Research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3) are trying to introduce a new vision of innovation policy in European regions. However, the success of RIS3 policy measures is closely dependent on the capacity of regional government institutions to act as coordinators or facilitators of the interventions. The way in which institutional mechanisms govern innovation processes remains a largely unexplored area of scientific research.
 Keys to success with clinical trials |
Recruitment of patients to clinical trials can be extremely complicated, oftentimes leading to research being delayed, or even abandoned, because where there is an insufficient number of participants, accurate conclusions cannot be drawn and even promising therapies can appear to underperform. According to the FDA, only six percent of clinical trials are completed on time. The statistics leave no illusions.
The imaginary guinea pig treatment (eyeforpharma)
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The eco. cost of physical inactivity |
This report is a welcome contribution to the evidence base by demonstrating how the cost to our communities of insufficient physical activity amongst young people is borne socially and economically, not just in health terms. I also applaud the focus on inequalities, as levels of inactivity are not uniform across our society. We need to have particular focus on individuals and communities with the lowest levels of physical activity and therefore greatest need.
The doorstep sport (streetgames)
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Available Time for Changeovers |
Available time for changeovers per period (TaΔ), also called available time for (internal) setups, represents the time per a given period (e.g., day, shift, week) during which a machine, equipment, or resource can be changed over (i.e., from one product to another, prepared for a different medical procedure, cleaned for another customer). TaΔ, is foundational to every part and kanban-sizing calculations.
How to think with TaΔ ? (qualitydigest)
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Zero Injuries, Waste, and Harm |
It isn’t easy to ask several hundred line managers who have grown accustomed to doing things their own way to adopt a uniform set of practices. In 2008, when we told the people in charge of our manufacturing plants that we would be moving to a common safety approach—and that this transition would involve annual safety self-assessments, comprehensive audits.
The need for a methodical approach (strategy-business)
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Exposure to radiofrequency fields |
While changes have been made to Safety Code 6 over the past 15 years, public concern has not abated over possible health impacts of RF exposure that are within the limits of the code. In 2013, Health Canada, once again approached the Society to commission another independent expert panel. The Panel is required to communicate with the Peer Review Monitor as to how it will respond to each criticisms.
Adverse Health Effects (rsc-src)
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Is college worth it ? |
There is no simple answer to the question “Is college worth it?” Some degrees pay for themselves; others don’t. American schoolkids pondering whether to take on huge student loans are constantly told that college is the gateway to the middle class. The truth is more nuanced, as Barack Obama hinted when he said in January that “folks can make a lot more” by learning a trade “than they might with an art history degree”.
Grading the graders (economist)
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From silk road to value chain |
All companies depend on their suppliers. When handled well, the supply chain is a source of strength and even regarded as a value chain. Conversely, a poorly managed supply chain will manifest its weakest link quite easily. All too often, the fallout requires much more than cleanup on aisle three. Consider the juxtaposition of Marco Polo’s Silk Road and the horse meat scandal during 2013.
The effective process (qualitydigest)
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Grave climate future completed |
This report is likely to shape international policy on climate for years to come, and will announce that the impact of global warming is already being felt. Some 500 scientists and government officials have been gathered since Tuesday in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, to hammer out its wording. It will serve as the second of three volumes into climate change's causes, consequences and possible solutions by the expert panel.
UN document (news.yahoo)
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Major advance in synthetic biology |
An international team of scientists led by Jef Boeke, PhD, director of NYU Langone Medical Center’s Institute for Systems Genetics, has synthesized the first functional chromosome in yeast, an important step in the emerging field of synthetic biology, designing microorganisms to produce novel medicines, raw materials for food, and biofuels.
From theory to reality (syntheticyeast)
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Solar Panels'Self-Cleaning Sys. |
The energy from the sun that hits the Earth in a single hour could power the planet for an entire year, according to the US Department of Energy (DOE). One of the best places to harness that free, abundant, and environmentally friendly energy is a desert, but deserts, it turns out, come with a nemesis to solar panels: sand, decreasing their efficiency by nearly 100 percent in the middle of a dust storm.
self-cleaning tech. (bu)
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Links: pollution & genetic mutation |
Developing fetuses are extremely vulnerable to the harmful effects of environmental pollution. As the cells of major organs develop during the first trimester, genetic mutations can occur that are impossible to reverse. A new study conducted by Columbia University and Chongqing Medical University shows a clear connection between children conceived and raised near a Chinese coal-fired power plant and reduced neurological development when assessed at age two.
Clean energy alternatives (plosone)
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Your records: Are you in control ? |
Companies spend a tremendous amount of time and money managing business databases and other corporate records so they can control their activities, improve their operations and demonstrate compliance with the law. But what happens when documents are misfiled, databases damaged, or even worse, deleted? Time to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
The bottom line (iso)
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GM Science Update |
GM crops were first introduced in the US A in 1994, and are now grown in 28 countries worldwide. The acreage under GM cultivation is doubling every five years and now accounts for some 12% of global arable land. Most of the present GM crop acreage is maize, soybean, cotton and rapeseed (canola), with 81% of the global acreage of both soybean and cottonsown to GM varieties.
Experience, risk assessment & recommendations (go)
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U.S. food policies |
The United States is the most overweight and obese high-income country, but the statistics on overweight or obesity in the United States challenge conventional wisdom. American men become more obese as their income level rises whereas American women become less obese as their income level rises. Consequently, low-income women and children of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are the most overweight and obese Americans.
Fat & hungry (ift)
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SATA Express: New Std |
The advent of cheap solid state storage has been one of the most significant performance enhancements to hit the PC market in years, but the SATA standard has had a difficult time keeping pace with new product introductions. The new SATA Express standard promises to change that by combining the bandwidth of PCI-Express with a cable-based SATA-like connector that maintains backwards compatibility with the old SATA standard.
Faster performance (extremetech)
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New ozone-destroying chemicals |
Dozens of mysterious ozone-destroying chemicals may be undermining the recovery of the giant ozone hole over Antarctica, researchers have revealed. The chemicals, which are also extremely potent greenhouse gases, may be leaking from industrial plants or being used illegally, contravening the Montreal protocol which began banning the ozone destroyers in 1987.
Three new CFCs on the list (theguardian)
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Introduction to SCRUM model |
SCRUM is a product development framework developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. This is a model which is being followed by many top companies around the world and as an IT professional it is important for us to be familiar with this model in order to keep ourselves competitive in the industry. The SCRUM model recommends an inspect and adapt policy.
Incremental approach (developer)
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Windows 8.1 Update 1 |
Leaks of upcoming versions of Microsoft's software are nothing new, but it's a little surprising when the source is Microsoft itself. The Spring update to Windows 8.1, known as Update 1, was briefly available from Windows Update earlier this week. The update wasn't a free-for-all. To get Windows Update to install it, you had to create a special (undocumented, secret) registry key.
The visible vs invisible side (arstechnica)
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Siemens' latest 16-slice CT scanner |
At the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna (March 6 – 10, 2014) Siemens Healthcare will premiere its latest 16-slice CT scanner for the entry-level segment: Somatom Scope offers remarkably efficient operating costs over the entire operational lifetime – up to 35% lower than with the previous model. Several factors are responsible for the noticeable reduction in overall operating costs.
Medical information technology (innovations-report)
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Keystone pipeLIES exposed |
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would cover 1,179 miles, from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada, to the refineries of Port Arthur, Texas. Its name, Keystone, is no accident. Its 36-inch diameter, 830,000 barrels-per-day capacity is believed to be the sine qua non of maximal development of the tar sands, for without a reliable, cost-efficient conveyance to transport the product from Alberta's tar sands to refineries with access to international shipping terminals, the oil producers simply cannot make enough profit to make tar sands extraction worthwhile.
Rivers of spill (prwatch)
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Security threats: 6 lessons learned |
An APT attack is typically launched by a professional organization based in a different country than the victim organization, thereby complicating law enforcement. These hacking organizations are often broken into specialized teams that work together to infiltrate corporate networks and systems and extract as much valuable information as possible. Illegally hacking other companies is their day job. And most are very good at it.
APT war story (infoworld)
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The Web at 25 in the U.S. |
Using the Web—browsing it, searching it, sharing on it—has become the main activity for hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Its birthday offers an occasion to revisit the ways it has made the internet a part of Americans’ social lives. This first report looks back at the rapid change in internet penetration over the last quarter century.
The overall verdict (pewinternet)
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Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0 |
Lauren Weinstein writes "You'd think that with so many concerns these days about whether the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom companies can be trusted not to turn our data over to third parties whom we haven't authorized, that a plan to formalize a mechanism for ISP and other 'man-in-the-middle' snooping would be laughed off the Net.
IETF draft (slashdot)
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GPS with cloudy offloads |
Microsoft has released a tool that it hopes will make it possible to add location-sensing abilities to many more devices. The Microsoft Cloud-Offloaded GPS Experimental Kit is part of an effort to gather location data from GPS satellites without using much power. That's important because, as Microsoft explains, few applications drain a mobile device's battery more rapidly than contacting satellites.
How to lower energy consumption ? (theregister)
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About quality practices |
There is no one right way to achieve high quality. In fact, there could be 100 different ways to achieve it. To that end, our Quality Leadership 100 survey recognizes dozens of top-performing plants for their dedication to quality. This year’s top company was TRW Automotive, followed by Gooch and Housego Ohio, Cartel Industries, LDB Plastics, and Tecnova Electronics.
Quality Leadership 100 (qualitymag)
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Google’s new search results |
Google’s long battle with European antitrust regulators over what the European Commission deemed to be anti-competitive search practices appears to be reaching a conclusion. The commission’s competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia has approved the settlement, but a formal vote among all commissioners will reportedly take place in the coming months.
Under european antitrust settlement (recode)
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Sizing the EU app economy |
Apps running on mobile and social platforms have transformed the global gaming arket and disrupted the order of the technology industry. The emerging platforms and business models like app stores and freemium pricing are rippling through — if not ripping apart — enterprise tech sectors. A few Nordic companies — including Rovio, King.com, and Supercell — are showing tremendous success from beyond Silicon Valley.
EU app developers (ec.europa)
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Industry in motion |
Industrial agglomerations have long been thought to offer economic and social benefits to firms and people that are only captured by location within their specified geographies. Using the case study of New York City’s garment industry along with data acquired from cell phones and social media, this study set out to understand the discrete activities underpinning the economic dynamics of an industrial agglomeration.
The Spatial Network of the Garment Industry (plosone)
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The Krypton Temple |
"When I came to Beijing 10 years ago, China's Internet was so ugly," Tanaka says. "But now, the websites of some Chinese vendors are better than those in America." He said he had just ordered a batch of special batteries from the online shop Taobao and at any time he can use the website's chat function to find out where his package is and when it will arrive.
China's Surging Tech Start-Up (spiegel)
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Predictive analytics & Data mining |
If someone asked you to predict the number of medals each country is going to win in this year's Olympics, you'd probably try to identify the favored athletes in each event, then total each country's expected wins to arrive at a result. Tim and Dan Graettinger, the brothers behind the data mining company Discovery Corps, Inc., have a rather different approach. They ignore the athletes entirely.
Statistical development models (smithsonianmag)
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Run-Time location access disclosures |
Smartphone users are increasingly using apps that can access their location. Often these accesses can be without users knowledge and consent. For example, recent research has shown that installation-time capability disclosures are ineffective in informing people about their apps’ location access. In this paper, The article present a four-week field study (N=22) on run-time location access disclosures.
Which App, where, when, what function ? (winlab.rutgers)
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Calibration management software |
Like so many other business software applications, calibration management software has evolved from simple beginnings as a digital index-card system that reminded operators when their instrument and tool calibrations were due. During the past 25 years, these systems have moved from traditional desktop software, to web-based, hosted, and mobile.
SaaS vs. in-house (qualitydigest)
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| 2014 US ceo survey |
Product and service innovation is seen as the primary opportunity for growth in 2014 by 36% of US CEOs. For many companies, the growth agenda will be centered on new digitalecosystems — the hardware, software, services, and communications infrastructure that make digitization possible. Digital products and services form the backbone of new business models.
Technology is everyone’s business (pwc)
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Are we overusing IVF ? |
One million babies were born in the first 25 years of IVF between 1978 and 2003. It took only two more years for the tally to reach two million in 2005, with over five million estimated to have been born by the end of 2013. In developed countries with public health systems 2-3% of the births each year are through IVF, rising as high as 5% in Denmark and Belgium.
Emerging risks of IVF (bmj)
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To digital phone networks |
U.S. wireless providers like AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday received a nod from regulators to test a transition of the telephone industry away from traditional analog networks to digital ones. The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted in favor of trials, from existing circuit-switch technology to an alternative Internet protocol-based one to see how the change may affect consumers.
Transition testing (reuters)
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Indian cars: crash tests failure |
Among the cars tested was India's talismanic Tata Nano, the world's cheapest car, as well as models made in India by Ford, Volkswagen and Hyundai. The cars were apparently stripped of safety features to make them cheaper for Indian buyers, correspondents say. Those car manufacturers who have spoken out since the safety tests have insisted that safety is of paramount importance and that they will be reviewing the NCAP's test results.
Global' NCAP tests (bbc)
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The Right Digital Marketing Model |
Digital marketing can offer detailed data on and analysis of consumer behavior, as well as precise results about a marketing program’s effectiveness, with a degree of detail and precision that previous generations of CMOs could hardly fathom. The challenge is that these new technologies and consumer behaviors are raising the requirements for what will succeed in the market. Miss the mark, and you risk losing them forever.
How to choose the right one ? (strategy-business)
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Steve Jobs’ First Demo. |
It’s January, 1984. Steve Jobs, nattily attired in a double-breasted suit, is demonstrating Apple‘s breakthrough personal computer, Macintosh, before a packed room. He speaks alarmingly of a future controlled by IBM, and shows a dystopian commercial based on that theme. He says that the Mac is “insanely great” and plucks the diminutive machine from a bag; it talks for itself.
Apple’s annual shareholder meeting (techland.time)
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Virtual Worlds |
The growing number of global users, in conjunction with ongoing technological changes, will likely increase the difficulty that the Intelligence Community (IC) will encounter in its efforts to monitor the virtual realm,” said the study, which was classified at the Confidential level. “Accordingly, outreach programs that enlist users as educated observers and reporters will be required to survey current and emerging systems more effectively.”
Intelligence Implications (fas)
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Enough PaaS vs. IaaS |
For the last few weeks, an interesting and timely debate has been brewing among the technology press and various technology vendors and users about whether or not platform as a service, or PaaS, will survive as an independent cloud computing service category. This discussion is worth commenting on largely because it highlights the distinction between what services exist in the cloud and how those services are acquired.
Blurring the lines (gigaom)
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The ‘Max Flow’ Problem |
To tackle the problem, researchers have traditionally used a maximum-flow algorithm, also known as “max flow,” in which a network is represented as a graph with a series of nodes, known as vertices, and connecting lines between them, called edges. But as the size of networks like the Internet has grown exponentially, it’s often prohibitively time-consuming to solve constraint problems using traditional computing techniques.
The new algorithm (qualitydigest)
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Processing Genomics Data in the Cloud |
The increasing public availability of personal complete genome sequencing data has ushered in an era of democratized genomics. However, read mapping and variant calling software is constantly improving and individuals with personal genomic data may prefer to customize and update their variant calls. Here, we describe STORMSeq (Scalable Tools for Open-Source Read Mapping), a graphical interface cloud computing solution.
Declining costs in genome sequencing (plosone)
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About the Geolocation API |
Many websites don't need to know anything about the geographical location of their visitors. In certain cases, however, this knowledge can be useful and can be used to enhance the user experience. This knowledge can also be used to integrate special features into your application. Consider, for example, a company selling some electrical equipment.
7 Things You Should Know (developer)
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About personal development |
The secret is that personal, organizational, and business lives are all subsets of their one, high, overarching mission- becoming the best human beings they can possibly be. Business success for the monks is merely the by-product and trailing indicator of living for a higher purpose. Trappist business success is living proof that when we seek first the kingdom of personal development everything else will take care of itself.
What every leader must know (forbes)
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15 hot programming trends |
Programmers love to sneer at the world of fashion where trends blow through like breezes. Skirt lengths rise and fall, pigments come and go, ties get fatter, then thinner. But in the world of technology, rigor, science, math, and precision rule over fad. That's not to say programming is a profession devoid of trends. The difference is that programming trends are driven by greater efficiency, increased customization, and ease-of-use.
What's in and what's out ? (infoworld)
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Figuring out our financial flops |
The International Labour Organization estimates that since the beginning of the crisis the global jobs gap has increased by 67 million. In spite of positive employment gains over the past years, global unemployment is still high and expected to approach 208 million people by 2015 and 214 million people by 2018. So the question remains: what can be done to bolster the economy?
How to promote growth ? (iso)
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Making better decisions over time |
Managers make a wide range of decisions, from routine calls they face on a recurring basis, to large-scale strategic decisions they may encounter just once in their careers. For issues that are often repeated, the technique of deliberate practice—which involves action, feedback, modification, and action again—is a powerful way to boost performance.
The limits of deliberate practice (strategy-business)
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India joined the “cryo club” |
According to a senior Isro official, India has been paying $85-90 million (around Rs 500 crore) as launch fee to foreign space agencies for sending communication satellites weighing up to 3.5 tonnes. The successful launch of this rocket was crucial for India as this was the first step towards building rockets that can carry heavier payloads.
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (business-standard)
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EU' lack of tech.skills vs unemployment |
After a five-year economic crisis, the mismatch represents one of the thorniest problems facing Ireland and many other European countries. Hundreds of thousands of people who lost work, and many young people entering the work force, are finding that their skills are ill suited to a huge crop of innovation-based jobs springing up across the Continent.
Important consequences for the recovery (nytimes)
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Nano-inspired packaging plastic |
Tera-Barrier Films (TBF) Pte Ltd, a spin-off company from A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering’s (IMRE) in Singapore, has invented a new plastic film using a nano-inspired process that makes the material thinner but as effective as aluminium foil in keeping air and moisture at bay. The stretchable plastic could be an alternative for prolonging shelf-life of pharmaceuticals, food and electronics.
Encapsulated nanoparticle barrier films (rdmag)
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European Innovation Partnership |
This report aims to provide a list of process indicators that will allow monitoring the EIP on AHA process over the period 2012-2020. It also presents main highlights from the baseline data in graphical format, based on the tables provided in Annex I. The latter show the indicators computed from the baseline, i.e. data from the 234 EIP on AHA commitments submitted to the EC in June 2012 through the First Invitation for Commitment.
Assessment framework (jrc)
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Auto-Tech.:Carbon dioxide emissions |
This report is the authoritative reference for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, fuel economy,and powertrain technology trends for new personal vehicles in the United States. The detailed data supporting this report were obtained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), directly from automobile manufacturers, to support implementation of EPA’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The Trends (epa)
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Robotics Challenge |
"Mistakes are part of the learning process," says Jesse Hurdus, project director of the ViGIR robot team. "Vi" stands for Virginia and "G" for Germany, because German experts from the Technical University of Darmstadt are part of the team. The disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant marked the beginning of the "Robotics Challenge.
Responding to disasters (spiegel)
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2014' energy market trend |
Ongoing improvements in advanced technologies for crude oil and natural gas production continue to lift domestic supply and reshape the U.S. energy economy. Domestic production of crude oil (including lease condensate) increases sharply in the AEO2014 reference case, with annual growth averaging 0.8 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d) through 2016.
AEO2014 early release report (eia)
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Learning from neandertal genome |
An international research team led by Kay Prüfer and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has determined a high-quality genome sequence of a Neandertal woman. The genome allows detailed insights into the relationships and population history of the Neandertals and other extinct hominin groups.
DNA changes that make us human (mpg)
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2014'- 10 techies to watch |
As we head into 2014, the following compilation features folks who, each in their own way, are trying to shake up their particular corners of the tech universe. Some will succeed, others will not. This much is clear: Watching how their stories unfold will make for fascinating reading as part of the larger tale of technology, circa 2014.
Who will shake up the status quo ? (cnet)
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How RSA could be tied to NSA ? |
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool.
