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      French news At a glance 

             

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  The world nuclear industry

   
The year 2016, marking the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe and the 5th year since the Fukushima disaster started unfolding, strangely might go down in history as the period when the notion of risk of nuclear power plants turned into the perception of nuclear power plants at risk. Indeed, an increasing number of reactors is threatened by premature closure due to the unfavorable economic environment.

   
Status report 2016 (worldnuclearreport)

   

  El Niño and La Niña

   
FAO is continuously monitoring the status of El Niño. While it has declined in strength and a return to a neutral state is indicated, its impacts on the agriculture sector are still continuing. Climate models are now predicting an increasing likelihood of La Niña developing in 2016, which is an opposite phenomenon.In many of the affected countries, FAO is using early warning information to design and implement early action and response plans.

   
Preparedness and Response (fao)

   

  Aerospace and defense profit

   
Aerospace and defense sector performance sector returned to growth, with US defense subsector bottoming out, and profit margins remaining flat. This study analyzes the top 100 global aerospace and defense (A&D) companies, or business units of industrial conglomerates with A&D business, with reported revenue of more than US$500 million in 2015 with financial statements filed by 31 December, 2015.

   
Facts and figures (deloitte)

   

  Economic prospects and risks

   
OECD GDP growth is projected to be just under 2% on average over 2016-17, broadly in line with outcomes in the previous two years. Supportive macroeconomic policies and low commodity prices should continue to underpin a modest recovery in the advanced economies, assuming that wage increases and business investment growth both start to pick up and tensions in financial markets do not reoccur.

   
Assessment of the macroeconomic situation (oecd)

   

  Validity of published fMRI studies

   
Using mass empirical analyses with task-free fMRI data, we have found that the parametric statistical methods used for group fMRI analysis with the packages SPM, FSL, and AFNI can produce FWE-corrected cluster P values that are erroneous, being spuriously low and inflating statistical significance. This calls into question the validity of countless published fMRI studies based on parametric clusterwise inference.

   
Clusterwise VS Voxelwise (pnas)

   

  How to beat Tor at its own game ?

   
A new anonymizing protocol from MIT may prove more resilient against such determined and deep-pocketed attackers.VThe potential problem with Tor is that if an adversary gets enough nodes on the network, they can work together to track the progress of packets. They might not be able to tell exactly what is being sent, but they can put together a breadcrumb trail tying a user to traffic coming out of an exit node — at least, that’s the theory.

   
MIT’s anonymous online communications protocol (mit)

   

  Moving to Automated Inspection

   
If you’re producing small precision components, quality drives the entire manufacturing process. One of the ways to help ensure the quality of such products is through the use of automated inspection systems known as automatic visual-control systems (AVCs). These systems use computer visual technology to automatically check parts for many different defects.

   
Automatic visual-control systems (machinedesign)

   

  Evaluating practical uses of MIE

   
Molecular isotopic engineering (MIE) is the directed stable-isotopic synthesis of chemical products for product authentication and security, as well as intellectual property protection. In tests involving naproxen manufacturing, results showed a generally excellent correspondence between observed and predicted stable-isotopic results (d13C, d18O, and dD) for directed synthesis of a racemic mixture from its immediate precursors.

   
Product identification, security & IP protection (pharmtech)

   

  How to break DNA data storage record?

   
Researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington (UW) said they have broken a world record by storing 200MB of data on synthetic DNA strands. Researchers said the impressive part about reaching the 200MB milestone is not just how much data they were able to encode onto synthetic DNA and then decode, it's also the space they were able to store it in.

   
How to access to the stored data ? (computerworld)

   

  The key to AI automation

   
The 4th industrial revolution is undoubtedly artificial intelligence systems and the future is definitely here, even though it doesn't look like an episode of "The Jetsons" or "The Terminator" just yet. The current generation of artificial intelligence technology is most effective in the capacity of augmenting human intelligence.

   
The human-machine interfaces (developer)

   

  Visual activity

   
The optic nerve is the eye’s data cable, carrying visual information from the light-sensing neurons of the retina to the brain. Like a bundle of wires, it consists of about a million axons that each extend from an individual retinal ganglion cell. A variety of optic neuropathies, such as glaucoma, cause vision loss when they destroy or damage these axons. In adults, retinal ganglion cell axons fail to regrow on their own, which is why vision loss from optic neuropathies is usually permanent.

   
Use it or lose it (nih)

   

  Ransomware: KSN main findings

   
This report has been prepared using depersonalized data processed by Kaspersky Security Network (KSN). The metrics are based on the number of distinct users of Kaspersky Lab products with the KSN feature enabled who encountered ransomware at least once in a given period. The term ransomware covers mainly two types of malware: so-called Windows blockers and encryption ransomware.

   
The evolution of the threat and its future (securelist)

   

  Britain’s relationship with Europe

   
Since 6000 BCE, when melting glaciers raised sea levels enough to create the English Channel, two fundamental facts have dominated British history—first, that the islands are at the edge of the European landmass; and second, that they stick out into the Atlantic. Insularity has never equaled isolation. People, goods, and ideas were moving constantly along the Atlantic coast from Spain to Scotland by 5000 BCE.

   
A brief history starting in 6000 BCE (hbr)

   

  Cognitive Tech and pharma

   
We will see much more productive R&D, with more rapid development of novel therapeutics and in greater volume. Researchers will get the ability to ask questions and get answers more quickly. This will allow them rule out more blind alleys at an early stage and get straight to productive insights. Although there are many different tools for data analysis, processing, or visualization, we bring it into one place.

   
The world's corpus of scientific knowledge (eyeforpharma)

   

  Beijing’s subsidence

   
Beijing is one of the most water-stressed cities in the world. Due to over-exploitation of groundwater, the Beijing region has been suffering from land subsidence since 1935. In this study, the Small Baseline InSAR technique has been employed to process Envisat ASAR images acquired between 2003 and 2010 and TerraSAR-X stripmap images collected from 2010 to 2011 to investigate land subsidence in the Beijing region.

   
A comprehensive spatio-temporal analysis (mdpi)

   

  The science of breaking things

   
To fix a performance problem, researchers want to know what exactly is happening when a device—the battery, a solar cell, an engine—doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do anymore. If you want to fix the problem, you need to know how that problem happens. Much of science, in fact, is devoted to finding clever ways to intuit what atoms are doing based on the clues they leave behind—the effects they have on things around them.

   
Why scientists want to know ? (anl)

   

  Harnessing older workforce

   
Between 2015 and 2030, the number of people aged 55 and above in high-income countries will grow by a quarter to around 500 million. It is good news that we are living longer, but rapid population ageing is also putting significant financial pressure on healthcare and pension systems.

   
Golden age index (pwc)

   

  Healthcare data interoperability

   
Machines are far better suited to handling large volumes of data, but far more reliant on everyone using the same syntax and vocabulary. Computers, it seems, need a common language of medicine. They need ‘interoperable’ data. There is now so much healthcare information being exchanged that a shift toward greater healthcare interoperability is as inexorable.

   
Toward standardizing information (eyeforpharma)

   

  Evolving investment management regulation

   
As robo, or automated, advice enters the mainstream within the retail and wealth segments in developed markets, regulators are considering whether they need to extend or clarify the regulatory perimeter to cover new digital distribution channels and, if so, how. Regulators are now focusing on investment management activities and the way that open-ended investment funds, in particular, are managed.

   
Responding to closer scrutiny ()

   

  The capabilities of a finance minister

   
There is a striking difference in the way delivery capability manifests itself in low-income countries (LICs), as opposed to upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). For LICs, some aspects of the finance ministry’s delivery function pose challenges, whereas in richer countries, delivery is so routine that it seems almost invisible.

   
The evolution of tasks and expectations (odi)

   

  How to change your customer experience?

   
Do you know the 12 Laws of karma? And did you know they can be applied daily to your customer experience (CX) efforts? If not, no worries, just read on. I’ll define them for you and tie them to this CX world we live in. It’s interesting that we always associate karma with bad things, i.e., payback for something rotten someone did. But it's also associated with good things.

   
The 12 Laws of Karma (qualitydigest)

   

  EMEA 360 boardroom survey

   
The survey presents the views of 271 directors across 20 countries in the EMEA region, providing a unique perspective on the issues currently faced by boards of directors. The results highlight the changing focus of directors in today’s challenging business environment and how this differs across the region. The report illustrates what non-executive directors identify as key issues facing boards.

   
Regulations and practice (deloitte)

   

  Qubits: Google moves closer

   
The Google prototype combines the two main approaches to quantum computing. One approach constructs the computer’s digital circuits using qubits in particular arrangements geared to solve a specific problem. This is analogous to a tailor-made digital circuit in a conventional microprocessor made from classical bits. Much of quantum computing theory is based on this approach.

   
From prototype to product (nature)

   

  Genome engineering

   
Over the last 3 years, the new generation of genome editing and engineering tools based on the bacterial CRISPR-Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated proteins) has attracted enormous attention in both the scientific community and the popular media. Although exaggerations certainly cannot be avoided along the way, the enthusiasm is well justified.

   
From nature to laboratory (biochemist)

   

  The lure and pitfalls of MIRVs

   
In the second nuclear age, no less than the first, there are no realistic prospects for banning multiple-warhead missiles. China has started to deploy such missiles, and India and Pakistan are likely to cross this threshold as well. The motivations behind these steps will determine how extensively nuclear arsenals will grow and how pernicious the effects of stockpile growth will become.

   
From the first to the second Nuc. age (stimson)

   

  Samsung's bendable creens

   
Samsung Electronics Co. is considering introducing two new smartphone models that will feature bendable screens, including a version that folds in half like a cosmetic compact, people familiar with the matter said. Samsung, the biggest supplier of OLED panels for mobile products, has pioneered the development of new screen formats with its multi-sided Edge smartphones.

   
The "Project Valley" (bloomberg)

   

  Ransomware & recent variants

   
Ransomware is a type of malware that infects computer systems, restricting users’ access to the infected systems. Ransomware variants have been observed for several years and often attempt to extort money from victims by displaying an on-screen alert. Typically, these alerts state that the user’s systems have been locked or that the user’s files have been encrypted.

   
Things you can do (us-cert)

   

  Nanoparticles to highlight cancer cells

   
The group of Russian and French researchers, with the participation of scientists from the Lomonosov Moscow State University, has succeeded to synthesize nanoparticles of ultrapure silicon, which exhibited the property of efficient photoluminescence, i.e., secondary light emission after photoexcitation. These particles were able to easily penetrate into cancer cells and it allowed to use them as luminescent markers in the early diagnosis.

   
Diagnostic of cancer at its' early stage (innovations-report)

   

  Start-Up: Culture of success & failure

   
At the beginning, there are potential entrepreneurs – those individuals who possess entrepreneurial atti- tudes and who believe they have the sk ills and knowledge needed to launch their own company when they have found a suit able business opportunity. One of the factors that determines whether or not they take the next step is to what extent the society and economy of which they are members views entrepreneurs.

   
Why small businesses are vital? (kas)

   

  US' Drone best practices

   
You can't use drones to check whether your employee really is sick, or to take pictures of your neighbors, unless you're a news organization in which case the sky is the limit - or more accurately not the limit. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) – an arm of the Department of Commerce – has published a set of best practice guidelines for the use of drones by companies, individuals and news organizations.

   
Guidelines for three basic groups (theregister)

   

  Industry innovation ecosystems

   
The U.S. manufacturing industry, increasingly propelled by advanced technologies, comprises a large portion of the economy. In order for companies to grow and succeed against aggressive global competition, manufacturers indicate advanced technologies are critical to company-level competitiveness by increasing differentiation through creating premium products, processes, and services that capture higher margins.

   
A Valuable “knock-off” effect  (areadevelopment)

   

  Map for Business in Africa

   
Only a few years ago, Africa was being dubbed “the next Asia,” and multinationals watched with mounting interest as local economies boomed across the continent. Although a decline in global commodity demand has since ushered in a slowdown, Africa remains a promising long-term growth market. Its GDP grew about 3.4 percent in 2015, a full percentage point above the global growth rate, and is expected to increase to 4.2 percent in 2016.

   
A deep understanding of local context (strategy-business)

   

  Pharma: Modernize manufacturing base

   
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, for the first time, a manufacturer’s change in its production method from “batch” to continuous manufacturing.28 Modernizing manufacturing technology may lead to a more robust manufacturing process with 29 fewer interruptions in production, fewer product fail ures (before or after distribution), and 30 greater assurance that the drug products manufactured in any given period of time will provide 31 the expected clinical performance.

   
Guidance for industry (qualitydigest)

   

  56 NASA' patents to be public

   
NASA has released a bunch of patents for its technologies so that anyone can use them. A total of 56 “formerly-patented” technologies developed by the government are now available in the public domain, meaning they can be used for commercial purposes in an unrestricted manner. To make it easier to find these technologies and others like them, NASA has also created a new searchable database that links the public to thousands of the agency’s now-expired patents.

   
Formerly-patented tech. (slashgear)

   

  The Greek Pension Tragedy

   
Pensions in Greece seem locked in a head-long race to the bottom. The failure to meet basic requirements of income security feed a loss of trust which, in turn, poisons future prospects. Despite repeated efforts since 2010, the cure appears not to be working. A number of questions arise: Some refer to the long term: Why has the performance of the Greek pension system been so bad for so long?

   
Wrong solutions to the wrong problem (kas)

   

  Global report on diabetes

   
Globally, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes in 2014, compared to 108 million in 1980. The global prevalence (age-standardized) of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980, rising from 4.7% to 8.5% in the adult population. This reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese. Diabetes caused 1.5 million deaths in 2012.

   
WHO' report

   

  Industry 4.0

   
PwC’s 2016 Global Industry 4.0 Survey is the biggest worldwide survey of its kind, with over 2,000 participants from nine major industrial sectors and 26 countries. The study explores the benefits of digitising your company’s horizontal and vertical value chains, as well as building your digital product & service portfolio. Based on the findings and our experience working with first movers, we’ve also crafted a blueprint for success.

   
Building the digital enterprise (pwc)

   

  The "energy miracles" of Bill Gates

   
By “miracles” Gates doesn’t mean unanticipated gifts that appear undeserved from nowhere but, rather, technological breakthroughs “that are the result of research and development and the human capacity to innovate,” such as the personal computer, the Internet, and the polio vaccine2. He called upon students to “work extra hard in your math and sciences,” because the world needs “crazy-sounding ideas to solve our energy challenge.”

   
Questions & Answers (technologyreview)

   

  Building Resilience to Climate Change

   
While a substantial gap persists between global need and the scale of mobilized resilience finance, there is no doubt that donor countries are increasingly recognizing the importance of investing in adaptation to climate change. Perhaps the most prominent new mechanism for public resilience and adaptation funding is the Green Climate Fund, or GCF.

   
Recommendations for action (americanprogress)

   

  Manufacturing Competitiveness

   
Ensuring talent is “the” top priority : A focus on creating differentiated talent acquisition, development and retention strategies to be regarded as “employers of choice,” as well as identifying and nurturing new models of collaboration that leverage key sources of talent outside of the organization will be key. As talent is ranked as the most important driver of competitiveness by executives around the world, the competition among nations and companies is expected to be fierce.

   
Index 2016 (deloitte)

   

  Minisensor for epileptic seizures

   
For epilepsy patients and attending physicians, it has been a challenge to correctly assess the frequency and severity of epileptic seizures without inpatient recording equipment. A consortium coordinated by the epileptologists of the University Hospital Bonn is now developing a mobile sensor that can detect seizures. A warning signal is designed to summon relatives or attending physicians to provide timely help.

   
Automated data and alarm (innovations-report)

   

  Total Retail 2016

   
Chinese online sales in 2015 massively shifted to mobile. Single’s Day—the 24-hour shopping festival that now dwarfs Black Friday in terms of sales—is often used as a bellwether for China’s e-commerce market. This year, Alibaba's Single’s Day online sales came in at $14.3 billion, a 60% increase over 2014. 2 Most significant, however, was the shift to mobile.

   
Innovation at retailers (pwc)

   

  HIV & CRISPR gene-editing tech.

   
At least half a dozen papers over the past three years have explored using the popular CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing technique to combat HIV, but the latest finding, described in a study published on 7 April in Cell Reports1, adds to questions about the feasibility of the approach. However, the researchers involved say that the discovery is a minor setback that does not preclude the idea altogether.

   
Mutations that resist attack (nature)

   

  How to increase shareholder value ?

   
In the past, shareholders might have given management time to make course corrections. But today, capital markets are less patient, and investors are acutely focused on enhancing shareholder returns. Specialized private equity firms have devised models for driving cost reduction and margin expansion far in excess of what leading companies have been able to do on their own — by about 800 to 1,000 basis points in two to three years.

   
A Combined Approach (strategy-business)

   

  Sugars in Ultra-processed foods

   
Ultra-processed foods comprised 57.9% of energy intake, and contributed 89.7% of the energy intake from added sugars. The content of added sugars in ultra-processed foods (21.1% of calories) was eightfold higher than in processed foods (2.4%) and fivefold higher than in unprocessed or minimally processed foods and processed culinary ingredients grouped together (3.7%).

   
Representative cross-sectional study (bmj)

   

  Value of Audit

   
Audit has proved its worth over the years, to investors and companies alike. But as the events of the last decade have shown, it’s time for change – for a revolution in audit thinking and execution. Business has changed, shareholder needs have evolved, and audit needs to keep up. For audit to stay relevant, we need to start looking at what creates value in a business Shaping corporate reporting.

   
Shaping the future of corporate reporting (assets.kpmg)

   

  Compliance at a crossroads

   
The challenge of delivering best in class Compliance risk management in an era of constrained resources is not insurmountable. But it requires making important choices as to where limited investments should be placed to improve risk-based returns. Ongoing change in the ecosystem is only adding additional layers of complexity to these decisions and intensifying the clamour for decisive action.

   
2016 Compliance risk study (accenture)

   

  Assessment of Critical Process Parameters

   
There are many different approaches for assessing process parameter criticality, and statistics can play an important role in these evaluations. One particular challenge involves assessing when a relationship between a process parameter and a CQA represents a significant impact on that CQA. Assessing impact based solely on statistical significance (p-value) is not appropriate.

   
Aids from statistical tools (pharmtech)

   

  Politics matters for economic development

   
The feasibility of economic transformation-that is, productivity-enhancing and employment-generating structural change has now been demonstrated in many different parts of the developing world. Taken as a whole, this experience does not point to a single pathway of institutional change. Indeed, it underlines the importance of countries discovering pathways and methods that work in their context.

   
Responding to emerging opportunities (odi)

   

  Health & Safety leadership survey

   
New Zealand has undergone a huge transformation in workplace health and safety in the five years since the Pike River tragedy.This report is encouraging in that it reflects a strong commitment to health and safety by the CEOs who took part in the survey. The report provides a snapshot of what some of this good practice looks like. This includes examples of actions boards and chief executives take and practices they are putting in place.

   
NZ's H&S Business overhaul (deloitte)

   

  Solving the productivity conundrum

   
The US productivity gains of the mid 90s began in the ICT sector and developed in the market services sector. Increased ICT use and organizational changes were the main driving factors as many small and unproductive firms were replaced by large and highly productive ones (the so-called Walmart effect). After the mid-2000s, productivity growth slowed down dramatically.

   
Microeconomic evidence & macroeconomic trends (strategie.gouv)

   

  Global human capital trends

   
CEOs and HR leaders are focused on understanding and creating a shared culture, designing a work environment that engages people, and constructing a new model of leadership and career development. In competition for skilled people, organizations are vying for top talent in a highly transparent job market and becoming laser-focused on their external employment brand.

   
How to redesign the organisation ? (deloitte)

   

  'Staggering' new therapy on breast cancer

   
New breast cancer therapy has destroyed deadly tumours in just 11 days, trials have shown. Experts hailed the findings as “astonishing" and said it is the first time a drug for the disease has ever shown such a response. They suggested the results of the trial, in women with one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, could revolutionise future treatment of other types of disease.

   
How the new therapy works ? (telegraph)

   

  Amazon's free platform for schools

   
Earlier this month, Amazon Education quietly opened an “Amazon Education Wait List,” where educators could sign up to get an alert for when a new, free platform opens for business. The development comes at an interesting time, with companies like Apple and Google also sizing up how their own platforms and hardware can play a bigger role in education services (and where they might not).

