Until now, few readers have preferred e-books to printed or audible versions, so the public availability of free-for-the-taking copies did not much matter. But e-books won’t stay on the periphery of book publishing much longer. E-book hardware is on the verge of going mainstream.

Will Books Be Napsterized ?   (nytimes)

      

It has been more than 30 years since a groundbreaking book predicted that if growth continued unchecked, the Earth’s ecological systems would be overwhelmed within a century. The latest study from an international team of scientists should serve as an eleventh-hour warning that cannot be ignored.

     
The Real Limits to Growth   (e360.yale)

        

To better understand what is called a boundary layer transition or trip in the flow fields, the researchers are just beginning to process all the collected data into 3-D surface temperature maps, which they will compare with measurements from thermal sensors on the shuttle's underbelly and with computational fluid dynamic models. The researchers will present their results at a conference in January 2010.

      
Hot Space Shuttle Images    (technologyreview)

      

       

project managers’ roles have changed; they're responsible for more than mere project delivery of projects, they're responsibilities now also include important issues such as compliance to project controls and audit requirements such as SOX, HIPPA, and many industry-specific regulations. These additional responsibilities complicate the delivery process and burden project managers.

    
IT project managers   (developer)

        

        
First underlines the major future trends: geopolitical transformations in terms of population, economic development, international trade or poverty. Secondly, it elucidates the tensions:
natural resources (food, energy, water and minerals), migrations or urbanisation. Lastly, transitional pathways have been drawn: towards a new production and consumption model.

     
EU forecast: The World in 2025   (cordis.europa)

        

      
The first tool Apache JMeter, is very powerful and has a very generic pluggable architecture which can be used to test a lot of technologies besides web services, such as Java Servlets, CGI scripts, Java objects, FTP servers , JMS, Databases, etc. But for the purposes of this article It'll concentrate on the Web (SOAP) Web services testing aspect of the tool.

     
Testing Enterprise Web Services    (developer)

        

       
The Brazilian company specializes in civilian and military aircraft, and is regarded as one of the top three aircraft companies in the world, next to Boeing and Airbus. Today Embraer’s military products make it an increasing factor in the arms manufacturing and supplying field, along with several other transnational arms companies currently competing to be major international weapons suppliers.

     
Embraer, a global arms merchant   (thepanamanews)

        

      
productive listening does not occur naturally. It requires hard work and practice - Back To Basics - effective listening is a crucial skill for internal auditors. When listening, do you concentrate just on the words that are being said, or do you also concentrate on the way they are being said? The way a speaker is standing, the tone of voice and inflection he or she is using, and what the speaker is doing with his or her hands are all part of the message that is being sent?

      
7 tips for effective listening   (findarticles)

      

        
The contamination is most apparent at schools with wells, which represent 8 to 11% of the nation’s schools. Roughly one of every five schools with its own water supply violated the Safe Drinking Water Act in the past decade, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency analyzed by the AP.

      
US schools: Toxic Drinking Water   (asq)

           

      
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been able to confirm the production of the superheavy element 114, ten years after a group in Russia, at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, first claimed to have made it. The search for 114 has long been a key part of the quest for nuclear science’s hoped-for Island of Stability.

      
Tracking the isotopes of 114   (sciencedaily)

     

        
The third annual study into IT sector competitiveness from the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), finds that the US remains the world’s most conducive environment for the development and growth of IT firms, despite a tougher business environment and the emergence of protectionist impulses. Canada and west European countries such as Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands are also prominent in the index top tier, owing to their robust IT infrastructure and strong support for technology R&D, among other factors.

      
IT Industry Competitiveness 2009    (global.bsa)

        

         

Now Intel plans to sell inexpensive cables with fiber-optic-caliber speed to connect, for instance, a laptop and an external hard drive, or a phone and a desktop computer. At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco Wednesday, the company announced a new type of optical cable that it hopes will be fast, cheap, and thin enough to make it an attractive replacement for multiple copper wires.

     
Intel's Plan    (technologyreview)

         

     
It's a question that's come up during the past 20 years in the few instances when black boxes—which are actually bright orange—have been destroyed or lost after crashes. But the latest accident has prompted Airbus, the maker of the downed Air France aircraft, to study alternatives or supplements to the black boxes, like transmitting data in real time or extending the life of the pinger longer than 30 days to give investigators more time to find the recorders.

      
Alternative to "Black Boxes"    (spectrum.ieee)

     

      
Ask any machinist how statistical process control (SPC) helps him manage his processes. The response is not likely to be positive. It is not uncommon for control charts to be placed around machines and other equipment, showing a history of how certain process parameters or key process characteristics (KPCs) have been performing. But for SPC to actually achieve its intended goal, to offer adjustments prior to making defective product.

    

Pre-Control May be the Solution   (qualitymag)

      

      
In developing proteasome-inhibitor drugs, scientists face several hurdles. A significant one is the fact that human cells also possess proteasomes, which are essential to their survival. To be effective, the drugs would have to specifically target the TB proteasome without adversely affecting the human protein-cleanup complex.

      

Attempts to eradicate tuberculosis  (sciencedaily)

         

        
Adding a new premium ultrasound platform to its Women’s Imaging line of products, Siemens Healthcare introduces the Acuson S2000 ultrasound system – Women’s Imaging at the 19th World Congress of Ultrasound in Gynecology and Obstetrics (ISUOG) in Hamburg, Germany.the company demonstrates how innovative 3D/4D imaging solution and unique knowledge-based applications enhance the quality of care and speed up workflows in high-risk fetal imaging.

    
Ultrasound Platform  (innovations-report)

        

       
Inter-personal relationships between IT and business partners play a critical--yet often overlooked--role in the execution of projects. Agile development methodologies such as Scrum can bring IT and business partners together and help improve project success rates.
when mutual trust exists between IT project managers and stakeholders, IT project managers are more likely to discuss problems that could threaten the project as they arise.

     
IT & BR Shape Success  (cio)

        

      
EU policymakers are increasingly worried about the gap between the EU's climate goals and the growth in emissions from transport. The EU wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050. But even if heavy industry, power companies, farmers and householders all cut their emissions, the target could be missed by a wide margin if transport emissions continue their upward trend.

   
Sustainable transport   (europeanvoice)

       

     

Featuring attack data from TippingPoint intrusion prevention systems protecting 6,000 organizations, vulnerability data from 9,000,000 systems compiled by Qualys, and additional analysis and tutorial by the Internet Storm Center and key SANS faculty members.During the last few years, the number of vulnerabilities being discovered in applications is far greater than the number of vulnerabilities discovered in operating systems.

    

Cyber Security Risks  (sans)

        

       
Many agents draw a distinct line between online marketing, on the one hand, and online counselling, on the other. While some businesses have moved happily and successfully into a fully web-based business model, others maintain serious reservations about abandoning personal client contact, and their recruitment techniques reflect this attitude.