RSA & its core algorithm (mobile.reuters)
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Auto mechatronics in the spotlight |
More than one in three U.S. auto-industry engineers in 2008 were baby boomers, and during the economic crisis, many of those engineers retired early. Meanwhile, the U.S. industry recovered and resumed hiring, and it hasn’t stopped. The Center for Automotive Research (CAR), a group funded by the automobile industry in Ann Arbor, Mich., said last year that it expected carmakers overall to add 35 000 jobs and suppliers another 44 000.
The integration of sophisticated equipment (ieee)
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Global gender disparities in science |
Despite many good intentions and initiatives, gender inequality is still rife in science. Although there are more female than male undergraduate and graduate students in many countries, there are relatively few female full professors, and gender inequalities in hiring, earnings, funding, satisfaction and patenting persist. Men publish more papers, on average, than women, although the gap differs between fields and subfields.
Levelling the playing field (nature)
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Christmas 2013: Food For Thought |
Laughter is not purely beneficial. The harms it can cause are immediate and dose related, the risks being highest for Homeric (uncontrollable) laughter. The benefit-harm balance is probably favourable. It remains to be seen whether sick jokes make you ill or jokes in bad taste cause dysgeusia, and whether our views on comedians stand up to further scrutiny. So, reading the Christmas BMJ could add years to your life :) .
Laughter and MIRTH (bmj)
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Tech and fashion convergence |
In an age where fashion continually romps through society’s wardrobes and technology governs our everyday lives, we’ve finally reached a crossroads where industry boundaries between apparel brands and digital platforms have started to blur. And consumer wearables—the bridge between these two worlds—are the catalyst for that convergence.
Wearables are the next mobile (gigaom)
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America's wealth |
At the county level, America is a tremendously unequal place. The median household income in the poorest county (Wilcox County, Alabama) was $22,126 in 2012. In Falls Church, Virginia, where highly educated defense contractors and federal government workers cluster, the median income last year was $121,250, more than five times higher.
US' hide side (businessinside)
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Posthumous digital assets |
What happens to your digital life after you die? It’s a question not many consider given how embedded the internet is in their lives. The typical web user has 25 online accounts, ranging from email to social media profiles and bank accounts, according to a 2007 study from Microsoft. But families, companies and legislators are just starting to sort out who owns and has access to these accounts after someone has died.
Digital life after death (uniformlaws)
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A giant awakens |
Here are the facts behind the fiction: No other continent has developed as rapidly in the last decade as Africa, where real economic growth was between 5 and 10 percent annually. In oil-rich countries, such as Angola, it was a possibly record-breaking 22.6 percent in 2007. A World Bank study shows that 17 of the 50 national economies currently displaying the greatest economic progress are in Africa.
Africa's economic upsurge (spiegel)
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How to let chemicals make decisions? |
Computer scientists at Harvard University have come up with a way to convert algorithms that teach machines to learn into a form that would allow artificial intelligence to be programmed into complex chemical reactions. The ultimate result could be “smart” drugs “programmed” to react differently depending on which of several probable situations they might encounter.
Promoting logic gates (slashdot)
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Biopharm Research:400 Med in development |
Antibacterial resistance is becoming an increasingly common problem, resulting in over 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths each year among Americans and costing $55 billion in the United States annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). the ongoing commitment and continued regulatory flexibility can help fight the continuing—and ever-changing—threat from infectious diseases.
New medicines in the pipeline (phrma)
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6 Practical Agile Techniques |
In large organizations one often finds a mixture of development models. Some projects are done in Agile, some in a more traditional way such as waterfall or RUP. Everyone has heard of agile development, but shifting to more Agile methods can often be a long and hard journey. This paper aims to explain a number of practical Agile techniques that can easily be applied to any development.
Usability testing (developer)
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Rethinking open access prices |
The leitmotif of the digital age is ‘disintermediation’, an ugly name for the process of ‘cutting out the middle person’ – in other words, making transactions simpler and more direct. It’s often better for customers to do this – to go direct to the source of a product and buy what they need, without having to pay a fee to other people involved in an intermediate delivery chain.
Making transactions simpler (lse.ac)
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Chicken that is nearly a 1/5 H2O |
One large poultry processor in the UK, Westbridge Food Group, is importing raw frozen Brazilian chicken to which salt or a mix of corn oil and salt has already been added, then "tumbling" it with water and water-binding additives. The meat is then repacked for sale as frozen chicken breast fillets in leading supermarkets. Asda, Aldi and Iceland all sell frozen Brazilian chicken tumbled this way by Westbridg.
UK's Chicken watered down (theguardian)
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Your genes not for sale |
In a unanimous ruling last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that a patent can be granted to a gene sequence that describes the risk of a disease. Simply stated, you cannot own a piece of the human genome. Praise to the scientists whose hard work discovered the gene, but their discovery is like the periodic table of the elements—not an invention of human creation, but an art of nature.
Medical mind cannot be owned (scienceprogress)
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Black forest conservation |
The regional Green government plans to create a national park in the northern Black Forest, much to the consternation of many locals. Although well-intentioned, the state project has unleashed a culture war. Should the forest be left alone or used for commercial purposes? If only it were that easy. And because the German debate over forested landscapes is always about more than just trees, the protests are by no means peaceful.
Fighting over the forest (spiegel)
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Country by country reporting |
The landscape is changing and providing greater transparency around tax either to tax authorities around the world and/or to the public is something companies are now preparing for. This paper sets out a high level summary of the various legislative proposals and consultations to assist you in assessing how these will affect you.
Overview and comparison of initiatives (kpmg)
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DNA-mediated nanoparticle crystallisation |
Crystallization is a fundamental and ubiquitous process much studied over the centuries. But although the crystallization of atoms is fairly well understood1, 2, it remains challenging to predict reliably. Here we show that very slow cooling, over several days, of solutions of complementary-DNA-modified nanoparticles through the melting temperature of the system gives the thermodynamic product with a specific and uniform crystal habit.
How to direct nanoparticle assembly ? (nature)
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Holiday food safety kit |
The Holiday Food Safety Success Kit Exit Disclaimer, developed by the non-profit Partnership for Food Safety Education, provides tips on how to make sure holiday meals are safe as well as delicious. Recipes, shopping checklist, food safety tips, and children's activities are included in the multi-media program. This Holiday Food Safety Video shows how to store, prepare, and serve food safely to prevent foodborne illness from ruining the holidays.
Some helpful food safety resources (fda)
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New synchrotron x-rays generation |
Although the high quality of synchrotron x-rays make them ideal for research ranging from the structure of matter to advanced medical images, access to the technology has been limited until now. Most traditional synchrotron x-ray devices are gigantic and costly, available only at a few sites around the world. UNL’s Extreme Light Laboratory developed a novel method to generate research-quality X-rays using a “tabletop” laser.
Advanced research capabilities (rdmag)
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Accelerating your release process |
The current reality of application releases is that getting a new version from code drop through testing, acceptance and all the way to go live still requires a mix of automated and manual tasks, all of which have to be scheduled, coordinated and managed. Automation for many tasks in a typical release is not integrated into the overall release tracking and coordination.
Software development (developer)
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Spinal Stimulation |
Teams of scientists have been working on transplanting stem cells for neural repair and modifying the spinal cord in other ways to encourage it to grow new neurons, but these long-term approaches remain mostly in the lab. The breakthrough, however, produced a real human success story gives hope to paralyzed people everywhere. It presents a viable means of regaining bowel, bladder, and sexual functions.
An electrifying awakening (spectrum.ieee)
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Google glass developers |
The Glass Development Kit preview released by Google opens up many of the options that had been absent from the developer's toolbox. Previously, developers had only been able to code for Glass' limited Mirror API. Google has relied on third-party developers who own the $1,500 headsets to further app development, while internal development at the company has focused on making sure that the new software platform functions properly.
Still flying half-blind (news.cnet)
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Census: Door open to manipulation ? |
In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington. The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated. And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.
2012 election jobs report (nypost)
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Web Index Report |
Targeted censorship of Web content by governments is widespread across the globe. Moderate to extensive blocking or filtering of politically sensitive content was reported in over 30 percent of Web Index countries during the past year. 94% of countries in the Web Index do not meet best practice standards for checks and balances on government interception of electronic communications.
2013' Key findings (thewebindex)
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Amazon' Web Services performance |
If there’s anyone still left wondering how it is that large cloud providers can keep on rolling out new features and lowering their prices even when no one is complaining about them, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Vice President and Distinguished Engineer James Hamilton spelled out the answer in one word during a presentation Thursday at the company’s re:Invent conference: Scale.
Building its own networking (gigaom)
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$5bn Apple HQ revealed |
The latest images reveal quite how much of an Apple product the $5bn complex will be. While the climbing walls and mini-golf courses of Google's offices might embody the company's anything-goes karma, their buildings are not literally made of primary-coloured blobs or cartoonish toolbar icons. The Apple mothership, on the other hand, looks like it could be built out of the stuff of computers itself.
Very surreal developpement (theguardian)
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From sunset to new dawn |
Adding to the general air of negativity, last month economists at Goldman Sachs put out a report arguing that even at its current cheap price, shale gas would provide only a “modest boost” to the American economy as a whole. It argued that the energy industry is itself a fairly small part of the economy and creates relatively few jobs.
The effects of fracking (economist)
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The lunch of Dubai Air Show |
Far from the backwater of the mid-1980s, the United Arab Emirates -- fueled by oil and a return to commerce, their ancestral vocation -- have become a voracious consumer and a growth story that is nowhere more visible than in its airlines. Emirates and Etihad Airways, based in the nearby emirate of Abu Dhabi, are growing many times faster than their rivals. They are also buying hundreds of new jets from Airbus and Boeing.
Global carriers' races (ibtimes)
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Quantum world record smashed |
An international team including Stephanie Simmons of Oxford University, UK, report in this week's Science a test performed by Mike Thewalt of Simon Fraser University, Canada, and colleagues. In conventional computers data is stored as a string of 1s and 0s. In the experiment quantum bits of information, 'qubits', were put into a 'superposition' state in which they can be both 1s and 0 at the same time.
Overcoming a key barrier (eurekalert)
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Russian GPS using U.S. soil |
Russian and American negotiators last met on April 25 to weigh “general requirements for possible Glonass monitoring stations in U.S. territory and the scope of planned future discussions,” said a State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, who said no final decision had been made. Although the Cold War is long over, the Russians do not want to rely on the American GPS infrastructure.
US' security issues (nytimes)
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Internal Audits : an efficiency Tool |
Many companies, have reached a more stable phase concerning the quality management requirements and have already made adjustments and optimizations in their management systems. In that case, all parties involved in an internal audit tend to be dissatisfied with the audit process. But is it really necessary to perform internal audits only in this way?
The improvement Tool (qualitydigest)
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Do we need stds for railroads? |
This year's devastating crash of a high-speed train in Spain, which left nearly 80 dead, has drawn renewed attention to rail safety. It was preceded by another high-profile rail crash in Canada when an unmanned runaway train killed 40 people. How do these recent rail crashes impact the industry ? What does this mean for the future of rail ? Can International Standards contribute to rail’s safety record and global growth ?
The railway systems (iso)
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Germany-2050 |
The background paper is a summary of a study which shows that future greenhouse gas neutrality in Germany is technically achievable. The scenariolooks at the issue merely from a national perspective and does not include interaction with other countries. The study focuses on the national GHG reduction target of 95 %. Taking into account the mentioned assumptions, this should be achievable in Germany by technical means.
A greenhouse gas-neutral country (umweltbundesamt)
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The life sciences sector |
The patent cliff, or the mass expiration of patent protections on a variety of drugs, is fueling significant change among big pharma companies and the broader life sciences industry. In 2013 alone, patents will expire on drugs that currently have sales of about $29 billion annually, according to data from EvaluatePharma. Those patent expirations are a big blow to large pharmaceutical firms.
Market report (areadevelopment)
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Guidelines from the chemical industry |
This document provides guidelines for calculating avoided GHG emissions enabled by chemical products, by comparing two solutions with the same user benefit. It also gives guidance on how to communicate the results. A number of case examples are published on the ICCA website (www.icca-chem.org/avoidedemissions). Some case examples will provide additional insight for users.
Reporting guidelines (icca-chem)
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Auditing under scrutiny |
The structure of the auditing business appears problematic: Typically, major companies pay auditors to examine their books under the so-called "third-party" audit system. But when an auditing firm’s revenues come directly from its clients, the auditors have an incentive not to deliver bad news to them. Does this arrangement affect the actual performance of auditors?
Conventional auditing markets (myscience)
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DNA repair and apoptosis assays |
DIM (3,3′-diindolylmethane), a small molecule compound, is a proposed cancer preventive agent that can be safely administered to humans in repeated doses. We report that administration of DIM in a multidose schedule protected rodents against lethal doses of total body irradiation up to 13 Gy, whether DIM dosing was initiated before or up to 24 h after radiation.
Cancer preventive agent (pnas)
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Venture cap. in an age of algorithms |
venture capital remains pretty old school. It is more art than science. So why aren’t more VCs using data science to guide their investments? As chief technical officer of Ironstone Group, a data science-based venture investment company, this is a question I’m especially interested in. Venture capitalists (VCs) hear lots of pitches from startups, and usually use their personal intuitions to separate the good from the bad.
Analytics hybrid system (gigaom)
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Exclusive Bill Gates' views |
In many ways, Gates was the archetype for the successful tech entrepreneur, the driven nerd who created an industry with little more than foresight and drive. But to the generation of aspiring techno-visionaries who have followed, the arc of his career no longer has the allure it once did, even if his iconic status is assured. These include people such as Peter Diamandis, a serial entrepreneur who founded the X Prize.
Doing 'God's Work' (ft)
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New era of renewable energy |
With its abundant dams and rivers that carry more fresh water than any other country, Brazil — big and bountiful — essentially runs on hydropower. But it turns out that the country can also count on a good strong breeze. Wind is emerging as a prize for energy planners here who see the howling gusts that arrive from the east as a way to offset the fresh limits imposed on hydropower.
Wind-Energy power turbines (pulitzercenter)
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Navigating the digital future |
At Catalent, a U.S.-based producer of pharmaceutical products and provider of advanced drug delivery technologies and services, digital tools often support the practices of the company’s 18 research and development sites around the world. Data pours in from R&D, sales and marketing, operations, quality assurance, and regulatory affairs, as well as customers.
The global innovation 1000 (strategy-business)
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Cultures of the internet |
OxIS provides the UK’s contribution to the World Internet Project (WIP), an international collaborative project that joins over two dozen nations in studies of the social, economic and political implications of the Internet. A majority of users believe that the government should not regulate the Internet more than it does, but there is an increase in the proportion of the public that wants the government to do more to protect children online.
Internet in Britain (oxis.oii.ox.ac)
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Tech.: Your Business in 2020? |
Human-like technology. The potential downfall of the data center. Hyper-personalization of data. These are some of the responses IT leaders gave to us when we asked, “What will business technology look like in 2020?” In 2020, tech experts say, computers could learn from experience, much like the human brain. The end of the data center as we know it might arrive.
Business-technology (thinkgig)
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When interoperability has become a topic |
How to design and implement agent training, how to manage fraud & risk and how to build successful organization structures at each stage of a mobile money deployment are all areas in which mobile money managers have indicated that they need support. In response, MMU has gathered insights and best practices from existing deployments and adjacent industries to promote tried-and-tested methods for addressing these issues.
Mobile money deployment (gsma)
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Ontario: the Great Lakes protection |
The Ontario government embarked on a process of developing new goals and strategies to guide the province’s long - term actions in protecting and restoring the Great Lakes. The first step in the process was to release a discussion paper, Healthy Great Lakes, Strong Ontario, to solicit input from stakeholders, the public and Aboriginal communities on the province’s long - term vision for the Great Lakes.
Why the Great Lakes Matter ? (eco.on)
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Statistics done wrong |
Statistics Done Wrong is a guide to the most popular statistical errors and slip-ups committed by scientists every day, in the lab and in peer-reviewed journals. Many of the errors are prevalent in vast swathes of the published literature, casting doubt on the findings of thousands of papers. Statistics Done Wrong assumes no prior knowledge of statistics, so you can read it before your first statistics course or after thirty years of scientific practice.
The woefully complete guide (refsmmat)
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Carbon-negative energy |
Located in one of the grittiest areas of town, where train tracks, garbage, and broken down cars are far more prevalent than the hippies Berkeley is famous for, All Power Labs has set up shop inside the Shipyard. Run by CEO Jim Mason -- who owns the space -- the 5-year-old startup now produces technology used to transform dense biomass like corn husks or wood chips into clean, sustainable, and cheap energy.
Clean energy at less than $2 a watt (cnet)
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Farm & infection prevention |
School visits to farms are a positive educational experience but pose risks due to the spread of zoonotic infections. A lesson plan to raise awareness about microbes on the farm and preventative behaviours was developed in response to the Griffin Investigation into the E. coli outbreak associated with Godstone Farm in 2009.
School gastro-intestinal outbreaks (plosone)
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iMessage security is a myth |
"At the 10,000-foot level, Quarkslab's technical argument is that it is possible to reverse-engineer Apple's encryption technology," said NSS Labs' Randy Abrams. However, the effort required "is such that you already have to be a person of extreme interest to some group somewhere in the world with a high level of technical expertise, and be worth the investment of time and effort."
More trouble than it's worth? (technewsworld)
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Trouble at the lab |
The idea that the same experiments always get the same results, no matter who performs them, is one of the cornerstones of science’s claim to objective truth. If a systematic campaign of replication does not lead to the same results, then either the original research is flawed (as the replicators claim) or the replications are (as many of the original researchers on priming contend). Either way, something is awry.
False negative vs false positive (economist)
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Global food security: 10 Challenges |
Today, with incomes rising fast in emerging economies, there are at least 3 billion people moving up the food chain toward Westernized diets. They consume more grain-intensive livestock and poultry products. Today, the growth in world grain consumption is concentrated in China. It is adding over 8 million people per year, but the big driver is the rising affluence of its nearly 1.4 billion people.
Rising population (theglobalist)
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Four business opportunity |
As the sharing economy hits the mainstream it will force businesses to rethink customer acquisition and retention – in a world where the customers, increasingly often, are the business. The sharing economy, where businesses such as Zipcar or Airbnb provider resources or a platform for people to share goods when they need them, is growing thanks to always-on connectivity and real time data.
Sharing opportunity (gigaom)
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Quality of software patents |
Whatever one’s views of the basic arguments on patentability, software is bringing out some troublesome limitations of the patent system. Can the system be fixed to better accommodate software? Many in the patent world claim the answer is improving patent quality, an unobjectionable goal, except that patent quality is hard to define and measure in a meaningful way.
Separating rhetoric from facts (scienceprogress)
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Permanent bacteria barrier |
Any medical device implanted in the body attracts bacteria, proteins, and other microbes to its surface, causing infections and thrombosis (blood clotting) that lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Devices can be coated with antibiotics, blood thinners, and other agents — but these eventually dissolve, limiting their longevity and effectiveness.
Impenetrable barrier against microbes (mit)
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China' investment pipeline in Germany |
Chinese enterprises are expected to maintain their robust levels of investment in Germany, while some sectors like auto parts may see major upswings, due to merger and acquisition moves, leading industry experts say. Markus Hempel, the China representative of the Investment Promotion of Germany Trade & Investment, says that Germany is now the most preferred European destination for Chinese investment.
The robust investment pipeline (europe.chinadaily)
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Probabilistic computing |
Semiconductors today are manufactured to tolerances of a nanometer or less, fab air quality is controlled to the point where contaminants are measured in parts-per-trillion, and we’re working on building chips using wavelengths of light just 40nm wide. But it’s precisely because manufacturing to such tight tolerances is so difficult that scientists are working to find ways to build chips that can handle failure gracefully.
Higher performance and/or saving power (extremetech)
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Selling to China |
From food to clothing, mobile phones, electronic appliances and cars, foreign brands are perceived as superior to domestic ones, and consumers are willing to pay a premium for them. However, while many opportunities abound, selling to China may not be as simple and straightforward as what foreign sellers are accustomed to in other markets.