   
Transitioning to OER (techcrunch)

   

  22 renewable energy projects

   
There’s a growing demand for greener, safer renewable energy sources. Sun, wind, water, biomass, waves and tides, and the heat of the soil, all provide alternatives to non-renewable energy. The following collection showcases some of the most amazing renewable energy projects and prototypes from the past few decades, including quite a few you’ve probably never heard of before.

   
From solar power to tidal energy (gizmodo)

   

  Python is better than C!

   
If you have a quick Google for something like "Python vs. C," you will find lots of comparisons out there. Sad to relate, however, trying to work out which is the "best" language is well-nigh impossible for many reasons, not the least that it's extremely difficult to define what one means by "best" in the first place.

   
The programming landscape (embedded)

   

  Company’s enterprise architecture planning

   
Many view EAP as a legacy approach. But when it was originally developed in the 1980s, EAP was a bold response to the same perennial problem: integrating technology with the business strategy. The information technologies of that era were bumping up against old, clumsy, bureaucratic processes and practices. EA projects were supposed to replace those practices with more elegant, streamlined renditions..

   
Architectural engineering and urban design (strategy-business)

   

  Early medieval muslim graves in France

   
The rapid Arab-Islamic conquest during the early Middle Ages led to major political and cultural changes in the Mediterranean world. Although the early medieval Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula is now well documented, based in the evaluation of archeological and historical sources, the Muslim expansion in the area north of the Pyrenees has only been documented so far through textual sources or rare archaeological data.

   
Palaeogenomic analyses (journals.plos)

   

  PDSA/PDCA, what's about?

   
Marketers are relentless in their efforts to seduce you with fancy tools, acronyms, Japanese terminology—and promises—about their versions of formal improvement structures such as Six Sigma, lean, lean Six Sigma, or the Toyota Production System, each with its own unique toolbox. We laugh when we hear people casually comment that PDSA and plan-do-check-act (PDCA) are the same thing. They’re not.

   
Why linear progress is a myth? (qualitydigest)

   

  Automotive executive survey 2016

   
With disruption arising from a new digitalized and connected world, it seems the center of gravity of the customer relationship in a connected car is rapidly moving towards tech giants from Silicon Valley. Auto executives are far less optimistic that they can stay in the center of the customer relationship than before.

   
Moving towards tech giants (assets.kpmg)

   

  DGPS: or GPS' improvement

   
GPS uses the concept of trilateration to provide your location, but relies on Differential GPS and atomic clocks to vastly improve the accuracy. With such precision, GPS is being used in myriad applications including personal navigation and military missile guidance systems. Now, a team from the University of California, has developed a technique that augments the regular GPS data with on-board inertial measurements from a sensor.

   
A set of new algorithms (illumin.usc)

   

  Investing in people

   
Social investment is clearly a priority for the EU as is evidenced by its flagship Europe 2020 initiatives, the European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion and the Agenda for New Skills and Jobs. In essence, as the Commission details, social investment focuses on ensuring social protection systems respond to people’s needs and preclude dire social conditions that lead to higher social spending.

   
For New Skills and Jobs (strategie.gouv)

   

  Privacy and information sharing

   
These findings suggest that the phrase that best captures Americans’ views on the choice between privacy vs. disclosure of personal information is, “It depends . ” P eople’s views on the key tradeoff of the modern , digital economy – namely, that consumers offer information about themselves in exchange for something of value – are shaped by both the conditions of the deal and the circumstances of their lives.

   
The state & boundary of privacy (pewinternet)

   

  How can viruses cause birth defects?

   
Viruses reproduce by hijacking their host’s cells, using their natural processes to make copies of themselves. These copies then strike out on their own to infect more cells. When a virus interferes, the cells can’t function normally—the virus either kills the cells or prevents them from functioning well enough to report for duty. That makes viral infections especially dangerous for developing babies.

   
The spread of the Zika virus (smithsonianmag)

   

  2016 trends of emergent technology

   
During the next 10 years, a philosophical tug-of-war between four generational mindsets will be a reality. On one side, Gen X and baby boomers adhere to more traditional forms of career progression. On the other, millennials and Gen Z, who tend to be more transient, idealize jobs where social impact plays a role. These two subsets will shape the future of the companies they work for.

   
Accenture Fjord trends (accenture)

   

  Introduction to Vagrant

   
Vagrant is a tool that allows you to programatically build an isolated environment for your application and all of its dependencies. The Vagrant environment is a virtual machine, so it enjoys complete isolation from both the host machine and any other Vagrant machines (VMs) you may be running.

   
How to manage your VMs ? (developer)

   

  Live TV in Search of Viewers

   
The cost of a 30-second commercial during this year’s Super Bowl 50 set a new record. Advertising Age reports that some advertisers are paying more than US$5 million, topping last year’s price of $4.5 million by more than 11 percent. In 2011, the same ad buy would have cost an advertiser $3.5 million. That’s a 43 percent increase in five years.

   
The trend in ad prices for live events (strategy-business)

   

  Blueprint for a secure cyber future

   
The cyber-security professional is faced with the dilemma of selecting an appropriate set of cybersecurity defensive measures from a vast array of options, and this selection process occurs for most, if not all, professionals while operating with a limited set of resources to employ the measures. In this report, we aim to address these difficulties and help explain the menu of actions for defending an organization against cyberattack.

   
Programming & budgeting (rand)

   

  The hidden machinery of the cell

   
A hulking metal box, some three metres tall, is quietly beaming terabytes’ worth of data through thick orange cables that disappear off through the ceiling. It is one of the world’s most advanced cryo-electron microscopes: a device that uses electron beams to photograph frozen biological molecules and lay bare their molecular shapes. In labs around the world, cryo-electron microscopes are sending tremors through the field of structural biology.

   
The cryo-electron microscopy (nature)

   

  Redefining business success

   
Many CEOs do still see opportunities but they are looking to play things safe. The United States and China are far and away the most important markets that CEOs identify as offering the best prospects for growth, with Germany and the United Kingdom some way behind. That said, CEOs also see potential in India’s bullish business attitude and in Brazil despite its current political and economic struggles.

   
Complicated & multi-polar world management (pwc)

   

  Automatic bug-repair system

   
MIT researchers have developed a machine-learning system that can comb through repairs to open-source computer programs and learn their general properties, in order to produce new repairs for a different set of programs. The researchers tested their system on a set of programming errors, culled from real open-source applications, that had been compiled to evaluate automatic bug-repair systems.

   
Recognizing correct code (mit)

   

  Fisherie: catches are higher than reported

   
Fisheries data assembled by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggest that global marine fisheries catches increased to 86 million tonnes in 1996, then slightly declined. Here, using a decade-long multinational ‘catch reconstruction’ project covering the Exclusive Economic Zones of the world’s maritime countries and the High Seas from 1950 to 2010, and accounting for all fisheries, we identify catch trajectories differing considerably from the national data submitted to the FAO.

   
Fishery's surexploitation (nature)

   

  Access to electricity in Africa

   
The solar energy sector in Africa is relatively young when compared to grid-based electrification, but it is growing rapidly. Falling costs, combined with improvements in the energy efficiency of end-use technologies, including lights, and innovations in payment systems are helping the expansion of solar. This report considers the full range of solar devices.

   
Solar household solutions (odi)

   

  State of the Innovation Union 2015

   
This brochure takes stock of the progress achieved, identifies open issues and sets out next steps under each of the six building blocks: Strengthening the knowledge base and reducing fragmentation; Getting good ideas to market; Maximising social and territorial cohesion; Pooling forces to achieve breakthroughs: European Innovation Partnerships; Leveraging our policies externally; and Making it happen.

   
Strengthening the knowledge base (europa)

   

  EU' implications on food waste

   
The report used a mix of qualitative methodologies aimed at reviewing the state of EU legislative and policy tools with implications for food waste. The methodology mix was designed to address the specific characteristics and constraints of each section of the work. Fifty-two legislative acts with implications for food waste have been issued and applied within seven of the twenty areas (Chapters) covered by EU legislation and policies.

   
Policies across the EU-28 (eu-fusions)

   

  Brazil: Outbreak of microcephaly cases

   
On a recent Saturday morning in Recife, the state’s capital, troops joined health workers going door to door in the Brasilia Teimosa neighborhood to warn residents against leaving water receptacles uncovered. They also spooned a powdered biological agent into tanks and drains in an attempt to kill any mosquito larvae. The microcephaly cases have occurred around the country.

   
The disease in Brazil (washingtonpost)

   

  Beware Davos predictions 2016

   
This 11th edition of "The Global Risks Report" is published at a time of profound change. Global risks materialize in new and unexpected ways and are becoming more imminent as their consequences reach people, institutions and economies. We witness the effects of climate change in the rising frequency and intensity of water shortages, floods and storms worldwide.

   
What actions could build resilience ? (euractiv)

   

  Comac: Challenge Boeing & Airbus

   
China’s answer to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, is slated to have its first test flight somtime in 2016. Built by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the twin-engine airliner had its celebratory rollout in November of 2015 in Shanghai. But even if the upcoming flight-testing goes well, don’t expect to fly on a C919 right away.

   
The homegrown Chinese creation (ieee)

   

  Digital dividends

   
We find ourselves in the midst of the greatest information and communications revolution in human history. More than 40 percent of the world’s population has access to the inter- net, with new users coming online every day. Among the poorest 20 percent of households, nearly 7 out of 10 have a mobile phone. The poorest households are more likely to have access to mobile phones than to toilets or clean water.

   
From divided access to devided capability (worldbank)

   

  Three glaucoma-related genes

   
An analysis funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has identified three genes that contribute to the most common type of glaucoma. The study increases the total number of such genes to 15. “Just in time for Glaucoma Awareness Month, this unprecedented analysis provides the most comprehensive genetic profile of glaucoma to date,” said NEI Director Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D.

   
Gene linking oxidative damage to glaucoma (nih)

   

  Strategies for a new era of talent

   
Female millennials are set to play a critical part in future FS growth. At a time when 70% of FS CEOs see the limited availability of key skills as a threat to their growth prospects, 2 it’s clearly vital to make the most of all the available talent including women. But the importance of women goes further.

   
Female millennials (pw)

   

  Global Automotive Exec. Survey 2016

   
With disruption arising from a new digitalized and connected world, it seems the center of gravity of the customer relationship in a connected car is rapidly moving towards tech giants from Silicon Valley. Auto executives are far less optimistic that they can stay in the center of the customer relationship than before.

   
Service-driven digital universe (kpmg)

   

  Consumer Technology

   
A polling of 28,000 consumers across 28 countries, the Igniting Growth in Consumer Technology survey finds that for nearly half (47 percent) of respondents, security concerns and privacy risks rank among the top three barriers to buying an IoT device and service. IoT devices include smartwatches, wearable fitness monitors, and smart home thermostats, among others.

   
The Igniting Growth (accenture)

   

  Bioactive Glass & Dental Fillings

   
A team of engineers from Oregon State University propose the use of bioactive glass (BAG) to improve the longevity of dental fillings. In a study backed by the National Institute of Health and published in the journal of Dental Materials, the team showed through in vitro experimentation that molars with BAG fillings are resistant to secondary tooth decay, or damage to the filling that usually occurs over some six years after it has been implanted.

   
How glass fillers can reduce bacterial penetration? (demajournal)

   

  Smart Manufacturing Revolution

   
Several organizations that bring together manufacturers, technologies and information systems, organizations like MESA (Manufacturing Enterprise Systems Association), the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), and the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC), are working on initiatives including the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Smart Manufacturing to coordinate this convergence of technologies and realize the process improvement potential sooner rather than later.

   
Revolution in manufacturing business strategy (industryweek)

   

   
After 20 years of implementation, the European Commission decided to assess the overall functioning of this dual trademark system. In 2011, a study by the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law, ordered by the Commission, concluded that the harmonisation had considerably reduced the risk that trade marks filed in different Member States are assessed differently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

   
A second-reading agreement (europarl.europa)

   

  Elemental metamorphosis

   
The cosmos is full of places where the extreme is normal. In the core of Jupiter, for example, the pressure is more than 30 million atmospheres, planetary researchers have long suspected that hydrogen, which is the primary component of these gas planets, is metallic there. American physicists Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington predicted this strange, solid state of hydrogen as far back as 1935.

   
Potential new findings for energy technology (mpg)

   

  The art of root cause analysis

   
Five whys analysis is used in science to achieve a clear objective, the tool can be just as powerful in the business world as it is for children exploring their own surroundings. As a practicing Master Back Belt, we often use this technique to successfully arrive at the root causes of problems.

   
Applying five whys analysis (asq)

   

  Worldwide: Rule of law

   
In 1994, the World Bank published a study that described inadequacy of laws, uncertainty in their application, arbitrary interpretation, deficient enforcement, inefficient and drawn-out processes and a lack of independence on the part of the judiciary as decisive barriers to development that discourage trade and investment, increase transaction costs and foster corruption.

   
Common value systems and legal ideals (kas)

   

  Top five pharma stories in 2015

   
There have been a growing number of drug patents rejected in India, one of the world’s largest countries by population (1.2bn in 2014), leading to concerns from the industry that its intellectual property is under threat. But there have been positives: a ground-breaking new way of ‘printing’ drugs personalized to each patient has been given the green light, while the FDA also approved the first biosimilar in the US, ushering in a new era of cheaper biologics.

   
Far-reaching stories of the year (eyeforpharma)

   

  Security and IoT ecosystem

   
When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), you can believe the hype. In fact, IoT will likely be even bigger than most people think. But success in the IoT space will take more than slick applications; it will also require a robust approach to security, privacy and trust. For the technology sector, the message from businesses and consumers is clear: be innovative, be bold, and be secure.

   
Controls of devices & infrastructures (kpmg)

   

  EU' investment firms

   
The European investment services landscape comprise s vari ous types of operators. There are a little more than 6 500 investment firms initially authorised and regulated by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ( MiFID ) . In number , j ust over half of these are based in the UK . The UK, Germany and France are the main jurisdiction s for over 70% of the investment firm population of the European Union (EU).

   
Activities & related risks (esma)

   

  The future of language

   
Which languages will dominate the future? Predictions vary, depending on your location and purpose. But here are a few ways to approach this question. "Spanish and Arabic score particularly highly on this indicator," the British Council report concluded for the U.K. However, when taking into account demographic trends until 2050 as laid out by the United Nations, the result is very different.

   
According to different angle of view (washingtonpost)

   

  Fastest growing tech. Companies

   
Catawiki secured first place in the 2015 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa program. Catawiki is Europe’s fastest-growing online auction house for special items headquartered in the Netherlands. In 2008, René Schoenmakers (CEO) and Marco Jansen (CTO) founded the company as a community for collectors, it has become the largest online destination for buying and selling special objects.

   
Tech. innovation, entrepreneurship & rapid growth (deloitte)

   

  Performance in the Post & Parcel Industry

   
High performers in the post and parcel industry are taking advantage of digital technologies, such as mobility and analytics, to accelerate the pace of change, enable new competition, inspire new consumer expectations and, perhaps most importantly, drive growth in parcel volumes. Now, more than ever, it is important to not only embrace digital but to be digital.

   
Models focused on speed (accenture)

   

  How to prevent UK from Brexit?

   
The paper at hand first discusses why the EU should not disregard the British demand for reforms. Secondly, it outlines the key demands of the UK, and thirdly, it looks at how Germany and the EU may be able to accommodate the UK’s demands. Several of the British government’s proposed reforms may in fact also be beneficial to Germany and the EU as a whole.

   
The challenges ahead (kas)

   

  In search of a European Google

   
The combined value of the top three internet companies in the Americas – so, basically, in America – is around $0.75tn (£0.5tn). In Asia, it’s around $0.5tn. In Africa, it’s $50bn. And in Europe, it’s just $25bn. when you look at the top of the tech market, the very top, Europe is lagging a long way behind.Take Tesla – we think of Tesla as being a ‘startup’, but it’s the same size as Audi.” Both companies are valued at around $30bn.

   
EU' new land of opportunity ? (theguardian)

   

  The Indian Ocean

   
While the Mediterranean was of preeminent significance in the Middle Ages and the Atlantic dominated in the modern era, the Indian Ocean is considered the most important ocean of the 21 st century. Its importance derives from its narrow access routes and its role as the transit ocean for global trade. Some 30 per cent of world trade already passes through the Strait of Malacca each year.

   
Maritime Security (kas)

   

  Flexible thermal imaging systems

   
The new ‘night-vision’ development by the MIT research team has the potential to be integrated in every smart phone and laptop. To achieve this potential breakthrough in thermal imaging technology, the MIT team focused on graphene and how it could be used to build a new category of infrared devices.

   
Infrared and night vision tech. (themanufacturer)

   

  Fusion for Energy Highlights 2014

   
The European Union is the largest energy importer in the world. It is estimated that 53% of its energy supply comes from abroad at a cost of around 400 billion EUR. Approximately 1 trillion EUR needs to be invested into our energy sector by 2020 so that we meet the needs of generation, transport and distribution. The way we plan to address this field of strategic importance will have tremendous implications.

   
The main achievements (fusionforenergy)

   

  Banana' Panama Disease

   
In the mid 1900s, the most popular banana in the world—a sweet, creamy variety called Gros Michel grown in Latin America—all but disappeared from the planet. At the time, it was the only banana in the world that could be exported. But a fungus, known as Panama Disease, which first appeared in Australia in the late 1800s, changed that after jumping continents. The disease debilitated the plants that bore the fruit.

   
When plant and pathogen clones meet (plos)

   

  Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

   
The IBM Swift Sandbox is an interactive website that lets you write Swift code and execute it in a server environment – on top of Linux! Each sandbox runs on IBM Cloud in a Docker container. In addition, both the latest versions of Swift and its standard library are available for you to use. With the movement of Swift to open source, we’re opening the doors on what we are working on at IBM with Swift.

   
Swift Meets Linux (developer.ibm)

   

  Junk-Eating Rocket Engine

   
Space debris is a pressing problem for Earth-orbiting spacecraft, and it could get significantly worse. When the density of space debris reaches a certain threshold, analysts predict that the fragmentation caused by collisions will trigger a runaway chain reaction that will fill the skies with ever increasing numbers of fragments. Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, propose to build an engine that converts space debris into propellant.

   
Chinese engineering process (arxiv)

   

  Remaining Stocks of Rinderpest Virus

   
In 2011, the world was declared free from rinderpest, one of the most feared and devastating infectious diseases of animals. Rinderpest is the second infectious disease, after smallpox, to have been eradicated. However, potentially infectious rinderpest virus material remains widely disseminated among research and diagnostic facilities across the world and poses a risk for disease recurrence should it be released.

   
The viral disease of cattle  (cdc)

   

  A powerful future for CFO

   
Even the most decisive CEO needs the strategic input of their finance team. The CEO of US-based Johnson Controls, for example, has been divesting some businesses and investing in the core operations he plans to keep and grow since taking the reins in 2013. Planning and executing divestitures at a company with 130,000 employees spread across six continents requires a strategically minded CFO.

   
Understanding a customer’s business model (kpmg)

   

  FDA: Reviews of Combination Products

   
The regulatory challenge with combination products is that there are many different combinations of products, which means that no one set of manufacturing rules will apply to them all. The FDA’s draft guidance is an attempt to clarify how to apply the agency’s rules to different situations. After an industry study revealed there were concerns over communication and coordination issues.

   
An increasingly complex formulations (qualitydigest)

   

  The equation that rules the universe

   
Einstein’s greatest success came in 1919, when Arthur Eddington did the experiment that Freundlich had set out to do, and ascertained that lights in the heavens were all askew during an eclipse, bent by the sun’s dark gravity, just as Einstein had predicted. Asked what he would have done if general relativity had failed, Einstein said, “Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct.”

   
A Century Ago (nytimes)

   

  Overcoming compliance fatigue

   
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) have continued to lead the way in robust domestic and extraterritorial proceedings relating to a wide range of offenses, including financial statement fraud and bribery. The SEC’s Financial Reporting and Audit Task Force is starting to deploy cutting-edge forensic data analytics tools to mine corporate big data for fraud.