       

Browsing or purchasing?  (hothousemedia)

     

     

New features in the 2009 edition include an extension of the analysis of the economic returns to education to social outcomes; new data on long-term unemployment and involuntary part-time work among young adults; an analysis of the spending choices that countries make between factors such as teacher compensation, instruction time and class sizes.

   

Education at a Glance 2009  (oecd)

         

     
In order to assess the dynamics of consumer demand for PHEVs and their associated electrical charging infrastructure, Pike Research conducted a web-based survey of 1,041 U.S. consumers in 2Q 2009 using a nationally representative and demographically balanced sample. The survey found that the majority of U.S. consumers have driving patterns that are consistent with the capabilities of first-generation PHEVs, with 48% stating that they would be extremely or very interested in a PHEV with a 40-mile range.

   

Electric Vehicle Consumer Survey  (pikeresearch)

     

     
The study found that Lebanon is way above the regional average of 63% of employees motivated in their work, joined by Tunisia’s respondents which are similarly motivated in the work they do every day for their organisation. The study asked respondents how important they consider their work-life balance to be, and whether such a balance is encouraged by employers: an overwhelming 73% of the respondents said that achieving a good work-life balance is very important for their levels of motivation at work.

     

Lebanon's professionals most motivated   (bi-me)

      

      
In Afghanistan, many farmers grow opium because they depend on loans provided by traders as a down payment for the subsequent drug harvest. Historically this has trapped farmers in debt bondage. Microcredits can free farmers from their drug masters. Infrastructures, storage facilities and access to markets can help them market their (licit) crops.

    

Afghanistan Opium Survey 2009   (unodc)

     

     
As I write this post, I'm attending the GeoWeb 2009 Conference in Vancouver, BC. This is then a pretty appropriate time to drop part 3 in the Usability and the GeoWeb series. Part 1 in the series discussed the importance of hiding unnecessary complexity from the user, while Part 2 focused on the importance of never leaving your users guessing and providing them with consistent, meaningful feedback.

    

Protect Your Users From Themselves   (directionsmag)

        

     
Sugar prices have doubled over the last 15 months. A severe shortfall in production is forcing massive sugar imports on India at a time when the world market prices are at a 28-year high. The government has laid the blame on a poor monsoon and the "cyclical nature of the sugar industry", factors that it presents as beyond its control.

    

India Farmers: sour on sugar cane   (indiatogether)

      

       
Web 2.0 technologies improve interactions with employees, customers, and suppliers at some companies more than at others. An outside study titled “Power Law of Enterprise 2.0” analyzed data from earlier McKinsey Web 2.0 surveys to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute most significantly to the successful use of these technologies.

    

Web 2.0’s Power Curves   (mckinseyquarterly)

       

   
Brewing engineers from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) are working hard to improve the energy balance of the amber beverage. A cool, freshly drawn beer – for many a person this is the greatest of pleasures. But, in fact, a bad conscience should haunt us when we drink beer as it is among the most energy-intensive foodstuffs during production.

     

Environmentally 'green' beer   (innovations-report)

       

       

With the launch of its web portal "IEC Global Standards for Smart Grid,"the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) provides the basis for building safe and efficient Smart Grid projects. This one-stop access point for anyone involved in Smart Grid projects provides a comprehensive catalogue of focused standards.Together with leading experts on Smart Grid technology, the IEC has developed a framework for standardisation that will help many countries.

    
IEC: Global standards/Smart Grid  (engineerlive)     SmartGrid  (iec)

     

    
Conventional contact lenses are polymers formed in specific shapes to correct faulty vision. To turn such a lens into a functional system, we integrate control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas into the lens using custom-built optoelectronic components. Those components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye, such as words, charts, and photographs.

     

Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens   (spectrum.ieee)

       

      
The digitisation of books is a Herculean task but also opens up cultural content to millions of citizens in Europe and beyond. This is why I welcome first efforts made by Member States and their cultural institutions to fill the shelves of Europe's digital library,” said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media."However, I find it alarming that only 5% of all digitised books in the EU are available on Europeana.

     

Euro Digital Library doubles in size   (europa)

    

       
The adjustment to growth forecasts for emerging Europe is considerable with a more severe 3.7 per cent recession now expected for 2009. The impact of the sudden stop triggered by precipitous capital flight has been large in one of the rare emerging regions dependent on international financial flows. The recession in Europe, the main market for Eastern European exports, and an excessive private debt burden (often denominated in foreign exchange) have weighed on
economic activity.

    

2009/2010 world-economie scenario  (trading-safely)

      

       
At the Boxborough facility, which is one of many Intertek labs worldwide, engineers perform compliance and precompliance tests for EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) and safety as well as numerous other types of tests, including radio tests, environmental tests, telecom compliance tests, and laser-performance tests. Products that come through the lab include automotive components, military components and systems, home appliances, industrial products, consumer electronics, aerospace subsystems, telecom and wireless products, and medical equipment.

    

A place for compliance tests  (tmworld)

        

    
The snapshot survey of graduates who left university in 2005, conducted by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, also found that graduate unemployment has risen by a third in the past two years and almost a quarter were still not in full-time work. Of those who graduated in 2005, more than 11,000 were unemployed 3½ years later. The same figure for those who left university in 2003 was just 8,000.

     

Graduate unemployment jumps  (hesa.ac)

      

        

In an effort to raise awareness among consumers and to urge government leaders to allocate more funding for research, an international group of researchers is gathering in Washington, D.C. later this month to present study findings and to lobby government officials.The issue has already gained the attention of at least one important congressional
leader.

        

Seek funds for cell phone safety  (news.cnet)  

      

      
The rocking frames are steel braced-frames, the columns of which are free to rock up and down within steel "shoes" secured at their base. To control the rocking and return the frame to vertical when the shaking stops, steel tendons run down the center of the frame from top to bottom. These tendons are made of high-strength steel cable strands twisted together and designed to remain elastic during shaking.

     

Earthquake-Proof Buildings Designed   (laboratoryequipment)

       

        
The idea that BICA has simply been “cancelled” in favor of newer approaches seems far more likely, especially given the new focus of the DARPA SyNAPSE project we’ve discussed here at Technology Report several times before. It appears that the more general and decentralized approach of BICA has been replaced with a more collaborative and engineered approach taken in the DARPA SyNAPSE project.

      
BICA project cancelled  (technology-report)

         

        
Japan has agreed on a landmark joint venture with Brazil -- home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. The project is purported to bring about 'change' in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony in southeastern Africa by transforming the savannah into arable farmland and help Mozambique attain food security.

   
Japan and Brazil program in Africa   (indepthnews)

        

         
On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing- education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.