Facing evolving legal requirements (asiabriefing)
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Flexible electronic devices |
Organic semiconductors made from small aromatic molecules can be dissolved and screen-printed onto many substrates, including plastics, opening the path for flexible electronic devices such as low-cost polymer solar cells. Kazuo Takimiya and colleagues, in collaboration with researchers, have now developed a synthetic procedure that makes it easier to tailor the chemical structure of an important organic semiconductor.
Molecules for Bendable Electronics (laboratoryequipment)
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Why women are out of the STEAM? |
Last summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job.
Barriers for Female Scientists (nytimes)
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Rethinking drugs spend |
In recent years, public health authorities in Italy have sought new models of drug distribution that circumvent some of the steps in the supply chain. This has expanded the number of available channels by which patients can access drugs, boosting competition and making drugs more affordable. Nowadays, “if you go to a doctor, a GP or a specialist in Italy you can get your prescription filled via three different channels.”
Finding savings in Italy (eyeforpharma)
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Separating Signals vs threshold |
Given a collection of data it is common to begin with the computation of some summary statistics for location and dispersion. Averages and medians are used to characterize location, while either the range statistic or the standard deviation statistic is used to characterize dispersion. This much is taught in every introductory class.
Data collection tools (qualitydigest)
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Thirdlargest labor force in US |
While there are many educational opportunities in this field, there's good reason to be cautious about spending too much money on an expensive degree if your focus is social entrepreneurship. Nonprofit professionals generally earn less than their counterparts in private enterprise. Besides, according to a recent survey of social sector executives, real-world skills are more important than degrees in this field.
Social innovation degree (fastcompany)
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Determining customer satisfaction? |
If your company is ISO-certified or thinking about becoming so, you may already know that meeting customer requirements and achieving customer satisfaction is paramount to the certification. However, it’s not always clear who should be in charge of determining whether customer satisfaction has been achieved. Who should send fact-finding surveys to customers? Who should collect them?...
Who is in charge ? (qualitydigest)
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Strategies for Satellite Coverage Gaps |
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has made progress on both the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite-R series (GOES-R) programs, but key challenges remain to ensure that potential gaps in satellite data are minimized or mitigated. On the JPSS program, NOAA has made noteworthy progress in using Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) data in weather forecasts and developing the JPSS-1 satellite.
Environmental satellites (gao)
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Recognize intrapreneurs before exit |
Any CEO can tell you that finding ideas is not the always the problem. The real issue is selecting and spreading the best ideas, testing quickly, and executing flawlessly. An “innovation engine” is an organization’s capability to think and invest in long-term opportunities along with the competence to drive continuous innovations for top-line growth each year. Intrapreneurs can transform an organization more quickly and effectively than others because they are self-motivated free thinkers.
Successful intrapreneurs (hbr)
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Russia' energy policy |
Russia remains the only stable energy source. Nord Stream and South Stream projects are making impressive progress in Serbia and Bulgaria. EU and Russia have agreed a deal on the use of Germany’s OPAL link to Gazprom’s Nord Stream gas pipeline, a Russian energy ministry spokeswoman confirmed on September 16. However, attempts of EU Directorate-General for Energy to create non-competitive advantage haven’t gone unnoticed in Moscow.
Gazprom & Novatek deal (dissidentvoice)
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Risk management vs greater uncertainty |
This report is based on a quantitative survey of executives from 446 organizations carried out in 2013. Participants came from seven industries and two public services subsectors (government administration and postal services). All respondents were C-level executives involved in risk management decisions. Surveyed respondents were from Europe (35%), North America (31%), Latin America (9%), and Asia Pacific (25%).
Report (accenture)
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EU regulation: U.S. Internet Companies |
France is calling on the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, to draw up proposals by spring 2014 aimed at "establishing a tax regime for digital companies that ensures that the profits they make on the European market are subject to taxation and that the revenues are shared between the Member States, linking the tax base to the place where the profits are made."
French taxation (wsj)
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Transparent e-paper |
In a new study, researchers have synthesized silicon nanowires and woven them into a paper that outperforms many other paper-like materials in terms of transparency and flexibility. Since today's integrated circuit technology is designed for silicon (in bulk form), silicon nanowires would be much more compatible with these existing technologies than other materials..
The silicon nanowire paper (phys)
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FSMA: Third-Party Auditors |
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is amending its regulations to provide for accreditation of third-party auditors/certification bodies to conduct food safety audits of foreign food entities, including registered foreign food facilities, and to issue food and facility certifications, under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
Accreditation process (fda)
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Managing multicore memory |
In today’s computers, moving data to and from main memory consumes so much time and energy that microprocessors have their own small, high-speed memory banks, known as “caches,” which store frequently used data. Traditionally, managing the caches has required fairly simple algorithms that can be hard-wired into the chips. In most multicore chips, each core has several small, private caches.
Cache management (mit)
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2013/2014 : Competitiveness report |
The Global Competitiveness Report 2013–2014 is being released at a time when the world economy is undergoing significant shifts. The global financial crisis and the ensuing developments have heightened the role of emerging economies in the global context. This has accelerated the major economic transformations already underway, which have fueled rapid growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty.
Productivity and prosperity insight (www3.weforum)
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Standalone medical device software |
As smartphones, computers, and hand held devices make the modern world more connected and productive,the sale and use of software and apps that may have a utility in the medical sector has also grown. These pieces of software and apps range from simple database software that institutions and patients can use to document and store data, to software that can read and interpret patient lab results and help doctors diagnose diseases and conditions.
Global definitions (lne-america)
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Nuclear weapons inventories |
Excessive secrecy prevents the public from knowing the exact number of nuclear weapons in the world. Although the United States, Russia, Britain, and France have taken steps to increase the transparency of their nuclear stockpiles—both past and present—China, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea continue to refuse to provide basic information about their arsenals.
Current nuclear stockpile (sagepub)
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Ancient river across the sahara |
Human migration north through Africa is contentious. This paper uses a novel palaeohydrological and hydraulic modelling approach to test the hypothesis that under wetter climates c.100,000 years ago major river systems ran north across the Sahara to the Mediterranean, creating viable migration routes. We confirm that three of these now buried palaeo river systems could have been active at the key time of human migration across the Sahara.
Human Migration vs sahara (plosone)
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IBM's corelet language |
No stranger to creating new programming languages and paradigm, IBM has embarked on an effort to complete a computer language that enables programmers to build applications that work like the human brain. In a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), IBM on Aug. 8 announced a breakthrough software ecosystem designed for programming silicon chips that have an architecture inspired by the function, low power and compact volume of the brain.
Pro. like the human brain (developer)
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Highly detailed 3D maps |
The new mapping technique determines how to connect a map by tracking a camera’s pose, or position in space, throughout its route. When a camera returns to a place where it’s already been, the algorithm determines which points within the 3D map to adjust, based on the camera’s previous poses. The developed technique allows you to shift the map so it warps and bends into place.
Three-dimensional maps (qualitydigest)
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Electricity as a luxury good |
If you want to do something big, you have to start small. That's something German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier knows all too well. The politician, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has put together a manual of practical tips on how everyone can make small, everyday contributions to the shift away from nuclear power and toward green energy.
German-transition-to-renewable-energy (spiegel)
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Transparency taken too far? |
EUCOPE are an advocacy group representing the interests of mid-size pharmaceutical companies, informing its members on a range of ongoing regulatory, pricing and reimbursement issues with their primary focus being on market access issues across all EU member states. The current climate within Europe of evolving regulatory requirements as payers seek to implement cost-containment strategies.
Freedom vs competitive information (eyeforpharma)
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Bypassing encryption |
The short answer is almost certainly by compromising the software or hardware that implements the encryption or by attacking or influencing the people who hold the shared secrets that form one of the linchpins of any secure cryptographic system. The NYT alludes to these techniques as a combination of "supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders, and behind-the-scenes persuasion."
Asking for the keys (arstechnica)
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Expanding beyond your market |
Because developing countries do vary, it's important to investigate them thoroughly, says Alan Hagie, president and CEO of Hagie Manufacturing, a farm equipment manufacturer based in Iowa. When the company began exporting in the 1960s, it tried to sell its equipment without making modifications for that market. We have been trying to assess the markets very carefully and understand their needs.."
Facing tough competition (industryweek)
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European social statistics |
This publication presents the latest results for ‘social’ headline in - dicators on the EU-27 aggregates, individual Member States and, where available, on the EFTA and the candidate countries. EU policies, notably in social and economic fields, use demographic data for planning and for programme monitoring and evaluation.
EU' pocketbook (eurostat)
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The electric warship |
The U.S. Navy has not released details about the ship’s interior. But after gathering what information we could, including construction photos, we assembled the accompanying illustration. Together these visual elements offer what may be a preview of how warships will look for decades to come. In another break from the U.S. Navy’s usual designs, the Zumwalt’s propellers and drive shafts are turned by electric motors.
The USS Zumwalt (ieee)
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Fruit consumption and risk |
Fruits are rich in fibre, antioxidants, and phytochemicals that may have beneficial health effects. Increasing fruit consumption has been recommended for the primary prevention of many chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes,1 although epidemiologic studies have generated somewhat mixed results regarding the link with risk of type 2 diabetes.
Cohort studies (bmj)
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X-rays as push to Moore's law |
One of the difficulties involved in developing thermo-electric systems that convert heat into electric current is the need for materials exhibiting high electrical conductivity but low thermal conductivity, which is only possible with complicated crystal structures. Scientists have now discovered a way of suppressing thermal conductivity in sodium cobaltate, opening new paths for energy scavenging.
Harvesting unused energy (esrf)
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The land of freedom & scrutiny |
According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) figures, nearly 98 percent of all travelers are admitted to the country directly from initial or "primary" inspection by officials at U.S. ports of entry. Of an estimated 98.3 million international travelers admitted by air to the U.S. in 2012, about 724,000 were detained, arrested, or refused entry to the country, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
where U.S. legal rights begin ? (zdnet)
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Same-Day Delivery ? |
In July 2013, eBay unveiled an expansion of its eBay Now same-day service into more areas around San Francisco and New York, with plans for Chicago and Dallas. On the heels of that announcement, Amazon said it would hire 5,000 workers to staff its increasing number of U.S. fulfillment centers. Both are competing with Google Shopping Express, which launched a pilot service.
Not so fast (strategy-business)
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Research fund for BPA' effects |
A University of Illinois (UIUC) research team landed a fiveyear,$8 million grant to investigate the effects that exposure to chemicals used in plastics has on kids. Part of the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers program, it is jointly funded through the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
Packaging effect on health (foodproductiondaily)
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First dutch computers |
Some historical actors became acquainted with Turing's 1936 paper early on, while others did not. Some researchers depended directly or indirectly on its contents, while others accomplished great feats even without knowing who Turing was. The successful Dutch computer builder Willem van der Poel is one of those few men who applied, Turing's 1936 universal-machine concept in the history of early post-war computers.
The truly thinking machines (acm)
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China's space program |
China is pressing forward on its human space exploration plans, intent on establishing an international space station and, experts say, harnessing the technological muscle to launch its astronauts to the moon. Highlighting China's intent, the country is working with the United Nations to stage a major workshop on human space technology, to be held Sept. 16-20 in Beijing.
China's first space traveler (space)
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Contract-based programming & Reliability |
The elements of 'contract-based programming' – assertions of program properties that are part of the source text – have been available in some programming languages for many years but have only recently moved into the mainstream of software development. The latest version of the Ada language standard, Ada 2012, has added contract-based programming features.
Making software more reliable (embedded)
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SAT’s single antenna solution |
This solution is expected to ultimately cost a few dollars per handset compared to US $20 per handset for existing antennas. Additionally, SAT uses software re-configurable hardware enabling manufacturers to produce one device for all territories, reduce costs and streamline manufacturing & logistics. SAT’s technology has already generated interest from its target customers, including include cellular handset and chipset manufacturers.
A single multi-band antenna (engineerlive)
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ISO/IEC 27001 new version |
Aligning ISO/IEC 27001 to the new structure will help organizations wanting to implement more than one management system at a time. The similarity in structure between the standards will save organizations money and time as they can adopt integrated policies and procedures. For example, an organization might want to integrate their information security system with other management systems.
How to tackle IT security risks (iso)
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IBM's HyRef |
The solution, named "Hybrid Renewable Energy Forecasting" (HyRef) uses weather modeling capabilities, advanced cloud imaging technology and sky-facing cameras to track cloud movements, while sensors on the turbines monitor wind speed, temperature and direction. When combined with analytics technology, the data-assimilation based solution can produce accurate local weather forecasts.
IBM' wind forecasting technology (ibm)
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Embedding Q.A. into projects |
A review of three proven quality assurance tips that are applicable for software, manufacturing, and service organizations. They provide guidance to senior management, as well as engineers and technical staff, for selecting and implementing quality improvement projects. When implemented correctly, improved quality can provide a profit center for the company.
Improving quality levels (qualitydigest)
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The Firefox OS phones |
Mozilla is betting on attracting users based in part on the phone's low prices, comparable to those of a feature phone, while telling developers that building apps will be like building a Web site because the operating system embraces HTML5 and CSS3. "Writing a Firefox OS app is never a wasted effort. You can easily make a HTML5 app to iOS, but not the other way around". Hanging success on those factors is not a sure thing, however.
Linchpin to Mozilla's mob-plan (cnet)
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Views you can use? |
Are you influenced by the opinions of other people -- say, in the comments sections of websites? If your answer is no, here’s another question: Are you sure? . A new study co-authored by an MIT professor suggests that many people are, in fact, heavily influenced by the positive opinions other people express online -- but are much less swayed by negative opinions posted in the same venues.
Online ratings & judgment (myscience)
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Preserving the Mediterranean Sea |
The main purpose of this Study is to inform the debate over maritime governance in the Mediterranean by shedding light on the costs and benefits of establishing maritime zones in the Mediterranean in accordance with international law. In effect, the Study uses a cost benefit approach to analyse different scenarios even as regards activities that are not in themselves ‘economic’ activities and may necessitate a more indirect approach.
Costs & benefits (ec.europa)
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Managing a pharmaceutical quality system |
In part one of this series, we discussed the management perception that current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs) are not relevant to the business. We laid out the defense that cGMPs enable a predictable quality outcome that serves the business and its customers (e.g., patients) very well. The quality function should be in the best position to make this defense, but all too often it has problems of its own.
Five-obstacles to handle (qualitydigest)
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The Concorde’s cousins |
Last month, the United Kingdom announced that it was investing $90 million in what was being billed as the most groundbreaking aeronautical development since the jet engine. The public investment would be used along with private funds to build a prototype of a SABRE engine, a propulsion system that would make the world’s first true “space plane” possible.
Hybrid jet-rocket engine (slate)
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Mobile Vs Digital marketing |
Mobile web marketing is similar to digital marketing but one needs to approach mobile app marketing in a completely different way. Indeed, app store optimisation and astute advertising campaigns have to be spot on in order to create awareness and drive downloads. Like digital marketing, mobile marketing has a strong focus on direct response.
Breaking-barriers (eyefortravel)
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New nuclear cardio tracers |
The University of Ottawa Heart Institute in Canada was one of a handful of facilities that started using thallium-201 after the 2009 shutdown of the Canadian Chalk River nuclear reactor in Ontario led to a shortage of technetium-99m. Technetium is the primary radiotracer used in SPECT heart scans, but the supply chain for the radioisotope is fragile and complex.
From SPECT to PET (dotmed)
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German offshore wind industry |
The project was to be a major milestone for both the German offshore wind industry and Germany's energy transition, or Energiewende, from nuclear and polluting sources of energy to renewable ones. In order to build the turbines, which stand on 70-meter (230-foot) columns, EWE had to use a specially built 132-meter-long ship capable of raising itself above the waves on stilts.
Graveyard for explosives (spiegel)
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How standards boost business |
Standards have the power to turbo-charge innovation and fuel business growth. From design and manufacturing to distribution and marketing, all products and services are affected at some point by standardization. But standards and conformance also impact the strength of the American workforce, inform the direction of innovation, and underpin global commerce.
Fostering US innovation (industryweek)
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India’s first aircraft carrier |
India will thus join the elite club of US, UK and Russia which build aircraft carriers weighing over 40,000 tons. Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral RK Dhowan on Thursday said, at present, the shipyard has completed construction of nearly 18,000 tons and remaining work including erection of island superstructure like runway, compartments and fitment of weapons will take place in repair dock of the shipyard.
IAC aircraft carrier (dailypioneer)
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How to Make Fashion Greener? |
The European fashion industry is a huge consumer of fresh water. Estimates point to 600 million cubic meter of fresh water being consumed yearly in Europe by the textile and clothing industry; not a negligible amount. To reduce the water consumption and the colored mass effluent, researchers have developed a flocculating agent. Called TEXAFLOK DCL 41, it is able to separate and remove the dyes from the water.
EU' funded project (laboratoryequipment)
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Core Problems of Software Engineering |
There are two kinds of target for empirical software studies: products and processes. Product studies assess actual software artifacts, as found in code repositories, bug databases and documentation, to infer general insights. Project studies assess how software projects proceed and how their participants work; as a consequence, they can share some properties with studies in other fields that involve human behavior, such as sociology and psychology.
Empirical software studies (cacm.acm)
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Math model & childhood weight |
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have created and confirmed the accuracy of a mathematical model that predicts how weight and body fat in children respond to adjustments in diet and physical activity. The results will appear online July 30 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. While the model may help to set realistic expectations, it has not been tested in a controlled clinical trial.
Accuracy of a mathematical model (nih)
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ECHA' decision annuled |
Following a compliance check under the dossier evaluation procedure, ECHA issued a final decision requiring the Appellant to conduct tests to satisfy certain information requirements and to submit a robust study summary for a test already conducted. After a draft decision was sent to the Member State Competent Authorities (MSCAs), the Appellant updated its registration dossier to include the robust study summary requested.
Principle legal certainty infrenged (echa.europa)
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The most Innovative food packaging |
The product is a paperboard based cylinder liquid aseptic packaging system, which includes an aseptic liquid packaging production line and Henry Alzamora, international marketing manager, LamiCan, said the award is proof that the product has tangible benefits and has already sparked interest with enquiries from prospective clients.
Packaging material (foodproductiondaily)
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The Hiroshima myth |
In the pitiful history lessons that were taught by my uninspired/bored history teachers (which seemed to be mostly jocks) came from patriotic and highly censored books where everything the British and US military ever did in war time was honorable and self-sacrificing and everything their opponents did was barbaric. Everybody in my graduating class of 26 swallowed the post-war propaganda in our history books.
Lies of US military history (globalresearch)
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Waking Up Tired? |
Electricity has given us the freedom to choose our bedtimes; staying up after dark is as easy as flipping a light switch. But we pay a price for this luxury, says integrative physiologist Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the new study. People with later bedtimes and wake times are exposed to more artificial light and less sunlight, he says, which means their bodies aren’t getting the natural cues humans once relied on.
Solar cycles (sciencemag)
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Patient Safety Behaviours Questionnaire |
Understanding the factors that make it more or less likely that healthcare practitioners (HCPs) will perform certain patient safety behaviors is important in developing effective intervention strategies. A questionnaire to identify determinants of HCP patient safety behaviors does not currently exist. This study reports the development and initial validation of the Influences on Patient Safety Behaviors Questionnaire.
The model of best fit (implementationscience)
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Quality control in ediscovery |
How technology has changed the eDiscovery process In addition to increased efficiency and reduced costs, technology has made the eDiscovery process more complex, and this complexity increases risk. Statistical sampling has become a vital tool for quality control under predictive coding, and the complexity of the predictive coding work flow has highlighted the need for project management strategies to mitigate risk.
Traditional vs Tech. model (kpmg)
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"Greening” the Warehouse Facility |
Since doing carbon footprint calculations at 35 of our facilities in North America, APL Logistics has reconfirmed the environmental value of investing in lighting conversion initiatives wherever we can — especially now that we know that metal halide lighting has a carbon footprint that is nearly three times greater than that of fluorescent lighting.