   
Commitment to ethical growth (ey)

   

  Introduction to climate change

   
Historically, there has been a strong relationship between energy use and economic growth. Because fossil fuels are a basic input in nearly every facet of economic production and life in industrialized societies, economic ac tivity generates carbon dioxide emissions, although the amount of carbon dioxide per unit of GDP (referred to as “carbon intensity”) has decreased over time in OECD economies.

   
GHG emissions (csis)

   

  DATA: From insight to value

   
It was only in the last few years that ‘Big Data’ became the buzz phrase that confused many and overwhelmed many more. Two years ago, most executives and IT departments were still struggling to understand what the data revolution meant for them and their business; many were just fighting to keep their heads above water as the data deluge surrounded them. Today, data and analytics (D&A) has clearly entered the mainstream.

   
Going beyond the data (assets.kpmg)

   

  Land Degradation Neutrality

   
This document portrays the major land and soil degradation assessments of the past and critically evaluates their results. Another section is devoted to the various methodologies that can be applied, including their strengths and weaknesses. It finally explores promising potential corner stones of future assessments, with particular reference to the SDG target of Land Degradation Neutrality.

   
An Evaluation of Methods (umweltbundesamt)

   

  Pharma challenge: China' offers!

   
The Chinese government funds, organizes and distributes the majority of the country’s healthcare. The national healthcare insurance scheme, a key outcome of previous healthcare reforms, now covers more than 90% of the population. However, this increased breadth of coverage has pushed the system to breaking point, exacerbating the shortage of supply and triggering calls for more and better services to be provided.

   
Undeveloped private sector (social.eyeforpharma)

   

  The End of Neutrality

   
Finland not only saw its economic interests represented most effectively through its membership in the European Single Market, but also considered the EU a security guarantee. The country thereby abandoned its stance of political neutrality while retaining the concept of military non-alignment, at least formally.

   
Finland' non-alignment  (kas)

   

  Tech. at the hart of the tax department

   
The biggest issue vexing tax leaders is that governments can’t agree on what the digital economy is, let alone how to tax it. Some want to tax it right. Most, unfortunately, want to tax it right now. Because no consensus can be reached on how to tax digital activities, companies have to deal with a patchwork of national approaches, with new direct and indirect taxes emerging at the city, state or national level on a weekly basis.

   
Assessing the impacts of new taxes (taxinsights.ey)

   

  UK' science budget

   
There are many sources of public funding and support for the science and innovation ecosystem in addition to the ‘science budget’, presenting a complex support structure for researchers and innovators. These include innovation spending, R&D tax incentives and research in Government departments. The complexity of the science and innovation landscape can act as a barrier to researchers and innovators.

   

Research and industry (publications.parliament)

   

  Youth entrepreneurship

   
Unemployment disproportionately affects youth. As a result, many young people turn to self-employment. Youth entrepreneurship can provide young people with a sustainable livelihood. This paper presents the review findings and recommendations, and draws lessons for others contributing to tackling youth unemployment in developing countries.

   
Building paths (odi)

   

  The HGM Tracker

   
The first half of 2015 saw a decline in the level of deals into high growth markets (HGMs), after a year of recovery. “Despite a relatively stable global M&A market, both developed and high growth markets have cut their investments into HGMs significantly compared with 6 months ago, including into previous hot spots such as India and China”.

   
HGM losing for corporate acquierers (assets.kpmg)

   

  Why subsidise the private sector?

   
The in tention behind this paper is to contribute some novel ideas to the important debate about donor engagement with the private sector and draw attention to some old ideas that tend to be overlooked. There is much more to be said. In particular this paper avoi ds the question of how to allocate subsidies amongst alternative investment propositions.

   
What donors are trying to achieve? (odi)

   

  2015 Global operations survey

   
Digital technology is changing the way we all perceive value. Customer priorities are moving faster than ever. Competitors are appearing with entirely new business models. The ground is shifting – and this is a challenge for everyone on the leadership team. Operations, in its broadest definition could be the secret ingredient in helping companies win in this environment – if operations itself was better aligned to business strategy and across functional domains.

   
Insights from leaders (pwc)
   

  Co2 Emission: By the expert group

   
In 2015, all countries will report their national emission pledges as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), which are expected to become the basis of a future international agreement on climate change. This study concludes that it is relevant and timely to develop an operational capacity-driven system to observe and to monitor fossil fuel CO2 emissions.

   
How to monitor fossil CO2 emissions ? (copernicus)

   

  The digital privacy fight

   
Starting in 2016, tech companies can tell law enforcement in California to get a warrant if they want access to digital data. That’s because California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA), a landmark digital privacy law that requires California police to obtain a warrant from a judge before they can access electronic information about people’s data.

   
California is winning the battle (techcrunch)

   

  State-Owned Enterprises

   
SOEs are likely to remain an important instrument in any government’s toolbox for societal and public value creation given the right context, collaborating with other stakeholders for this purpose in the ‘penta helix’ of private companies, not-for-profit organisations, academia, public sector and citizens. For instance may increasingly turn to SOEs as a tool to better position themselves for the future in the global economy.

   
Public value creation (pwc)

   

  2016 Emerging Cyber Threats

   
The Georgia Institute of Technology put together a list of its top four cybersecurity threats for 2016. These include the ever-expanding list of technology companies that are weakening privacy, the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices that aren't secure, a lack of well-trained security professionals, and cyber espionage.

   
Georgia Tech com. (tomshardware)

   

  First total-body PET scanner

   
Generating a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) image requires an injection with a modified version of some essential molecule in the particular metabolic pathway you want to examine. To see rapidly metabolizing tumors that might be taking up a lot of glucose, for example, you get a radioactive version of that sugar known as fluorodeoxyglucose.

   
Democratizing PET electronics (extremetech)

   

  Digital IQ leaders

   
Our research reveals clear signs that 2015 is a tipping point. While we see some regional differences across the globe, business leaders are poised to unlock real competitive advantage through their digital investments. Where enterprise technology used to be the sole domain of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), there’s a shift happening in many organizations, with the traditional CIO role fragmenting across new and existing leaders.

   
What do the digital signs reveal? (pwc)

   

  What drives success in R&D

   
In 2015, R&D spending by the Global Innovation 1000 increased 5.1% to $680 billion, the largest year - over - year increase since 2012. R&D spending is now in line with the long - term trend of R&D spending growth of 5.4% over the last 10 years.Strategy& | PwC Computing & electronics , healthcare , and auto continue to be the three largest industries in terms of total R&D spend.

   
10 Most innovative companies (strategyand.pwc)

   

  The era of living services

   
Living Services are highly sophisticated and able to constantly learn and evolve, almost as if they are alive. They will transform and improve the way we live, both by removing mundane tasks and o ff ering services that surprise and delight us. By being physically close to us and wrapping themselves around the everyday things we do, Living Services will intuitively learn our habits.

   
Designed for life (accenture)

   

  The global chemical industry

   
US, one of the most significant markets in the global chemical industry, offers a significant snapshot of the talent issues facing the industry. In companies across all product lines, mass retirements are expected in the near term. In fact, within the next 10 years, 23% of the chemical workforce will be eligible to retire. On average, the workforce in the chemical industry is older than that of all other industries.

   
The talent imperative (deloitte)

   

  About disaster risk reduction

   
This Good Practice Review identifies and discusses the principles and practice of disaster risk reduction (DRR), drawing on experiences from around the world. It gives guidance on the main issues that should be taken into consideration when carrying out projects and programmes, and ways of addressing these issues in practice.

   
10 things we should know (goodpracticereview)

   

  Bridging Leadership Theory & Practice

   
There’s a long list of traits that experts say leaders should never exhibit. But given how broken our workplaces have become,these supposedly bad behaviors are actually good for the people who practice them. Sometimes, they’re even good for an organization as a whole: Immodesty, Narcissists, Inauthentic leaders, Lying, Trust-violating, Leaders “eat” first

   
Connecting "theory & practice" (strategy-business)

   

  Rethinking ground handling

   
Produced by the University of Lincoln's aviation engineering specialists, research in the school of engineering, new research attempts to show how calculating the quickest and most fuel efficient routes could transform ground handling. By using a database of pre-computed routes, consisting of 'building blocks' that can recreate any route airport taxi-way.

   
Calculating the most efficient route (airport-technology)

   

  Troubleshooting GD&T Alignments

   
Learning to effectively use and troubleshoot geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) analysis can be a saving grace when you’re faced with the question, “Why did my check fail?”. This article will explain the fundamental principles of GD&T evaluation and provide practices to visualize and troubleshoot your results. It will also help clarify the requirements of two standards: ISO 1101.

   
Basic concepts (qualitydigest)

   

  Women in the boardroom

   
As our research shows, there is more work to do. While the numbers may be on the rise in particular countries, if you dig deeper you can see that things are not always what they seem. When you compare the number of women on boards with the number of women chairs, for example—often a much more meaningful indicator of where power lies on a board—countries with high numbers suddenly look less inspiring.

   
A global perspective (deloitte)

   

  EU' digital economy

   
The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) is a composite index that summarises relevant indicatorson Europe’s digital performance and tracks the evolution of EU member states in digital competitiveness. In DESI 2015, the European Union as a whole scores 0.48, which represents an improvement in digital development in comparison to last year, when it scored 0.45.

   
Europe’s digital performance (ec.europa)

   

  Telomerase' clearest-ever images

   
scientists from UCLA and UC Berkeley have produced images of telomerase in much higher resolution than ever before, giving them major new insights about the enzyme. Their findings, published online today by the journal Science, could ultimately lead to new directions for treating cancer and preventing premature aging.

   
Enzyme that plays key roles (innovations-report)

   

  The digital amnesia

   
The act of forgetting is not inherently a bad thing. We are beautifully adaptive creatures, and we don’t remember everything because it is not to our advantage to do so! Forgetting becomes unhelpful when it involves losing information that we need to remember. The act of memorization is a skill, and its importance as one the tools in our cognitive toolkit is dependent on how relevant memorization is for us to effectively navigate our world.

   
Why we need to protect ? (kaspersky)

   

  Understanding the "Dragon Shield"

   
5 Introduction China has received growing attention over the last ten years for its activity in modernizing and expanding its strategic offensive nuclear forces , both land - and sea - based developments and deployments . 1 At the same time, little attention has been paid to Chinese activities in developing ballistic missile defenses (BMD).

   
The chinese strategic B.M.D. (fas)

   

  PWC' strong growth

   
PwC’s Advisory operations posted very strong growth in FY15 increasing by 18% to US$11.2 billion. Advisory now accounts for over 30% of PwC’s revenues, and the company anticipate that it will continue to grow strongly into the future as more and more PwC firms around the world further develop their capacity to provide Advisory services to clients.

   
Global annual review (pwc)

   

  Art of estimating app. dev. projects

   
One of the burning issues on the agenda for many technology project managers and pre-sales specialists is how to master the art of estimating app development projects. The key problem is how to make estimates as competitive and as accurate as possible, while involving a reasonable amount of team efforts and securing a fair chance of meeting the figures that you have come up with.

   
Setting up the right team (developer)

   

  2030 Sustainable Development Goal

   
Gathering together the best available projections, we provide a ‘scorecard’ against 17 targets – one per goal. This shows that, without increased effort, none of the goals and examined targets will be met. The scorecard reveals how much faster progress will need to be, classing targets as needing ‘reform’, ‘revolution’ and ‘reversal’.

   
A wake-up call (odi)

   

  Convincing America to eat bugs

   
With organizations such as Eat Yummy Bugs, World Enthomaphagy and the United Nations educating people about the environmental and health benefits of eating insects, bugs are spreading their wings in the food world – or at least carving themselves a small niche beyond that of kitchen nuisance.

   
Food Makers & Nutrition (entrepreneur)

   

  The lithium market

   
The shift towards powering the car industry by electricity has sped up in recent years. Thanks in large part to a number of innovative new companies, electric cars are finally beginning to emerge as a genuine choice for the average car user. According to the US Geological Survey, demand for lithium could triple by the middle of the century as a result of electric vehicles taking off in popularity.

   
Heavy demand (theneweconomy)

   

  Intensive rearing of poultry or pigs

   
New measures and techniques may emerge, science and technologies are continuously developing and new or emerging processes are being successfully introduced into the industries. In order to reflect such changes and their consequences for BAT, this document will be periodically reviewed and, if necessary , updated accordingly.

   
Working draft on BAT from IPCC (eippcb.jrc.ec.europa)

   

  EU-UK bottled drinking water

   
The exploitation, production, labelling and marketing of bottled drinking water is governed by EU law. The primary pur pose of EU food and drink composition law is to protect the health of consumers, prevent consumers from being misled and to ensure fair trading and free movement of food and drink across the EU.

   
Bottled drinking water consultation (consult.defra)

   

  Farming: Innovation instead of assistance

   
Agriculture is confronted by many risks, particularly the increasingly common and severe climate hazards, as well as price volatility on the markets. These difficult circumstances make farmers in developing countries particularly vulnerable. Farmers must respond to the increasing demand for food in Africa, and prepare to feed two billion mouths by 2050.

   
A growing challenge (euractiv)

   

  Occupational health and safety

   
There were, according to an estimate by the International Labour Organization ( ILO ), 2.34 million deaths in 2013 as a result of work activities. The greatest majority (2 million) are associated with health issues, as opposed to injuries. The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, IOSH , estimates there are 660 000 deaths a year as a result of cancers arising from work activities.

   
ISO 45001 briefing note (iso)

   

  Cyber policies on the rise

   
Currently, the global market for cybersecurity insurance policies is estimated at around $1.5 billion in gross written premiums, according to reinsurance giant Aon Benfield. Approximately 50 carriers worldwide write specific cyber insurance policies, and many other carriers write endorsements to existing liability policies.

   
The cyber insurance boundary (cacm.acm)

   

  How to manage smoother audits ?

   
Auditors look for evidence of conformity, not evidence of noncompliance: This is one of the basic principals of management systems auditing. Most auditors will typically mention this during the opening meeting, as it’s a good way to put the client’s mind at ease. The objective for the auditor is to gather enough evidence to support a recommendation for certification, while making you aware of any nonconforming situations as they arise.

   
5 points to remember (qualitydigest)

   

  Global CEO survey

   
It’s not simply economic fundamentals that worry CEOs. Over-regulation is cited by 78% as a concern. And these concerns are not limited to industry-specific regulations but go much broader into areas like trade and employment. Cyber threats have increased markedly and are likely to become even more prominent in the wake of the recent high-profile attacks on entertainment networks.

   
The prospects for the global economy (pwc)

   

  Theories of Change into practice

   
The current iteration of the Theory of Change approach emerged from both evaluation and informed social practice, and has become a mainstream discourse, tool and approach. Outlining a Theory of Change involves at its most basic making explicit a set of assumptions in relation to a given change process. The most useful definitions help reflect the need to move beyond static ‘programme theory’ and into a more reflective and adaptive understanding of change.

   
Collaboration between researchers and practitioners (odi)

   

  UK's super-laboratories

   
Here’s a breakdown of the new British superlabs: what makes them unique, what business opportunities they throw up, and how they’re going to transform the landscape of global biomedical and data research. As the name suggests, the 100,000 Genomes Project will collect and sequence the genetic information of 100,000 British patients, selected to study the roots of rare genetic diseases such as congenital hearing loss, as well as various cancers like breast and colorectal.

   
One-of-a-kind dataset (telegraph)

   

  FDA inspections of foreign API facilities

   
FDA has been ramping up inspections of international drug manufacturers during the past decade to improve drug safety. The heparin recall of 2007–2008, which resulted when oversulfated chrondroitin sulfate was used to substitute for the active ingredient in heparin, illustrates the serious harm that substandard pharmaceutical drug products can cause to consumers.

   
Lessons Learned (pharmtech)

   

  Are you profiled ?

   
Before long, billions of digital records about ordinary people’s online activities were being stored every day. Among them were details cataloging visits to porn, social media and news websites, search engines, chat forums, and blogs. The mass surveillance operation — code-named KARMA POLICE — was launched by British spies about seven years ago without any public debate or scrutiny.

   
The scope of the B.A.’s surveillance (theintercept)

   

  Science Isn’t Broken

   
If you follow the headlines, your confidence in science may have taken a hit lately. Peer review? More like self-review. An investigation in November uncovered a scam in which researchers were rubber-stamping their own work, circumventing peer review at five high-profile publishers. If we’re going to rely on science as a means for reaching the truth — and it’s still the best tool we have.

   
Researcher degrees of freedom (fivethirtyeight)

   

  Future hypersonic fleet

   
Nasa is working with Lockheed Martin and Boeing to design airplanes that break the sound barrier more quietly. From 2020 to 2025 it may be possible that airplanes could then exceed the sound barrier over populated land without causing a major disturbance. In Europe, Steelant’s team tested their 300-seat design, albeit a 1:120 scale model, at speeds of Mach 8 within a wind tunnel.

   
The market for hypersonic airliners (bbc)

   

  A comprehensive tree of life

   
Humans, bacteria, daffodils: We’re a diverse bunch on the surface, but trace each and every Earthling back far enough, and you’ll arrive at a common ancestor. For the first time, scientists have built a comprehensive tree of life that binds us all together. It shows how all of the major branches relate to one another and traces each individual group back to its shared beginnings in a prebiotic soup 3.5 billion years ago.

   
A draft of the 3.5-billion-year history (pnas)

   

  How to double your productivity ?

   
Usely, your morning defines the rest of your day. If you can optimize your morning routines, you’ve set yourself up to have a productive day ahead of you. We all wake up with a fresh slate each morning, and have the opportunity to make it a great one, no matter how unproductive your previous mornings have been. First of all let’s debunk some of the big myths out there.

   
Designing your morning routine (thenextweb)

   

  The next generation of bandages

   
When tech and medicine meet, everyone benefits. The tech doesn’t have to be a new MRI or laser printed organs, either — even the lowly bandage can benefit from an upgrade. Different researchers worldwide are using their particular expertise to develop a host of newer, smarter, more effective bandages; many of which are steadily making their way out of the lab and into the real world.

   
Bandage tech that you can expect to see (digitaltrends)

   

  The world’s 300 largest pension funds

   
The P&I/Towers Watson global 300 research, conducted in conjunction with Pensions & Investments, a leading US investment newspaper, shows that by individual region North America had the highest five-year combined compound growth rate of around 8% compared to Europe (over 7%) and Asia Pacific (around 4%). The research also shows that the world’s top 300 pension funds now represent around 43% of global pension assets.

   
The global pension asset study (towerswatson)

   

  Intelligent manufacturing

   
The marriage of modern Internet technologies such as Cloud and mobile computing, advanced analytics and ubiquitous connectivity with traditional plant systems, people, equipment and sensors is the Industrial Internet. And it’s leading to significant improvements in asset and operational performance, an uncharted territory to manufacturers.

   
How to improve manufacturing productivity? (rdmag)

   

  The US Open economy, past & present

   
The U.S. Open employs 7,000 seasonal workers to ensure the event runs smoothly. These people hold jobs in food services, security, and ticketing. Also factored into the tournament’s economic earnings: transportation to and from the event, including those taking the 7 train and paying Metro Card fares and paying for Long Island Railroad tickets.

   
Looking back and forward (fortune)

   

  The engineering nowadays

   
Every industry is affected by automation. It’s not just cars that are being made by robots now. Our power plants are becoming increasingly automated. Our food is grown and processed in automated farms, storage units, and factories. Buildings are prefabricated by machines. In the modern factory, smart machines talk to each other and notify their human masters when they need attention.

   
The new industrial revolution (qualitydigest)

   

  The US-EU energy trade dilemma

   
The diverging paths in terms of energy self-sufficiency between the US – among the world largest producers – and Europe – highly dependent on imports – appear to create opportunities for exchanges of oil and gas between the two shores of the Atlantic. On the oil front, recent market developments are putting pressure on US decision-makers to remove the outdated oil export ban that was adopted in the mid-1970s.

   
TTIP from an energy perspective (iai)

   

  Stanford & S.V. interdependency

   
It’s hard to imagine Stanford passed over as an innovation hub today. Stanford has outpaced some of the biggest Ivy League universities in prestige and popularity. It has obliterated the traditional mindset that eliteness is exclusive to the Ivy League. Stanford has lapped top schools by centuries. It ranks in the top 3 in multiple global and national rankings.