   
Meta-Analysis of Online Studies   (ed)

      

       
Scientists In Zurich, Switzerland, have, for the first time, imaged the "anatomy," or chemical structure, of an individual molecule with "unprecedented" resolution, using noncontact atomic force microscopy (AFM), IBM said Thursday. Resolving individual atoms within a molecule has been a long-standing goal of surface microscopy, according to the computer company, which has a research and development program dating back to 1945.

     
IBM eyes molecule 'anatomy'   (cnet)

       

      
Beginning in mid-2004, we discovered several curious and sobering trends in the data. Consumer attitudes about all sizes and segments of brands were in serious decline. Across the board, we saw significant drops in the key measures of brand value, such as consumer “top-of-mind” awareness, trust, regard, and admiration. This was true not just for a few brands, but for thousands, encompassing the entire range of consumer goods and services.

     
The Trouble with Brands   (strategy-business)

       

     
In 2009, world population stood at 6.8 billion, up about 83 million from 2008. The world total is likely to reach 7 billion in the latter half of 2011, with the bulk of growth in the world’s poorest nations. The less developed countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to increase by just under 50 percent in the 41 years between now and 2050,and the poorest of these are projected to double in population size over that period.

     
World Population Highlights   (prb)
      

       
There is no universal consensus on what constitutes life, other than its ability to replicate and evolve. Current scientific knowledge suggests that the evolution of life requires a liquid medium, such as water, and a source of energy, such as carbon, various minerals or even harsh chemicals that spew forth from hot hydrothermal vents. Microbiologists are constantly discovering new strategies that microorganisms on Earth use to survive in extreme environments.

     
Protecting planets from us   (earthmagazine)

      

       
Light emitting diodes, or leds, have come a long way from being tiny indicator lights that tell you when an electronic appliance is switched on. They are beginning to get noticed in India as an energy-saving option for lighting buildings and streets, though still a speck on the horizon.

     
Visibly efficient  (downtoearth.org)

      

     
A number of promising proposals are popping up in the eBook market, almost as if it remains unaffected by the worldwide economic downturn that began in the second half of 2008. For example, the quantity of eBook readers shipped by companies like Amazon.com and Sony has soared from the end of 2008 through 2009. And right in parallel with that growth has been significant growth in the scale of the eBook content market, also from the second half of 2008.

    
eBook Market   (techon.nikkeibp.co)

      

       
You may have noticed that Twiter recently re-vamped their own homepage, moving away from “What are you doing now?” to “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world”. Does that mean that Twiter is trying to become a realtime news source of citizen journalists? It also prompts new users to “Join the conversation” – but is
that really what Twiter users are really “tweeting” about?

   
Twitter Study  (pearanalytics)

    

        
Approximately 2,400 participants attended the meeting, which forms part of ongoing negotiations on long-term cooperation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. The two AWGs are scheduled to conclude their work by the fifteenth session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 15) and the fifth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP 5) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009.

    
The Bonn Climate Change Talks   (iisd)

     

      
Until recently, little was known about how the human inner compass works. This is partly because "sense of direction" is not one neatly defined ability. Instead, it is made up of many different skills, such as awareness and memory of your surroundings, sensing your speed and direction changes over time, and tracking the location of objects and places relative to you as you move through an environment.

Human cognitive maps   (newscientist)

     

      
If the swift and sudden impact of the recession took hotels by surprise last autumn and early winter, it has been the corporates which have made the most of the changed situation. Whereas in the past, companies were content to go along with a negotiated rate which would last a year, many are now going back three and even four times a year to re-negotiate their rates.

      
The slump in business travel    (abtn.co)

         

      
The general principles applicable to food contact materials are set out in Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 stating that materials and articles in contact with food shall only be authorised if it is demonstrated that they do not present risks to human health (article 8).This regulation establishes that active and intelligent materials and articles are included in its field of application, and sets out general rules applicable only to active and intelligent materials and articles.    

     

Guidelines on active substance(s)   (efsa.europa)

      

       
if we look back to the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, some of the demographic measures were alarming. Life expectancy was just over 40 and the Chinese population was plagued by infectious diseases transmitted by a large number of vectors.“Home hygiene was not at the greatest level – probably comparable to Europe in the 19th century,” says Pollard. “The health outlook was not fantastic at this stage, but what the Chinese did have was a universal system whereby the government took pretty much complete control of everything.

     
China’s pharmaceutical market    (social.eyeforpharma)

     

     
"Not only has security become a phantom deliverable, but the vendors themselves have become equally tough to pin down and evaluate. Are they software sellers or risk managers? Are they service providers or network designers? Am I buying partnerships or licenses? Most of them don't know themselves what they are -- only that they need to sell something that most people don't really want to buy in the first place -- insurance." While AV tools detect replicating malware like worms, they fail to identify such as non-replicating malware as Trojans.

     
8 Dirty Secrets of the ITSI   (csoonline)

      

    
The fieldwork was carried out in the United Kingdom between 21 and 25 May 2009. 1,000 randomly selected citizens aged 16 and older were interviewed via fixed-line telephone. To correct for sampling disparities, a post-stratification weighting of the results was implemented based on key socio-demographic variables.

    

UK Attitudes & EU  (europa)

       

               
The super-frugal Turbomiser II machine is the fruit of a two-year development programme by pioneering Italian manufacturer Geoclima and UK companies Klima-Therm and Cool-Therm. It has been heralded as 'probably the most efficient HFC-based air-cooled chiller in the world', able to achieve EERs of 10 and above without the need for additional free-cooling
circuits with expensive glycol. This saves both on initial cost and ongoing pump energy.

     
Chiller cuts energy costs  (engineerlive)

      

   

Trust is one of the fundamental things a CIO has to tackle. You can’t have a discussion with the business if it has issues with e-mail or the infrastructure, as that’s where the discussion will go. You need to have a personal relationship with the management guys and understand what they’re driving towards; understand the business is driving to and then they’ll be ready to understand that you are driving towards business value. Without trust you will struggle in the role.

    
IT transformation projects  (cio)

     

It may sound like a scene from a low-rent version of Star Trek, but it's real, and it's happening with increasing frequency. This process goes by a few names, but it's most commonly known as "3D Printing" (the older name, "rapid prototyping," no longer captures the range of uses, while the other alternative name, "fabbing," is a little too cyberpunk for the moment).If you have an original, you can copy it. Or you can design a replacement on the computer, and the 3D printer makes it for you.

  
What is RepRap?  (fastcompany)

       

       

what will happen to the number of businesses in difficulties over the next three years. The Industry Watch report and the underlying model is the only publication which assesses demand, cost and financial issues affecting sector industry health. Based on the economic forecasts by the centre for economics and business research ltd. Despite signs of stability in the financial sector, economic conditions remain extremely tough for businesses.