More fuel-efficient mode shifts (areadevelopment)
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US human capital effectiveness |
As the US economy slowly recovers from recession, several challenges are emerging for HR.Hiring is trending upward, but productivity is declining. The employment uptick has brought higher voluntary turnover rates, but not for new hires. Organizations that understand and adapt to this seemingly contradictory workforce environment will be able to gain the highest return from their investment in the workforce.
Quality of new hires (pwc)
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Huaweï vs NSA |
In a surprisingly detailed interview with the Australian Financial Review last week, NSA' director asserted there is hard evidence that Huawei has engaged in espionage on behalf of the Chinese government. By its own estimates, Huawei helps power communications for more than a third of the planet. So does that mean the company represents a security threat to more than a third of the planet?
Huawei or the highway? (digitaltrends)
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UK: Planning for growth |
In a sign of an improving domestic outlook,the shift to more pro-growth strategies has been driven by companies which earn the majority of their revenues in the UK. A less risky environment clearly bodes well for business investment. CFOs’ expectations for hiring and investment are back to where they were in early 2011 when the world seemed set fair for recovery.
Business confidence (deloitte)
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Base erosion & Profit shifting |
Many governments have to cope with less revenue and a higher cost to ensure compliance Moreover, Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) undermines the integrity of the tax system, as the public, the media and some taxpayers deem reported low corporate taxes to be unfair In developing countries, the lack of tax revenue leads to critical under-funding of public investment.
OECD'action plan (oecd-ilibrary:downloadable doc.)
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UK communications data demands |
Inception and communications data remain powerful techniques in the investigation of many kinds of crime and threats to national security. Many of the largest drug-trafficking, excise evasion, people-trafficking, counter-terrorism and wider national security, and serious crime investigative successes of the recent past have in some way involved the use of interception and/or communications data.
Case study & Operational successe (iocco-uk)
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EU' green product survey |
Respondents were asked about their behaviour towards environmentally-friendly products in general. By environmentally-friendly products or green products we meanproducts that have a less negative impacton the environment during production, in terms of use and disposal compared to other products (with the same functionality,addressing the same need, etc.).
Environmentally-friendly products (ec.europa)
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Buying competitive keywords |
Is Buying Competitive Keyword Advertising Trademark Infringement? It must sound like a Johnny One Note, but we'll say it again. Keyword advertising litigation is dead, dead, DEAD. It may not have been dead when 1-800 Contacts brought the lawsuit in 2007, but the intervening 6 years have proven that keyword advertising lawsuits are not easy to win and are economically irrational.
Trademark infringement (techdirt)
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State of the outsourcing industry |
The survey, which covers the viewpoints, dynamics and intentions of 1355 senior leaders from major global enterprises, outsourcing services providers, management consultant firms, sourcing advisory firms and other key industry influencers, found that client expectations of outsourcing are evolving to be more value focused, with IT, Finance and Accounting administrative processes dominating future outsourcing plans.
KPMG Survey (kpmginstitutes)
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60,000 new wind turbines |
The wind turbine, an Enercon E-82, has been there for over a year. When it was inaugurated, the local shooting club, the "Black Hunters", fired their guns in celebration, and the local priest delivered a sermon on protecting God's creation. But not everyone is happy. Some are angry at the way the landscape is being butchered. The opponents protest with images of the Grim Reaper holding a wind turbine rather than his traditional scythe.
Delays and demands (spiegel)
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Pesticide: Cumulative risk assessment |
The (EFSA) has developed a new approach for grouping pesticides that paves the way for the implementation of cumulative risk assessment - a sophisticated technique to assess the risk posed by exposure to multiple pesticide residues. The general methodology is based on identifying compounds that exhibit similar toxicological properties in a specific organ or system.
Broad criteria for consumer protection (efsa)
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OSHA whistleblower protection laws |
According to OSHA, there were 2,787 claims in 2012, compared with 1,934 claims in 2005. In addition, thousands of employees have brought claims under OSHA whistleblower protection laws, alleging that their employers retaliated against them for bringing forward safety concerns or participating in OSHA investigations. How to Take proactive steps to protect against whistleblower litigation ?
OSHA' Whistleblower Claims (24-7pressrelease)
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Detecting Device That Didn't Work |
The ADE 651 was modeled on a novelty trinket conceived decades before by a former used-car salesman from South Carolina, which was purported to detect golf balls. By the time police in Britain raided his offices nine days later, McCormick had spent three years selling the Iraqi government these devices. Authorities in Baghdad bought more than 6,000 useless bomb detectors, at a cost of at least $38 million.
How to Make Money ? (businessweek)
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Flight of the Drone maker |
AeroVironment which has had a rich history since MacCready founded the company in 1971. Today, AeroVironment may be poised to lead the next wave of major change in the way people fuel their vehicles, go to war, and make use of flight. The company holds dominant, in two unrelated technologies: unmanned aircraft and charging systems for electric vehicles.
AV' powerful assets (strategy-business)
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Learning initiatives in Europe |
This report presents the analysis of 31 recent 1:1 learning initiatives, which equip students of a given school, class or age group with a portable computer device. Overall, the analysed initiatives involve approximately 47,000 schools and 17,480,000 students in primary and secondary education across 19 European countries. Based on desk research (analysis of country reports on 1:1 initiatives and a literature review).
Overview and analysis (jrc)
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US-EU Head Into Negotiations |
On July 8, 29 countries—the U.S. plus 28 countries of the EU—will begin negotiating The Biggest Trade Deal Ever. (France is threatening to delay the start of the talks over allegations that the U.S. spied on EU offices in the U.S. and Europe.) The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will affect 30 percent of global commerce, eliminate $10.5 billion in tariffs, and boost trade by an estimated $280 billion a year.
The biggest trade deal (businessweek)
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What Is a 3D Measurement Arm ? |
Articulating arms, also known 3D measurement arms, are portable coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) that determine and record the location of a probe in 3D space and report the results through software. The name derives from the actual look of the hardware, which resembles a human arm with a shoulder, elbow, forearm, and a wrist.
Articulating arm applications (qualitydigest)
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Metrics and you - IT design |
"Metrics" is rapidly becoming something of a cult among IT vendors. Many are betting the future of their companies on data gathering and foster a culture that treats user behaviour-monitoring like a religion. I've never fully believed in this practice, but it is hard to deny its allure. People are fickle and hard to predict; the idea that we can reduce the complexity of design choices to simple maths is tantalising.
The interpretation matter (theregister)
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AdBlockPlus: Google's funding |
Google's advertising already allowed by the AdBlock filters, you can easily check. Who installed AdBlock Plus and the Google Search (for example, "car") is used, despite active ad blocker gets Google AdWords ads delivered to the screen. With competing search engines like Bing or Yahoo by Microsoft continues to work the blocker.
Questionable transactions (adblockplus-horizont)
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DNA Data Deluge |
The cost of sequencing one human genome has dropped from hundreds of millions of dollars to just a few thousand dollars. Instead of taking years to sequence a single human genome, it now takes about 10 days to sequence a half dozen at a time using a high-capacity sequencing machine. Now scientists have built rich catalogs of genomes from people around the world.
3 billion letters of a human being (spectrum.ieee)
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Delay to CO2 in cars deal |
Earlier this week, the proposal to limit passenger car emissions to 95 grams of CO2 per km (g/km) was hailed by the Irish environment minister Phil Hogan as “a win-win for climate, consumers, innovation and jobs.” Luxury German car-makers such as Daimler and BMW have complained that the proposed targets unfairly singled them out. Germany’s car industry are 15g/km higher than the EU median.
Highly unusual (euractiv)
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China's growth |
China’s GDP is expected to quintuple between now and 2050 according to the IMF. By that time, the urban economy could generate more than 90% of China’s economic output, up from 75% in 2009. The urbanization rate hit 49.2% in 2010 and is projected to reach 65.4% by 2025, according to United Nations research. By 2030, if current trends hold, around 1 billion Chinese will live in cities.
Dupont' view (dupont)
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ESRF' new experimental halls |
On Monday, 24th June the ESRF inaugurated the two new experimental halls built to house extended beamlines, laboratories and offices as part of the Upgrade Programme. Just 19 months after the ground-breaking ceremony, the new buildings have been completed on schedule and within budget. The ESRF Council Chairman, Jean Moulin, and Director General, Francesco Sette, headed the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Belledonne and Chartreuse buildings (esrf)
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Food chain-feed safety |
Safe animal feed is important for the health of animals, the environment and for the safety of foods of animal origin. There are many examples of the close link between the safety of animal feed and the foods we eat. For instance, mammalian meat and bone meal (MBM) was banned from all farm animal feed in the EU in 2001 because it was linked to the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).
Animals' health (efsa.europa)
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MD' suppliers control requirements |
Around the world,tightening medical device regulations emphasize not only the manufacturer and its legal duties, but also its duties with respect to all its suppliers and subcontractors. Nevertheless the suppliers and subcontractors closely involved in the means to meet the product/MD conformity and performances shall be considered with a specific attention.
European regulation (lne-america)
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Google’s biggest obstacle |
The ballon-powered network know as Loon may be one of Google’s famed moon shots, but the biggest issues facing the project are grounded right here on Earth. This won’t just be a major technological feat for Google. It will be a huge political undertaking. I give Google credit: it’s never shied away from a challenge. But if Loon is going to be a success it’s going to have to wade deeply into the morass of global international relations.
Project Loon (gigaom)
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Data and privacy laws |
While the EU may not have known the specifics of the National Security Agency's (NSA) foreign dragnet surveillance program, two years later Europe's justice chief is enraged. By opening the door for data protection ceasefire negotiations, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding trusted her transatlantic ally to stick to its word.
Overstepping EU' jurisdictional boundaries (zdnet)
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Health status among elderly |
Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and rate of telomere shortening are known biomarkers of aging while, numerous studies showed that Mediterranean diet (MD) may boost longevity. We studied association between telomere length, telomerase activity and different adherence to MD and its effects on healthy status.
Mediterranean diet (plosone)
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Unlocking consumer's power |
“Consumers today share much more readily with each other and with the companies than in the past,” says Bert Alfonso, President, International, for The Hershey Company. “Their input tends to be about your product’s characteristics and about what they like and don’t like. We see it in North America, China, Brazil, and in other markets which have a high penetration of both mobile and Internet usage.
Is-it the right time for growth ? (pwc)
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HTML5' security issues |
Web' applications cannot even warn the user of the on-going attack, as the malicious code can suppress or tamper with this warning. Also, getting rid of the malicious code is not as easy as you might think: closing the tabs of the attacked application is useless if the malicious code is running in other tabs or hidden frames in the context of this web application.
Protection against the attack (developer)
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Analysis: Antibiotic apocalypse |
A simple cut to your finger could leave you fighting for your life. Luck will play a bigger role in your future than any doctor could. Cancer treatments and organ transplants could kill you. Childbirth could once again become a deadly moment in a woman's life. Antibiotics kill bacteria, but the bugs are incredibly wily foes. Once you start treating them with a new drug,
Global problem (bbc)
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The competitiveness imperative |
We are seeing a strong demand for market-driven solutions that tackle the roadblocks of red tape and high labour costs – both identified by business leaders as key problems hampering European competitiveness. There is a sense, though, that Europe is running out of time and must act now to restore its competitiveness relative to the rest of the world.
Revitalising the European Dream (booz)
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US: Talking turkey |
Lab analysis of ground turkey bought at retail stores nationwide, more than half of the packages of raw ground meat and patties tested positive for fecal bacteria. Some samples harbored other germs, including salmonella and staphylococcus aureus, two of the leading causes of foodborne illness in the U.S. Overall, 90 percent of the samples had one or more of the five bacteria for which we tested.
From barn to burger (consumerreports)
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Scientific management |
Probably the most complete research on Taylor’s scientific management was done by Hugh Aitken. He describes Taylorism like this: “The essential core of scientific management, regarded as a philosophy, was the idea that human activity could be measured, analyzed, and controlled by techniques analogous to those that proved successful when applied to physical objects.” Taylor and his cohorts were out to solve problems of industrial production but not much else.
Revisiting Taylorism (qualitydigest)
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Encrypted e-mail |
If you don't want a government, service provider, employer, or unauthorized party to have access to your mail at rest, you need to encrypt the mail itself. But most encryption algorithms are symmetric, meaning that the encryption key serves a dual purpose: it both encrypts and decrypts. As such, people encrypting mail with a symmetric key would be able to decrypt other mail that used the same symmetric key.
The uses of asymmetry (arstechnica)
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Ericsson: Mobility report |
The number of mobile subscriptions worldwide has grown approximately 8 percent year-on-year during Q1 2013. The number of mobile broadband subscriptions grew even faster over this period at a rate of 45 percent year-on-year, reaching around 1.7 billion. The amount of data usage per subscription also continued to grow steadily. About 50 percent of all mobile phones sold in Q1 2013 were smartphones.
The networked society (ericsson)
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EU-BIZ Investment in intangible assets |
Companies that invested in any of the intangible assets discussed were asked if their investment had benefited their company in a range of areas. The skills and qualifications of employees are seen as the biggest beneficiary from an investment in intangible assets - one in five say there has been a lot of benefit (21%), compared to 11% that say this about the overall value of the company and 10% that say this about sales.
Economic assets & growth (ec.europa)
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Clouds on U.S. cloud firms |
This is a great day to be a conspiracy theorist. Vindication! The National Security Agency – part of the U.S. military – reportedly has a direct line into the systems of some of the world’s biggest web and tech companies, all of which are of course sited in the U.S. And nowhere more so than in Europe which new data protection laws are being formulated, with treats in store including enhanced responsibilities for non-EU cloud firms when it comes to protecting the privacy of European citizens.
EU’s new data protection laws (gigaom)
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DNA data-sharing future |
More than 60 leading health care, research and disease advocacy organisations from across the world are joining together to form an international alliance dedicated to enabling secure sharing of genomic and clinical data. Each of these organisations has signed a 'Letter of Intent', pledging to work together to create a not-for-profit, inclusive, public-private, international, non-governmental organisation.
How to share and use 'bigDNAdata'? (sanger.ac)
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Breakthrough treatment of solid tumors |
BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc presented an update on the ongoing Phase 1/2 study for its poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor BMN 673 for the treatment of solid tumors. BMN 673 has demonstrated substantial single-agent anti-tumor activity in deleterious germline BRCA ovarian and breast cancers. The data were presented during a poster presentation on June 3 at the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.
BMN 673 and other "PARP inhibitors" (bmrn)
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Japan's maglev technology |
It was in 1964 that Japan was propelled to the forefront of transport technology after it unveiled its first bullet train – known as "shinkansen" – to coincide with its hosting of the Olympic Games. Since then, Japan has become famous as home to the world's most sophisticated rail network system, with bullet trains travelling at speeds of up to 199mph across more than 1,400 miles of tracks.
310mph bullet train (telegraph)
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Meet the innovators |
Engineering innovation brings many benefits - it not only creates wealth and jobs but also addresses today’s challenges both great and small. This collection of case studies demonstrates the wide variety of ways that engineering research can improve our lives – from optimising heart surgery to increasing the quality of live music recordings.
Researcher Case Studies (raeng.org)
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Quality control in additive manufacturing |
Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, is used for rapid production of prototypes, usually in one-offs or small quantities, and increasingly for series manufacture of functional components. Quick time-to-market and a need for manufacturing flexibility are important, and so also is reproducible part quality. Determining and specifying parameters when using layer-by-layer laser sintering can be complex and time-consuming.
Enhanced procedures (engineerlive)
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FDA on caffeine in food |
The Food and Drug Administration threw a wet blanket on the caffeine-laced food craze recently when it asked foodmakers to take a timeout. Concerned about the potential health effects on children, as well as Americans' cumulative caffeine intake, officials said they want to investigate whether new rules are needed to govern caffeine in foods.
Something that's going to grow (dailyherald)
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Moving CCS forward in Europe |
Created in 2011, the EnGOn etwork on CCS comprises organisations that support the safe and effective deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a timely mitigation tool for combating climate change. Because urgent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are needed to prevent dangerous climate change, a variety of innovative solutions is necessary.
Looking back, thinking forward (e3g)
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Losing humanity |
With the rapid development and proliferation of robotic weapons, machines are starting to take the place of humans on the battlefiel d. Some military and robotics experts have predicted that “killer robots ”—fully autonomous weapons that could select and engage targets without human intervention —could be developed within 20 to 30 years.
UN warned over 'Killer Robot' (hrw)
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Molecule of itch sensation |
The small molecule, called natriuretic polypeptide b (Nppb), streams ahead and selectively plugs into a specific nerve cell in the spinal cord, which sends the signal onward through the central nervous system. When Nppb or its nerve cell was removed, mice stopped scratching at a broad array of itch-inducing substances. The signal wasn’t going through.
NIH's discovery (nih)
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Symbiotic relationships |
The idea that bacteria had viruses seemed far-fetched to d’Herelle’s fellow scientists, and it wasn’t until the 1930s that engineers developed microscopes powerful enough to see them, to document their attacks on bacteria. d’Herrelle spent the rest of his life trying to transform phages into a medical weapon against bacterial infections.
The coevolutionary partners (phenomena.nationalgeographic)
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The future of wearable computer |
There are always skeptics. And they would be right to be skeptical – this is a new frontier and we are still defining the social norms involved with wearing a computer on your face. Some have even proposed that providing developers with Glass before the general public will make it seem too nerdy or awkward – what average person concerned about their appearance wants to be associated with a naked geek in the shower ?
Is there much hype ? (techcrunch)
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Aviation security management |
Access control in airport buildings is no longer only about achieving the highest levels of security. Nedap has released uPASS Access: the world's smallest UHF reader for hands-free building access. uPASS Access reads normal, battery-less, access badges at a distance of two meters. It utilizes passive UHF cards (EPC GEN 2) and supports combi cards that incorporate both UHF and all conventional card technologies.
The long-range identification tech. (airport-technology)
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Thailand: A Country With a Plan |
A country of only 66 million people doesn't become the 17th largest global manufacturer without careful planning. Thailand is the second largest producer of light pick-up trucks. Carefully constructed strategies along with tangible incentives created this robust manufacturing economy. The linchpin of the strategy is a network of industrial estates that take a full value chain approach to manufacturing.
Plan that is still unfolding (industryweek)
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The decline in general intelligence |
A new study from researchers in Europe claims that the average IQ in Western nations dropped by a staggering 14.1 points over the past century. The results might surprise some. Especially if the researchers were simply measuring visual response times. After all, in a digital world constantly competing for our attention, it would seem people generally respond more quickly to visual stimuli.
The slowing of simple reaction time (lesacreduprintemps19)
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Progress on Computing in Schools |
The movement to get computing into schools (at least secondary/high school, and primary school in some efforts) made progress in the last month. In April, Informatics Europe and ACM Europe released a joint report calling for more computing in secondary schools. Just a couple weeks ago, the State of Washington became the 10th state to count computer science towards high school graduation requirements.
Teaching computer science (cacm.acm)
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Antimicrobial resistance in zoonotic |
The antimicrobial agents used in food producing animals in Europe are frequently the same, or belong to the same classes, as those used in human medicine. Antimicrobial resistance is the main undesirable side effect of antimicrobial use in both humans and animals and results from the continuous positive selection of resistant bacterial clones, whether these are pathogenic, commensal or even environmental bacteria.
EU summary report (efsa.europa)
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New US rule for fracturing |
Approximately 90 percent of wells drilled on Federal and Indian lands use hydraulic fracturing, but the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) current regulations governing hydraulic fracturing operations on public lands are more than 30 years old and were not written to address modern hydraulic fracturing activities.
US draft (blm)
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Expectations of risk management |
Risk management is at the top of the global executive agenda as companies face an array of threats that grow more complex by the day. the risks are multitudinous and ever-present, and those companies that fail to manage them well imperil their future. Many risks are posed by the challenge of complying with complicated, new government regulations.
It’s time for action (kpmg)
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Game-based learning |
The role of video games in teaching and learning is a source of debate among many educators, researchers and in the popular press. Detractors and advocates have been discussing the influences and the potentials of video games for quite some time, and we feel that sound evidence and informed advice on these topics is still very much needed.