   
Building the tech boom of today (techcrunch)

   

  Brazil's water resources governance

   
Water is abundant in Brazil, but unevenly distributed across regions and users. Remarkable progress to reform the sector has been achieved since the 1997 National Water Law, but economic, climate and urbanisation trends generate threats that may jeopardize national growth and development. The consequences are particularly acute in regions where tensions across water users already exist or are likely to grow.

   
How to cope with future risks ? (keepeek)

   

  6 Apple Patents for tech industry

   
It's not atypical for big players – your Googles, Apples, Microsofts – to add thousands of them to their portfolios every year. While many are granted only to remain unused, the most interesting ones offer sneak peaks at possible future products. Apple may not lead the tech pack in terms of quantity, but many of its patents have a distinctive 'it' factor.

   
The market place (entrepreneur)

   

  Telus: Consistency drives success

   
During the last 15 years, few companies have delivered as consistently on almost all metrics that matter. Telus’s revenue has doubled from US$4.5 billion in 1999 (CAD$5.9 billion, using 2015 dollars) to $9.2 billion (CAD$12.0 billion) today. The company has become the global leader in total shareholder value creation among incumbent telecommunications companies worldwide.

   
The Confidence to execute (strategy-business)

   

  Third Party Governance

   
For many businesses their global third party ecosystems (known as extended enterprises in some organisations) have in recent years become important sources of strategic advantage and business value. These organisations see their business partners as their second-most valuable organisational asset. Yet they are partners that bring risk.

   
Turning risk into opportunity (deloitte)

   

  Start-up investment

   
Interest rates are at historic lows and the markets are going haywire. Conditions could hardly be better for entrepreneurs in search of investors, according to a recent analysis conducted by the consulting firm Ernst & Young. A new study confirms Berlin is the start-up capital of Europe but for those responsible for the sector's success it is no time to rest. Tagesspiegel reports.

   
London outranked by Berlin (euractiv)

   

  Quality assurance failures and solutions

   
Buggy software and other oversights can cause major problems, such as a significant and unexpected company expense. Here is a collection of high profile quality assurance issues that happened in the past 25 years along with information on some of the solutions that resolved them. Despite the severity of these errors, most of the companies and organizations were able to survive the issues and learn from the mistakes.

   
Learning from their issues (developer)

   

  Design and analysis of clinical trials

   
There is a significant disconnect between the evidence that pharma and biotechnological firms are producing and the type of information that decision makers – particularly payers – want, according to GSK’s Rafael Alfonso. “The reason for that is that we have focused so much on regulatory decision makers and not the payers,” he tells eyeforpharma. “That is where we have to change.”

   
Three key analytics tools (social.eyeforpharma)

   

  ISO-9001-2015: Risk-Based Thinking

   
Risk is not a straightforward concept. Definitions of risk vary, even within documents published by the International Organizations for Standardization (ISO). One ISO definition indicates that risk is the “effect of uncertainty on an expected result.” Risk is now addressed by ISO 9001:2015, “Quality management systems—Requirements,” scheduled for publication next month.

   
The effects of uncertainty & How to address? (qualitydigest)

   

  Strategic emerging technology

   
There is rising worldwide interest in graphene, there are questions about the positioning of this emerging technology and when promised applications will materialise. From a UK perspective, significant public investments are being made to support the research and commercialisation of graphene and other novel advanced materials. But concerns have already been raised about economic returns.

   
Enterprises involved in graphene (nesta)

   

  Life expectancy

   
A recent study, published in the Journal of Aging and Health, has linked those of a higher intelligence with the capacity to physically age better. Researchers tested almost 3,000 middle-aged men, using simple mobility tests to gauge their physical aptitude, strength and co-ordination. From the results, Meincke believed that she could correctly identify which individuals were more likely to remain independent as they aged.

   
Exercise tests predicting mortality (telegraph)

   

  The painful transition for Mozilla

   
Back in July, Mozilla disclosed plans to modernize its Firefox browser. Today, the organization made those plans more concrete, with a tentative timeline for introducing long-desired improvements such as the creation of a process per tab—and with it, a timeline for the end of support for traditional Firefox add-ons. Mozilla has been working on a multi-process architecture for years.

   
The end of Firefox-add-ons (arstechnica)

   

  World without water

   
Men like Edward Mooradian are saving California. Indeed, there would hardly be any water left without them. And without water California, now in the fourth year of an epic drought, would be nothing but desert. That's why it's such a cynical joke and, most of all, a tragic reality, that men like Mooradian are also destroying California. In fact, they are actually aggravating the emergency that they are trying to mitigate.

   
The misuse of our most valuable resource (spiegel)

   

  NYC’s Tech Profile

   
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published a new report that arguably provides the most accurate measurement of the city’s tech sector, using a definition that restricts tech employment to seven industries "in which firms use technology as their core business strategy." In this analysis, we use the Fed’s definition as a jumping off point to provide a more complete portrait of New York’s tech sector.

   
Analysis profile by age/sex/race~ethnicity (nycfuture)

   

  The silver economy

   
The' silver economy' covers a host of different but interlinked strands; together these can improve the quality of life and inclusion in society and involvement in economic activity of the ageing population through developing innovative policies, products and services to meet their needs, bringing more growth and jobs. The concept has been emerging over the years, and recently gathered momentum with the EU.

   
Opportunities from ageing (europarl.europa)

   

  Auto high-quality luxury product

   
In an age in which automotive manufacturers are seeking quality gains through latest-generation automation, and taking more and more decision making out of the hands of assembly workers, Infiniti has implemented a very human countermove: Every employee who comes to work at the plant must first learn to build an entire engine by hand -- just as the master takumi do in Yokohama.

   
The engine-building course (autonews)

   

  Multi-Robot coordination uncertainty

   
In order to fulfill the potential of increasingly capable and affordable robot hardware, effective methods for controlling robot teams must be developed. Although many algorithms have been proposed for multi-robot problems, the vast majority are specialized methods engineered to match specific team or problem characteristics. Progress in more general settings requires the specification of a model class that captures the core challenges of controlling multi-robot teams in a generic fashion.

   
How to solve multi-robot problems ? (roboticsproceedings)

   

  Turning dreams into reality

   
A common complaint with architecture today is that the experimental, exciting design presented at the beginning rarely finds itself expressed in the final building. That which was compellingly rendered does not become a reality, because somewhere between competition drawings and construction documents, the design morphs into a tepid version of the original concept, often owing to value engineering or a disconnect between vision and available materials.

   
Make it your business (fastcodesign)

   

  Solutions for a better tomorrow

   
The start-up’s toxin detection work recently scooped the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, where its solution was recognised as an innovative answer to the impending danger threatening us all – imagine a scenario where your daily consumption of estrogen is high enough to turn you infertile. The New Economy has recognised Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation as the Most Innovative Technology Hub in the Asia-Pacific region.

   
Leaping through the valley of death (theneweconomy)

   

  The New Urban Science

   
We are living in the age of cities. It is an urgent time, and an uncertain one. Never before have human beings built so much with such haste. Yet we understand so little about how our urban world grows — and sometimes — declines. To meet this challenge, the world’s universities have set out to plug this knowledge gap, and establish a new science of cities . This report is an initial attempt to understand the collective scope and impact of this movement.

   
Understanding the city (citiesofdata)

   

  Mini X-ray source with laser light

   
Using light-generated radiation combined with phase-contrast X-ray tomography, the scientists visualized ultrafine details of a fly measuring just a few millimeters. Until now, such radiation could only be produced in expensive ring accelerators measuring several kilometers in diameter. By contrast, the laser-driven system in combination with phase-contrast X-ray tomography only requires a university laboratory to view soft tissues.

   
Laser-driven X-ray imagery (innovations-report)

   

  A regulatory helping hand

   
Increasingly scrutinized, regulatory agencies are imposing stricter guidelines for approving new therapies. This is mainly due to a number of high-profile drugs that were commercialized and then withdrawn after findings of adverse effects for patients. For decades, agencies have struggled to find a solution to bring higher-qualified drugs to market while minimizing risks in clinical trials and reducing the amount of animal testing.

   
How to bring successful therapy to publics ? (rdmag)

   

  Googles $6Bl miscalculation

   
Whatever goodwill it had stored up, Google started to lose in 2014, in the aftermath of the Snowden affair. Several of the leaked NSA documents revealed how Google and other companies had given the spy agency access to users’ accounts. Google said it was following the law and fought the NSA practice, but the damage was done. “What’s the use of a two-factor authenticated e-mail if the NSA is reading it, too?” Wagner says. “There was a huge shift.”

   
How to break up the search giant? (bloomberg)

   

  Getting comfortable with Lean

   
In the past two decades, drug manufacturing companies launched the industry’s first corporate lean manufacturing (Lean) and operational excellence (OpEx) programs. Using modern industrial engineering concepts advanced by thinkers such as Deming, Juran, Shewhart, and principles from the Toyota Production System (TPS), companies began to apply models from other industries to change the way they approached operations and inventory management at key facilities.

   
From standard work to kaizen (pharmtech)

   

  Siemens has positioned CX1 as int. standard

   
In intelligent power supply networks – smart grids – the quality of data transmission from digital meters to the power supply company is playing an increasingly important role. To make sure data is smoothly transmitted via lines in the power grid, it must be ensured that this transmission is also possible with equipment and transmission systems from different manufacturers.

   
Communication technology (innovations-report)

   

  Power industry transformation

   
No longer. Several coincident, significant transformations are causing a revolution in the way electricity — the vital fuel of global commerce and human comfort — is produced, distributed, stored, and marketed. A top-down, centralized system is devolving into one that is much more distributed and interactive. The mix of generation is shifting from high carbon to lower carbon, and, often, to no carbon.

   
A strategist’s guide (strategy-business)

   

  Additive manufacturing

   
Additive manufacturing methods result in little material waste, and they can be used to produce superior products with complex internal structures. Parts formed with additive manufacturing can be designed to be stronger, lighter, or more functional than parts made with conventional manufacturing processes. Though the materials currently available for additive manufacturing are somewhat limited.

   
The emerging area in the auto. industry (areadevelopment)

   

  About Weibull distributions

   
Some commonly held ideas about skewed probability models are incorrect. These incorrect ideas are one source of complexity and confusion regarding the analysis of data. By examining the basic properties of skewed distributions this article can help you to greater clarity of thought and may even simplify your next data analysis.

   
Industrial data analysis (qualitydigest)

   

  How to impair your IQ ?

   
According to experts, everything from technology to our eating habits and ultimately modern life itself are eroding our brains, chipping away at neural pathways and making us slower, denser and less capable of original thought. Since the 1930s IQs across the world have largely increased thanks to better living conditions, improved nutrition and education.

   
Switching betwwen tasks (telegraph)

   

  Can we reverse the ageing process?

   
In 2050, two billion people will be 60 or older, nearly double the number today. Medical researchers tend to tackle many diseases separately. After all, the illnesses are distinct: cancer arises from mutated DNA; heart disease from clogged up blood vessels; dementia from damaged brain cells. The biological processes that underpin the pathologies vary enormously.

   
The restorative properties of young blood (theguardian)

   

  The impact of free trade agreements

   
This Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) addresses two questions , to which it finds the literature offers partial answers (that can be supplemented by flanking analyses) . 1/ What has been the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between developed and developing countries on economic development in developing countries? 2/ What does this evidence tell us about how developing countries might best benefit from new FTAs.

   
Assessments (dfid)

   

  News: Twitter vs Facebook

   
The share of Americans for whom Twitter and Facebook serve as a source of news is continuing to rise. This rise comes primarily from more current users encountering news there rather than large increases in the user base overall, according to findings from a new survey. Although both social networks have the same portion of users getting news on these sites, there are significant differences in their potential news distribution strengths.

   
Medias' news distribution strengths (journalism)

   

  How to unplug USA from NET-control ?

   
When ICANN was formed in 1998, it contracted the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to manage many functions of the internet, including top-level domains and IP addresses. A 199-page proposal from ICANN has detailed how it plans to move its responsibilities to be operated by the “global internet community.”

   
New service level agreement (thenextweb)

   

  Verifying CAPA effectiveness

   
Verifying the effectiveness of corrective and preventive actions (CAPAs) closes the loop between identifying a problem and completing the actions to solve it. It’s reasonable to assume that if a problem is worth solving, it’s also worth verifying that the solution worked. However, given the wide range of problems that could occur, determining the best verification approach and time frame to implement it can often seem elusive.

   
Six methods (qualitydigest)

   

  BRICS trade strategy

   
At a time when each of the BRICS’ exports are falling and when only India is expected to see faster economic growth in 2015 and 2016, this report argues that the trade strategy of the BRICS should be rethought. Greater attention should be placed on the unilateral actions taken by governments that limit imports and that artificially inflate exports. The BRICS ought to have a strong interest in discouraging and unwinding protectionism.

   
Time for a rethink (voxeu)

   

  Patch Tuesday: Not dead yet

   
With Windows 10's launch only five days away -- the new operating system will debut July 29 on previewers' PCs -- the question of whether Patch Tuesday lives and breathes, or will die a sure death, maybe quickly, maybe slowly, still remains officially unanswered. But security professionals and industry analysts have come to the conclusion that Patch Tuesday will continue, possibly in the same form it has since 2003.

   
Patch Tuesday's survivability (computerworld)

   

  Job tenure in turbulent times

   
Changes in the economic environment over past decades have led to growing concern about decreasing job stability and the disappearance of the ‘job for life’. There is a fear that globalisation and technological progress have led to changes in the labour market, which may in turn have reduced job tenure (defined as the length of time a worker has been continuously employed by the same employer).

   
Tenure evolution before and during the crisis (eurofound.europa)

   

  Best environmental management practice

   
Organisations of all sizes and kinds have a large scope for improving their environmental performance. With motivations ranging from eco-efficiency to reputation and concerns about the sustainability of their business, many organisations try to reduce their impact on the environment. To help organisations reach such an objective, the JRC studies and identifies the best environmental management practices (BEMPs).

   
Proactive approach to environmental challenges (ec.europa)

   

  Insight of the dark web

   
The Deep Web refers to “a class of content on the Internet that, for various technical reasons, is not indexed by search engines,” and thus would not be accessible through a traditional search engine. 8 Information on the Deep Web includes content on private intranets (internal networks such as those at corporations, government agencies, or universities), commercial databases like Lexis Nexis or Westlaw, or sites that produce content via search queries or forms.

   
From the surface to the deep web (fas)

   

  Creative industries & Economic value

   
Creative Industries Copyright Licensing: Opportunities and Risks Introduction The economic value of the Creative Industries is well documented. Estimated figures for the commercial design sector have been assessed and added to the EY study taking the creative industries sectors up from 11 to 12. Copyright dates back to the Statute of Anne (1710).Today the original purpose of Copyright remains largely the same.

   
Understanding the digital age of copyright (creativebarcode)

   

  Should doctors recommend homeopathy?

   
Homeopathy is part of a family of toxicological and pharmacological phenomena that are attracting growing interest, characterised by secondary, reverse, or paradoxical reactions to drugs or toxins as a function of dose or time or both. These include hormesis (the paradoxical, stimulatory, or beneficial effect of low doses of toxins), paradoxical pharmacology, and rebound effects.

   
Comparative effectiveness research (bmj)

   

  The UK' sharing economy

   
The new opportunities presented in the shared economy have fuelled societies of micro-entrepreneurs to take advantage of their tangible and non-tangible assets through digital innovation. This is particularly the case in the UK- regarded as the mecca for sharing economy entrepreneurs and companies. The total revenue in UK for the shared economy could rise from $0.5 billion today to $9 billion by 2025.

   
As the world leader (capx)

   

  How to unlock a drug's potential?

   
Poor solubility is an ongoing challenge in pharmaceutical development. A drug must be in solution form for it to be absorbed regardless of the route of administration. The solubility of an API, therefore, plays a crucial role in bioavailability given that drug absorption is a function of solubility and permeability. Modern drug discovery techniques, continue to fill drug-development pipelines with a high number of poorly soluble new chemical entities (NCEs).

   
Solving poor solubility (pharmtech)

   

  About: Final draft of ISO 9001

   
Management system standard ISO 9001 has reached the final stage of the revision process. ISO member countries have 2 months to form a national position and vote on the latest draft of the standard before the 9 September deadline. Compared to the DIS, changes are relatively minor. The most extensive ones have been to the Introduction and figures, which have been greatly simplified, with some of the explanatory text being moved to an informative Annex.

   
Less prescriptive than its predecessor (iso)

   

  A new frontier in medicine

   
300,000 hip replacements are now performed annually worldwide, releasing people from pain, and extending the active period of their lives by 20 years or more. The success of these implants has led scientists to develop a new type of biomaterial that is promising to do for medicine what silicon did for computing.

   
The tissue engineering (theguardian)

   

  Black phosphorus: the next silicon?

   
In 2004, physicists at the University of Manchester in the U.K. first isolated and explored the remarkable properties of graphene -- a one-atom-thick layer of carbon. Since then scientists have rushed to investigate a range of other two-dimensional materials. One of those is black phosphorus, a form of phosphorus that is similar to graphite and can be separated easily into single atomic layers, known as phosphorene.

   
Nano-toolbox for transistor designers (mcgill)

   

  Patent troll lawsuits

   
New patent statistics show that patent litigation, driven by so-called "patent trolls," could reach an all-time high in 2015. It's a statistic that's sure to be highlighted by tech lobbyists and others pushing for patent reform, given that the House is likely to take up a floor vote of the Innovation Act this month. The stats are published by United Patents, which helps companies deal with patent trolls.

   
The top target (arstechnica)

   

  About the business of building a website

   
Stories have been told about the website so bad it nearly broke the Affordable Care Act. The Obama administration was "running the biggest start-up in the world, and they didn’t have anyone who had run a start-up, or even run a business," David Cutler, a health adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, told The Washington Post in 2013. “It’s very hard to think of a situation where the people best at getting legislation passed are best at implementing it. They are a different set of skills.”

   
The startup that saved healthcare.gov (theatlantic)

   

  EU' surveillance tech export controls

   
Internal emails and invoices from the Italian company Hacking Team were leaked over the weekend. The company sells software that can be used for surveillance. New leaks revealed its clients include a number of EU member states, as well as Sudan, Morocco, Kazakhstan and other countries with poor human rights records.The European Commission is reviewing the dual use regulation this year, which lays down restrictions for the export of technology that can be used for military purposes.

   
Tech used as “internal repression” (euractiv)

   

  Data development & Country priorities

   
To get an alternative view on what national governments need to prioritize to formulate effective policies, plan and implement service delivery, and monitor progress, we focus in this report on the development of statistical systems in a handful of countries that have invested significantly in building such systems, to both serve their own needs as well as those of the international development community.

   
National data collection efforts (odi)

   

  Heaven on earth

   
Moulding a landscape to explore some of the most abstruse concepts in cosmology might seem odd, but it is not new. It's hard to speak with much assurance about the intentions behind the UK's profusion of prehistoric henges and stone circles – which the Crawick Multiverse so closely resembles – but the numerous astronomical alignments they incorporate suggest an attempt to connect with the cosmos.

   
The emergence of life from bing-bang (newscientist)

   

  Franklin’s data & double helix model

   
The wave of protest that followed Sir Tim Hunt’s stupid comments about ‘girls’ in laboratories highlighted many examples of sexism in science. One claim was that during the race to uncover the structure of DNA, Jim Watson and Francis Crick either stole Rosalind Franklin’s data, or ‘forgot’ to credit her. Neither suggestion is true.

   
First foray in DNA's structure (theguardian)

   

  The New, New Silk Road

   
Yes, there is a new Silk Road, and no, it shouldn’t be confused with the digital Silk Road, Internet drug deals, or the “Dread Pirate Roberts.” The new, New Silk Road, as any modern merchant will tell you, now spans not just Eurasia, but also the entire globe. Just around the global bend, China indulges visions of a “New Silk Road, New Dreams.” Those efforts, however, are concerned with a new old Silk Road.

   
Giving manufacturing technology a boost (qualitydigest)

   

  BMS redefines its R&D

   
In Cambridge, Bristol-Myers Squibb scientists will focus on the company’s ongoing discovery efforts in genetically defined diseases, molecular discovery technologies, and discovery platform chemistry. In addition to relocating up to 200 employees from its Wallingford, Connecticut and Waltham, Massachusetts sites, and a limited number from its central New Jersey locations, the company expects to recruit scientists from the Cambridge area.