    

UK businesses in trouble  (bdo.uk)          UK labour market  (kpmg.co)

       

      
It's a compelling vision with some great green engineering (intelligent wheels, folding electric cars and one-way vehicle-sharing). An important next step: creation of the software required to manage the dynamic pricing required to incentivize people to return cars, scooters, and bikes to the locations with the most demand. Here's a link to my report on the innovative work being done by this team under the visionary leadership of Prof.

    
MIT's Smart Mobility Project  (outsideinnovation.blogs)

      

      

Symantec observed an increase in attacks employing fraudulent use of hijacked web pages. These pages appear legitimate, offering intended victims a false sense of security.The number of phishing URLs generated using automated phishing toolkits soared to 63 percent in July, an increase of 150 percent.

    
State of Phishing  (eval.symantec)

      

    
Deloitt: The 2009 Shift Index  (edgeperspectives)

     

      
Lifelong learning has become a competitive necessity in the 21st century job market. American writer Alvin Toffler, who studies the digital revolution, writes: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can’t read and write. They will be those who can’t learn, unlearn and relearn.” And in a troubled economy he’s definitely correct. As the recession hit, many state corporations turned to online programming offered by institutions to help them retrain employees, either because their jobs were being eliminated.

   
Viable alternatives for learning  (crwmag)

       

      
1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene called TATB, Used as a high explosive, TATB is nearly invulnerable to significant energy release from plane crashes, fires, and explosions.The scarcity of TATB makes recycling the material from old nuclear warheads an attractive option. In any recycling process, TATB molecules must be separated from the polymer binder (the plastic “glue” binding the crystals), dissolved, and then recrystallized to the correct microscopic crystal size and shape.

Dissolving Molecules  (str.llnl)

      

With LCD reaching a maturation point in terms of technology and market acceptance, large flat-panel displays are comfortably running in sizes from 32 to 82 inches. The next issues for the industry to conquer include bezel width and ease of installation when it comes to video walls, while keeping in mind that now high-definition is the expected resolution.

Bezels shrink, resolution rises  (governmentvideo)

     

    
In recent years, China's State and Food Drug Administration (SFDA) has implemented a slew of policies to improve the regulatory environment. The agency implemented stricter quality control guidelines and GMP inspection guidelines in April 2007 and October 2007, respectively. The 2007 guidelines allow GMP certificates to be issued only to companies that demonstrate zero flaws in their manufacturing process and enable authorities to deny GMP
certification to companies that falsify application documents.

China GMP guidelines   (pharmtech.findpharma)

   

    
ECOtality is a leader in clean electric transportation and storage technologies that address the world’s global energy challenges. Their ceo presented its company as technology innovator that identifies inventive ways to efficiently power our lives while striking a harmonious balance with our natural environment. They are going to be working with Nissan but are also going to be building out electric infrastructure in five different markets.

ECOtality Az. Business  (video.foxbusiness)

    

    
NASA’s Ares launch vehicles, which will carry explorers to the moon in the coming decades, will be powered in part by the J–2X engine, which draws its heritage from the Apollo-Saturn Program. The new engine, being designed and developed for NASA’s Constellation Program, will power the upper stages of both the Ares I rocket and Ares V heavy cargo launch vehicle.
       

The J–2X Engine (nasa)    

     

     
Symptoms of swine flu in humans appear to be similar to those produced by standard, seasonal flu. A fever - which is a temperature of 38ºC (100.4ºF) - is the key symptom, combined with other complaints which may include a cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and aching limbs. Some people with the virus have also reported nausea and diarrhoea.People are most infectious soon after they develop symptoms, but they cease to be a risk once those symptoms have disappeared.

Advice about swine flu   (news.bbc.co)

    

     
Quantum computers have the potential to perform calculations far faster than the classical computers used today. This superior computing power comes from the fact that these computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time, in contrast to classical bits that can represent only a 1 or a 0. Scientists take a number of different approaches to creating qubits.

Scaling Up a Quantum Computer  (technologyreview)

   

     

Russia is running out of natural gas - or at least it's running out of easily accessible natural gas. According to the Oil and Gas Journal's 2008 survey, Russia holds the world's largest natural gas reserves, with 1,680 trillion cubic feet (47.5 trillion cubic meters), which is nearly twice the reserves in the next largest country, Iran.

Great natural gas balancing act   (dw-world)

   

       

ID card was cloned and the personal details on the chip changed, in an article by Boggan in the recent Daily Mail. Security experts have long questioned the viability of the prospective UK ID cards and David Blunkett, the architect of the scheme, admitted in April there had been a "massive drop" in public confidence in ID cards. The chip that was modified uses the technology that will be used in cards for UK citizens.
     

UK ID card hack demo  (news.zdnet.co)

           

        
Acetylene gas poses a particular risk to emergency services when a fire is suspected to involve cylinders of the gas. Acetylene cylinders can become a time bomb even after a fire has been extinguished, putting emergency responders and the public in danger. A team of fire-fighting robots has been unveiled at a demonstration in London at tackling the particular risk of fires involving Acetylene cylinders.

Robotic firefighting team  (news.bbc.co)

       

        

Virtually every business decision is also a decision about the use of natural resources. This paper describes how global warming is affecting water and energy resources, and the challenges and opportunities this presents globally. Also this paper highlights how regions of the world that will experience the worst impacts of climate change are those near the equator and overwhelmingly impoverished.

What Businesses Need to Know & Do  (pacinst)

     

The recommendations in this report are intended to serve as guidelines for considering and implementing Good Laboratory Practices to 1) improve quality and health-care outcomes related to molecular genetic testing for heritable diseases and conditions and 2) enhance oversight and quality assurance practices for molecular genetic testing under the CLIA regulatory framework.The report can be adapted for use in different settings where molecular genetic testing is conducted or evaluated.

GLP for Molecular Genetic Testing  (cdc)

        

     

The goal of this symposium is to bring together security and cryptography practitioners, researchers, system administrators, systems programmers, and others with an interest in applying cryptography,network and computer security, and especially the area where these overlap. The focus on applications of cryptography is intended to attract papers in the fields of electronic commerce and information processing, as well as security.

6th USENIX Symposium  (usenix)

      

      
Occupational safety and health (OSH) is not usually viewed as a contributory factor to the economic viability of an organisation.Compliance with government guidelines, regulations and laws is generally the primary focus of OSH policies.The present review examines the link between Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and economic performance, especially as it relates to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

    
OSH economic performance  (osha.europa)

      

       
Yahoo will handle the global ad sales for the companies' combined premium search platforms, which Microsoft will power. Their economics of scale does not assure that Yahoo will sell, follow through and match the "right" ad for the "right" search user. The advertising sales component is a complex process on which the success of this new partnership depends. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the alliance is all about "relevance."