Gamification and/or Gameplay (nfer.ac)
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Differentiation of human embryo. stem cells |
Epigenetic mechanisms have been proposed to play crucial roles in mammalian development, but their precise functions are only partially understood. To investigate epigenetic regulation of embryonic development, we differentiated human embryonic stem cells. We found that promoters that are active in early developmental stages tend to be CG rich and mainly engage H3K27me3 upon silencing in nonexpressing lineages.
Epigenomic analysis (sciencedirect)
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Are cyber weapons effective ? |
When news of Stuxnet first emerged, many thought that it had caused a major setback to Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme. Ivanka Barzashka argues instead that while Stuxnet may have had the potential to seriously damage Iranian centrifuges, evidence of the worm’s impact is circumstantial and inconclusive. Her analysis of the related data shows that Stuxnet was neither very effective nor well-timed.
Stuxnet's impacts (tandfonline)
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Insects: as food and feed security |
One major and readily available source of nutritious and protein-rich food that comes from forests are insects, according to a new study FAO launched at the forests for food security and nutrition conference. It is estimated that insects form part of the traditional diets of at least 2 billion people. Insect gathering and farming can offer employment and cash income.
Wild and farm-raised insects (fao)
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Engineered nanomaterials & Safety concerns |
While nanotechnology offers enormous potential societal benefits, concerns about the safety of ENMcontaining products in regards to human and environmental health have been raised. Inter-laboratory studies in rodents using standardized protocols are needed for ENM toxicity assessment. ENMs produced similar patterns of neutrophilia and pathology in rats and mice.
The cumulative evidences (ehp.niehs.nih)
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Study examines role of auditors |
A new academic study funded by the Center for Audit Quality scrutinizes the role of the external auditor in fraudulent financial reporting and found that the top areas cited by the Securities and Exchange Commission were failure to gather sufficient competent audit evidence, failure to exercise due professional care, and an insufficient level of professional skepticism.
SEC fraud investigations (accountingtoday)
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Antibiotics heal 40% of chronic back pain |
Surgeons in the UK and elsewhere are reviewing how they treat patients with chronic back pain after scientists discovered that many of the worst cases were due to bacterial infections. The shock finding means that scores of patients with unrelenting lower back pain will no longer face major operations but can instead be cured with courses of antibiotics costing around £114.
Antibiotics rather than surgery (guardian)
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Canadian Life Sciences Industry |
Over the past two years, the Canadian life sciences industry has endured despite significant global economic uncertainty. Our research provides evidence of a sector that's showing positive signs of maturity. Yet, access to capital remains the missing ingredient that will continue to constrain the sector’s success. The information gathered within this report builds on findings from previous reports.
Forecast 2013 (pwc)
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German' nuclear headache |
The dismantling of Germany's nuclear power plants will be one of the greatest tasks of the century as the country moves to phase out atomic energy. It will take at least until 2080 to complete the job. But what happens if energy utility companies who own the facilities go bust before the work is done? Germany will have to build a storage facility deep underground that can survive the ravages of wars, revolutions and even another ice age.
Task of decommissioning plants (spiegel)
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Digital evidence from 5 EU members |
This paper examines whether there is a digital divide in the use of the internet in general and for specific purposes (leisure, improving human capital and obtaining goods and services). It uses a unique dataset which covers the entire clickstream of almost 20,000 internet users in the five largest EU economies during 2011. Our main finding is that, for those who have access to the Internet, the income-based digital divide in internet use has been reversed.
The digital divide in access to internet (jrc)
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Dependences of countries on food imports |
We found that currently 16% of the world population use the opportunities of international trade to cover their demand for agricultural products. Population change may strongly increase the number of people depending on ex situ land and water resources up to about 5.2 billion (51% of world population). Up to 1.3 billion people may be at risk of food insecurity in 2050.
Land/water requirement (iopscience.iop)
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Untangling the Web |
NSA's Center for Digital Content, Untangling the Web: An Introduction to Internet Research is a 643-page long introduction to everything from the very basics of web research to finding confidential information that has accidentally slipped into the public domain. The document became available as a result of an April Freedom of Information Act request by MuckRock, a service-provider for journalists and researchers.
You can search like a spy (nsa)
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Classification of medical devices |
Correctly classifying a medical device is a key part of the device’s regulatory strategy around the world. In the US, classifying devices is straightforward – the FDA regulations state the class of each device in a separate subsection for the device. In the EU, manufacturers cannot simply look up the current regulation for the device, so determining the class of a medical device is not as straightforward as in the US.
US vs EU regulation (lne-america) EU regulation (ec.europa)
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Sensor tech. on Flexible substrates |
At the moment the nanotech ink for the sensors is screen printed, producing touch sensors in fabric that dramatically reduce the weight of a switch in automotive and aerospace applications. The new work, backed by government funding as a R&D Technology Strategy Board (TSB) project, can be used to print a new generation of printable electronics, including QTC sensors. This could bring down the costs of the sensors dramatically.
Flexible printable low cost sensors (engineerlive)
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Corruption strangling U.S. Innovation |
Tesla. Uber. Netflix. Most economies would kill to have a set of innovators such as these. And yet at every turn, these companies are running headlong into regulation (or lack thereof) that seems designed to benefit incumbents. The reason? The devastating impact of money in politics and how it discourages disruptive innovation among new businesses. Learn more about legal bribery and U.S. competitiveness.
Sneak peek at some cases (blogs.hbr)
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Economic Survey of Japan 2013 |
Reconstruction from the tragic 2011 disaster highlights some of the structural reform challenges facing by Japan . Reform of agriculture, an important sector in the Tohoku region, is a priority. The high level and distortionary nature of agriculture support imposes heavy burdens on consumers and taxpayers, undermines the dynamism of the farming sector.
Country surveillance (oecd)
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What to do with radioactive waste ? |
Nuclear power plants do have a waste management problem because radioactivity takes a long time to dissipate and turn the radioactive waste into just a non-hazardous waste. Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine.
There is still no repository (enn)
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Be prepared for your auditor |
Have you ever been through an audit to an ISO standard? If you have, then you probably know about a set of questions that are frequently asked during audits against various ISO standards. No one can predict all of the questions that an auditor will ask, but you can bet that that following five will be among them. What is your quality (or environmental, safety, information security) policy ? What could be the answer?
ISO queries (qualitydigest)
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T-Platforms tech. trad-restriction |
According to the Commerce Department, which regulates the licensing of sensitive technology, the U.S. “has reason to believe that T-Platforms is associated with military procurement activities, including the development of computer systems for military end-users and the production of computers for nuclear research.” The Russian company is going to have a tough time building high-performance computers for sale anywhere.
The first Russian supercomputer (businessweek)
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European chemistry for growth |
Cefic initiated a roadmap to explore the impact, opportunities and risks of various energy and techno logy development scenarios for the European chemical industry in the timeframe from 2020 to 2050. Cefic commissioned Ecofys to perform analyses and bring forward key conclusions and recommendations from their independent viewpoint, in close collaboration with the sector.
Low carbon and energy efficient future (cefic)
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Adults’ media use and attitudes |
There has been a significant increase in the self reported volume of internet use since 2011. Overall estimated weekly volume of use of the internet among users has increased to an average of just under 17 hours per week. On average, UK adult internet users claim to visit 19 websites in a typical week. There are considerable differences between demographic groups.
Ofcom' report (stakeholders.ofcom)
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GM salmon's global HQ |
The US government this week enters the final stages of its deliberations on whether to allow commercial production of the GM fish, with a public consultation on the issue ending on Friday . Separately, a committee in Congress on Monday took up a bill that would outlaw GM salmon entirely – essentially destroying AquaBounty's commercial prospects in America.
A fast-growing salmon (guardian)
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She++: Women in technology |
Two Stanford juniors who study Symbolic Systems and CS, respectively, founded she++ in January 2012 as a Stanford community for women in tech; Agarwal and Israni hope to spur girls in middle and high school to study CS, as well as their fellow Stanford students. Around 250 people attended the conference, half of which were Stanford students.
Growing the pool of talented engineers (techcrunch)
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The future according to Mr Google |
Schmidt has generally been thought a technological optimist – and he still overwhelmingly celebrates the way connectivity will rapidly revolutionise medicine, education, agriculture and productivity for the rest of the world. But the book is also very alive to the downsides of what is to come – either through the behaviour of repressive states or the actions of a tiny minority, including terrorists. "The future for us is great.
The executive chairman's vision (guardian)
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Clean energy progress 2013 |
The 22 countries that participate in the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) share a strong interest in the development and deployment of clean energy technologies. As these same countries represent more than 75% of global energy consumption, 80% of global CO2 emissions and 75% of global GDP, they have the power to drive the transition to a cleaner energy system.
Comprehensive overview (iea)
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The success of Germany's economy |
Three long years. That is how long Carl Stahl GmbH München, one of the myriad lesser-known companies in Germany that keep the country's economy humming, has been trying to fill a trio of job openings. They need an expert in testing technologies. They need a specialized machinist. And they need a rope and cable expert. But they can't find them. "The market is completely empty," says company head Rupert Hetterer.
Dearth of experts (spiegel)
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Turkish 'power ship' |
The ship, the Fatmagül Sultan, is the centrepiece of an innovative project to overcome chronic electricity shortages in developing countries struggling to meet expanding demand. Known as a "power ship", the Turkish-owned and operated vessel with 11 towering steel stacks or chimneys resembles a sort of floating Battersea power station.
Helping power generation (guardian)
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IBM Flash Tech.: $1B investment |
With the move, Big Blue is the latest on the bandwagon to push Flash into the data centers. Developments like big data are pushing Flash storage mainstream in the enterprise because companies need to tap into so-called hot data — information that needs to be used real-time. Fusion-io, EMC, NetApp and other storage players have also formulated Flash storage strategies.
New opportunities in big data (znet)
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Enterprise 2.0 |
With downloadable apps taking over the enterprise, you’d think the days of six-figure enterprise software deals would be drawing to a close. In truth, enterprise deals are alive and well. But if users are doing the downloading, how do enterprise decision makers and purchasing managers get into the picture? The answer: Your inside sales force.
The science of inside sales (gigaom)
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EFSA' Food Safety Report |
Zoonoses are infections and diseases that are naturally transmissible directly or indirectly, for example via contaminated foodstuffs, between animals and humans. The severity of these diseases in humans varies from mild symptoms to life - threatening conditions. In order to prevent zoonoses from occurring, it is important to identify which animals and foodstuffs are the main sources of infections.
Food-borne outbreaks (efsa.europa)
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China' market in bitcoin |
China’s capital controls make it extremely hard for to buy stuff beyond China’s borders—most online stores don’t accept yuan or Chinese payment systems, and there are limits to what they can exchange into foreign currency. As bitcoin markets develop overseas, Chinese bitcoin owners could in theory change it into currencies that sites like PayPal, Amazon, etc., accept.
Exchange of “virtual currency” (qz)
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Analysis at the limit of detection |
Hardly a month goes by without the media reporting the discovery of trace amounts of some unwanted chemical in the things we eat and drink. Some enter the food chains by accident, such as pesticides, others are deliberately added to deceive, while some arrive through natural processes. In this article I will be looking at the work of those who investigate them, the analytical chemists.
Desorption electrospray ionization method (sciencewatch)
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Immigration & America’s high-tech |
High-tech firms such as Google (whose co-founder Sergey Brin moved to America from Russia as a child) haven’t just created jobs for their own workers. They have also inspired the creation of entirely new categories of job. A few years ago no one earned a living as a mobile-app developer. Now they are everywhere. It is not just full-time workers who benefit: firms such as oDesk.
Creating jobs all over america (economist)
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The Sahara’s “green” era |
known as the African Humid Period, likely lasted from 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, and is thought to have ended abruptly, with the region drying back into desert within a span of one to two centuries. Now researchers at MIT, Columbia University and elsewhere have found that this abrupt climate change occurred nearly simultaneously across North Africa.
Far less dusty than today (mit)
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Roche to Release Tamiflu Data |
Tamiflu is an influenza vaccine that has been approved by regulators worldwide and stockpiled by governments in case of a global flu pandemic; sales of the drug reached nearly $3 billion in 2009 due to the H1N1 swine flu outbreak. However, scientists have questioned whether the drug works, and Roche had been the subject of an intensifying campaign over its refusal to release clinical trial data.
After a long battle (social.eyeforpharma)
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Japan to Overhaul Its Elect. Sector |
The move is government's latest response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that destroyed four nuclear reactors, turned nearby municipalities into ghost towns, and terrorized the nation. Today, only two of the country's remaining 50 reactors are in service while the government tries to devise a new energy policy. TEPCO, is the largest of the Big 10, which were set up as regional monopolies in the 1950s.
Response to the nuclear disaster (spectrum.ieee)
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Reducing number of lines code? |
Ankit works in J2SE (core java). During code reviews, he's frequently asked to reduce his lines of code (LOC). "It's not about removing redundant code," he writes. To his colleagues, "it's about following a style." Style over substance. Ankit says the readability of his code is suffering due to the dogmatic demands of his code reviewers. So how to find the right balance of brevity and readability?
The effective code (arstechnica)
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Innovations in friction reduction |
Mineral-oil derived liquid lubricants are presently the mainstay of mechanical systems - reducing friction where moving surfaces touch. By reducing friction, they reduce waste heat, noise, and vibrations. Any improvement in friction reduction results in greater efficiencies, requiring less power to operate the system; specifically for power generation, improved friction reduction means more power out per unit of energy in.
Tribological applications (engineerlive)
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Effective food safety training |
Lack of time is the greatest barrier to prov iding effectiv e food safety training, according to more than sev en in 10 food and drink processors globally surv eyed by Campden BRI. A total of 649 firms across the world participated in the research, which was driven by the UKbased research, development, training and advisory body to grasp the needs, effectiveness and challenges of food industry training.
Room for improvement (campdenbri)
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Beekeepers sue EPA |
“America’s beekeepers cannot survive for long with the toxic environment EPA has supported. Bee-toxic pesticides in dozens of widely used products, on top of many other stresses our industry faces, are killing our bees and threatening our livelihoods,” said plaintiff Steve Ellis, a Minnesota and California beekeeper. “Our country depends on bees for crop pollination and honey production.
Failure to protect pollinators (centerforfoodsafety)
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India as a great power |
For the past five years India has been the world’s largest importer of weapons (see chart). A deal for $12 billion or more to buy 126 Rafale fighters from France is slowly drawing towards completion. India has more active military personnel than any Asian country other than China, and its defence budget has risen to $46.8 billion. Today it is the world’s seventh-largest military spender.
Know your own strength (economist)
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Well-Tailored IT |
In the near future, IT leaders and employees in most large businesses and government agencies will work on activities such as predictive analytics—setting up systems that capture information in real time and using these systems to enable better decisions or to program automated customer-tailored responses. IT staffers who specialize in more familiar tasks will end up moving to dedicated outsourced organizations.
Six value drivers (strategy-business)
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Biological transistors |
Bioengineers at Stanford University have created the first biological transistor made from genetic materials: DNA and RNA. Dubbed the “transcriptor,” this biological transistor is the final component required to build biological computers that operate inside living cells. We are now tantalizingly close to biological computers that can detect changes in a cell’s environment.
Computers inside living cells (extremetech)
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Improving patient care |
This study examines the sources of waste in health care that could be eliminated with medical device interoperability, as well as the waste resulting from a lack of commonly adopted interoperability standards. The report’s findings suggest that increased medical device interoperability would reduce waste, lead to improvements in quality and decrease the cost of care.
Medical device interoperability (amazonaws)
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EPOW & EU Life+ funding |
LIFE+ project which is part funded by the EU, began in 2011. A partnership between the UK’s Environment Agency and WRAP, this three - year programme covered a number of key activities. At WRAP we carry out leading edge research which shows us where the inefficiencies are and the size of the prize, and then come up with possible solutions. WE work with partners to develop those solutions and make them happen.
UK: to Zero Waste project (wrap.org)
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Birthplace of biotech |
After three decades in Kendall Square, having tapped a steady stream of local talent, Biogen Idec is a global leader in synthesizing therapeutics to treat diseases including cancer and multiple sclerosis. As of 2012, the company has $5.5 billion in annual revenue and employs roughly 5,000 people worldwide. It has also opened several more facilities in Kendall Square, with yet another currently under construction.
Massachusetts biotech firms (mit)
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FDA & Genetically engineered animal |
Some day soon, you might tuck into a plate of salmon without knowing that the fish you are eating was genetically engineered. The so-called AquAdvantage salmon, a salmon genetically engineered to grow faster than normal salmon, just moved one step closer to legalization. If so, it will be the first genetically engineered (GE) animal allowed for consumption in the United States.
Fishy science (prwatch)
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Endorsement of Internet sales taxes |
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly today to endorse levying Internet sales taxes on American shoppers, despite warnings from a handful of senators that the proposal is antibusiness, harmful to taxpayers, and will be a "bureaucratic nightmare." They argue that online retailers, which in some cases do not collect sales taxes at checkout, enjoy an unfair competitive advantage over big box stores that do.
Important political milestone (cnet)
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How is science evolving? |
Is it possible to map the landscapes of science and its transformations? Can we automatically decipher the history of a research field, monitor emerging fields and detect research hybridization events? Numerous theories, and more or less conceptual models of science evolution have been contemplated in the philosophy of science, and in Science & Technology Studies.
Predictibility for science evolution (plosone)
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The implementation of open access |
Learned societies fear they will lose a valuable income stream which they use to support their respective academic communities. Academics are concerned about the policy taking a “one size fits all” approach, and possible unintended consequen ces such as lessening the quality of peer review, restricting ability to collabora te and limiting freedo m to publish in the best journals.
Implementation vs compliance (publications.parliament)
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9 Steps to SEO Utopia |
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), most developers understand its importance to the success of a website, chalking it up as an after-thought ordinarily taken care of in the post-production phase. But as SEO transcends into elements of design, U/X, and wireframe planning, it's never been more important for a developer to grasp the most essential elements of SEO as it relates to the pre-production phase of website development.
Web Developer’s SEO edition (developer)
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German Renewables Reach 25% |
Germans pay a fairly high price for what some might dismiss as a quixotic quest for political correctness in energy generation. German home rates, at 28 euro-cents per kilowatthour in 2012, were almost twice the residential rates in nuclear-rich France, for example. Arguably, however, Germans are positioning themselves to do just what President Obama says he'd like to accomplish in the United States--to be a major global player in the technologies of the near future.
Renewable energy (spectrum.ieee)
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What Does 'Big Data' Mean |
In this posting, I will finish this series with a discussion of the fourth use case. Big variety means attempting to cope with data arriving from too many data sources, which results in a daunting data integration challenge. I will focus on the integration of structured data, leaving the issue of text integration to others. Most large enterprises followed suit with sales and customer data.
Data for business insight (cacm.acm)
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UK's GP & Conflicts of interest |
An examination of the registered interests of almost 2500 board members across 176 CCGs provides the clearest evidence to date of the conflicts that many doctors will have to manage from 1 April, when the GP led groups are handed statutory responsibility for commissioning around £60bn (€70bn; $90bn) of NHS healthcare services. In some cases most of the GPs on the CCG governing body have financial interests in the same private healthcare provider.
NHS' biggest upheavals (bmj)
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An Amazon problem |
"The golden era of publishing, that is, of reading, contemplation and literary education, has somehow come to an end," says Michael Krüger, the outgoing head of the Munich-based Hanser publishing house, who has the reputation of being one of Germany's last great publishing figures. Many people no longer view book publishers "as a stronghold of culture, but merely as a transshipment point for cultural products.
The future of book publishing (spiegel)
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Food security in developing countries |
Agroforestry — the integration of trees and shrubs with crops and livestock systems — has strong potential in addressing problems of food insecurity in developing countries. Done well, it allows producers to make the best use of their land, can boost field crop yields, diversify income, and increase resilience to climate change.To date, thanks to a growing body of evidence of what it can achieve, and how to make it work.
Agroforestry schemes (ourworld.unu)
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7 programming languages in 7 days |
Much of today's buzz is about alternative programming languages, and the pitch often emphasizes "increased developer productivity" (IMHO, a sham on multideveloper projects). As long as the language has garbage collection, strings, real types, and so on, it shouldn't matter. This means nearly anything at a higher level than C or its mangled Neanderthal cousin C++ should reap the same productivity out of your developers.