   
R&D Locations and Focus (pharmtech)

   

  UK auto industry at high

   
The sector has seen turnover rise and an increase in the number of people employed. Vehicle production is expected to grow strongly over the next few years to record levels, as investment spending is realised. The vehicles that are being produced are being done so with less energy, water and waste. The industry also saw safety levels improve, with lost time incidents falling to a new low.

   
2015 Automotive Sustainability report (smmt)

   

  Trade facilitation

   
This report reviews the available published evidence on the impact of trade facilitation interventions on trade, and seeks to identify factors that lead to positive or negative impacts. In reflecting on the findings of the review, it also highlights gaps in evidence and information that need to be filled in order to design effective trade facilitation interventions and reforms.

   
Suggestions & Guidance (r4d.dfid)

   

  Cancer recognition & referral

   
The identification of people with possible cancer usually happens in primary care, because the large majority of people first present to a primary care clinician. Therefore, evidence from primary care should inform the identification process and was used as the basis of this guideline. The recommendations were developed using a 'risk threshold'.

   
NICE guideline (nice)

   

  Reducing exposure to acrylamid

   
Evidence from animal studies shows that acrylamide and its metabolite glycidamide are genotoxic and carcinogenic: they damage DNA and cause cancer. Evidence from human studies that dietary exposure to acrylamide causes cancer is currently limited and inconclusive. Since acrylamide is present in a wide range of everyday foods, this health concern applies to all consumers but children are the most exposed age group on a body weight basis.

   
Acrylamide in food (efsa.europa)

   

  Digitalization in public transport

   
Digitalization is one of the worldwide trends that are increasingly impacting and changing people's lives and work. In particular, mobility within and between cities will be increasingly shaped by this development. Siemens sees itself as a trailblazer for this trend and is centering its business strategy on digitalization, along with automation and electrification.

   
The automatic train control system (innovations-report)

   

  Living and working in Europe

   
Eurofound in 2014 expanded its evidence base on the repercussions of the crisis on the living and working conditions of Europeans, and offered guidance on viable options available to policymakers in their efforts to turn Europe around. The Agency produced new knowledge in some of the areas of most immediate concern to Europeans and in fields crucial to their long-term prosperity.

   
The consequences of the economic crisis (eurofound.europa)

   

  Virtual reality for the masses

   
The trend is called virtual reality, or VR, and the technology is moving from science fiction to store shelves within the next year. Once thought of as a gimmick from the early '90s, VR is now one of the hottest markets in the tech industry as low-cost components and powerful software have made replicating the real world easier and more lifelike.

   
Affordable devices (cnet)

   

  Boosting confidence in 3D printing

   
Despite its revolutionary promise, however, additive manufacturing is still in its infancy when it comes to understanding the impact of subtle differences in manufacturing methods on the properties and capabilities of resulting materials. Overcoming this shortcoming is necessary to enable reliable mass production of additively manufactured structures such as aircraft wings or other complex components of military systems.

   
DARPA’s Open Manufacturing program (darpa)

   

  Encryption & Anonymity

   
Some call for efforts to weaken or compromise encryption standards such that only Governments may enjoy access to encrypted communications. However, compromised encryption cannot be kept secret from those with the skill to find and exploit the weak points, whether State or non-State, legitimate or criminal. It is a seemingly universal position among technologists that there is no special access that can be made available only to government authorities.

   
UN's Special Rapporteur (ohchr)

   

  Biomass: A novel bimetallic catalyst

   
By 2050, some three-quarters of the world’s population will be living in cities. The growing number of cities with over a million inhabitants is demanding more sustainable and closed carbon loops for a good living environment. Chemical building blocks derived from biomass can form a significant contribution to the increasing demand for sustainable materials and fuels.

   
Improvement of biomass' processing (esrf)

   

  Education: Achievements & Challenges

   
On the positive side, the number of children and adolescents who were out of school has fallen by almost half since 2000. An estimated 34 million more children will have attended school as a result of faster progress since Dakar. The greatest progress has been achieved in gender parity, particularly in primary education, although gender disparity remains in almost a third of the countries with data.

   
EFA global monitoring report (unesdoc.unesco)

   

  New NIST' standard on gene sequencing

   
The new reference material, NIST RM 8398, is a “measuring stick” for the human genome, the coded blueprints of a person’s genetic traits. It provides a well-characterized standard that can tell a laboratory how well its processes for determining the patterns in a person’s DNA (called DNA or gene sequencing) are working by measuring the performance of the equipment, chemistry and data analysis involved.

   
NIST standard as a benchmark (nist)

   

  2015 European report on development

   
This Report addresses ‘combining finance and policies to implement a transformative post-2015 development agenda’. The experience of pursuing the MDGs has provided lessons in terms of countries’ successes and failures that can be applied to using finance and policies to achieve a post-2015 development agenda. This Report draws out some of the lessons that could help to inform a new finance and policy framework.

   
Vision of global development (ecdpm)

   

  Mozilla' smartphone plan

   
Mozilla's plight could affect even those who don't use its software. The group has worked for more than a decade to make the Web more powerful and to give people control over their online lives despite prying governments and money-hungry corporations. Plenty of people would like to see those values in the mobile market even if their phone doesn't sport Mozilla's orange fox icon, but those values just aren't in play today.

   
Hints of Android support (cnet)

   

  The impact of climate change

   
This report, The impact of climate change on the achievement of the post-2015 sustainable development goals, considers impacts on development over the next 15 years, under two scenarios for the 2015 climate change agreement: a high-ambition agreement and a low-ambition agreement. It looks at associated policies and levels of investment in mitigation and adaptation.

   
2015 sustainable development goals (cdkn)

   

  US bill on space mining

   
For as long as we've existed, humans have looked up at the stars — and wondered. What is up there? Who is out there? The United States has already shown its penchant for claiming ownership of space-based things. There are not one, not two, but six U.S. flags on the moon, in case any of you other nations start getting ideas. American lawmakers would seek to guarantee property rights for U.S. space corporations.

   
Commercial space exploration (washingtonpost)

   

  EU’ Digital single market (DSM)

   
Between 2001 and 2011, ICT accounted for 30% of GDP growth in the EU but for 55% in the US. The difference is partly the result of the sectoral composition of the corresponding economies but also the result of disparities in the perception of ICT, investment volume in ICT production and use. For the period 2006-2011, the estimated productivity differential between the US and EU due to ICT was 0.2% growth annually.

   
Digital economy and society (ec.europa)

   

  US report on Diatery & Health

   
The 2010 Committee acknowledged the importance of dietary patterns and recommended additional research in this area. After the release of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the USDA Nutrition Evidence Library(NEL) completed a systematic review project examining the relationships between dietary patterns and several health outcomes.

   
Health issue (health)

   

  The human capital report 2015

   
Talent, not capital, will be the key factor linking innovation, competitiveness and growth in the 21st century. More than a third of employers globally reported facing difficulties in finding talent last year and nearly half expected talent shortages to have a negative impact on their business results. Yet the world’s pool of latent talent is enormous.

   
Insight on the global talent value chain (weforum)

   

  UK' 100 best Start-ups

   
Launched in 2014 and a brand new entry into the list, Purplebricks.com is an innovative property technology (proptech) platform which impressed the judges having already attracted over £11m in funding, achieved multi-million revenues and scaled to a team of 120 staff and growing. Now in its sixth year, the Startups 100 index recognises privately owned UK companies launched on or after 1 January 2012.

   
An illustrious alumni of businesses (talkbusinessmagazine)

   

  The future of internet governance

   
Concerns have risen in Congress over the proposed transition. Critics worry that relinquishing U.S. authority over Internet domain names may offer opportunities for either hostile foreign governments or intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations, to gain undue influence over the Internet. On the other hand, this transition completes the necessary evolution of Internet domain name governance towards the private sector.

   
Consensus on a transition proposal (fas)

   

  How to rewire the eye

   
Optogenetics is a powerful tool for probing the inner workings of the brain. In mice, researchers have used optogenetics to study feeding behaviour, map aggression circuits, and even alter memories. After years of work with animals, researchers are now poised to insert optogenetic molecules into the retinal cells of people. The aim is to restore vision in those whose rods and cones don’t work.

   
How to reach the sophistication of normal vision (sciencenews)

   

  Africa: Gauging opportunity

   
Africa is at an exceptional historical crossroad, if there was ever a moment for an entire continent to seize the day, this is it. This report is part of PwC's global Cities of Opportunity series that helps governments businesses and citizens improve their economies and quality of life. The available data and analysis does have limitations and only tells part of the story.

   
Toward investors & policymakers (pwc)

   

  Persistence of Ebola Virus

   
Among survivors of EVD, late complications that include ocular disease can develop during convalescence. Here, we report the clinical course of a man in whom severe, acute, unilateral uveitis developed during the convalescent phase of EVD. We also report the detection of viable EBOV in aqueous humor obtained from the inflamed eye 14 weeks after the onset of the initial symptoms of EVD and 9 weeks after the clearance of viremia.

   
Detection of viable EBOV (nejm)

   

  The Parts-Per-Million Problem

   
Parts per million (ppm) is part of the language of six sigma. It pervades the sales pitch and is used in all sorts of computations as a measure of quality. Yet what are the rules of arithmetic and statistics that govern the computation and usage of parts per million? To discover the answers read on.

   
Communicating numerical quantities (qualitydigest)

   

  Patch Tuesday may be dead

   
Those questions began circulating Monday, after Microsoft announced its new update service, Windows Update for Business (WUB). As Terry Myerson, Microsoft's operating system chief, touted WUB, he suggested, or some thought he suggested, that Patch Tuesday was no more. "We're not going to be delivering all of the updates" Myerson said of changes to Windows Update under Windows 10.

   
More options for business (computerworld)

   

  Women’s leadership

   
While there has been progress in many countries in increasing the numbers of women in elected posts, both at local and national level, women are less likely to occupy executive branch posts or key cabinet positions. Similarly, while women occupy leadership roles in social movements they mostly remain under - represented in organisations that do not focus on women and gender issue.

   
Decision-making (odi)

   

  Encouraging STEM studies

   
There is evidence of skills shortages in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields in spite of high unemployment rates in many Member States. This document, prepared by Policy Department A at the request of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, intends to provide an up-to-date overview of the labour market situation in STEM occupations.

   
The labour market needs (europarl)

   

  Ocean Energy Status Report

   
The ocean energy sector comprises different energy technologies that could exploit the power contained in our seas, and convert it into renewable low-carbon electricity. The various types of ocean energy technologies, such as tidal energy, wave energy, ocean thermal energy conversion and salinity gradient energy, have reached different stages of technical and commercial development, in Europe and globally.

   
Technology, market and economic aspects (jrc.ec.europa)

   

  Potential growth of EU countries

   
The report provides highlights of research activities carried out over the year in support of the main EU policies. Topics include economic and monetary union; innovation, growth and jobs; digital agenda; energy and transport; environment and climate change; agriculture and global food security; security and disaster risk reduction; health and consumer protection and nuclear safety and security.

   
Joint Research Centre Report (ec.europa)

   

  Projected shifts in coffea arabica

   
Whether you like it frothy, skinny, straight or short, coffee lovers around the world face a wake-up call as the perfect storm brews for their favorite drink, as climate change threatens higher prices and reduced supply. For the first time, researchers have mapped suitability for Arabica - the most popular, high-quality gourmet variety with a 70 percent of global market share - to see how it will cope in 2050.

   
Current and future coffee suitability prediction (journals.plos)

   

  Global IT report 2015

   
This year’s theme—centered on ensuring inclusive growth—is an important reminder that the work is far from over. Many regions and billions of people remain unconnected or underserved, and significant opportunities for further social improvement and economic growth exist. As the following chapters will show, the social and economic challenges of inclusive growth are inseparable from key topics on the global corporate agenda.

   
Economic growth with inclusive IT (weforum)

   

  The imagination gap

   
This notion of a future that hasn’t quite conformed to prior expectations is perhaps the most striking facet of Strategy&’s recent series on industry trends, an in-depth analysis of the prospects for 16 of the world’s bellwether sectors. To profit — indeed, to survive — in 2015 and beyond, companies must not just adopt new, unanticipated forms of digitization innovation, but must use them to reshape their business models.

   
How objects become computers themselves (strategy-business)

   

  Is the croissant really French?

   
Experts do agree that the croissant was inspired by the Austrian kipfel, a crescent-shaped baked good featuring a generous amount of butter or lard and sometimes sugar and almonds. According to popular lore, the kipfel originated in 1683 as a comestible celebration of Austrian victory over the Ottomans at the siege of Vienna.

   
From kipfel to Cronut (smithsonianmag)

   

  EFSA' scientific cooperation annual report

   
One of the key activities set out in the Scientific Cooperation Roadmap 2014 - 2016 is to develop an EU Risk Assessment Agenda to address common long term needs and actions in support of risk assessment in the EU. While MS have their own work plans and priorities, the aim of the EU Risk Assessment Agenda is to agree an additional joint programme of prioritised risk assessment support activities.

   
EU risk assessment agenda (efsa.europa)

   

  Security of telereobotic surgery

   
Very recently, motivated by the Raven II extreme operation experiments, researchers recognized importance of cyber security for telerobotic surgery. In [the Proceedings of the Miitary Communications Conference], authors developed a light-weight software tool to verify the robot’s side code. In [Mobile Networks and Applications], authors developed an information coding approach to protect communication privacy and reliability.

   
Experimental analysis of cyber security threats (arxiv)

   

  Open Data Roundtable

   
Three significant challenges in improving the quality of its data. First, statutory requirements for the submission of patents make fixes difficult when errors are detected after these have become legal documents. Second, patent applicants are often reticent to provide unambiguous information: there are market incentives to obfuscate data about patent ownership.

   
Ways to improve the patent data system (opendata500)

   

  3D visualization of trapped particles

   
Precise tracking of three-dimensional (3D) positions of objects, often associated with optical tweezers, is important for the study of biophysics and cell biology. Although various approaches for 3D particle tracking have been proposed, most are limited in resolution and axial localization for objects of complex geometry. Holographic tomography systems circumvent these problems.

   

Precise tracking (3D) positions of objects (opticsinfobase)

   

  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.

   
Free for all to use & no one to own (scienceprogress)

   

  Tech's diversity problem

   
Over the next five years, Intel plans to invest $300 million in something called the "diversity in technology initiative," which will aim to bring the company’s workforce to "full representation" by 2020. Silicon Valley companies have been subject to sharp criticism and scrutiny over their lack of racial and gender diversity, and pressured by activists such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson to disclose their employee figures to the public.

   
Intel’s plan (fastcompany)

   

  World happiness report 2015

   
The world has come a long way since the first World Happiness Report launched in 2012. Increasingly happiness is considered a proper measure of social progress and goal of public policy. A rapidly increasing number of ational and local governments are using happiness data and research in their search for policies that could enable people to live better lives.

   
Summary (worldhappiness.report)

   

  Startup: How to bounce back?

   
As you start scaling your team it’s crucial to hire slow. Every time you bring a new person on you need to help them integrate with your team and the company mission. Hiring too many people too fast does not leave you much time to pay attention to each new hire and make sure they are happy and productive at their job.

   
Perseverance, Perseverance..Per (thenextweb)

   

  Autonomous weapons and their risks

   
Fully autonomous weapons, also known as “killer robots,” raise serious moral and legal concerns because they would possess the ability to select and engage their targets without meaningful human control. Many people question whether the decision to kill a human being should be left to a machine. There are also grave doubts that fully autonomous weapons would ever be able to replicate human judgment.

   
The obstacles to accountability (hrw)

   

  Education across the world

   
There has been tremendous progress across the world since 2000 – but we are not there yet. Despite all efforts by governments, civil society and the international community, the world has not achieved Education for All. There are still 58 million children out of school globally and around 100 million children who do not complete primary education.

   
Achievements & challenges (EFA)

   

  The rising cost of a healthy diet

   
Everywhere in the world the share of the population overweight and obese is increasing, no more so than in the emerging economies of the developing world. No country has stemmed the increase. Effective policies to combat obesity have yet to be proved, if only because no country has yet tested a sufficiently comprehensive set of policies.

   
Prices of foods vs incomes (odi)

   

  Financing SME

   
Traditional bank finance poses challenges to SMEs, in particular to newer, innovative and fast growing companies, with a higher risk. The long - standing need to strengthen capital structures and to decrease dependence on borrowing has become more urgent, as many firms were obliged to increase leverage in order to survive the recent economic and financial crisis.

   
Broadening the range of instruments (oecd)

   

  Cell phones in Africa

   
In a few short years, the proliferation of mobile phone networks has transformed communications in sub-Saharan Africa. It has also allowed Africans to skip the landline stage of development and jump right to the digital age. Since 2002, cell phone ownership has exploded in the countries where trends are available. In 2002, only 8% of Ghanaians owned a mobile phone, that figure stands at 83% today.

   
Communication Lifeline (pewglobal)

   

  QUIC protocol as GoogSolution

   
You may have never heard of it, but if you are a Chrome users, chances are you’ve used Google’s QUIC protocol already. As Google disclosed this week, about half of all requests from Chrome to Google’s servers are now served over QUIC. QUIC is Google’s experimental, low-latency Internet transportation protocol over UDP, a protocol that is often used by gaming, streaming media and VoIP services.

   
On how reduce latency? (techcrunch)

   

  How to manage and eliminate threats ?

   
SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face. What makes SWOT particularly powerful is that, with a little thought, it can help you uncover opportunities that you are well-placed to exploit. By understanding the weaknesses of your business, you can manage and eliminate threats.

   
How to Use the Tool? (mindtools)

   

  Demographic change & Economic impacts

   
Human resources constraints will affect economic growth in the EU, the US, China and other global players. In most (not all) of these regions the inescapable decline of working-age population will impose restrictions on future employment and economic growth. Higher productivity growth will eventually become the only way to sustain a positive rate of economic growth in the EU and many other parts of the world including some of the emerging economies.

   
Trends in working age population (ec.europa)

   

  The small-business advantage

   
One thing that’s certain in today’s uncertain economy is that it’s better to make things happen rather than wait for them to happen. Being proactive in terms of small business opportunities is not as easy as it sounds. It takes a lot of time, commitment, labour and determination, not to mention a fearless spirit, both to come to life and stay alive.

   
Big business from small biz (iso)

   

  Electronic wastes: Rare earth recovery

   
The objective of the study is to describe the potential of innovative technologies for recovery of rare earths from electronic waste and to evaluate how they could be implemented in industry, in particular in hitech SMEs. EU is a net importer of REEs (Rare earth elements ) and accounted for less than 8% of the total in 2012. However, most REEs that enter the EU are already embodied in components manufactured outside the EU.

   
Business model on eco-innovation (europarl.europa)

   

  6 chemical compounds that thwart HuR

   
The findings, which could lead to a new class of cancer drugs, appear in the current issue of ACS Chemical Biology. "These are the first reported small-molecule HuR inhibitors that competitively disrupt HuR-RNA binding and release the RNA, thus blocking HuR function as a tumor-promoting protein," said Liang Xu, associate professor of molecular biosciences and corresponding author of the paper.

   
Direct HuR inhibitors (innovations-report)

   

  Hardware startups: it's getting less hard

   
For years, hardware startups throughout the tech industry struggled in part because the industry shoehorned them into a one-size-fits-all business model. That's no longer the case today. In the past two years, hardware experts, ranging from accelerators to supply chain experts and consultants, have come out of the woodwork. And they're all focused on helping small companies bring their gadgets to store shelves.

   
It still ain't easy (cnet)

   

  How Very Predictable We Are ?

   
Are we always an unpredictable mess when it comes to email? Younger people tend to send shorter, faster replies than older people, and men send slightly shorter and faster replies than women, the study finds. We respond more promptly during weekdays and work hours, and when we receive more messages, we tend to respond to a smaller fraction of them, and with shorter replies.