Yahoo/Microsoft partnership  (mediapost)

      

    

The first comprehensive assessment of substances used as sources of vitamins and minerals in food supplements which are currently sold in the European Union. EFSA has examined 533 applications since 2005, relating to 344 different substances. The assessments were based on scientific evidence provided by food supplement manufacturers
to demonstrate the safety of these nutrient sources and the extent to which they are absorbed in the body.

EU-wide assessment on vitamins  (efsa.europa)

      

     
The top three multilateral financers of coal-fired power plants since 1994—the World Bank Group, Asian Development Bank, and European Investment Bank—have collectively invested more than $11.7 billion in 58 projects throughout the developing world. The Bank, in collaboration with the world's leading multilateral development banks, is creating a common method for estimating a project's associated greenhouse gas emissions.

    
World Bank CO2 Footprint Analysis  (worldwatch)

     

  Patient data check-up

     
One of the highest goals for IT professionals inside a health care environment is the protection of patient records and hospital data. For Donald Newton (left), the network security engineer at First Medical Management (FMM), this meant going after the right tool for the job. Given the size of FMM and the high level of traffic going in and out of its network, it had become obvious to Newton and his team that a solution was needed to meet the network's security needs.

  

Patient data check-up  (scmagazineus)

    

  Helicopters: Landing safely despite brownout

   
There are many conditions that can make it tricky to land a helicopter including strong, unpredictable (shear) winds, confined landing spaces, and building structures. One of the worst conditions, though, is lack of ground sight. Landing a helicopter is a stressful situation for the pilot anyway. Bringing it down safely in the middle of nowhere and in areas that are notorious for dust and hence poor sight is one of the most challenging scenarios.

  

Helicopters: Landing safely  (sae)

    

  Energy prices are going up in 2010

     
Only 17% of the buyers polled by Purchasing in June planned to boost energy purchasing this summer. "Indeed, the demand picture for energy remains very weak," writes analyst Sheraz Mian at Zacks Investment Research in Chicago. "That's why (start-of-June) crude oil stocks are 16.5% above the year-earlier level and remain above the upper limit of the average for this time of the year. And, with 25 days of supply in the U.S., stocks remain significantly above the year-earlier level of 20.7 days.
   

Energy prices are going up in 2010  (purchasing)

    

  Top 20 supply chain management software

    
The leaders in 2008 look much the same as in 2007. Once again, No. 1 SAP with $942 million and No. 2 Oracle with $715 million top the list. In a tough year, both posted significant percentage gains, with SAP up nearly 12% and Oracle growing by nearly 9%. JDA Software with $390 million, Manhattan Associates with $337 million and RedPrairie with $293 million rounded out the top five. All of the SCM categories showed few mergers and acquisitions of note and few technological breakthroughs.

   

Top 20 supply CMS  (mmh)

    

  Seacom project & Internet access in Africa

     
The cost of accessing Internet services in Africa is likely to fall in the near future with work on laying a fiber-optic cable connecting eastern and southern Africa to Europe and Asia set to be completed by Seacom on Thursday. The price of access to high-speed telecommunications in Africa is among the highest in the world, a fact which has kept many Africans off the Internet, according to Christoph Stork of Research ICT Africa, which consults on information and communication technology in 19 countries on the continent.

  

Seacom project & Internet access in Africa  (dw-world)

     

  Zero-Standby-Power ICs

    
As environment-friendly equipment becomes ever more important, this may be the trump card in slashing power consumption. The industry is switching into high gear in pursuit of zero-standby-dissipation IC technology. Rohm Co Ltd of Japan, at the forefront of developments, prototyped a microprocessor in 2008 and is now designing custom chips for a number of equipment manufacturers. With its volume production line in Kyoto completed in May/June 2009, Rohm will begin shipping custom ICs in the second half of the year.

  

Zero-Standby-Power ICs  (techon.nikkeibp.co)

    

  Int. Low: Vattenfall v. Germany arbitration

       
In April 2009 the Swedish energy utility Vattenfall brought the German government to international arbitration. The Energy Charter Treaty does not have its own tribunal or court as does the World Trade Organization (WTO). Instead, the Treaty allows for either ad hoc arbitration under UN Rules without any institutional framework, the World Bank’s International Center on the Settlement of Investment Disputes, or the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce to administer the dispute. Vattenfall chose to bring the case to ICSID.

  

Vattenfall v. Germany arbitration  (iisd)

      

  China: Overseas investments

    

Is China Inc. intent on buying the world? It sure looks that way. Just in June and July, Chinese companies from oil refiner Sinopec (SNP) to carmaker Beijing Automotive and appliance giant Haier have invested or shown interest in investing in oil fields in Iraq, GM's Opel car business in Germany, an upscale appliance maker in New Zealand, and a Japanese department store.

    
China: Overseas investments  (businessweek)

      

  Trade flows' collapse continues

           
Compared with the previous quarter, the value of exports and imports of goods and services in OECD countries, measured in seasonally adjusted current price US dollars, continued to drop significantly, albeit less dramatically. The seasonally adjusted figures fell by 13.4% and 15.2% respectively. On a year-on-year basis, growth in the value of exports and imports of goods and services plunged, by 27.1% for exports and by 27.9% for imports in the first quarter. The sharp drop observed in Q4 2008 continued in Q1 2009, albeit less steeply.

   
Trade flows' collapse continues  (oecd)

       

  EU Annual Report on Pesticide Residues

    
The present Annual Report provides an overview of the results of the monitoring of pesticide residues in food commodities analysed during the calendar year 2007 in the 27 EU Member States and the two EFTA States (Norway and Iceland), who have signed the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA agreement). In 2007, the analytical methods used by the reporting countries for pesticide residue analysis allowed to detect in total 870 different pesticides (including metabolites) in food samples.

     
Report on Pesticide Residues  (efsa.europa)

      

  Golden age

      

Despite its high price and the fast-paced advances elsewhere in the world of materials, gold's use is on the rise. Indeed, according to Dr Richard Holliday, head of industrial applications for the World Gold Council (WGC), largely thanks to the opportunities created by nanotechnology, we could be on the brink of a new golden age. The main growth area for gold is its oldest industrial customer, the electronics sector, which takes about 300 tonnes a year (around $8bn (£5bn) worth at today's prices).

   
Golden age  (theengineer.co)

    

  Germany's Green-Energy Gap

      

The six offshore wind turbines that REpower Systems began erecting near Germany’s coast in 2004 make their older cousins look like pinwheels. Each one has three 61.5-meter blades, which in a good breeze make one revolution every 5 seconds, producing 5 megawatts of electric power. Inspired by Germany’s bold vision for capturing offshore wind energy, these majestic machines are designed to withstand anything the famously unforgiving North Sea can dish out.