How easy to make the switch (infoworld)
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SME: Top10 legislative acts |
The list of legislative acts (19 Regulations, 36 Directives and 2 Decisions) was compiled based on the information in the SME feed-back database (over 6500 cases flagged by SMEs through the Enterprise Europe Network 2006-2011), on the results of the TOP 10 SME panel (a targeted consultation ran through the Europe Enterprise Network to prepare the public consultation) and on the results of conferences with SME stakeholders.
Most burdensome policy (ec.europa)
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Extreme survival |
The unicellular red micro-alga Galdieria sulphuraria (Cyanidiales) is a eukaryote that can represent up to 90% of the biomass in extreme habitats such as hot sulfur springs with pH values of 0 to 4 and temperatures of up to 56°C. This red alga thrives autotropically as well as heterotropically on more that 50 different carbon sources, including a number of rare sugars and sugar alcohols.
Genetic information in Galdieria (enn)
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Spatiogram vs Human recognition |
Can't find a face in the crowd? not to worry, a human recognition system can spot people for you – even when their faces aren't visible. Designed for Google's forthcoming Glass headset, it recognises people by the clothes they are wearing. Wich creates a file - called a spatiogram. Peoples name is then overlaid on the headset's video. This fingerprint is constructed by a smartphone app.
Clothes fingerprint (newscientist)
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The next energy revolution |
The potential availability and accessibility of significant resources of shale oil around the globe - and the potential effect of increased shale oil production in limiting growth in global oil prices - has implications that stretch far beyond the oil industry. The effects of a lower oil price resonate along the entire energy value chain, and investment choices based on long-term predictions of a steady increase in real oil prices may need to be reassessed.
The world’s energy markets (pwc)
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Reading & Maths skills |
Machin and McNally used data from the British Cohort Study to investigate the relationship between reading skills at age 10 and weekly earnings at age 30. This short note builds on their research in three important ways. First, we extend the analysis to look at the association of maths as well as reading skills at age 10 with earnings in later life.
Earnings in later life (ifs)
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FAA Actions & Battery Incidents |
The NTSB is examining the certification and testing of the 787 battery system as part of its investigation of this incident. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the 787 incorporated “novel or unusual design features,” including the use of lithium-ion batteries. Because the FAA determined that applicable airworthiness requirements did not address lithium-ion batteries, the agency issued nine special conditions regarding the use of these batteries on the 787.
JAL 787 battery fire investigation(ntsb)
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GDB : Health Metrics & Evaluation |
The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2010 is the most comprehensive study of its kind, producing comparative metrics for 291 different causes of premature death and disability across 187 countries, 20 age groups, and both sexes for three time periods: 1990, 2005, and 2010. The study also estimated 67 potentially preventable causes of ill health.
Online tools to be launched (healthmetricsandevaluation)
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Hyundai’s Capabilities Play |
Hyundai’s prowess in design, product launch, and consumer awareness is part of a distinctive model of product management that this $66 billion, family-owned and -run car company has only recently brought to fruition. The Korea-based enterprise, regarded in the 1990s as a purveyor of cheap, low-quality cars and in the 2000s as a “me-too” follower of Toyota and Honda, has since become the fastest-growing automotive brand in the United States.
Unconventional solutions & The Quality edge (strategy-business)
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ISO 14001 Improvement Survey |
The objective of this survey is to develop an understanding of the needs of users and other interested parties in relation to environmental management systems standards, in order to inform the revisions of ISO 14001 and ISO 14004. The survey takes into account key topics from the ongoing discussions in the working groups that are revising these standards.
20 minutes to complete (surveymonkey)
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The birth of molecules |
For decades, scientists have been studying the reagents and the products of chemical reactions. However, due to a lack of tools fast enough to catch the action, they’ve not been able to observe directly the movements and play of atoms during the making and breaking of bonds involved in the first moments of a chemical reaction.
First moments of a chemical reaction (esrf)
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Copyright vs Open source |
Open source licenses are often described as the "constitutions" for the communities that form around the software they govern. That would seem to imply that in their absence, alongside other unwanted consequences, the communities would collapse. A provocative paper by Clark Asay, suggests that this isn't the case, and that software could be released into the public domain and yet still thrive as a collaborative project.
How to fix public domain ? (techdirt)
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MENA & Multipolar World |
Not only are rising powers such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) playing an increasingly important role on the world stage, but — especially since the 2000s — they are also (re)entering the East and South Mediterranean region, as explored in this report. Russia, after an interruption caused by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, is returning as a stable and significant presence in the region.
Emerging power (iai)
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Primary prevention of cardiova. disease |
The traditional Mediterranean diet is characterized by a high intake of olive oil, fruit, nuts, vegetables, and cereals; a moderate intake of fish and poultry; a low intake of dairy products, red meat, processed meats, and sweets; and wine in moderation, consumed with meals. In observational cohort studies, increasing adherence to the Mediterranean diet has been consistently beneficial with respect to cardiovascular risk.
Interventions and measurements (nejm)
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Interactive learning: Touch Surgery |
this new mobile surgical simulator lets you tap and swipe your way through the steps of an operation in a radical new model of interactive training. The modules have been developed on the basis of cognitive task analysis, breaking down each operation into a series of steps and decision points, and using learning by interaction to make the process stick.
Decisionmaking (guardian)
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Fukushima: Health risk assessment |
A major release of radioactivity to the environment is always of concern, owing to potential acute and long-term health effects.The primary purpose of this health risk assessment of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is to estimate its potential public health impact so that future health needs can be anticipated and public health actions can be taken.
Great East Japan earthquake (who)
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Future of mobile CPUs |
We set the backdrop for looking at the architecture for future SoCs and the specific players within this market, both critical IP players as well as the actual SoC vendors. For the most part, this focuses on mid-range to high-end devices, rather than the lowest-end smartphones and tablets. This means that some SoC vendors have been omitted, for the sake of clarity and brevity.
What’s ahead for the major players? (arstechnica)
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Big-4 accountants & Accountability |
Companies are overpaying for lower quality audits from the "Big Four" accountancy firms because of a lack of competition, according to the Competition Commission. The commission's review into how KPMG, PwC, Ernst & Young and Deloitte audit 90% of UK-listed blue-chip businesses said they are "insufficiently independent from executive management and insufficiently sceptical in carrying out audits".
Big-4 collusion (guardian)
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Super Space Germs |
In space, researchers encounter greatly reduced levels of gravity, often erroneously referred to as zero gravity. This near-weightlessness can have a number of abnormal effects on astronauts, such as causing muscle and bone loss. Although microgravity can distort normal biology, conventional procedures for studying microbes on Earth can cause their own distortions.
Shuttle & ground experiments (news.yahoo)
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New tech & FDA delays |
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given the Maple Grove, Minn., medical technology startup approval to use its device to redirect blood flow from the lower body to the torso and to treat people suffering from blood vessel spasms in the brain. Then, CoAxia asked for permission to use its device on stroke patients, a critical market for CoAxia to have long-term success.
FDA MD approvals (spokesman)
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Microsoft initiative for Africa’s competitiveness |
Redmond, US. Microsoft Corporation last week introduced the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, a new effort through which the company will actively engage in Africa’s economic development to improve its global competitiveness. “The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative is built on the dual beliefs that technology can accelerate growth for Africa, and Africa can also accelerate technology for the world.”
Mawingu' deployment (engineeringnews)
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UK' economic surveys |
Recovering from the recession, improving longer-term growth potential and reducing inequality are key challenges for the UK economy. Lingering effects from the global financial crisis, the restrictive impact from necessary fiscal consolidation and headwinds from the euro area sovereign debt crisis risk prolonging and worsening the economic downturn and hurting the long-term growth potential.
Key policy recommendations (oecd)
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Seed giants vs US farmers |
In 2003, CFS launched an investigation to determine the extent to which American farmers are impacted by litigation arising from the use of patented, genetically engineered (“GE” or “transgenic”) crops. This investigation culminated in a 2005 report, a comprehensive assessment of Monsanto Company’s use of U.S. patent law to control the use of staple crop seeds by farmers.
Beyond legal limits (centerforfoodsafety)
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The Sustainability Yearbook 2013 |
Ten years ago, when the first edition of The Sustainability Yearbook was published, corporate sustainability was a somewhat vague concept that few companies and investors considered. However, companies have made tremendous progress in recognizing the financial benefits of their corporate strategies, and The Sustainability Yearbook has grown to become one of the leading reference guides to the world’s sustainability leaders.
Improved practices (robecosam)
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Pollution related to LBR |
Low birth weight (LBR) (a weight below 2500 grams or 5.5 pounds) is associated with serious health consequences, including increased risk of postnatal morbidity and mortality and chronic health problems in later life, noted lead author Payam Dadvand, MD, PhD, of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) in Barcelona, Spain.
Maternal exposure to air pollution (ucsf)
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Aero India 2013 |
Building an antiaircraft and missile defense system, without which it is impossible to talk about the reliable security of any state, is very promising for the development of a military-technical dialogue with the countries in the region, particularly with India. With its vast experience in this sphere, Russia will showcase a wide range of reliable systems.
Russia vs India partnership (defencetalk)
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Nuclear issue: French Debate |
French factory operators say the coming months are crucial to convince policy-makers they need competitive energy. A report on French competitiveness warns that the country “must not raise the cost of energy for industry.” French nuclear output is a “veritable advantage” that needs to be preserved, according to the study published in November by its ceo, Louis Gallois.
Energy costs for industry (bloomberg)
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Stringed Perfection |
Roger Federer wins by dropping the ball over the net like a magnetically controlled ping-pong ball. Wilson, in an effort to cash in on this trend, went to work on a new design intended to increase ball spin as much as possible. But the Steam 99S uses five fewer cross-strings (or 16×15 total) for a faster “snapback” — one of the key behavior variables of a racket that affects ball spin.
New tennis racket (wired)
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Desert soil microbes |
Scientists from the United Arab Emirates [UAE] have isolated local salt- and drought-tolerant strains of Rhizobia, soil bacteria that fix nitrogen when they become established inside the root nodules of legumes. The discoveries could pave the way to improving the production of leguminous plants cultivated in arid environments, says the study published in the February issue of the Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture.
How to boost crop yields ? (scidev)
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Cybersecu.: The great career path |
The stakes are high at Collegiate Cyber Defense Competitions (CCDC), where top-notch security professionals pose as computer hackers and try to break into simulated business computer networks--the kinds you'd find on Wall Street, in banks, hospitals, or even your home. As the "bad guys" try to compromise computer systems, teams of students have to think like hackers and compete against each other to keep the attackers out.
The 21st Century Workforce (nsf)
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Genetic landscape |
Brain tumors called meningiomas tend to be benign. A Yale study shows that tumors associated with mutations in NF2 genes have a greater chance of becoming cancerous and form on the hemispheres of the brain, while those with non-NF2 mutations such as TRAF7 form near the base of the skull, a maybe good candidates for targeted chemotherapy rather than surgery.
Key to personalized treatment (news.yale)
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Resolving Co-Founder Disputes |
One in four Y Combinator companies loses a founder. It’s not hard to conclude that startup co-founder disputes are universal. They range from the big decisions (What should our product do? Should we hire? Should we raise capital?) to the small (What should you work on today? What should the blog design look like? Should we allow non-profit discounts?). You may find some trends useful to relieve tension and frustration.
Some good chemistry (techcrunch)
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Yandex’s Wonder app |
Wonder is an iPhone app that collects your friends’ activity from Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, and Twitter and makes it easily accessible to you. Now you can ask questions about what places your friends visit, what music they listen to, and what news they read.” Apparently this treads too closely to what Graph Search does… because you can integrate Facebook, thus rendering the app without important social information.
Search in more semantic way (digitaltrends)
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UK' commercialization of Graphene |
The UK government has been determined to not let history repeat itself with its handling of graphene research and commercialization. The British feel a kind of ownership of graphene ever since two Russian émigrés, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, created single-atom-thick sheets of carbon back in 2004 while at the University of Manchester.
UK'beneficial role (spectrum.ieee)
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Phone 8 Ap. & Speech Support |
Windows Phone 8 platform provides users with the ability to interact with a Windows Phone 8 application by speech in 3 different ways. Having a knowledge of how to build speech support in a Windows Phone 8 application means additional ways in which users can interact with your application. There are additional ways in which a user can interact with a Windows Phone 8 application.
Speech recognition ap. (developer)
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The Grass Isn’t Greener |
It’s amazing how often executives who are looking for growth opportunities for their companies conclude that they simply need to find a “better” industry to compete in. Our analysis of shareholder returns of more than 6,000 companies in 65 industries globally and over a 10-year period, however, shows that the idea that some industries are superior does not hold true.
Growth is harder to find (booz)
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How WEEE2 directive affects Medical Devices ? |
Environmental concerns are at the forefront of new and updated regulations in Europe and medical devices are included in some of these updates. While its applicability may not be readily apparent to many, considering the number of medical devices that incorporate batteries, lamps, screens, and electrical equipment, the new requirements have a wide impact across the electro-medical device industry.
What is the WEEE2 Directive ? (lne-america)
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Renewable power Costs in 2012 |
As the world embarks on the transition to a truly sustainable energy future, the world’s renewable resources and technologies increasingly offer the promise of cleaner, healthier and economically and technically feasible power solutions and sustainable energy access for all. With over 100 gigawatts of renewable power generation capacity added in 2011 alone, renewables have gone mainstream.
Up to date cost (irena)
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Global Risks 2013 |
How do the top risks as identified by the annual Global Risks Perception Survey change over time? Figure 6 shows how this list changed over the past seven years. The average ratings of the risks have changed slightly, as described in detail in Section 4 of the report, but the relative ranking of the risks according to their impact or their likelihood is less affected.
The Risk Response Network (weforum)
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Tar sands extraction |
The Canadian tar sands have been called the “most environmentally destructive project on earth”, with good reason. Extracting tar sands bitumen from under the boreal forests of Alberta, Canada requires huge amounts of energy and water. It has cleared vast tracts of forest, left scars on the land that are visible from space and threatened the health and livelihoods of indigenous First Nations communities across the region.
The environmentally destructive project (priceofoil)
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Health Online 2013 |
Women are more likely than men to go online to figure out a possible diagnosis. Other groups that have a high likelihood of doing so include younger people, white adults, those who live in households earning $75,000 or more, and those with a college degree or advanced degrees. Throughout this report, we call those who searched for answers on the internet “online diagnosers.”
The online diagnosers (pewinternet)
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Risks to bees from neonicotinoids |
EFSA scientists have identified a number of risks posed to bees by three neonicotinoid insecticides[1]. The Authority was asked by the European Commission to assess the risks associated with the use of clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam as seed treatment or as granules, with particular regard to: their acute and chronic effects on bee colony survival and development; their effects on bee larvae and bee behaviour.
Effects of Pesticides on Bees (efsa)
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EU-U.S. Trading Partnership |
According to Bloomberg news, there are additional benefits that pruning regulatory trade barriers would provide. These benefits involve various restrictions in controversial areas such as health standards, national-security concerns, and consumer-protection issues. A study by ECORYS that was commissioned by the European Commission showed that eliminating just half of the so-called non-tariff barriers would increase GDP by 0.7% in the EU.
The Economic Stimulus (areadevelopment)
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AnchorFree’s hotspot shield |
After the events of the Arab Spring in recent years rocked the world, even the technologies we live and work with daily gained greater prominence. The maker of that of helpful technology is AnchorFree, the Silicon Valley startup that was founded in 2011. AnchorFree’s business model directly addresses the needs of emerging markets to bypass internet censors.
Freedom & security for web users (entrepreneur)
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Mercury levels are continuing to rise in some species in large areas of the Arctic, despite reductions in emissions from human activities over the past 15–30 years in some parts of the world. High exposure to mercury is a serious risk to humans worldwide through the food chain. Solving these problems could be costly, particularly related to remediation. Will this get sufficient attention and money in the next 20 years to fix?
why it's time to worry ? (unep)
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Engineering new therapies |
Two researchers at the University of Uppsala have engineered a virus that will attack cancer. Cheap, precise, with only mild, flu-like side-effects, this plucky little microbe sounds too good to be true. Yet in peer-reviewed articles in top journals, Professor Magnus Essand and Dr Justyna Leja have repeatedly showed that Ad5[CgA-E1A-miR122]PTD views healthy tissue with disdain; it eats only tumours. It is, in effect, a cancer of cancer.
Cancer-killing virus (guardian) Related new therapie (mit)
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Creativity in the Wild |
Adults and children are spending more time interacting with media and technology and less time participating in activities in nature. This life-style change clearly has ramifications for our physical well-being, but what impact does this change have on cognition? Higher order cognitive functions including selective attention, problem solving, inhibition, and multi-tasking are all heavily utilized in our modern technology-rich society.
Unplugging from techn. (plosone)
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Next industrial revolution |
The real-world replicator-like technology poised to revolutionize the world is known as 3-D printing, though that term is misleading, since the process has little to do with printing. Three-dimensional printers can be as small as a suitcase or as large as a telephone booth, depending on the object they are meant to faithfully replicate from a 3-D computer blueprint. Many different technological routes can be taken to reach the same goal.
The unlimited potential (spiegel)
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FDA's new Food Rules |
After a year-long delay, two sweeping new food safety rules that will for the first time mandate produce safety standards (https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/food-and-drug-administration)and preventive controls nationwide will be released this week. The two rules were mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
Public health protection (foodsafetynews)
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Patent battles |
Last year was particularly eventful in the realm of intellectual property, with headline news right through the very last days of December. In the coming year it’s a safe bet that global patent litigation and multi-billion dollar transactions will continue unabated, but read here a few other key trends we can expect to influence and shape the global IP marketplace.
Global IP marketplace (gigaom)
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How to dominate your way to power ? |
If you want to reach the top at work, it's better to be feared than liked, according to a new study. The two-part study looked at how "dominance" (which the researchers defined as the use of force and intimidation to induce fear) and "prestige" (the sharing of expertise or know-how to gain respect) can be used to achieve social rank and influence.
Strategy for acquiring power (cnn)
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China’s Satellite Operational |
To end any reliance on the US-maintained Global Positioning System (GPS), the second generation of the Beidou system has begun operations. The system currently consists of 10 satellites and covers the Asia-Pacific region, with the number of satellites set to gradually increase to a total of 35 that will cover the entire globe by 2020.
The Beidou system (gizmag)
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HP's Elite IT Moves to GM |
Hewlett-Packard and General Motors, two of America’s largest companies, used to have a great relationship. But the goodwill between the two companies has given way to what could be a mess of litigation. In mid-December, HP quietly petitioned (pdf) a Texas court to depose a pair of former executives who recently started to work at GM.
GM insources knowhow (businessweek)
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BPA: An in-depth look |
Jasmin Bird, communications manager of the Polycarbonate and bisphenol A group of PlasticsEurope, told FoodProductionDaily.com the assessment is announced to be a full re-evaluation of the human risks associated with exposure to BPA through the diet. "The authority will find its position based on the weight of the scientific evidence.
The key rulings in 2012 (foodproductiondaily)
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Life sciences companies |
Pharmaceutical companies in 2012 focused much of their partnering efforts on discovery collaborations as they worked to externalize their research operations. Of the $36.5 billion in potential value of partnering deals, $16.2 billion were for discovery collaborations or preclinical-stage assets. This trend will continue as drugmakers seek to reduce their costs and broaden their sources of innovative ideas.
2013 predictions on Biotech (burrillreport)
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German pensioners & cheaper retirement |
The increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a "time bomb". Germany has one of the fastest-ageing populations in the world, and the movement here has implications for other western countries, including Britain.
Opting for foreign homes (guardian)
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The European chemicals industry |
Chemicals companies in the European Union employed in 2011 a total staff of about 1.19 million. The chemicals industry also generated additional indirect jobs via the value chain, which is two times higher than through direct employment. Direct employment in the EU chemicals industry has decreased by an average annual rate of 1.9 per cent from 2002 to 2011.
EU chemicals industry halted ? (cefic)
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U-Multirank |
The project consisted of two consecutive parts: In a first phase running until the end of 2009 the consortium designed a multi-dimensional ranking system for higher education institutions in consultation with stakeholders. In a second phase ending in June 2011 the consortium tested the feasibility of the multi-dimensional ranking system on a sample of no less than 150 higher education and research institutions.