   
Email study (arxiv)

   

  The costs of data recovery

   
Data protection companies have multiplied in the past 10 years and they are locked in a bitter battle for market share. Thanks to Amazon-style public clouds we have a third option: storage owned by someone else. This comes in three varieties: cloud provider offers a software/service combo; you provide the software and rent the cloud storage; or a third-party provider offers software and storage.

   
The battle (theregister)

   

  The fate of Brazilian' SEED

   
There has been a huge uproar this week in Brazil’s startup scene around the fate of SEED, whose name stands for ‘Startups and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Development.’ Once one of the country’s leading acceleration programs, it saw its co-working space abruptly shut down a few days ago. While it quickly earned praised from the startup world, it appeared under threat since general election.

   
How get back on track? (thenextweb)

   

  Drug-resistant infections

   
Failure to tackle drug-resistant infections will lead to at least 10 million extra deaths a year and cost the global economy up to $100tn (£64tn) by 2050. The report is the first published by the Review into AMR, set up by Cameron in July, amid growing concerns about the scale of the problem. It acknowledges that the human impact should be enough to prompt major intervention.

   
No country is considered immune (amr-review)

   

  The evolution of the entrepreneur

   
No one knows for sure who the world’s first entrepreneur was. It’s too bad because it would make a great story. Ingenuity, passion, fearlessness, drive, commitment, grit. The best entrepreneurs of our time and the times before had these gainful characteristics in common and many more. Adaptability is perhaps the most crucial entrepreneurial trait of them all.

   
From Marco Polo to Mark Zuckerberg (entrepreneur)

   

  University rankings

   
University League tables went global in 2003 when Nian Cai Liu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, as he recently told The Economist, came up with six indicators with which to measure the performance of institutions from around the world. This endeavour was to become the so-called Academic Ranking of World Universities, also known as the Shanghai Rankings.

   
Independence and credibility (theneweconomy)

   

  New struggles facing open source

   
The early days of open source were fraught with religious animosities we feared would tear apart the movement: free software fundamentalists haggling with open source pragmatists over how many Apache licenses would fit on the head of a pin. But once commercial interests moved in to plunder for profit, the challenges faced by open source pivoted toward issues of control.

   
From purity to profit (infoworld)

   

  How states attract FDI ?

   
State-level economic development agencies pursue a variety of strategies to attract FDI, including targeted marketing and business development campaigns, generous business incentives, and old-fashioned relationship-building through trade missions, operation of permanent offices abroad, and intense networking through their existing international business communities.

   
Foreign' Direct Investment (areadevelopment)

   

  3D Medical visualisation

   
A company called EchoPixel announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared its True3D Viewer for use in diagnostics and surgical planning. The software platform converts existing 2D medical imaging data such as MRI and CT scans into fully interactive virtual reality images. With the system, doctors can view, manipulate and dissect body parts that are re-created in mid-air above an ordinary desktop.

   
Interactive technology market (smithsonianmag)

   

  Indnesia' economic survey

   
Growth has been strong in the decade and a half since the Asian Crisis but has slowed in recent years, reflecting weaker international demand, the fall in commodity prices and low investment growth, due in large part to heightened regulatory uncertainty and infrastructure bottlenecks. Indonesia’s abundant natural resources can be better harnessed by raising productivity and increasing efficiency in agriculture.

   
OECD' report

   

  Genomics Needs A Killer App

   
The exponential growth of applications that became possible thanks to the Internet changed every industry; the genomics network has that potential. Right now genomics is starting to be used for cancer drug targeting, family planning genetic screening, the diagnosis of rare diseases, and R&D. The field has been driven by a 1000X improvement in sequencing technology.

   
A major shift (techcrunch)

   

  Stateoftheinternet

   
This quarter’s report is the State of the Internet Report include a Security section covering attack traffic, reported DDoS attacks, and other security observations. Starting with the 1st Quarter, 2015 issue, all insight into these topics will be published exclusively in the State of the Internet /security Report. Also additional metrics analysis performed are reported.

   
Akamai’s report

   

  Consulting services 2015 vendor assessment

   
This IDC study represents the vendor assessment model called IDC MarketScape. This evaluation is based on a comprehensive framework and set of parameters expected to be most conducive to success in providing business consulting services during both the short term and the long term. A significant and unique component of this evaluation is the inclusion of business consulting buyers' perception.

   
IDC Marketscape Figure (pwc)         

   

  EU' DG for competition

   
DG Competition commissioned this Qualitative Eurobarometer study in order to obtain feedback on perceptions of the quality of its activities from its most important professional stakeholders. The study covers DG Competition’s enforcement, policy and advocacy activities. Feedback was sought in relation to the soundness of its legal and economic analyses.

   
Stakeholder Survey (ec.europa)

   

  Google working on a cure for cancer

   
Google has filed a patent application with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for a wrist-worn device that could destroy cancer cells in the blood. The patent application, which has the name "Nanoparticle Phoresis", describes a wearable device that "can automatically modify or destroy one or more targets in the blood that have an adverse health effect".

   
How to help people to live longer ? (patentscope.wipo)

   

  Italy's online security

   
Fewer hacktivists, more cybercriminals, and little or no protective measures to keep them out: two different reports on cybersecurity published recently in Italy have painted the same picture of the country's online future. The first report, by the Italian Information Security Association (CLUSIT), details current cybersecurity threats both on a global and national level.

   
The lack of awareness (zdnet)

   

  Calls for Gene-Editing Moratorium

   
Genome-editing technologies may offer a powerful approach to treat many human diseases, including HIV/AIDS, haemophilia, sickle-cell anaemia and several forms of cancer. All techniques currently in various stages of clinical development focus on modifying the genetic material of somatic cells, such as T cells (a type of white blood cell). These are not designed to affect sperm or eggs.

   
Don’t edit the human germ line (nature)

   

  Arabian Sea & Pollution

   
Karachi has just two functional wastewater treatment plants, and it is largely up to individual business owners to determine whether industrial waste is stored or dumped into canals, officials say. As a result, each day, 350 million gallons of raw sewage or untreated industrial waste — enough to fill 530 Olympic-sized swimming pools — from the city flows into the harbor.

   
Pollution erodes a way of life (washingtonpost)

   

  The effectiveness of homeopathy

   
The assessment of the evidence used standardised, accepted methods for assessing the quality and reliability of evidence for whether or not a therapy is effective for treating health conditions. For some health conditions, studies reported that homeopathy was not more effective than placebo. For other health conditions, there were poor-quality studies that reported homeopathy was more effective than placebo.

   
Making assessment (nhmrc)

   

  Bosch on AV Development

   
The development of autonomous vehicles is accelerating on a global scale. In addition to Google Inc, which is an IT giant, and major automakers, "mega suppliers" are developing autonomous cars, creating a three-cornered battle. What Bosch will realize until 2020 is an autonomous car that automatically comes to you when you call it at the entrance of a parking lot by using a smartphone.

   
Bosch' development plan (nikkeibp)

   

  The-connected-business

   
Companies such as iZettle, Payleven and SumUp use mobile technologies to deliver low-cost competition to traditional card payment services, which often have long contracts and monthly fees that deter small businesses. Boston Consulting Group study of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) found the 25 per cent of SMEs that use mobile services grow up to twice as fast as their peers.

   
SMEs at risk (ft-static)

   

  Influenza vaccines faster prod.

   
In the event of an impending global flu pandemic, vaccine production could quickly reach its limits, as flu vaccines are still largely produced in embryonated chicken eggs. Udo Reichl, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, and his colleagues have therefore been working on a fully automated method for production in cell cultures that could yield vaccines in large quantities in a crisis.

   
Vaccines from a reactor (mpg)

   

  How to jump to a new industry?

   
If you are looking for a job just like the one you have now, no problem — you already appear safe. But the minute you try to climb one rung up the career ladder or change careers, industry or functional area, you become more risky in the eyes of a potential hiring manager. Before jumping into a new field of endeavor, you are already at a disadvantage compared with all of the people who already have experience in it.

   
The successful pattern of behavior (bizjournals)

   

  FDA Approves First Biosimilar

   
The approval is a groundbreaking decision, as Sandoz is the first pharmaceutical company to have a biosimilar product approved in the United States. Known as Zarzio outside of the US, Sandoz says its biosimilar filgrastim is already available in more than 60 countries worldwide, has generated more than 7.5 million patient-days of exposure, and is "the most widely used filgrastim in Europe."

   
Biosimilar, but not interchangeable (pharmtech)

   

  SME: A vital engine of innovation

   
Small business is – quite frankly – big business. It is estimated that more than 90% of the world’s businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Surprised? Don’t be. SMEs are, on average, the businesses that are generating growth, creating jobs, growing faster and innovating more. But most of all, they are a good deal less complicated (structurally) and more efficient and flexible than are large firms.

   
Between success and failure (iso)

   

  Air pollution: EEA warns

   
Hundreds of thousands of Europeans will suffer a premature death in the next two decades as the result of governments’ failure to act on air pollution, Europe’s environmental watchdog has warned. In 2011, the latest year for which figures have been reliably collated, more than 400,000 are estimated to have died prematurely as a result of breathing toxic fumes, despite recent improvements in some countries.

   
Pollution survey (eea.europa)

   

  Knowledge-Based Trust

   
Quality assessment for web sources is of tremendous importance in web search. It has been traditionally evaluated using exogenous signals such as hyperlinks and browsing history. However, such signals mostly capture how popular a webpage is. For example, the gossip websites listed in [Ebizmba] mostly have high PageRank scores, but would not generally be considered reliable.

   
Quality of web sources (arxiv)

   

  5G Disruptive capabilities

   
5G will integrate networking, computing and storage resources into one programmable and unified infrastructure. This unification will allow for an optimized and more dynamic usage of all distributed resources, and the convergence of fixed, mobile and broadcast services. In addition, 5G will support multi tenancy models, enabling operators and other players to collaborate in new ways.

   
Most promising technical options (5g-ppp)

   

  Evaluation under REACH Progress

   
The findings of this report and the first measurements of dossier quality improvement that will be reported in the next general report show improvement in dossier quality. Registrants have taken evaluation decisions seriously and improved their dossiers accordingly. The increased number of cases where requested information was provided after involvement of the Member State authorities.

   
Seventh annual report (echa.europa)

   

  Assessments: Alcohol vs illicit drugs

   
Scientists examined drugs ranging from alcohol and tobacco to ecstasy and heroin, comparing known lethal doses and the average amount used to find which substances posed the biggest problems to society. Alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and heroin all fell into the 'high risk' category for individuals, while only alcohol posed a 'high risk' in terms of population exposure.

   
Novel risk assessment methodology (nature)

   

  ISO 14001 revision moves forward

   
Experts revising ISO 14001 on environmental management systems met in Tokyo in February 2015 to look at over 1 400 comments received during the previous public consultation (DIS) and produce a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). The FDIS will be put to the vote and the standard released for publication once approved. The new version is expected by the end of 2015.

   
ISO 14001 overhaul (iso)

   

  GitHub for the rest of us

   
It's less obvious that Git, the tool invented to coordinate the development of the Linux kernel, and GitHub, the tool-based culture that surrounds it, will be as widely relevant. Most people don't sling code for a living. But as the work products and processes of every profession are increasingly digitized, many of us will gravitate to tools designed to coordinate our work on shared digital artifacts. That's why Git and GitHub are finding their way into workflows that produce artifacts other than, or in addition to, code.

   
The open collaboration (infoworld)

   

  Mechano-chemical activation tech.

   

(MCA) is a process in which mechanical energy is transferred to a solid material during grinding. The accumulated energy (ΔE) generates a thermodynamic transition from a stable to a metastable, high energetic structure of the material. To revert to the thermodynamically stable form, it is necessary to release the excess energy. The energy relaxation can occur through heat, plastic deformation, or rupture of chemical bonds.

   
Drug delivery platform (pharmtech)

   

  Optimized defect detection capability

   
From 10 to 12 March 2015, at the JEC Europe in Paris, engineers of Fraunhofer IZFP in Saarbrücken will introduce a novel procedure which enables noncontact and contamination-free defect inspection even in case of strongly absorbing hybrid materials.They are not ascertainable by the naked eye – nevertheless minute cracks or defects, particularly in safety-critical sectors, can cause disastrous consequences.

   
Non-destructive testing techniques (innovations-report)

   

  DNA privacy & Regulation

   
Anybody who has watched a crime drama knows the trick. The cops need someone's DNA, but they don’t have a warrant, so they invite the suspect to the station house, knowing some of the perp’s genetic material will likely be left behind. Bingo, crime solved. Next case. A human sheds as much as 100 pounds of DNA-containing material in a lifetime and about 30,000 skin cells an hour.

   
Your DNA is everywhere (arstechnica)

   

  Arkema’s application authorised

   
The request from the UK Food Standards Agency followed an application on behalf of Arkema (UK). The first application was in January 2013 with updated versions in January and September last year. The safety assessment of the copolymer in nanoform was requested for use as an additive (impact modifier) in rigid non-plasticised polyvinylchloride (PVC) at up to 10% (w/w) and in non-plasticised polylactic acid (PLA) at up to 15% (w/w).

   

EFSA' endorsement (foodproductiondaily)

   

  New nanogel for drug delivery

   
Scientists are interested in using gels to deliver drugs because they can be molded into specific shapes and designed to release their payload over a specified time period. However, current versions aren’t always practical because must be implanted surgically. To help overcome that obstacle, MIT chemical engineers have designed a new type of self-healing hydrogel that could be injected through a syringe.

   
Long-term drug delivery (newsoffice.mit)

   

  UK food: Integrity of the supply system

   
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched an investigation into the potentially life-threatening undeclared use of nuts, after two cases came to light in the past fortnight of products which claimed to contain cumin, but also included undeclared traces of nut. Professor Elliott’s concerns follow a disastrous cumin harvest in the major growing region of Gujarat, India.

   
The FSA' investigation (telegraph)

   

  Firefox' Shumway vs Adobe Flash

   
The Firefox Nightly channel now uses Shumway to play Flash videos on Amazon.com," said Mozilla programmer Chris Peterson in a mailing list message. "The Shumway team has been improving compatibility with Flash video players and will whitelist more Flash video sites soon." Yes, it's only a baby step, but it's an important one in the history of the Web.

   
Mozilla's Shumway project (cnet)

   

  Medicare: The new paradigm

   
As part of an effort to bring government spending on healthcare under control, Medicare is moving to a new paradigm—focusing on outcomes and the value of service provided, rather than volume. Instead of simply reimbursing providers according to set formulas, the agency has been experimenting with alternative payment models, such as accountable care organizations, bundled payment Arrangements, and medical homes.

   
Fee-for-Service to Fee-for-Value (strategy-business)

   

  The Web of Science

   
Good institutions typically rely on Google Scholar or Microsoft Academic Search. Both have their limits; they can be gamed a bit, for example through self-citations, but the effect is marginal. Some authors have also succeeded in demonstrating the possibility of outright fraud with Google Scholar, but the techniques are so extreme that it is hard to imagine a serious institution falling for them.

   
What is Your Research Culture? (acm)

   

  Insight on metro benchmarking groups

   
Over the last three years, London Underground (LU) and Docklands Light Railway’s (DLR) have both improved at a faster rate than the average of all metros for all seven lead metrics. They have also improved more rapidly than the average of other Western European and North American metros in the time period 2010/11 to 2013/14.

   

Reliability, safety,environment (tfl)

   

  Advances: Management of pre-eclampsia

   
Pre-eclampsia complicates around 5% of pregnancies and is a major cause of iatrogenic preterm birth. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are responsible for over 60,000 maternal deaths worldwide annually. Both maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality are increased in pregnancies complicated by pre-eclampsia, and there is significant personal cost to families affected by the disease.

   
Prediction and diagnosis (f1000)

   

  2014 Living conditions in Europe

   
The statistical book on living conditions aims at providing a comprehensive picture of the current living conditions in Europe. Different aspects of living conditions are covered through a corpus of indicators reflecting the socio-economic conditions ffecting the everyday life of Europeans. Such aspects are related to income, housing, material deprivation, (child) poverty as well as social exclusion.

   
Data analysis & comparison (europa)

   

  The upper class isn't less ethical

   
Research has previously shown that upper-class individuals are more likely to behave unethically than lower-class people. But, says David Dubois, lead researcher of a new paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, it’s not that simple: both groups behave unethically in different contexts. Many people think of unethical behaviour in terms of selfish behavior—violating moral standards to give yourself an advantage.

   
Spotting cheaters (arstechnica)

   

  Predicting new concrete formulas

   
A recent study conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Strasbourg and Sika Corporation using Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science supercomputers has led to a new way to predict concrete’s flow properties from simple measurements based on the microscopic shear rates that existed between neighboring particles.

   
ALCF supercomputers simulator (nist)

   

  The value of QA for mobile

   
For many development projects, it is merely an afterthought, the perfunctory final stage of testing before you launch your excellent app publicly. It often takes significant amounts of time and can command a healthy percentage of development hours—and the resulting balance sheet—for mobile engagements. Mobile app developers need to completely rethink this mission-critical element to mobile app development.

   
Taking a different approach to QA (developer)

   

  MIT: Online how-to videos improvements

   
MIT is working on using crowdsourced navigational information to build better interfaces for online how-to videos. Students team built a how-to video player called ToolScape that highlights each step in an instructional video with short descriptions and before-and-after thumbnails. That makes it possible to quickly check whether a video teaches what you want to learn.

   
Students redesign the how-to video (fastcodesign)

   

  EU' chemical overview

   
The EU chemical industry ranks second, along with the United States in total sales. When including both the European Union and non-EU countries in Europe, total sales reached €630 billion in 2013, or 20 per cent of world chemicals sales in value terms. Worldwide competition has racheted up in the last ten years.ouble those of the European Union.

   
Growth & competitiveness (zone-secure)

   

  Sleeping drugs & Risk of Alzheimer

   

There have been concerns that regular use by older people of certain medications with anticholinergic effects, such as sleep aids and hayfever treatments, can increase the risk of dementia in certain circumstances, which this study supports. However, it is still unclear whether this is the case and if so, whether the effects seen are a result of long-term use or several episodes of short-term use.

   

The Study (theguardian)

   

  Spartan: Windows10' new browser

   
Spartan provides a more interoperable, reliable, and discoverable experience with advanced features including the ability to annotate on web pages, a distraction-free reading experience, and integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster. Spartan is a single browser designed to work great across the entire Windows 10 device family.

   
New rendering engine (msdn)

   

  Long-term memory: Genes involved

   
The study, identified more than 750 genes involved in long-term memory, including many that had not been found previously and that could serve as targets for future research, said senior author Coleen Murphy, an associate professor of molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. The newly pinpointed genes are ‘turned on’ by a molecule known as CREB.

   
The inter-temporal choice paradigms (cell)

   

  Environment: why Life on Earth at risk ?

   
Humans are “eating away at our own life support systems” at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years by degrading land and freshwater systems, emitting greenhouse gases and releasing vast amounts of agricultural chemicals into the environment, new research has found. Two major new studies by an international team of researchers have pinpointed the key factors that ensure a livable planet for humans, with stark results.

   
Environmental degradation (sciencemag)

   

  The new maths of weather prediction

   
Until the 1960s the forecast was based on making records of observations, and identifying patterns, or “analogues”, in these records. Poor as they were, however, analogues were the best option available since the other method – using equations to create mathematical models – was not practical until the birth of the electronic computer.

   
Stochastic-processes & Prediction (theguardian)

   

  Should you treat distributors as customers

   
By using a customer metric with end users, suppliers can spot changes in customer attitudes that could affect future sales. If end users consistently give low ratings on customer surveys, it’s likely their distributor isn’t executing on the supplier’s brand promise or providing exemplary customer service.Evaluating and forecasting distributor performance is traditionally difficult, but end-user customer data makes it much more accurate.

   
High employee engagement (qualitydigest)

   

  Hybrid 'super mosquito'

   
The research, published Jan. 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "provides convincing evidence indicating that a man-made change in the environment -- the introduction of insecticides -- has altered the evolutionary relationship between two species, in this case a breakdown in the reproductive isolation that separates them," said the director of the Vector Genetics Laboratory in the School of Veterinary Medicine.