Germany's Green-Energy Gap  (spectrum.ieee)
      

  About Recovery: Learn from McDonald

Most institutions die young, as they fail to reinvent themselves. As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin, it is important to remind ourselves that only the most adaptable species indeed survive. So it didn't come as a real surprise that after decades of steady growth rates, even McDonald's would stall. It happens to almost everyone. But as we studied the corporate history books, we realized that the rather short list of companies that
had reinvented themselves was intimidating and certainly humbling.

   
About Recovery: Learn from McDo.  (blogs.harvardbusiness)

      

  O3, NOx, change the Way Rising CO2

     
Through a recent modeling experiment, a team of NASA-funded researchers have found that future concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere and of nitrogen in the soil are likely to have an important but over looked effect on the cycling of water from sky to land to waterways. The researchers concluded that models of climate change may be underestimating how much water is likely to run off the land and back into the sea as atmospheric chemistry changes.

    
Rising CO2  (nasa)
       

  When meat meets sweet

       

Using meat in dessert is one way of being initiated into the cutting-edge culinary phenomenon known as molecular gastronomy. It's a field partners Dominique and Cindy Duby have researched for years in Vancouver, though they refer to it as "culinary constructivism." They've even written a book titled Wild Sweets Chocolate, which features a whole section on the use of chocolate as an ingredient in savoury cuisine, plus a few other nibbly sweet meat ideas, such as a bacon and chocolate snack.

    
When meat meets sweet  (nationalpost)

      

  Nigeria: Future Industrial Manufacturing Hub

       

Recently, a company in India (TATA) planned to mass-produce affordable cars that India will export to other countries. The honour does not go to the individual investor(s) who built the company; rather the honour to the Indian people and the government of India. The Ford family started the Ford Motor Company in the United States with incentives from the home government. Today, Ford is the largest auto manufacturing company in the world, employing thousands of workers in the US.

    
Nigeria Industrial Future  (ngrguardiannews)

       

       
Damage assessments and reports have been carried out by different national and international scholars and institutions. The majority of the reports focus on the damage observed at the end of 2004, mentioning both damage caused by military activities and damage caused by erosion as well as the misuse of archaeological monuments.

The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on this internationally known archeological site. During their presence in Babylon, the MNF-I and contractors employed by them, mainly KBR, directly caused major damage to the city by digging,cutting, scraping, and leveling.

     

Report on Damage Assessments in Babylon  (unesdoc.unesco)

       

      
The technical and economical success of a CO2 geological storage project requires the preservation of the site injectivity and integrity properties over its lifetime. Unlike conventional hydrocarbon gas injection, CO2 injection implies geochemical reactions between the reactive brine and the in situ formations (reservoir and cap rock) leading to modifications of their petrophysical and geomechanical properties.

This paper underlines the experimental difficulties raised by the low permeability of samples representative either of the cap rock itself or at least of transition zones between the reservoir and the effective cap rock.

     

CO2 Geological Storage  (ogst.ifp)

      

       
software packages can automatically generate code for target processors or FPGAs, leading to the possibility that dedicated hardware- and software-embedded-system designers may become members of an endangered species. The idea that domain experts might supplant electrical engineers gained wide currency during a 2008 Embedded Systems Conference panel discussion.

      
Design doing your job (edn)

       

      
There are indications that the public also is somewhat less confident in America’s scientific prowess than it once was. Significantly fewer Americans volunteer scientific advances as one of the country’s most important achievements than did so a decade ago (27% today, 47% in May 1999). As an example, ten years ago, 18% cited space exploration and the moon landing as the country’s top achievement of the 20th century. Today 12% see it as the greatest achievement of the past 50 years.

     
Scientists Assess the State of Their Field    (people-press)

      

        

Despite the severe global recession beginning in the last quarter of 2008, FDI stock in Japan at the end of 2008 had risen ¥3.4 trillion from the previous year (which was the largest increase on record) to ¥18.5 trillion (about $179.6 billion). Its share of GDP also increased from 2.9% to 3.6%.

FDI from the United States increased by 34% to ¥6.7 trillion compared to the end of 2007.In December 2008, “The Program for Acceleration of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan” was revised, reflecting the recommendations by the Expert Committee on FDI Promotion released in May 2008. The revised program consists of a total of 91 policies including 25 new measures.

    

US & Japan Investment   (state)     Japan & World economy  (meti.go)

      

       

He turns 59 in July, Branson’s life seems as golden as his locks. Worth about $4.4 billion, he ranked as the 236th richest person in 2008, according to Forbes. Branson has put his Virgin brand on independent businesses in the airline, hospitality, space travel and financial industries, to name a few. He has made headlines as a humanitarian, environmentalist and adventurer. In 2000, he was knighted for his services to entrepreneurship.

      
Virgin Entrepreneur   (successmagazine)

         

  IQMS Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Founded in Southern California in 1989, IQMS moved to Paso Robles, CA in 1995 with a staff of seven employees. Since then, IQMS has grown to more than 100 employees with offices in Europe, China, Canada and most recently, the United Kingdom. Today, despite the recent effects of the down economy, IQMS continues to post profitability, and last year increased its customer accounts by double-digit percent margins.

     

IQMS 20th Anniversary  (earthtimes)

     

  NC: Socioeco. Analysis / Obesity and Diabetes

     

According to New York City Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, “Of all diseases New Yorkers suffer, diabetes and HIV have the greatest disparities of race and class” (1). Indeed, throughout the United States, poorer people are more likely to become obese because of factors such as less healthy nutritional habits (healthy foods tend to be more expensive) and lack of time to exercise.

    

NC: Socioeco. Analysis/Obesity and Diabetes  (cdc)

         

  Automated manufacturing helps Valpak

     

Valpak invested $220 million to build a new 470,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art production and distribution facility in St. Petersburg, Fla. The solution designed and implemented by Valpak's system integrator (Daifuku America) has resulted in one of the most advanced and automated manufacturing centers in the world: While 430 workers are employed in the production areas, the movement of raw materials and finished goods from the receiving dock to the shipping dock is almost entirely handled by automated materials handling systems.

     

Automated manufacturing helps Valpak  (mmh)

      

  NPE News in Additives 2009

      
Colorants were the most numerous class of additives making news at the huge triennial plastics exhibition in Chicago. Some of the new colorants were aimed at specialized applications, from natural-fiber composites to laser marking, while others were for aesthetic special effects, such as color shifts and diamond-like sparkle. New additives that help make plastics more environmentally acceptable constituted one theme. Two other exhibitors showcased new additives that make conventional plastics biodegradable.

   

NPE News in Additives 2009  (ptonline)

      

  How to Improve Cleaning Processes ?

        

The regulation agencies approach cleaning validation limits with the idea that because of the vast variety of materials and equipment used to manufacture products throughout the industry, it would be impractical to try to set general limits.1 Most of them give examples of where limits should be set based on general criteria, however.