Global university ranking (ec.europa)
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Closing the Gender Gap |
Gender gaps are pervasive in all walks of economic life and imply large losses in terms of foregone productivity and living standards to the individuals concerned and the economy. This new OECD report focuses on how best to close these gender gaps under four broad headings: 1) Gender equality, social norms and public policies; and gender equality in 2) education; 3) employment and 4) entrepreneurship.
Gender equality (oecd)
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Cellphone Radiation Problems |
Years of studies to determine whether cellphones can cause brain tumors have yielded one popular consensus: More studies are needed. One important piece that has been missing from researchers’ arsenals is a way to see what happens to cellphone radiation that is absorbed by the human brain. Two scientists have now developed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that they say could solve that problem.
high-resolution 3-D images (spectrum.ieee)
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Graphene sheets for solar cells |
MIT researchers have produced a new kind of photovoltaic cell based on sheets of flexible graphene coated with a layer of nanowires. The approach could lead to low-cost, transparent and flexible solar cells that could be deployed on windows, roofs or other surfaces. While most of today’s solar cells are made of silicon, these remain expensive because the silicon is generally highly purified and then made into crystals that are sliced thin.
New opportunities (mit)
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ISO Survey of Management System Standards |
The survey is a pointer to the evolving global economy and of certification.For example, overall, this is the case of ISO 9001 certification in Europe, but the effect is not evenly spread for Italy is the country that experienced the highest growth in certificates. The East Asia and Pacific region has almost overtaken Europe for the regional share of ISO 9001 certificates.
survey of accredited certification (iso)
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EU: Impact of regulation on competitiveness |
‘Smart Regulation’ is en vogue. Commission President Barroso’s decision to make smart regulation a priority of his second terms has revitalized the better regulation agenda of his first term. Cefic's legal department has drafted a Manifesto on smarter regulation, as a response to the amount of legislation in the environmental and more specifically the chemicals sector.
Regulatory impact assessments (cefic)
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Shale gas development report |
The University of Texas System issued the following statement following release of findings from an independent panel of experts convened by The University of Texas at Austin to review the Energy Institute's February report on shale gas development. The university will implement all of the review panel's recommendations, including withdrawing the shale gas report until it is peer-reviewed.
six recommendations (energy.utexas)
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Food safety network |
More and more products are traded around the world, and ensuring these are of a high quality and safe to eat demands robust food analysis techniques. However, with different countries using different approaches, and local problems (e.g. melamine) quickly becoming global food crises, MoniQA (Monitoring and Quality Assurance in the Total Food Supply Chain) – an EU-funded Network of Excellence (2007-2012).
Building a Network (moniqa)
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Tech Trends 2013 |
This year’s theme, Elements of postdigital, examines the convergence and controlled collision of five forces – Analytics, Mobile, Social, Cloud and Cyber – as businesses move closer to achieving the possibilities of the Postdigital EnterpriseTM, where all five forces are mature, implemented, integrated and baked-in versus bolted-on. Each of the 2013 trends is relevant today. Each has the momentum and potential to make an impact.
IT capabilities (deloitte)
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Global survey in educational attainment |
The Science Report provides a rich array of information which describes the educational contexts for science, including home environment support, students' backgrounds and attitudes toward science, the science curriculum, teachers' education and training, classroom characteristics and activities, and school contexts for science learning and instruction.
International results in science (timss)
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Where are the workers ? |
It would seem that the programs created to get the unemployed back to work are not always working as well as they have in the past, and it’s not only because of sluggish hiring on the part of employers. For some communities, the answer lies in rethinking the whole process to make the programs more responsive to the specific needs of those companies hiring now — and for the long term.
Matching skills and jobs (areadevelopment)
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James Watson reveals helix story |
Consistently rated as one of the greatest books written about science in the past century, it has been hailed as a work that combines the plot line of a racy novel with deep insights about the nature of modern research. Harvard University Press, having accepted Watson's manuscript for publication, came under pressure from the university's senior administrators and dropped the book.
How to hit the right DNA's model (guardian)
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2013: Paying Taxes |
Business plays an essential role in contributing to economic growth and prosperity by employing workers,improving the skills and knowledge base, buying from local suppliers and providing affordable products that improve people’s lives.As well as corporate income tax on profits, business pays employment taxes, social contributions, indirect taxes, property taxes and a whole variety of smaller taxes including environmental taxes.
The global picture (pwc)
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Algorithmic Self-Assembly |
Self-assembly is the process by which small components automatically assemble themselves into large, complex structures. Examples in nature abound: lipids self-assemble a cell's membrane, and bacteriophage virus proteins self-assemble a capsid that allows the virus to invade other bacteria. Even a phenomenon as simple as crystal formation is a process of self-assembly.
Process modeling (cacm.acm)
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NIST & Technology transfer |
Each year—as required by federal regulation—the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) releases a report on technology transfer from federal laboratories, detailing efforts to transfer the results of public investment in research to meet marketplace and other needs. For example, When 33 miners became trapped 2,000 feet below ground, the Chilean government called on NASA specialists to help care for and rescue the men.
Investing in science and tech. (nist)
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Ibogaine anti-addiction effects |
Since ibogaine aides in the cessation of addiction, it started to be used to deal with opiates and other substance addictions. Ibogaine has only been introduced to Western scientific medicine but has documented use by the Bwiti tribe in Central Africa for centuries. At lower doses ibogaine has the ability to increase energy and mental alertness and appears to decrease the desire for food and drink.
Anti-addictive substance (addictionsearch)
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ICCA Building Technology Roadmap |
According to the International Energy Agency’s Energy Technology Perspectives 2012 report, the building sector is directly or indirectly responsible for about 32% of global energy consumption and for 26% of global total end-use energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The Chemical Industry is indispensable in providing solutions.
More efficient technologies (icca-chem)
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Battle Over International Internet Regulation |
The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, will officially bring together more than 190 countries to review the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) [PDF] agreed to in Melbourne, Australia, 25 years ago. But it’s the “unofficial” agenda of the conference that has been causing all the ruckus in the run-up to the event.
A Weak Treaty or None at All (ieee)
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Outcomes Working Group |
Combining materials modeling with mathematical and musical tools, Buehler says, could provide a much faster way of designing new biosynthesized materials, replacing the trial-and-error approach that prevails today. Genetically engineering organisms to produce materials is a long, painstaking process, he says, but this work “has taught us a new approach” in combining experiment, theory and simulation to speed up the discovery process.
Merging proteins and music (mit)
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Preparing for Precision Medicine |
Personalized medicine is the combination of established clinical parameters with emerging molecular information to generate preventative, diagnostic and therapeutic solutions that are tailored to each patient’s needs. Personalized approaches facilitate more precise healthcare deliver and have the potential to improve outcomes while reducing waste of resources and delivering significant other benefits.
More Incentives for Innovation (weforum)
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Manufacturing the future |
Still, manufacturing remains critically important to both the developing and the advanced world. In the former, it continues to provide a pathway from subsistence agriculture to rising incomes and living standards. In the latter, it remains a vital source of innovation and competitiveness, making outsized contributions to research and development, exports, and productivity growth.
Global growth and innovation (mckinsey)
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'Repurposing' drugs |
Finding new uses for old drugs is now a growth business as Big Pharma struggles to come up with new blockbuster drugs. Traditionally, pharma companies test hundreds of thousands of compounds for so-called "target binding" in the hunt for new blockbusters. It takes 10-15 years to find a medicine that works and is safe, at a typical cost of $1.3bn. The idea – known in the drugs business as repositioning or repurposing.
New uses old drugs business (guardian)
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Measuring progress towards energy |
The 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook. Drawing on the latest data and policy developments the report presents analytical insights into trends in energy markets and what they mean for energy security, environmental protection and economic development. It sets out updated projections of energy demand, production, trade, investment and carbon-dioxide emissions, broken down by country, fuel and sector, to 2035.
What is the potential impact (worldenergyoutlook)
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Synthetic membrane channels |
physicists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and the University of Michigan have shown that synthetic membrane channels can be constructed through DNA nanotechnology. This technique employs DNA molecules as programmable building materials for custom-designed, self-assembling, nanometer-scale structures. The researchers present evidence that their nature-inspired nanostructures may also behave like biological ion channels.
DNA nanotechnology (rdmag)
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The Elephant in the Classroom |
The gentrification of many of our big cities is providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a large number of racially and socioeconomically integrated schools. “White flight in reverse” means that, for the first time in 40 years, school integration is logistically feasible in urban America, and without the mandatory busing that derailed earlier efforts.
Navigating Diversity (educationnext)
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Volkswagen to invest EUR50.2Bln |
According to the Group's investment planning for 2013 to 2015, it intends to utilize the amount for new models, environmentally friendly technologies and production facilities in the coming three years. Volkswagen noted that for the first time, the planning also includes newly consolidated MAN and Porsche brands. This investment is the key to the Volkswagen Group's innovation and technology leadership.
The cross-product investments (rttnews)
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Vision 2060 : Long-term growth |
Demographic changes, including ageing, and economic convergence will bring about large shifts in the composition of global GDP.Over the next half century, the global economy is projected to grow at around 3% per annum on average. The OECD-wide trend GDP growth rate is projected at about 2% annually to 2060, with declining rates in many countries after the recovery from the current crisis.
The global economy outlook (oecd)
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UK' submarine flaws |
The MoD confirmed Astute had suffered some "teething problems" during sea trials. "It is normal for first of class trials to identify areas where modifications are required and these are then incorporated into later vessels of the class," a spokesman said. However, if the propulsion problems persist, they would represent one of the biggest procurement disasters the MoD has ever had to deal with.
Britain's £10bn submarine (guardian)
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Kaspersky' secure industrial OS |
Speaking in Brooklyn, Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky, said there is "no neutral" to his plan to develop a secure industrial operating system platform. "It has been either positive or negative," he said. Kaspersky was in Brooklyn for its NYU-Poly CSAW cybersecurity competition, which serves as a talent recruiting effort. A month ago, Kaspersky outlined an effort to develop an industrial OS that would be secure.
Conventional vs cyber weapons (znet)
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The New Chinese Economy |
Beijing recently reported that industrial output grew 9.2 percent in September. Sectors such as healthcare and other services continue to grow strongly. And even as the growth rate comes down, actual GDP continues to expand. Both government officials and executives on the ground say that the Chinese government still has the will and ability to ensure a soft landing through its control over infrastructure investments, and other macroeconomic policy tools.
Economic reality (strategy-business)
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Relational D.Base: 10 not-do-able things |
Data growth is out of control. Old habits die hard. The relational DBMS still reigns supreme. But even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool, Oracle-loving, PL/SQL-slinging glutton for the medieval RAC, think twice, think many times, before using your beloved technology for the following tasks. The data explosion demands new solutions.Here's where you really shouldn't use it.
Data Management (infoworld)
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Mixing Processes & Biofuel Spills |
A group of researchers from the University of Michigan wondered how ethanol-based fuels would spread in the event of a large aquatic spill. They found that ethanol-based liquids mix actively with water, very different from how pure gasoline interacts with water and potentially more dangerous to aquatic life. The scientists will present their results, which could impact the response guidelines for ethanol fuel-based spills.
The health of surface waters (sciencedaily)
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Standards: Maintaining Compliance |
This QMS not only helps to check on updates but also analyses the impacts of the detected changes in order to maintain products regulatory compliance. There is no one method for a medical device manufacturer to be able to keep track of all the regulatory changes and maintain compliance. However, there are some strategies that manufacturers can use that can help them keep abreast of the changing regulations.
ISO 13485 applicable regulation (lne-america)
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The most innovative EU contries |
Within the EU, Sweden confirms its position at the top of the overall ranking in innovation, a key driver of economic growth and jobs. The Scandinavian country is closely followed by Denmark, Germany and Finland, the Regional Innovation Scoreboard shows. The report has covered 190 regions across the European Union, Croatia, Norway and Switzerland.
The Northern European lead (euractiv)
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Security through obscurity |
Thinking about the bits of data you leave behind is a one-way ticket to paranoia. Your browser? Full of cookies. Your cellphone? A beacon broadcasting your location at every moment. Search engines track your every curiosity. Email services archive way too much. Those are just the obvious places we're aware of. Who knows what's going on inside those routers? these six techniques will help obscure the data and traces you leave online.
Online privacy technique (infoworld)
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The EPA has new SNURs |
EPA is promulgating significant new use rules (SNURs) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for 20 chemical substances which were the subject of premanufacture notices (PMNs). Eight of these chemical substances are subject to TSCA section 5(e) consent orders issued by EPA. The required notification will provide EPA with the opportunity to evaluate the intended use to prohibit or limit that activity before it occurs.
SNURs that go into effect (gpo)
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Early Prediction of Mo. Box Office |
Use of socially generated \big data" to access information about collective states of the minds in human societies becomes a new paradigm in the emerging eld of computational social science. One of the natural application of this would be prediction of the society's reaction to a new product in the sense of popularity and adoption rate. However, bridging between \real time monitoring" and \early predicting" remains as a big challenge.
Wikipedia activity big data (arxiv)
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Foxconn plans factories in US |
Foxconn will have to adapt its working conditions to operate in the US market. Worker suicides, industrial accidents and riots have dogged its mainland China plants, which were recently discovered to be employing workers as young as 14. The scandals have proved a source of embarrassment for its largest client. Reforms undertaken as a result of the audits have led to rising costs at Foxconn, which also makes phones for Nokia and tablets for Amazon.
How to adapt working conditions ? (guardian)
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Jap.consumer electr. giants is dead |
These days, the Japanese consumer-electronics giants have largely been reduced to also-rans, many of which struggle just to turn a profit. This collapse marks a dramatic change for companies that once stood on top of the consumer electronics world. It also largely marks the end of an era in which these Japanese companies thought they could operate in a myriad of different businesses.
(Big companies = Slow companies)! (cnet)
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Mining companies & minerals promise |
Hoping for new jobs and investment, the Finnish government is welcoming prospectors, identifying and mapping the deposits and generously granting data and mining rights at cheap prices, even in sensitive areas. Gold, nickel and uranium hunters are even reaching into tourist and conservation areas in the country. Some 40 companies are now carrying out hundreds of exploration projects across the country.
From Finland's Far North (spiegel)
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Making Ideas Work |
Every economic downturn comes with the same refrain: The world, we’re told, is losing its creative capacity, hurting our chances for a speedy recovery. Yet inevitably, when worries about innovation erosion surface, some company rises up with a great new product, technology, or service to prove the naysayers wrong. And all too often, observers simply fail to pay attention to the many companies that make successful innovation part of their regular practice.
The global innovation 1000 (strategy-business)
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Food Statistics Pocketbook |
This booklet from Defra, the Government's agriculture department, tells a story as horrific as any tale recounted around the fireplace this Hallowe'en – a story that becomes very real every time we pull our credit card out at the end of the weekly shop. The pamphlet is an analysis of food prices and their effects on society, and the numbers are stark.
Food prices in Britain (defra)
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Medical Start-Ups & H-Care Reform |
Investment in medical start-ups has dwindled of late as companies have struggled to go public and deliver returns to venture capitalists. The Affordable Care Act, the health-care reform bill signed into law in 2010, would seem to be the salve these companies need. Starting in 2014, most Americans will have to carry health insurance or pay a penalty.
How to make different ? (wsj)
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Love China or Leave |
Lu Ping's former deputy, Chen Zuoer, resonated with his comment and said separatism has been spreading like a virus in Hong Kong. The officials' blunt comment, in particular the implication that Beijing could shut down water supply and turn Hong Kong into a dead city, has outraged the locals. Financial news commentator, pointed out that China has been taking advantage of Hong Kong's water contract with local arrangements.
Hong Kong and Beijing relations (globalvoicesonline)
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The German nuclear exit |
The German decision to pursue a nuclear-free future was, however, anything but precipitous or unmindful of climate change. Because of a combination of historical and political factors, Germany has in fact been retreating from the nuclear sector for decades— and from its beginnings, the nuclear phase-out was intimately tied to what is known as the Energiewende, an aggressive, comprehensive turnabout in policy.
Serious long-term planning (sagepub)
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Viable therapeutic target |
Pathological imbalances within the intestinal microbiota, termed dysbiosis, are often associated with chronic Clostridium difficile infections in humans. We show that infection of mice with the healthcare pathogen C. difficile leads to persistent intestinal dysbiosis that is associated with chronic disease and a highly contagious state. Using this model we rationally designed a simple that can disrupt intestinal dysbiosis and as a result resolve disease and contagiousness.
Bacteriotherapy for persistent dysbiosis (plospathogens)
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Big Data Right Now |
Big Data is on every CIO’s mind this quarter, and for good reason. Companies will have spent $4.3 billion on Big Data technologies by the end of 2012. But here’s where it gets interesting. Those initial investments will in turn trigger a domino effect of upgrades and new initiatives that are valued at $34 billion for 2013, per Gartner. Over a 5 year period, spend is estimated at $232 billion.
Five Trendy O.S.T. (techcrunch)
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All roads lead to Berlin |
Germany increasingly is pursuing a self-confident foreign policy set apart from the wishes and demands of its erstwhile American patron. Following on its refusal to participate in the Iraq War, it shunned the West’s intervention in Libya and has pursued independent ties with Russia and China, raising eyebrows in Washington, DC. Powerful political issues and forces have been unleashed, both within Germany and throughout Europe, as Berlin takes the lead in guiding the EU through its economic crisis.
Berlin' drastic step (nationalinterest)
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Gene therapy |
IS IT possible for a child to have three parents? That is the question raised by a paper just published in Nature by Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University. And the answer seems to be “yes”, for this study paves the way for the birth of children who, genetically, have one father, but two mothers. The reason this is possible is that a mother’s genetic contribution to her offspring comes in two separable pieces.
Avoiding mitochondrial disease (economist)
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Tropical plankton exodus |
Hordes of microscopic plants could be driven out of tropical oceans over the course of this century by rising temperatures. One-third of tropical phytoplankton species may be forced to move or die. The consequences for fisheries could be severe. If phytoplankton take a hit the rest of the ecosystem suffers. To find out how they will contend with higher temperatures Corners and colleagues compiled decades of data on the temperature tolerances of phytoplankton.
Phytoplankton on the move (newscientist)
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High stakes for US science |
Science rarely takes the stage in US presidential campaigns. But as President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney make their final bids for votes on 6 November, their sharply contrasting visions of the size and proper role of government have profound implications for science. For research advocates, Obama’s stance puts him at a clear advantage. Despite generally tight budgets, “Obama has a strong track record” of investing in science, says Abby Benson.
Candidates' opinions over research (nature)
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Rolling out the holographic radar |
Aveillant's holographic radar system is poised to hit the UK market next year, offering a potential solution to radar interference by wind farms. Chris Lo catches up with this innovative 3D radar technology and finds out how Aveillant plans to prove its system to the aviation industry. In today's straitened times, airports have little money to spend on new radar units.
How to differentiate turbines from aircraft (airport-technology)
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The Ultra HD standard |
Ultra HD has previously been known as Ultra HD, 4K or sometimes Quad HD. However, 4K is also used for a digital cinema standard with a slightly wider screen resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels. The CEA's 4K Working Group recommended the term "Ultra High-Definition" to define the minimum performance characteristics for UHD TV sets "to help consumers and retailers understand the attributes of this next generation.
UltraHD and Super Hi-Vision (znet)
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Why HR is Failing ? |
According to a new study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by KPMG, organisations will continue to view HR as a non-essential department, unless it meets the challenges faced by today’s business environment. The report also suggests that HR will remain the ‘poor relation’ at the Boardroom table until it fully embraces technology to move away from its tendency to report historical data.
Rethinking HR for a Changing World (kpmg)
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European Data Protection Supervisor |
This report covers 2011 as the seventh full year of activity of the EDPS as an independent supervisory authority, tasked with ensuring that the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons and in particular their privacy with regard to the processing of personal data are respected by EU institutions and bodies. It also covers the third year of our common mandate as members of this authority.