   
Man-made evolution of insecticide resistance (eurekalert)

   

  Germany’s automotive industry

   
In recent years, the German automotive industry has consistently expanded its global position. It built 5.65 million new cars in Germany in 2014 – an increase of four percent on 2013. Production in plants located outside Germany is rising too – by five percent to 9.15 million cars. Consequently, some 14.8 million new cars will be rolling off the assembly lines of our manufacturers worldwide.

   
Going from strength to strength (theneweconomy)

   

  Rebuilding Pharma

   
In January 2013, the UK based consultancy group PatientView surveyed 600 patient groups across Europe and the Americas to evaluate the corporate reputation of pharma in general and 29 leading pharma companies specifically. In terms of reputation, the pharma industry was 7th of the 8 healthcare sectors evaluated. Only 34% of respondents gave pharma a “good” or “excellent” rating for reputation.

   
Principles of patient engagement (social.eyeforpharma)

   

  Industrial specialisation & Economic performance

   
This paper quantifies the relationship between factor endowments,policies and institutions and patterns of industrial specialisation in production using a new cross-country dataset compiled by WIOD.as compared with those used by previous studies - is that makes it possible to look at industrial specialization in terms of value added instead of gross exports, covering both services and manufactures.

   
Specialization & value added (oecd-ilibrary)

   

  A bright future for cloud

   
According to Forrester Research,the public cloud market is estimated to reach $191 billion by 2020, a significant climb from 2013’s total of $58 billion. Forrester asserts that cloud applications will lead this growth, achieving approximately $133 billion in revenue by 2020. Cloud platforms will follow, generating an estimated $44 billion in revenue.

   
The evolution of IT in business innovation (kpmginfo)

   

  Water: The new blue economy?

   
Disparities between states with abundant, available, and relatively inexpensive freshwater resources, and those that are becoming parched or water-stressed, increasingly are coming into play as companies make location decisions. And the contrasts are beginning to change the roster of “have” and “have-not” areas of the country. Water availability didn’t place in the top-10 most important factors in selecting a site.

   
Water' supply (areadevelopment)

   

  Information as an asset

   
Business models that accelerate learning through more targeted, faster exchange and application of information create new types of value. For example, industrial products companies are using sensors to monitor and accumulate information about potential equipment risks related to material quality and reliability under specific manufacturing conditions.

   
How to make better decisions? (Financial Times)

   

  10 hottest IT skills for 2015

   
The pace of job growth in IT may be slowing down, but it’s still moving at a strong clip. Computerworld’s 2015 Forecast survey said that their companies plan to add more IT employees in the year ahead. While down from 32% and 33% in the previous two years, the fact that a number of employers still anticipate growth indicates that the prospects for expansion in the IT ranks are good.

   
Bankable assets (computerworld)

   

  MS guidelines ISO 19600 - 2014

   
This International Standard does not specify requirements, but provides guidance on compliance management systems and recommended practices. The guidance in this International Standard is intended to be adaptable, and the use of this guidance can differ depending on the size and level of maturity of an organization’s compliance management system.

   
Compliance management system (iso)
   

  Significant release of greenhouse gas methan

   
Permafrost keeps the free methane gas in the sediments. But it also stabilizes gas hydrates, ice-like structures that usually need high pressure and low temperature to form. "Gas hydrates normally form in water depths over 300 meters, because they depend on high pressure. But under permafrost the gas hydrate may stay stable even where the pressure is not that high, because of the constantly low temperatures."

   
Evolution of permafrost (innovations-report)

   

  The cost of a new regulation

   
Medical device regulators around the world often have to assess the cost of a new regulation. Typically there is a study to determine the financial effect on industry and the public. In contrast, technical standards created by ISO, IEC, and other standards development organizations are not screened or vetted with the same degree of accountability.

   
Product’s safety & performance (qualitydigest)

   

  Rome innovation lab

   
Telecom Italia and Huawei have announced a three-year cooperation agreement to create a Business Innovation Centre (BIC) in Italy to develop new technologies and services. Huawei will provide technical staff, skills, and international experience for the BIC while Telecom Italia will define which projects and services should be deployed, coordinate the various tasks, and use its own developer.

   
Telecom Italia & Huawei partnership (zdnet)

   

  The marine environment & Pollution

   
Plastic pollution is ubiquitous throughout the marine environment, yet estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics have lacked data, particularly from the Southern Hemisphere and remote regions. Here we report an estimate of the total number of plastic particles and their weight floating in the world's oceans from 24 expeditions (2007–2013) across all five sub-tropical gyres.

   
Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans (plosone)

   

  Your work place as you can imagine

   
Employees who sit near a window are better at staying on task, show greater interest in their work, and report more loyalty to their company. A 2003 study found that when call center employees—who often rotate seats—are placed near a window, they generate an additional $3,000 of productivity per year. The amount of direct sunlight entering an office can reliably predict the level of employee satisfaction in a workplace.

   
Influence of primal instinct (strategy-business)

   

  Is Six Sigma Dead?

   
A number of recent articles in quality literature (and in the quality blogosphere) have posited the death or failure of Six Sigma. More articles, from many of the same sources, discuss the outstanding success of current Six Sigma efforts in manufacturing, healthcare, government, and financial services organizations. Which is it? Is Six Sigma dying, or is it alive and well?

   
Case studies (qualitydigest)

   

  India: strong & inclusive growth

   
The Indian economy is showing signs of a turnaround. New reforms, some of which are included in the package presented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, need to be implemented to put the country on a path to strong, sustainable and inclusive growth, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of India. India slowed more than many other countries since 2011, but is now recovering faster.

   
India' reforms & effects (slideshare)

   

  Medical & Digital

   
There are numerous examples in Germany of companies taking advantage of the surge in information technology, particularly the rapid proliferation of smartphones, to explore the opportunities in what many believe will become a fast-growing sector. nternet giants like Google are currently preparing to make large investments in the sector. In the United States alone, some $3.5 billion ($4.38 billion) is expected to be invested.

   
'Patients Want It' (spiegel)

   

  ISO 9001 & Risk management

   
The product life cycle is moving at warp speed, which makes measuring compliance difficult. To keep up with this pace, tools such as those associated with risk management are beneficial. Proper risk management makes it possible to handle your organization's adverse events systematically, allowing you to keep up while maintaining and ultimately improving compliance.

   
How to align your organization? (qualitydigest)

   

  Perovstkyte: Best energy converter

   
There’s a lot of excitement about a class of materials called perovskites that promise to deliver efficient and cheap solar cells. Watching progress in perovskite research is fascinating because perovskites have been able to boost their efficiencies — the percentage of available sunlight that they convert to electricity — more rapidly than any other solar cell material that has been mass produced or being developed in labs.

   
Small improvements & Big impact (gigaom)

   

  Dietary saturated fat VS Plasma SFA

   
The aim of this study was to determine how incremental increases in carbohydrate, and decreases in fat, affect plasma SFA and palmitoleic acid in adults with metabolic syndrome who were carefully fed moderately hypocaloric diets for 21 wk. A primary hypothesis was that, despite consuming substantially higher amounts of saturated fat, plasma SFA would remain unchanged in the context of lower carbohydrate intake.

   
Experimental approach (plosone)

   

  Websites silently tracking users

   
European data protection watchdogs publish guidance on web tracking using device fingerprinting that could result in more ‘I agree’ forms. It means that some websites, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, that have used alternative technical processes to try to bypass the need for a “cookie policy notice” will have to show a notification after all.

   

Europe’s next privacy war (theguardian)

   

  Tax Exchanging info. as Inter. STD

   
The Global Forum engages in a range of initiatives which are aimed at supporting its member jurisdictions in effectively implementing the international standards, and ensuring that exchanges between members’ tax authorities are efficient and of high quality. This section of the report describes these initiatives, which can be broadly described as technical assistance, comprising skills support and peer-to-peer learning.

   
Peer reviews (oecd)

   

  France & Sweden: safer trucks delayed

   

Until now, all trucks had to comply with standardized EU rules on the length of trucks, for example. But it did not give car makers the option to manufacture new designs that would improve energy efficiency or safety. The new bill allows manufacturers to build heavier and larger trucks as long as they are safer on the roads and contribute to saving fuel.

   
New low & New trucks (euractiv)

   

  Meritocracy: Equality of opportunity

   
briefly summarize the state of knowledge on mobility in the United States; describe a new micro-simulation model designed to examine (relative intergenerational income mobility) – the Social Genome Model (SGM); and report results from the model on the impact of repeated policy interventions across different life stages on rates of relative mobility.

   
Kids: (Poor vs Rich) (bostonfed)

   

  Regin's stealthy surveillance

   
Regin is an extremely complex piece of software that can be customized with a wide range of different capabilities which can be deployed depending on the target. It is built on a framework that is designed to sustain long-term intelligence-gathering operations by remaining under the radar. Its stealth combines many of the most advanced techniques that we have ever seen in use.

   
The top-tier espionage tool (symantec)

   

  The World Giving Index Top 20

   
The countries which comprise the Top 10 remain largely the same as those reported in 2013. Of most significance is the entrance of Malaysia in seventh place, from a 2013 reported ranking of seventy-one, reflecting a 26 percentage point increase in its World Giving Index score. This change is a broad based one, reflected in large increases across all three giving methods.

   
Volontering & Donation (cafonline)

   

  UK' Campylobacter contamination

   
Officials at Public Health England claim that without sufficient legislation the industry will resist implementing measures that could help to reduce the contamination of chickens for fear it will drive up the cost of meat. Their warnings come as the Food Standards Agency is preparing to publish a survey assessing the campylobacter levels on chicken being sold at leading UK supermarkets.

   
Poor practice from the poultry industry (theguardian)

   

  Me My Life My CAR

   
Two-car households may be on the decline as urbanization increases, but they are far from disappearing, a KPMG report said. With more people living in urban environments, where ridesharing is becoming more common, will car ownership decrease? “Mobility on demand,” such as rideshare companies Uber and Lyft, is slated to increase to 10 million vehicles by 2040.

   
KPMG report

   

  The dark shadow of thalidomide

   
The criminal trial of employees of Chemie-Grünenthal, the German company that created and marketed thalidomide, opened in the pretty town of Alsdorf, near Aachen, on 27 May 1968. Thousands of deformed babies had died or been allowed to die. A hundred victims in Australia and New Zealand were left to struggle unaided for 40 years until Ken Youdale of the Australian Thalidomide Trust won a class action suit in 2013.

   
Is there any moral obligation? (theguardian)

   

  Africa Energy Outlook

   
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Africa Energy Outlook – a Special Report in the 2014 World Energy Outlook series – offers a most comprehensive analytical study of energy in Africa, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa, the epicentre of the global challenge to overcome energy poverty. More than 620 million people live without access to electricity and nearly 730 million people use hazardous which affects women and children disproportionately.

   
The benefits of regional energy integration (iea)

   

  Genetic basis of extreme longevity

   
Supercentenarians are the world’s oldest people, living beyond 110 years of age [1]. As would be expected for people that reach this age, supercentenarians have escaped many age-related diseases. Lifestyle choices in terms of smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, or diet does not appear to differ between centenarians and controls.

   
Supercentenarian & Genome Sequencing (plosone)

   

  Entrepreneur: Early-stage funding

   
Because early-stage ventures usually revolve around untried technologies, novel products and services, and uncertain levels of market demand, investors can’t base their bets on the firm’s proven track record. Instead, they must weigh the promises and assertions made by entrepreneurs. As a result, one of the most important tasks confronting fledgling companies is to engage by presenting their business plan in a cogent, captivating manner that appeals to investors.

   
How to secure early-stage funding (strategy-business)

   

  The clinical evaluation

   
Getting it right is a perennial dilemma in planning clinical evaluations. Some of the questions that manufacturers must answer are which route it chose, why, and how it shows the device’s conformity to the essential requirements. If a manufacturer doesn’t sufficiently answer these questions, its notified body may ask questions of its own, or may request additional clinical data.

   
How to maintain your regulatory certification ? (lne-america)

   

  Digital Economy & Tax Challenges

   
Tax experts responsible for the G20-led shakeup of international tax rules are discussing radical measures to bar global corporations from using internal loans, that bear no relation to their borrowing needs, in order to avoid tax. If adopted, the move could wipe out vast swaths of the financial industry at a stroke in countries such as Switzerland and Luxembourg.

   
Internal loans that help cut tax (oecd-ilibrary)

   

  R&D collaboration: The hidden costs

   
In this paper we investigate the barriers to collaboration in terms of the hidden transaction costs, by first developing a model to estimate the distribution of operating costs (henceforth, referred to as “fixed costs”) and sunk costs (costs that have already been incurred and that cannot be recovered) associated with firms’ investment choices in R&D and innovation activities with and without a research partner.

   
Low costs in R&D cooperation (europa)

   

  China' quantum encryption

   
China will soon have the world's most secure major computer network, making communications between Beijing and Shanghai impenetrable to hackers and giving it a decisive edge in its quiet cyberwar with the United States. In two years' time, a fibre-optic cable between the two cities will transmit quantum encryption keys that can completely secure government, financial and military information from eavesdroppers.

   
Pushing the boundaries (telegraph)

   

  India' Non-Communicable Diseases

   
India faces the human and economic threat posed by Non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and other NCDs are estimated to account for 60% of all deaths in India, making them the leading cause of death – ahead of injuries and communicable, maternal, prenatal, and nutritional conditions.

   
Threat posed by NCDs (weforum)

   

  The achievements of scientific research

   
Currently, many published research findings are false or exaggerated, and an estimated 85% of research resources are wasted. To make more published research true, practices that have improved credibility and efficiency in specific fields may be transplanted to others which would benefit from them—possibilities include the adoption of large-scale collaborative research; replication culture..

   
Science research efficiency (plosmedicine)

   

  CEOs: Best-performance ranking

   
While HBR’s global CEO ranking takes a critical step forward by gauging CEOs on long-term, rather than short-term, gains, it nevertheless looks at performance in purely financial terms. Yet a company’s greatness also depends on nonfinancial factors—like social responsibility and integrity. Though these are harder to quantify, there are organizations that try to track such factors and compare how companies measure up on them.

   
HBR' gauge (hbr)

   

  M2M communications

   
The amount of data generated in the water industry is phenomenal. The more data that can be collected and analysed, the more the intelligence of the automation systems at the heart of water plants can be increased. This enables improved operational control, remote management, predictive maintenance and quality.Ethernet and internet connectivity could really help to enhance process and production operations.

   
Increased sophistication of controls (engineerlive)

   

  U.S. internet speed lagging behind

   
For the third year in a row, the Open Technology Institute at New America conducted an extensive research project aimed at assessing the cost and quality of broadband Internet access plans in 24 cities in the United States and abroad. it presents a review of existing literature on the subject of broadband availability and the relative competitiveness of broadband offerings.

   
Actual broadband speeds (newamerica)

   

  Western indus.: On the verge of losing

   
The ability to allow as many layers of society as possible to benefit from economic advancement and participate in political life seems to be a mirage. Some 250 wealthy and extremely wealthy individuals, from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to Unilever CEO Paul Polman, gathered in a venerable castle on the Thames River to lament the fact that in today's capitalism, there is too little left over for the lower income classes.

   
The capitalism of uncertainty (spiegel)

   

  Nondestructive Testing: An Overview

   
Nondestructive testing (NDT), as the name implies, is a methodology used for examining the hidden internal structure, measuring the thickness, or characterizing the material of industrial parts without cutting or otherwise damaging them. These technologies include ultrasound, remote visual inspection, and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyzers.

   
Ensuring safety & quality control (qualitydigest)

   

  Trouble over ITER

   
ITER was originally proposed in 1985 as a joint U.S.-Soviet Union venture. The United States backed out of the project in 1998 because of cost and schedule concerns—only to rejoin in 2003. At the time, ITER construction costs were estimated at $5 billion. That number had jumped to $12 billion by 2006, when the European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States signed a formal agreement to build the device.

   
Fusion research (sciencemag)

   

  Orphan drugs: Way to go for pharma?

   
With drying drug pipelines and increasing competition from generics, the orphan drug sector offers several attractions for pharma. Market exclusivity, protocol assistance, and fee reductions are among some of the benefits offered to the industry on both sides of the Atlantic.During the 14-year period between 2000 and 2013, 86 orphan drugs were approved in the U.S.

   
Orphan drug designation (social.eyeforpharma)

   

  Top Websites: Security Headers

   

This report adds back the much needed analysis of changes, additions and removals of security headers. These are important metrics as it allows us to gain insight into how web site operators are reacting to the changes of their web resources. Now that we have a previous report to compare against, we can once again generate these statistics and do a full analysis.

   
Comparison Overview (veracode)

   

  Internet of things: Next cloud battleground

   
Sensors and connected devices are popping up everywhere, and the data they’re producing has to be processed somewhere. While the easy stuff and the immediate stuff happens locally, more complex stuff — predictive analytics, visualizing data on mobile apps, talking to other devices or applications — happens in the cloud. Cloud computing providers are already beginning their fight to house all that data and all those workloads.

   
Devices management (gigaom)

   

  Measure for Measure

   
A critical aspect of managing processes is the ability to measure well. Confidence in the integrity of collected data is imperative to ensure that appropriate decisions are made about acceptable product and process changes. It is possible that products declared “out of specification” may be the result of a defective measurement system rather than a poor process.

   
Measurement techniques (qualitydigest)

   

  Lockheed' breakthrough on fusion energy

   
Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors. In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.

   
Solving global energy (news.yahoo)

   

  Irish' baby business boom

   
While multinationals such as Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble still dominate a huge portion of the baby-care market, increasingly parents are turning to small, independent businesses who claim their products and services are better for baby. Infant formula manufacturer SMA estimates that the majority of new parents will spend between €2,000 and €5,000 on their baby before it reaches its first birthday.

   
The commercialisation of birth (independent)

   

  Data Presentation in B.I.

   
With the basic understanding of Business Intelligence, we should know the importance of data presentation in information delivery and how useful it is for business users. After storing data in the required form, either in a data warehouse/data mart database or an OLAP cube, data can be showcased in certain forms that will become the source of required information for all BI users; this is known as Reports in the BI world.

   
Reports & Tools (developer)

   

  First Japan passenger jet

   
A "rolling out" ceremony in Nagoya, central Japan on Saturday will unveil the long awaited Mitsubishi Regional Jet, or MRJ, a fuel-efficient lightweight carbon-fiber composite passenger plane. Major Japanese machinery maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries says the MRJ90 will seat 88 people, while the MRJ70 will seat 76, and the planned MRJ100X will have 100 seats.

   
Mitsubishi regional jet (stuff)

   

  Successful people

   
Branson doesn’t merely say things like, “Screw it, just get on and do it.” He actually lives his life that way. He drops out of school and starts a business. He signs the Sex Pistols to his record label when everyone else says they are too controversial. He charters a plane when he doesn’t have the money. He figures out how to stop procrastinating and take the first step — even if it seems outlandish.

   
Start now before you are ready (thenextweb)

   

  Backing Science Start-Ups

   
Vestaron makes an eco-friendly pesticide derived from spider venom. Bagaveev uses 3-D printers to make rocket engines for nanosatellites. Transatomic Power is developing a next-generation reactor that runs on nuclear waste. After years of shying away from science, engineering and clean-technology start-ups, investors are beginning to take an interest in them again.

   
Venture capitalists' return (nytimes)

   

  Delivering growth - Managing complexity

   
The finance function has played a vital role in helping companies to overcome the challenges of the past few years, and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is now the Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO) go-to partner for driving operational transformation and strategic execution. CFOs have helped companies to impose the discipline over costs, cash and capital that has been necessary for survival.

   
CFO: Architect of Business Value (accenture)

   

  Introverts vs Extroverts

   
Developers like to think they’re extroverted. Chances are they’re not. A recent IDG study, Introverts vs. Extroverts: Is There an IT Personality?, found that just over half of IT workers are introverts. Only those engineers who mistakenly think they’re extroverted would find that surprising. Now, before you take offense, to say that most IT workers are introverts, isn’t to say that they are the stereotypical computer nerd.

   
Popular stereotype (computerworld)

   

  Leading business consulting firms

   
This study assesses the capability and business strategy of many of the leading business consulting firms. This evaluation is based on a comprehensive framework and set of parameters expected to be most conducive to success in providing strategy consulting services during both the short term and the long term. A significant and unique component of this evaluation is the inclusion of business consulting buyers ' perception of both.