     

How to Improve Cleaning Processes  (pharmaquality)

      

  Pondering the Smart Grid

The "Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap" isn't a quick read at 291 pages but it is an excellent resource if you're interested in the topic. Reading it gave us new respect for the formidable task taken on by the participants in this great work. Whatever they come up with, for instance, must play nicely with legacy systems and equipment because our existing legacy infrastructure will be with us for years to come.

    

Pondering the Smart Grid  (nist)

     

  Parallel MATLAB apps

     
Engineers who need their computer programs to run faster or process larger data sets would prefer that every program automatically use parallelism. However, automatic parallelism is still a subject of basic computer science research. Thus, the responsibility of using parallelism to run programs across multiple cores or computers is shared by the designers of programming languages/environments and their users.

     

Parallel MATLAB apps  (deskeng)

      

  How Laser Trackers Work ?

     
Many industries, including the automotive and aerospace industries, must precisely measure the three-dimensional features of large objects. An increasingly popular way to do this is with the laser tracker, a device first introduced in the late 1980s. As its name suggests, the laser tracker measures 3-D coordinates by tracking a laser beam to a retro-reflective target held in contact with the object of interest.

     

How Laser Trackers Work  (qualitydigest)

       

  BPM Goes Social

     
Kaizen is already Social BPM - a term made exciting by the fact that, much like progress in computerizing BPM since World War II, Social BPM puts the collaboration technology in the cloud, where it belongs. Many of the high-value business processes mentioned in this article naturally touch many different siloed organizations.

Because of this, each silo has its own perception of what an optimal process would look like. By locating the early stages of process models in the cloud, many different stakeholders can provide critical early input into the feasibility of any process improvement.

    

BPM Goes Social  (destinationcrm)

    

  Academic's Labor Helps Fight H-1B Visas

  
The H-1B visa program inspires heated debate, especially online. The program is controversial for a number of reasons. Some critics say the program allows U.S. companies to import cheaper labor, dampening wages and displacing U.S. workers.

Others say it facilitates outsourcing, as it allows Indian-born tech workers to train in the U.S. and then return home and perform the work there. Still others point to mounting evidence of fraud in the program and a lack of government oversight.

    

How to fight for H-1B Visas ?  (businessweek)

        

  New Content-Development Methodologies

The survey is structured by the existing view of quality standards in the area of e-learning such as ISO standard guidelines, and by a simple thematic analysis methodology.

Each topic used in the survey is clearly thematically present in some parts of the ICOPER community, but not consistently for all of the issues that we would have expected to see. For example, whilst the standards theme is not well represented in the case studies of this community, the sub-topic of ‘rights and licensing’ is clearly very important.

    

New Content-Development Methodologies (educanext)

     

  Why Businesses (Don’t) Collaborate ?

     
Many businesses think they collaborate. But content professionals today are tugged in multiple directions, and expected to multi-task their way through an increasing amount of work with the help of software tools designed to make them more productive.

The variety of tools to choose from, the time needed to adopt them and adapt to new ways of working, and the resistance to change in many corporate cultures are all factors that contribute to a very different reality - one surveyreport2009in which collaboration is not as vibrant and widespread as it could be.

    

Why Businesses (Don’t) Collaborate  (ikiw)

    

  Fuel Cell Infrastructure Survey 2009

    
Fuel Cell Today, the leading organisation for market based intelligence on the fuel cell industry, has published its latest Survey on hydrogen infrastructure developments.

2009 will see over 150 stations open with light duty stations representing a majority, while the remaining stations are split evenly between transit and other applications. Many transit bus stations also accommodate light duty vehicles, and this trend of multi-purpose stations is likely to continue as hydrogen refuelling stations are built at hubs such as airports.

    

Fuel Cell Infrastructure Survey 2009  (fuelcelltoday)

     

  ISO 26000: consensus towards Societal responsibility

       
The group's 7th plenary meeting, held in Québec City, Québec, Canada, on 18-22 May 2009, addressed issues stemming from the more than 3 000 comments submitted in a successful vote on the Committee Draft of the standard taken before the meeting. ISO 26000 is now moving to the status of a Draft International Standard by October 2009.

  

Societal responsibility & iso 26000  (iso)
       

  Heading for the emergency room

      

The American health-care system, which gobbles up about 16% of the country’s economic output, is by far the most expensive in the world (see chart 1). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that on current trends spending on Medicare and Medicaid, the government schemes for the old and the poor, will rise from 4% of GDP in 2007 to 12% in 2050.

    

Heading for the emergency room   (economist)
      

  Energy: Shell is developing new formulations

     
Tailoring fuel to meet the needs of industry has been the task of Shell's Commercial Fuels division for more than a century and is responsible for all fuels sold to commercial customers worldwide, ranging from diesel fuels for road transport, to heavy fuel oil for industry, as well as heating fuel to private customers.

The division is responsible for around one third of global Shell fuel sales, is active in some 55 countries, and provides transport, industrial and heating fuels to more than 250000 customers.

      

Energy Shell's Formulation   (engineerlive)

     

     

Sanofi has made a couple aggressive moves since Viehbacher took over Sanofi in December. Earlier this year, it acquired cancer drugmaker BiPar Sciences for $500 million (giving BiPar investor Paul Allen a big payday), and partnering with South San Francisco-based cancer drug developer Exelixis for a deal possibly worth more than $1 billion. But Viehbacher also has his sights on making money on low profit-margin, high-volume products in parts of the world that are off the pharma industry’s beaten track.

      

The bets of Sanofi CEO   (xconomy)

        

      

People are having second thoughts not simply because they don't like the dollar, but they are having second thoughts about whether US assets are obviously the strongest assets to own.Like everything else, the currency's fate depends on how well the US authorities manage the crisis.

The US is balanced on a knife-edge between possible Japan-style deflation as the weight of all its debts bear down on it and potential inflation as the force of all its powerful stimulus measures take root.

    

The death of the dollar?   (telegraph.co)

       

          

Now, though, we can go from mechanical contacts to electrical contacts by embedding transceiver circuits,” explains Kuroda. ”In other words, we make the connections wireless. The device is a permanent memory system based on semiconductor technology.

The prototype consists of four stacked 300-millimeter silicon wafers incorporating 2.5 terabits, (320 gigabytes), of data encoded on read-only memory and fabricated using a 45-nanometer complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process, together with a separate data reader.

       

Digital Data Written in Stone   (spectrum.ieee)

      

     

If all had gone as planned, “the world’s first eco-city,” as press releases billed it back in 2005, would now be well on its way to completion. The visionary project called for a grassy island near the crowded metropolis of Shanghai to be transformed from a marshy backwater into a gleaming community of energy-efficient buildings housing 50,000 people. Waste was to have been recycled as fuel and the waterfronts were to be lined with sleek micro-windmills.