New benchmarks in different areas (edps)
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German Energy |
With the government driving up the price of electricity, Rösler seems to feel an urge to make himself useful by dispensing advice on how to save money and energy. On Monday, grid operators announced a significant increase in electricity prices in Germany, prices that are already the second-highest in Europe. The price hike is the result of an assessment under the Renewable Energy Act (EEG).
How to promote renewable energy ? (spiegel)
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GPS reaches key phase |
The pair were launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket from French Guiana. It is an important milestone for the multi-billion-euro project to create a European version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS). With four satellites now in orbit - the first and second spacecraft were launched in 2011 - it becomes possible to test Galileo end-to-end. Engineers can now run an intensive programme to validate every aspect of Galileo's design.
Europe's version of GPS (bbc)
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STMicro on the verge of split |
STMicroelectronics NV (STM) is evaluating a breakup of the company that may lead to a sale of its struggling mobile-phone chip business, according to people familiar with the matter. Europe’s largest semiconductor maker may split its analog business, which makes chips and sensors used in products from cars to video-game consoles, from its digital assets, which focus on semiconductors used in set-top boxes, televisions and handsets.
Revenue Slump (bloomberg)
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Measuring user engagement |
If you’ve spent any time in a newsroom, traditional or otherwise, you know that publishers are obsessed with measuring where their Web traffic comes from. Whether it’s Google (GOOG) Analytics or Chartbeat, or comScore, or Omniture, or any one of a dozen other providers, tracking where readers come from is a crucial part of online media—mostly because publishers need to know which channels are worth focusing on.
Paying attention,hard to track! (businessweek)
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Earthquakes linked to fracking |
Before a series of small quakes on Halloween 2008, the Dallas area had never recorded a magnitude-3 earthquake, said Cliff Frohlich, associate director and senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics. USGS data show that, since then, it has felt at least one quake at or above a magnitude 3 every year except 2010.
Human-induced earthquakes (news.yahoo)
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Google+, looking For Love |
An interview with Google’s senior vice president for engineering, Vic Gundotra, about Google’s social network Google+ has become a conversation about … the meaning of life. One year into its existence Google+ is still wrestling with doubters who’ve written it off as an also-ran, a “ghost town.” Google might be a much bigger business ($220-plus billion) than its social rival Facebook ($40-plus billion), but on the social front, Facebook's just claimed its one-billionth user, effectively dwarfing the G+'s posse.
Love+ (fastcompany)
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Electronic Implants & Biocompatibility |
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Tufts University say they have invented functional electronic implants that can dissolve after programmable time periods. To demonstrate the system, which could aid in healing during the first few crucial days after an operation, they implanted one in a rat. It created a temporary temperature increase to sterilize a wound, and then it dissolved after 15 days.
Programmable degradation (ieee)
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Audits: ISO 13485 Vs FDA |
One of the challenges of marketing medical devices around the world is complying with many different regulatory audits and inspections. ISO 13485, the international standard for quality management systems of medical device manufacturers, and so most of them already have compliant quality management systems. For the FDA, the requirements to which the quality management system must be consistent to are described in the QSR.
Comparison Chart (lne-america)
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Fish-stock-assessments |
Without the ability to estimate how many fish exist in the ocean there’s no way to determine how many of them we can catch while allowing the remaining fish populations to stay viable. But fish live in a mostly invisible world beneath the ocean surface, they move around constantly, and they eat each other. This creates a dynamic population structure that’s incredibly difficult to track, making fish virtually impossible to count.
The status & health of fish populations (scienceprogress)
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Why inequality matters ? |
Inequality also played a key role in some of the worst disturbances in post-war Britain. As research by Wilkinson and Pickett and others has shown, inequality weakens social cohesion and a sense of community, and produces more crime and violence. We saw, in part, the consequences of that in last August’s riots. The pursuit of equality is not just a moral imperative, not just vital for the poor and for the social cohesion and wellbeing of society, it is also necessary for a stable economy.
The alternative policies (classonline)
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Cloud Computing in Europe |
Addressing the specific challenges of cloud computing would mean a faster and more harmonised adoption of the technology by Europe's businesses, organisations and public authorities, resulting, on the demand side, in accelerated productivity growth and increased competitiveness across the whole economy as well as, on the supply-side, in a larger market in which Europe becomes a key global player.
How to slash users' IT expenditure ? (ec.europa)
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Cambridge Univ. & Tunisia Constitution |
Cambridge University think-tank The Wilberforce Society (TWS) has presented a proposed draft constitution to the National Constituent Assembly (NCA). Along with the document, the British students published a report of their observations on changes after the revolution, and suggestions for continuing the improvement of the country. Dr. Riddhi Dasgupta, an international law scholar, was introduced to NCA members through his work with Lawyers Without Borders.
TWS & Proposed Tunisian Constitution (tunisia-live)
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Interaction: Factors & effects on bees |
The vast majority of the studies have concentrated on the contact toxicity of the combinations. However the exposure section shows that a significant proportion of the exposure may be through ingestion of contaminated nectar. It appears that pesticides which induce P450s in other insects do not induce these enzymes in honeybees but natural chemicals.
Overview of the interactions (efsa)
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Digital inclusion for all |
The Internet is changing. From narrowband to broadband, from kilobits to Gigabits, from connected people to connected things – our networked world is changing in speed, size, scale, and scope. Our ultra-connected future will build on converged Next-Generation Networks (NGN), while embracing broader concepts of embedded intelligence, automated Machine to Machine (M2M) traffic, and the ‘Internet of Things’.
Broadband 2012 (ericsson)
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Swedish waste to energy |
Sweden has had strict standards limiting emissions from waste incineration since the mid-1980s. Most emissions have fallen by between 90 and 99 per cent since then thanks to ongoing technical development and better waste sorting. Swedish waste to energy is an environmental, financial, safe and stable contribution to the country’s energy supply.
Learning from swedish (avfallsverige)
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Change Readiness Index |
There has been little focus on the concept of change readiness, and there are few reliable and appropriate measures to assess it. Recognizing this, KPMG International, in collaboration with researchers from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), evaluated the need and opportunity for a new forward-looking index – the Change Readiness Index – to assess the capability of individual countries to manage change.
Capability for managing change (kpmg)
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DOE microgrid R&D efforts |
The Smart Grid R&D Program, within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE), convened this second Microgrid Workshop on July 30-31, 2012, in Chicago, Illinois. This followed the initial workshop in August 2011. The purpose of the 2011 workshop was to convene experts and practitioners to assist the DOE in identifying and prioritizing R&D areas in the field of microgrids.
Microgrid Workshop Report (energy)
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First Single-Atom Quantum Bit |
Scientists in Australia built a system that could read and write the spin state of an electron in a phosphorous atom embedded in a silicon crystal. The resulting qubit was coupled to a single-atom transistor built into the silicon. Quantum computers—as opposed to the computers we use daily—rely on the laws of quantum mechanics to speed up calculations.
The absolute zero (spectrum.ieee)
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US' Salary survey |
Data contained in the NACE Salary Survey are produced through a compilation of data derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and a master data set developed by Job Search Intelligence. Data for the September 2012 Salary Survey report were retrieved in July 2012, and were compiled using a proprietary methodology created by Job Search intelligence.
New data collection method (naceweb)
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Almost zero energy computing |
Intel often uses the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) as a platform to discuss its long-term vision for computing as well as more practical business initiatives. This year, the company has discussed the shrinking energy cost of computation as well as a point when it believes the energy required for “meaningful compute” will approach zero and become ubiquitous by the year 2020.
How to reduce the power consumption? (extremetech)
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German's pension armageddon |
Germans are afraid that their dream of a golden retirement could turn into a nightmare. For decades, one of the certainties of life in Germany was that the next generation of retirees would be better off and live a more secure existence than the preceding one. It was viewed as a sign of economic success when Germany's senior citizens thronged the luxury decks of international cruise ships.
Desperate for Returns (spiegel)
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Microsoft won court approval |
After discovering that counterfeit versions of Windows containing malware were being installed and sold on new PCs in China, Microsoft tracked down the host of the botnet at its source and asked a US court for permission to try a new tactic. The court approved, giving Microsoft the OK to take over the entire ISP that hosted the botnet.Some of the devices contained counterfeit copies of Windows XP or Windows 7 with inactive malware.
Further investigation (technewsworld)
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Unborn baby & Genetic blueprint |
Today, only around 5 per cent of women who have prenatal tests receive bad news. Full genome screens will detect many more problems - and will introduce much more uncertainty because whole-genome mapping predicts the mere possibility of disease. Not all genetic anomalies are expressed as pathology. The test will also produce false positives.
Medical early warning (newscientist)
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Breakthrough study in genome |
Long stretches of DNA previously dismissed as "junk" are in fact crucial to the way our genome works, an international team of researchers said. The results of the international Encode project will have a huge impact for geneticists trying to work out how genes operate. The findings will provide new leads for scientists looking for treatments for conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and Crohn's disease that have their roots partly in glitches in the DNA.
DNA' biochemical function (guardian)
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Dannon' Awards |
The Dannon Company, Inc. today awarded the Minster Athletic Boosters a Dannon Next Generation Nutrition® Grant totaling $30,000 in support of the Minster Memorial Field improvement project, Honoring the Past While Building for the Future. Honoring the Past While Building for the Future will provide Minster High School students and the broader town of Minster with a fully renovated athletic complex, new track, field space and additional revamped physical facilities.
Promoting quality lifestyles (prnewswire)
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NIST: Innovation Research Awards |
The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced nearly $2 million in Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to 12 U.S. businesses. These awards provide funding to help companies develop technologies that could lead to commercial and public benefit. NIST's SBIR program is a competitive funding opportunity that provides contracts to small businesses for federal research and development.
US Small Business Innovation Research (nist)
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Making Web-appliction more efficient |
The premier database conference — researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory presented a new system that automatically streamlines websites’ database access patterns, making the sites up to three times as fast. And where other systems that promise similar speedups require the mastery of special-purpose programming languages, the MIT system, works with the types of languages already favored by Web developers.
Web-services transactions (mit)
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Public Cloud & Software Development |
As software developers, we heavily rely on our tools. Arguably one of our most important tools is the programming environment itself. This can become problematic if we are attempting to test and support multiple software versions, libraries, etc. The level of complexity can be raised even higher if we need to validate interactions with external resources. The most commonly used public clouds are those offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
How to manage virtual servers ?
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Survey: Survival after age 75 |
An increasing proportion of the population in the developed countries lives to very advanced age. Even after age 75 lifestyle behaviours such as not smoking and physical activity are associated with longer survival. A low risk profile can add five years to women’s lives and six years to men’s. These associations, although attenuated, were also present among the oldest old (≥85 years) and in people with chronic conditions.
Longevity & Associated factors (bmj)
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NIST guidelines on securing BIOS |
BIOS attacks are an emerging threat area. Server manufacturers routinely update BIOS to fix bugs, patch vulnerabilities or support new hardware. However, while authorized updates to BIOS can improve functionality or security, unauthorized or malicious changes could be part of a sophisticated, targeted attack on an organization, allowing an attacker to infiltrate an organization's systems or disrupt their operations.
New draft guidelines (nist)
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Denmark as a model of democracy |
Western democracies consider themselves to be efficient, farsighted and just -- in other words, prime examples of "good governance." But in recent years, the euro and debt crises, along with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , have shattered faith in the reliability of Western institutions. Disconcerted Europeans are casting a worried eye at newly industrialized nations like China and Brazil .
A winning mindset (spiegel)
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A 21st cent. to manufacturing innovation |
In a global economy where competitiveness and job creation are increasingly driven by science, technology, innovation, and information, collaboration is key. The traditional “linear approach” to national innovation—where scientific research on the one hand and industrial production on the other are conducted and managed separately—is increasingly insufficient to cope with the increasingly interconnected nature of science, technology, and industrial production.
Cutting-edge prod-process technologies (scienceprogress)
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Bonuses linked to quality of care |
Recently, researchers from Chestnut Health Systems in Illinois assessed whether pay-for-performance bonuses based on the quality and quantity of care was an effective way to treat patients. This study involved 986 teenage patients who used marijuana or alcohol, 29 community-based treatment organisations and 105 therapists. Each community organisation was to implement an evidence-based teen behavioural treatment programme.
Incentive & quality of care (eyeforpharma)
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Tin Inside Your Smartphone |
In recent years about one-third of all the tin mined in the world has come from Bangka, its sister island Belitung to the east, and the seabeds off the islands’ shores. Because almost half of all tin is turned into solder for the electronics industry, a dominant force in the global tin market today is tablets and smartphones bought by consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The Deadly Tin (businessweek)
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Lean development principles |
Lean software development’s origins are actually in automobile manufacturing. In the early days of the Toyota Motor Corporation, an engineer named Taiichi Ohno developed a new production method that focused on eliminating waste. The company’s methods became known as Lean Manufacturing, and grew into the philosophy of identifying and eliminating any manufacturing action or product that did not add value to the customer.
Are you lean ? (developer)
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Digital Competence in Practice |
With the 2006 European Recommendation on Key Competences,1 Digital Competence has been acknowledged as one of the 8 key competences for Lifelong Learning by the European Union. Digital Competence can be broadly defined as the confident, critical and creative use of ICT to achieve goals related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and/or participation in society.
Roadmap of digital competence (jrc)
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China's underground economy |
The report claims that in 2011 the online underground involved over 90,000 participants, costing the local economy 5.36 billion yuan (£536bn), making victims of 110m internet users (roughly 22 per cent) and affecting 1.1m web sites (20 per cent). As elsewhere, real assets are mainly stolen by phishing and Trojans. Once those tools do their work, the assets are either sold on the underground market or profited from by being used directly to carry out ID fraud.
Chinese approach to cyber crime (theregister)
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Shamoon: Middle Eastern Malware |
One more piece of malware is making its through systems in the Middle East. However, the size and scope of Shamoon make security gurus think it may be unrelated to malware like Flame and Gauss. The author "has definite skills," but "doesn't do this malicious stuff all the time," said ICSA Labs' Roger Thompson. "It feels, to me, to be deliberate sabotage from a disgruntled employee."
W32.Disttrack infection (technewsworld)
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E. coli strain linked to cancer |
The trillions of microbes in the human gut contribute to obesity and to the risk of diseases such as diabetes. This microbial menagerie — the microbiome — also has a role in cancer, researchers report today. Mice with inflammatory bowel disease contain higher proportions of toxin-producing bacteria that may lead to colorectal cancer, the researchers say. Moreover, people with colorectal cancer were found to be more likely than healthy people to harbour these bacteria.
Shaping the microbiome (nature)
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IT secu. practices that don't work |
The truth is most common IT security products and techniques don't work as advertised, leaving us far more exposed to malicious code than we know. That's because traditional IT security takes a whack-a-mole approach to threats, leaving us to catch up with the next wave of innovative malware, most of which rolls out in plain view on the Internet. here are 10 common IT security practices and products that are not guarding your systems as well as you think.
10 crazy security tricks (infoworld)
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Male Contraception Research |
A successful test in mice of a molecule that can pass the blood-sperm barrier and render a reversible contraceptive effect in males has taken the quest for a non-hormonal male contraceptive pill in a new direction, following the results of a new US study reported online in the journal Cell on Thursday. The study is significant because it paves the way toward a non-hormonal male contraceptive pill that does not affect sex drive and does not permanently impair fertility.
A key protein disruption (medicalnewstoday)
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Wind turbine blade test facility |
Testing of offshore wind turbine blades has been completed by Shepherd Construction, UK' national contractor. The project is the second of three structures to be completed at Blyth as part of a £80 million + investment by Narec in world-class facilities for the accelerated testing of offshore renewable energy technologies. It will add significantly to Narec’s existing capability for testing blades up to 50 metres in length.
UK'National Renewable Energy Centre (engineerlive)
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Good for US Chemical Reform |
The Safe Chemicals Act would be the first overhaul of federal chemical law since it was created in 1976. A bill to improve reporting standards for toxic chemicals has passed out of committee to the U.S. Senate for a vote, and anti-regulatory czar Cass Sunstein has headed back to academia. According to Lindsay Dahl of the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families (SCHF) coalition, "This is the first vote to update chemical laws in over 36 years.
Chemicals of Concern List (prwatch)
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The Gap in Patient Adherence |
A research scientist at the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Creative Technologies demonstrated that a pair of new “virtual” patients can help train psychologists and psychiatrists before treating real patients. A healthcare professional can make their initial diagnosis after asking this patient who is programmed with speech recognition software, a series of questions about their healthcare history.
New "virtual patient" (social.eyeforpharma)
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Are we prepared for retirement? |
Many analysts have considered whether households approaching retirement age have accumulated enough assets to be well prepared for retirement. In this paper, we shift from studying household finances at the start of the retirement period, an ex ante measure of retirement preparation, to studying the asset holdings of households in their last years of life.
Financial status at advanced ages (nber)
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Eli Lilly: Strong Cash Flows |
Lilly is not alone in feeling the pain from losing patents. As seen at the following website, numerous drugs come off patent between 2012 and 2014. Pfizer (PFE) has 8 drugs coming off of patent (including recently Lipitor), Glaxo (GSK) more than 10 (16 but one must account for double counting from different versions of the same drug), and Merck (MRK).
EL's Undervalued Pipeline (seekingalpha)
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Residential Segregation by Income |
Despite the long-term rise in residential segregation by income, it remains less pervasive than residential segregation by race, even though black-white segregation has been falling for several decades. The Pew Research analysis also finds significant differences among the nation’s 10 most populous metropolitan areas in the patterns and degree of residential segregation by income.
Causes of metro area differences (pewsocialtrends)
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Incentivize Corporate Green Practices |
For a company considering implementing green business practices, it’s not surprising that one of the biggest concerns is the financial cost of such practices. The amount of money that will be spent “going green” is not insubstantial, and it can take years before a return on investment is realized through greater energy efficiency and lower utility costs.
Going green (areadevelopment)
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Airport: Introducing randomness to security |
Securing airports is a mighty challenge for any security agency. Can mathematical modelling and game theory be used to make airport security less predictable to aggressors? Teamcore, a US research team working with the TSA and Los Angeles Airport, is working to prove that it can. Chris Lo talks to Teamcore principal investigator Professor Milind Tambe to find out more.
The Game theory (airport-technology)
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Deep well challenges |
The problem is that much of the 'easy' oil has been found, and demand for energy is taking exploration and production to ever-tougher extremes of geography and climate. The deepwater (more than 500 metres or 1,600 feet) and ultra-deepwater (more than 1,500 metres or about 5,000 feet) energy sector represents one of the major growth areas for the oil and gas industry, but exploiting these reserves presents tough technical challenges.
The hunt for black gold (engineerlive)
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Vertical Is The New Horizontal |
In the days before the cloud, on-premise software providers that focused on selling into a vertical market were considered second-class citizens to the “big guns” selling into the broader horizontal marketplace. The real “win”—in market share, wallet share and ultimately, profits—was the broadest approach. The notion of specializing in solutions that serve a market niche or specific industry was considered limited.
How to lower customer acquisition costs (techcrunch)
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Interstellar plasma & a wave mystery |
Throughout the universe more than 99% of matter looks nothing like what's on Earth. Instead of materials we can touch and see, instead of motions we intuitively expect like a ball rolling down a hill, or a cup that sits still on a table, most of the universe is governed by rules that react more obviously to such things as magnetic force or electrical charge.
Strange But True (rdmag)
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Remote-scanning techniques |
Archaeology is being revolutionized by remote-scanning techniques that use lasers to detect otherwise invisible ground features. The technology digitally extracts vegetation for a clean image of the earth's surface. Archaeologists in Germany have already discovered thousands of new sites. The Glauberg is a hot spot for archaeologists. For decades, researchers have been studying the hill in the central German state of Hesse, where people settled some 7,000 years ago.
Over the millennia (spiegel)
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A2/AD [anti-access/area denial] |
Manned combat aircraft will remain at the tip of the spear for at least a generation and a half because in the near-term, unmanned aircraft are unable to operate inside heavily defended airspace. Most current unmanned aircraft do not have the maneuverability or self-defense systems to adequately protect themselves in an A2/AD environment, the USAF says.
Replacing manned aircraft (flightglobal)
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At a glance 