop faster and more powerful.

The basic idea here is to sell more product to the customer of the current consideration at the same time.

Cross-sell strategy: Once the customer is done with upgrading the processor and RAM, now the seller provides them with the option like air cooler for laptop or printer. Additional products are the logical accessory for many consumers. Thus, this is known as cross-selling.

Implementation through Add-on Sales & Bundle Sales.

Add-On Sales

Add-On sales are the extra little services such as

Protection plans

Tech-support subscriptions

Product training

These services give your customers an extra piece of mind. This way, the strategy crucially increase the lifetime or loyalty value of your customer.

According to the research, if you can analyze various price points, factoring in risks/cost conditions, you can increase your online profit up to 40%.

Bundle Sales

Bundle sales is a selling strategy when two or more products that complement each other can be added to the cart from the product page or checkout.

Product bundles are often sold at a discount price in order to raise the perceived value of buying multiple products at once.

Ways to get most out of Upselling and Cross Selling

First Way

To make the best use of bundled products, an individual product must be there as well.

According to the research done by Vineet Kumar of HBS, when the seller only makes the bundle products options available, revenues are reduced by 20%.

Second Way

Third Way

As a seller, you need to offer your proposals in an obvious worse option, so that they can focus on the obvious option that actually works for them.

The reason behind this is that too many options make the customers confused and often leads them towards making no decision at all.

According to the Cisco research, 78% of shoppers are taking the help of internet to surf and get valuable details on their purchased products in order to know that they are getting most out of that product.

Fourth Way

You should always add complementary products at the checkout page.

With the help of this cross-sell technique at the checkout page, you can increase your sales and revenue by up to 3%.

Benefits of Upselling and Cross Selling

Increase online revenue

In online business, Upselling and Cross Selling is the best sales strategy to increase your online revenue and profit. The secret behind these strategies is that it takes less of your effort and money to implement and still leads to high success rate.

You can also search for statistics showing Upselling and Cross Selling leading online business to the high success rate and profitability.

Increase Average Order Value

Promotion of products

Upselling and Cross Selling not only helps you to increase your online revenue and AOV but also boosts your various products to your customers as needed.

For example, when a customer buys any digital electronics such as camera, you can recommend them with memory card or camera stand or high-quality lenses because there are the basic things that go with the camera. Not only your camera is on the verge of sale but you can also promote your other products as well.

Always, promote your products(relevant) to your customer as required.

Note: Don’t Overdo it.

Increase customer loyalty

With the help of Cross Selling, you can increase the loyalty of your customer.

Let’s make it clear with an insurance example if you are selling a group health insurance to your customer and then at a very competitive rate and then cross-sell them on life insurance then it tells them that your care and recommendation for them helps to solve their multiple problems.

Why go anywhere else when you can have all the needed solutions in one place?

Develop more leads

Another advantage of Cross Selling is that it helps you to generate and increase the leads for your online business. If you maintain your customer loyalty and make them cared for, then definitely they will recommend your products to someone else as well.

This way you are not only generating leads for your business but also getting the genuine lead referrals as well.

Wrapping it up

I know, online business motives are always to focus on while increasing sales and average order value. But don’t overdo it. You also need to understand the experience of your customer’s behavior.

You must be careful while offering the array of products to your customers – right products at the right time make more sense. Do not confuse your customer with unwanted and random products.

Keeping it simple, better experience and up to your customer’s mark will automatically lead your way towards increasing sales and revenue. If you want to know more then connect with our team to guide you through your online business journey.