     

China’s Eco-Cities   (e360.yale)

        

     
The EU doesn't seem to have a specific beef with how ICANN operates, but it's been consistently unhappy about the fact that ICANN answers only to the US government and is incorporated under California law. With ICANN's current charter coming to an end this September, the EU is starting a campaign to give it a more international flavor. Most Internet users in the EU therefore have a legitimate expectation about the reliability of ‘their Internet’.

News  (arstechnica)     Strategic document   (ec.europa)

       

     

Like all big coal-fired power plants, the 1,600-mega-watt-capacity Schwarze Pumpe plant in Spremberg, Germany, is undeniably dirty. Yet a small addition to the facility—a tiny boiler that pipes 30 MW worth of steam to local industrial customers—represents a hope for salvation from the global climate-changing consequences of burning fossil fuels.coal burning is responsible for 40 percent of the 30 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted by human activity every year.

    

Coal-Fired Power & Environment   (enn)

      

      

There is a secret organization that hardware engineers belong to called the IEEE, and they have a dirty little secret that they haven’t shared with software engineers. The secret is that the power, freedom, and choices need to be eliminated. Why haven’t they shared the secret? Because most software engineers haven’t passed a standardized test, they haven't learned the secret handshake, and they haven't demonstrated a willingness to take a considerable pay cut.

    

Hardware’s Dirty Little Secret  (developer)

      

     
In its Digital Britain report, published on Tuesday, the UK government pledged to spend up to £175m a year to build out next-generation broadband to almost all the UK. It will also dedicate £30m to pushing through ICT innovation, invest £23m over three years to help small businesses exploit advanced ICT and introduce three new research hubs with funding of £12m for each.

     

Our project begins with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey , an ambitious project whose goal is to map out as large a portion of the sky as possible. To this date the SDSS has mapped about a quarter of the sky, including over 300 million objects.

But what really is a list of a couple million points in 3D space other than a massive problem to tackle? Sure, we can plot all these points together and get a gorgeous map of the sky, but once again- what do these pictures mean?

     

MilkyWay@Home Progress  (unitedboinc)

        

            

Five years ago, few knew there was a forest here. Its discovery by the scientific community is down to a very 21st-Century research tool. Dr Bayliss's project, funded through a British scheme called the Darwin Initiative, looked for similarities between different patches of medium altitude rainforest.

When images of Mount Mabu were analysed, it became clear that there was a large patch of dark green of which there was no official record.

      

Exploring the 'Google forest'  (news.bbc.co.)

      

      

On social networks and blogs, people post vast amounts of information about themselves. Marketers, meanwhile, are developing ever-better tools to exploit information about what individuals do online.ompanies routinely unlock sensitive data for business partners. As businesses enter into cloud computing, they will give custody of their data to service providers.

     

Data Privacy Rules  (cio)

       

   

There are concerns that a poor grasp of anatomy could potentially compromise patient care. A team at King's College London found public understanding of basic anatomy has not improved since a similar survey was conducted 40 years ago.Less than 50% of the more than 700 people surveyed could correctly place the heart, BMC Family Practice says.Under one-third could place the lungs in their correct location, but more than 85% got the intestines right.

    

BMC Family Survey (news.bbc.co)

       

This report explores how environmental shocks and stresses,especially those related to climate change, can push people to leave their homes in search of “greener pastures” … or just to survive. In order to make informed decisions, policymakers and development actors need a better understanding of the linkages between environmental change, displacement and migration.

 
Policy decisions made today will determine whether migration becomes a matter of choice amongst a range of adaptation options, or merely a matter of survival due to a collective failure by the international community to provide better alternatives.

     

Mapping Climate Change (reliefweb)

      

The SIPRI Yearbook is written by both SIPRI researchers and invited outside experts. The year 2008 saw increasing threats to security, stability and peace in nearly every corner of the globe with Global military expenditure is estimated to have totalled $1464 billion. This represents an increase of 4 per cent in real terms compared to 2007, and of 45 per cent since 1999.

Military expenditure comprised approximately 2.4 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008. All regions and subregions have seen significant increases since 1999, except for Western and Central Europe.

          

Global military expenditure  (sipri)

      

         

More than 500 million people worldwide are infected with malaria each year, killing one to three million people, many of them children. Georgia Southern University professor Tom Kollars hopes his invention, the ProVector Bt, will drastically reduce those numbers.The ProVector targets mosquitoes that carry deadly diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus. In blind trials conducted by a Walter Reed Army Institute of Research overseas laboratory, the ProVector killed 50 to 100 percent of mosquitoes within days.

     

Malaria Prevention invention   (georgiasouthern)

            

     

Cinnamon oil-polypropylene combo keeps bread extra fresh Spanish resear-chers from the University of Zaragoza and Artibal S.A. report that the final packaging design increased the shelf-life from three to 10 days.

Furthermore, sensory evaluation tests showed that the packaging ensured “maximum quality and safety”, report the researchers in the journal Trends in Food Science & Technology. Active packaging changes the condition of the packaged food product to either extend its shelf life or improve its safety while ensuring quality.

     

Increasing the bread shelf-life (foodqualitynews)

          

         
Ninety-three percent of P2P disclosures in the enterprise are inadvertent."You can't really guard against human error," . The problem is compounded by the fact that the employees also tend not to be savvy enough to configure the settings so as to protect files they don't want to share from being distributed.

Mark Loveless, a research scientist at technology non-profit Mitre, said "The default settings tend to err on the side of being more open than more closed," . This mirrors the security-versus-usability trade-off that software and Web services providers, like Microsoft and Google, often find themselves making.

    

P2P disclosures  (cnet)

     

              

The term "continuous integration" refers to a process that builds and tests code on a frequent basis. It was coined by Martin Fowler and Kent Beck, who first wrote about this process near the turn of the millennium.

The continuous integration servers constantly monitor source code repositories and as soon as new changes/commits are detected, they initiate a new build cycle. The build cycle actually involves code compilation and, in addition, may involve various tests and code analysis.

    

Continus integration (developer)

     

     

Despite being based on SourceForge's technology, Forge.mil has one significant difference: security.

As David Mihelcic, chief technology officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency, told Federal Computer Week, the Department of Defense's code repository has been "upgraded to meet DOD security requirements," with smart cards used to provide log-in credentials. There are only three open-source projects hosted at Forge.mil so far, and it's initially restricted to the Defense Department's technology community.

           

DOD'S SourceForge   (news.cnet)

     

          

How much private information is available about you in cyberspace? Social Security numbers are just the beginning. What information is available about you in cyberspace? Where does it come from? What risks does it present and what, if anything, can you do to protect yourself? To answer those questions, the owner of this article decided to use his own identity, "Robert L. Mitchell", a national correspondent at Computerworld, as his own research subject. He quickly discovered that while the quantity of publicly available information about individuals to be found online is vast, it is riddled with inaccuracies.

             
The Web & You   (computerworld)