   
IDC MarketScape (idcdocserv)

   

  Eye tracker for £43

   
Faisal’s lab straddles bioengineering and computing and works to unravel how the brain functions and subsequently how this knowledge can be applied to devices assisting people with restricted mobility. His discoveries could help amputees, people with paralysis, those with arthritis, and the aged to be more mobile. Since the control of the eye comes straight from the brain, injuries to the spinal cord do not affect eye movements.

   
Eye-based user interfaces (theguardian)

   

  Pragmatic impact investing strategy

   
Impact investing has become a popular topic of discussion. While impact investing has entered the mainstream mindset, it has not become part of the strategy, operations and business culture of mainstream investment institutions. Moreover, with exogenous trends such as population growth, rising inequality, impact investing offers a progressive approach to mitigating risk.

   
Roadmap (weforum)

   

  Contactless payment & German' resistance

   
With contactless cards growing in popularity and the recent announcement of Apple Pay catching the headlines, payment systems are a hot topic of late. However, a 2014 Federal Reserve Report has revealed that 82 percent of all transactions in Germany are paid for with cash, compared with 46 percent in the US, which could prove troublesome for those hoping to implement new payment technologies.

   
Shadow vs transparent economy (theneweconomy)

   

  Yahoo-AOL merger proposal

   
Investors are revisiting one of the most speculated Internet combinations, after activist investor Starboard on Friday pressured Yahoo to merge with AOL. A pairing could help the companies compete in their core advertising business. But even combined, they would remain but a shadow of the Internet powerhouses they once were, analysts and advertising experts said.

   
Recipe for revival or stagnation ? (news.yahoo)

   

  Piew: Tunisian's Optimism on trade

   
The benefits of trade are strongly appreciated in developing and emerging markets. Among all countries surveyed, Tunisians (87%), Ugandans (82%) and Vietnamese (78%) are the most likely to say trade creates new employment. Just 5% of Tunisians and Vietnamese fear that trade destroys jobs. Some of the greatest skepticism about tradeis found in the United States.

   
The impact of trade (pewglobal)

   

  How to use resources most effectively ?

   
Full-time equivalent(s), commonly referred to as FTE(s), represents the number of equivalent employees working full time. One full-time equivalent is equal to one employee working full time. Typically, FTEs are measured to one or two decimal points. FTEs are not people. Rather, FTEs are a ratio of worked time, within a specific scope, like a department, and the number of working hours during a given period of time.

   
FTEs as a mathematical tool (qualitydigest)

   

  ISO Survey

   
The survey shows the number of certificates to ISO management standards (such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001) given in each country, each year. The fluctuation in number of certificates from year to year is largely due to the variability in response from individual certification bodies. Despite our best efforts to display consistent results, this is not always possible as we cannot guarantee the same participation rate.

   
How MS tackle global challenges ? (iso)

   

  "Watson Analytics" instead spreadsheets

   
In an effort to commercialize its Watson analysis technology, IBM is testing a new service that can answer questions business managers might have about their data. The service "is about putting powerful analytics in the hands of every business user". Usually it is hard to analyze the data if you're not a specialist, and it is hard to use the tools. Watson Analytics attempts to streamline the process.

   
IBM ' Watson analysis tech. (computerworld)

   

  Safe use of chemicals

   
Risk assessment based on hazard and exposure data is at the core of safety management, whether in the research laboratory, on the production site or outside it. Results of risk assessments and risk management measures, ensuring that chemicals are safe for intended use, are communicated through safety data sheets and factsheets.

   
Chemical products in our daily lives (cefic)

   

  Securing your enterprise cloud

   
With the growing trend of criminals targeting online platforms and infrastructure, it's critical that organisations proactively monitor and review cloud security policies and practices. To counter these types of threats, three critical layers of protection for your platform and infrastructure must be enforced: Client device security, Application programming interfaces, Hardware-based protection and a root of trust.

   
The practical steps (zdnet)

   

  How to spot the brain in action ?

    
For years, neuroscientists have been trying to develop tools that would allow them to clearly view the brain's circuitry in action—from the first moment a neuron fires to the resulting behavior in a whole organism. To get this complete picture, neuroscientists are working to develop a range of new tools to study the brain. Researchers have developed one such tool that provides a new way of mapping neural networks in a living organism.

   
Neuronal activity with light (innovations-report)

   

  The future of employment

   
While there is ongoing disagreement about the driving forces behind the persistently high unemployment rates, a number of scholars have pointed at computer-controlled equipment as a possible explanation for recent jobless growth. At the same time, with falling prices of computing, problem-solving skills are becoming relatively productive, explaining the substantial employment growth in occupations involving cognitive tasks.

   
Employment's future uncertainty (oxfordmartin)

   

  Understanding of cell pathways

   
The Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) aims to catalog and analyze cellular function and molecular activity in response to perturbing agents — such as drugs and genetic factors — that are potentially disruptive to cells. LINCS researchers then will measure the cells’ tiniest molecular and biochemical responses, and use computer analyses to uncover common patterns in these responses — called “signatures.”

   
NIH awards (nih)

   

  Coffee genome sheds light

   
An international research team has sequenced the genome of the coffee plant Coffea canephora. By comparing genes in the coffee, tea and chocolate plants, the scientists show that enzymes involved in making caffeine likely evolved independently in these three organisms. he study was led by the French Institute of Research for Development, the French National Sequencing Center (CEA-Genoscope) and the University at Buffalo.

   
Caffeine' evolution (buffalo)

   

  The $3 million suit

   
The lightweight Soft Exosuit overcomes the drawbacks of traditional, heavier exoskeleton systems, such as power-hungry battery packs and rigid components that can interfere with natural joint movement. It is made of soft, functional textiles woven into a piece of smart clothing that is pulled on like a pair of pants, and is intended to be worn under a soldier’s regular gear. The suit mimics the action of leg muscles and tendons when a person walks.

   
Soft Exosuit development (news.harvard)

   

  Software patents are crumbling

   
A series of decisions from lower courts is starting to bring the ruling's practical consequences into focus. And the results have been ugly for fans of software patents. By my count there have been 11 court rulings on the patentability of software since the Supreme Court's decision — including six that were decided this month. Every single one of them has led to the patent being invalidated. This doesn't necessarily mean that all software patents are in danger.

   
Thanks to the Supreme Court (vox)

   

  How to harvest ambient energy ?

   
As devices continue to miniaturize, and even economize their power needs, batteries lag. Even at their smallest they’re still big, bulky, and have limited life spans. While most of us just shrug and deal with the nightly charging of our devices, people who need to wear their devices aren’t just inconvenienced, they can suffer (think repeat surgeries to replace pacemaker batteries). Scientists are already making headway on the power consumption side of the equation.

   
Think of body heat (gigaom)

   

  Potassium intake and Risk of stroke

   
Previous research has shown that potassium could lower blood pressure, but it was never clear as to whether it could ward off stroke. The findings give women another reason to eat their fruits and vegetables. "Fruits and vegetables are good sources of potassium, and potassium not only lowers postmenopausal women's risk of stroke, but also death."

   
Dietary potassium (ahajournals)

   

  Progress, not Perfection

   
Just imagine the power of improvements, even small ones (in fact, mostly small ones), achieved every day, continuously over a period of weeks, months, years, and decades. Needless to say, any improvement, however small, must be permanent to be meaningful. “Permanent” here means not rigid or cast in stone, but sustainable for as long as it is relevant.

   
Business achievements (qualitydigest)

   

  Processed meat origin

   
The organisation wants processed meat products brought under the European Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) law, which includes the compulsory statement of country of birth, rearing and slaughter for fresh beef and is set to include country of rearing and slaughter for fresh pig, poultry, sheep and goat meat as of April 2015. The price of relabelling had been overstated in arguments against such measures.

   
Cost vs Confidence (foodproductiondaily)

   

  2020 renewable energy forcasts

   
Two global trends should help drive the deployment of renewable power capacity, which is expected to rise from a global total of 1690 GW in 2013 t o 2555 GW in 2020 (growth of 50%). First,deployment should spread out geographically as renewable electricity capacity scales up. Second, renewable technologies are becoming increasingly competitive on a cost basis with alternatives in a number of countries and circumstances.

   
Clean energy scenarios (iea)

   

  Software developer life

   
The career model is like a pyramid, and you need to get up the ladder to earn more money. As long as you are on the bottom of it, you have nothing to laugh at. But so you move up more, and the richer and happier you'll become. It's a carrot system: first do the work, then take the money. As a dentist you need to study, then work and pay back the loan.

   
Expectations towards developers (methodsandtools)

   

  Resource-efficient green economy

   
This report highlights the major forces fostering the shift to a resource-efficient green economy in Europe. Currently, the economic and technological changes leading towards green economy objectives are proceeding too slowly; what is required is a much bigger, deeper, and more permanent change in the EU economy and society to create both new opportunities and substitution processes across the economic structure.

   
EU' Report (eea.europa)

   

  How Protein's ability inhibit Ebola & Hiv ?

   
When HIV-1 or any virus infects a cell, it replicates and spreads to other cells. One type of cellular protein - T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain, or TIM-1 - has previously been shown to promote entry of some highly pathogenic viruses into host cells. Now, researchers have found that the same protein possesses a unique ability to block the release of HIV-1 and Ebola virus.

   
TIM proteins action (indiatimes)  

   

  Googl's Project Wing

   
Google X, the web titan’s secretive special projects lab, has revealed that it’s working on a drone-based delivery system called Project Wing. Outwardly, the Google X project sounds a lot like Amazon’s Prime Air, but a closer inspection reveals that Google has loftier goals than air-dropping emergency bottles of sriracha. All 31 of Project Wing’s full-scale test flights have been conducted in Australia.

   
From your email to your mailbox (extremetech)

   

  Why drugs fail to get approved ?

   
It takes eight years to take a drug from initial testing to approval. Only one in six compounds will make it through the finish line following the FDA’s stringent assessment of evidence for safety and efficacy for the proposed indication. Why only one in six? In some cases the answer is simple: the product doesn’t merit commercializing; its safety or efficacy profile, or both, leaves a lot to be desired.

   
Product' quality (eyeforpharma)

   

  PPPs in plant breeding Proceedings

   
The private breeding sector mainly focuses on crops and traits which promise high revenues.Crops with a small market share are of less interest for private breeding companies. Therefore, concerns are raised that crops and traits which are important for the bioeconomy and agriculture are neglected because of lack of interest of the private sector.

   
The workshop (jrc.ec.europa)

   

  The Nordic Business Report

   
Along with the general business ideas on marketing and leadership, you will learn about young and upcoming leaders from all over Northern Europe. Similarly to 2012 and 2013, Nordic Business Report continues to produce interesting rankings of the people in the business sphere. This year we decided to rank the younger generation.

   
‘30 Under 30’ ranking (nbforum)

   

  Engineering principles to healthcare improvement

   
In the boardroom, the executive team considers how to bring in more patients because the insurers are squeezing prices and competitors are ramping up advertising. On the hospital floor, physicians and nurses rush from procedure to procedure, seemingly without enough hours in their day. Meanwhile, patients sit in the waiting room, growing frustrated (and those calling the hospital sit on hold). What’s going on here?

   
Talent management (strategy-business)

   

  Organ engineering

   
Reprogrammed cells created in a laboratory have been used to build a complete and functional organ in a living animal for the first time. The research bypassed the usual step of generating "blank slate" stem cells from which chosen cell types are derived. Instead, connective tissue cells from a mouse embryo were converted directly into a completely different cell strain by flipping a genetic "switch" in their DNA.

   
Direct reprogramming technology (theguardian)

   

  How to access to the world's facts

   
GOOGLE is building the largest store of knowledge in human history – and it's doing so without any human help. Instead, Knowledge Vault autonomously gathers and merges information from across the web into a single base of facts about the world, and the people and objects in it. The breadth and accuracy of this gathered knowledge is already becoming the foundation of systems.

   

Knowledge Graph vs Crowdsourcing (newscientist)

   

  Self-cleaning cashmere : forseeable ?

   
The average American businessperson spends anywhere from $500 to $1,500 on dry cleaning each year. In addition to the economic costs, as most commonly used chemical, perchloroethylene (perc), can leech into our bodies, causing possibly cancer, and the air, depleting the ozone layer. A chemical engineer at Hong Kong's School of Energy and Environment, has developed a method that would cancel out the need for dry cleaning altogether.

   
Nano-coating sensitive to light (smithsonianmag)

   

  USA:Demand for food assistance

   
Completed at the end of August 2013, HIA 2014 data collection took place during a period with historically high demand for food assistance. Unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity rates remained high since the Great Recession of 2008, and the number of households receiving nutrition assistance had increased by approximately 50% between 2009 and 2013.

   
Hunger in america (feedingamerica)

   

  Tax incidence and tax reforms

   
The OECD tax systems provide different incentives for manufacturing activity across countries and that tax systems are relatively neutral with respect to the sectoral composition of manufacturing activities. The impact of potential tax increases on firms ´ activity is found to be most attenuated when shifted towards consumers and/or employees rather than energy consumption and/or capital investors.

   
Using a multi-factor approach (ec.europa)

   

  Is-it the next generation of Nuk-power ?

   
Until now, perhaps... using a design that was invented 50 years ago, they created the waste annihilating molten salt reactor– or wamsr. The wamsr uses molten salt to dissolve nuclear fuel. That ultimately reduces both the radioactivity and amount of the waste. The "Transatomic" new reactor could create about 10-20 kg of long-lived waste per year instead of the 20 metric tons produced by traditional commercial plants.

   
Transatomic Power's reactors (transatomicpower)

   

  Microsoft "patches" in trouble

   
"Microsoft is investigating behavior associated with the installation of this update, and will update this bulletin when more information becomes available," the company said in the revised MS14-045's Update FAQ. "Microsoft recommends that customers uninstall this update. As an added precaution, Microsoft has removed the download links to the 2982791 security update.

   
Security updates (computerworld)

   

  Learning how things fall apart

   
Materials that are firmly bonded together with epoxy and other tough adhesives are ubiquitous in modern life—from crowns on teeth to modern composites used in construction. Yet it has proved remarkably difficult to study how these bonds fracture and fail, and how to make them more resistant to such failures. There are standard methods for testing the strength of materials and how they may fail structurally.

   
Bonding failures (qualitydigest)

   

  Making pull requests in "GitHub"

   
GitHub is an online repository hosting service where you can host your own projects, and contribute to projects created by other people. There’s many reasons why you might decide to contribute to one of the many open source projects hosted on GitHub. Maybe you’re a fan of the project in question, or just open source in general, and want to give something back to the community.

   
What You’ll Learn ? (developer)

   

  How to force phone customers onto fiber ?

   
Internet users nationwide are clamoring for fiber, as well, hoping it can free them from slower DSL service. But not everyone wants fiber, because, when it comes to voice calls, the newer technology doesn’t have all the benefits of the old copper phone network. That means when your power goes out, copper landlines might keep working for days or weeks by drawing electricity over the lines, while a phone that relies on fiber will only last as long as its battery.

   
Verizon's efforts (arstechnica)

   

  Approach to entrepreneurship

   
One of the great challenges for startups is figuring out where to start. Entrepreneurs believe that unless they build something now, their idea will become outdated or stolen by their competitor. However, that thought process is akin to running a marathon with one month of training. Yes, it can be done, but you run the risk of burning out and failing more quickly.

   
The chances of success (techcrunch)

   

  Bailing out from Bali

   
Developing countries had the most to gain from the TFA. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in Washington, DC, it would create 21m jobs, almost all in poor countries. Even such a limited bargain, which does not cut tariffs, would boost developing-country GDP by $523 billion. India, among a handful of countries which receives help from the WTO to boost its trade, would have seen particularly large payoffs.

   
India’s food-security law (economist)

   

  Creating a Safer Internet

   
While every single person should try to use more privacy-focused tools to protect themselves, it's not just spy agencies they need to worry about, but also “regular” hackers who can more easily gain their information if it’s not properly encrypted. Ultimately this is a lot to ask from normal Internet users. Ideally, encryption would be something totally invisible to the end-user, happening in the background.

   
The privacy issues (tomshardware)

   

  Physical world Vs virtual dimension

   
Retailers, advertisers and industry are all now using the technology, which overlays computer-generated content - video, graphics, text, sound or GPS data - on to real-world images captured by smartphones, tablets and hi-tech glasses. The results can sometimes be startling. Total Immersion's TryLive, for example, uses face-tracking technology to let consumers "try on" glasses virtually.

   
Augmented reality (bbc)

   

  Will "Si" save quantum computing?

   
Grand engineering challenges often require an epic level of patience. That’s certainly true for quantum computing. For a good 20 years now, we’ve known that quantum computers could, in principle, be staggeringly powerful, taking just a few minutes to work out problems that would take an ordinary computer longer than the age of the universe to solve.

   
Quantum computation (spectrum.ieee)

   

  Enhanced audit & feedback interventions

   
Unnecessary blood transfusion is associated with negative consequences and presents an unnecessary risk to patients. Examples of risk are transfusion infections, acute lung injury, and circulatory overload, which are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Implementation science has played a central role in developing and evaluating interventions that are designed to address the evidence-practice gap.

   
Transfusion practice (implementationscience)

   

  Airport privatisation: Risks and rewards

   
Pension, private equity and sovereign wealth funds are now making significant capital investments in primary airport infrastructure, motivated by the promise of steady revenues in hard currencies, high profit margins resulting from economies of scale and optimistic growth forecasts. When privatisation comes, there will be pressure for further productivity gains.

   
Untapped growth & Stable income  (airport-technology)

   

  The New sick man of europe

   
This reporter recently traveled across France to take the country's pulse with the people on the ground. The route followed stayed true to the course of the 2014 Tour de France, taking in cities, towns and villages, and sought to observe signs of the crisis, decline, collective depression and other specters that are haunting Germany's most important neighbor.

   
Uncertainty ailing the French (spiegel)

   

  Intermodal transport network development

   
The survey has shown that, while the chemical industry has intermodal traffic all over Europe, the main current flows run between the Benelux, Germany and Northern Italy. When comparing the intermodal flows to the total transport flows of the chemical industry, it becomes evident that the main transport corridors already have a high share of intermodal transport today.

   
Report (cefic)

   

  EMV: Why has taken the US so long ?

   
The EMV standard works using a chip that's embedded in a credit card, which effectively acts as a mini-computer. Instead of swiping quickly and having your card give its details to a merchant's point of sale (POS) system, an EMV card creates a unique code for each transaction and (ideally) requires the consumer to enter a PIN associated with the card instead of relying on a signature.

   
What were they waiting for ?  (arstechnica)

   

  The EU shale gas lobby

   
This report maps out this lobbying offensive by exposing the key players involved, their targets and the tactics employed. It examines the activities of the main shale gas lobby groups and individual companies, drawing on evidence of meetings and correspondence with five key departments in the European Commission, to reveal a web of lobbying activity, incorporating industry players.

   
Who's Who (foeeurope)

   

  Agricultural biotechnology in Africa

   
There are various projects under way to develop new GM varieties for African farmers, ranging from drought - resistant maize to varieties of cassava, banana, sorghum, cowpea and sweet potato with resistance to pests and disease. Multiple barriers inhibit the development and adoption of pro-poor GM varieties in Africa. On the demand side, farmers may be reluctant to adopt GM varieties owing to a lack of export opportunities and distrust of the technology among local consumers.

   
Biotechnology and GM (chathamhouse)

   

  Intrinsic resistance to Tamoxifen therapy

   
The study, "Circadian and Melatonin Disruption by Exposure to Light at Night Drives Intrinsic Resistance to Tamoxifen Therapy in Breast Cancer," published in the journal Cancer Research, is the first to show that melatonin is vital to the success of tamoxifen in treating breast cancer. Melatonin by itself delayed the formation of tumors and significantly slowed their growth but tamoxifen caused a dramatic regression of tumors.

   
Key to success of breast cancer therapy (innovations-report)

   

  The right cleaning agent is key

   
Quality, cost-efficiency, stability and processing time of industrial parts cleaning operations critically depend on the dissolving capacity of the used cleaning agent. Most frequently used agents are aqueous detergents and solvents. In selecting the right cleaning medium, the ‘equal dissolves equal’ principle of chemistry applies. In other words: for water-based (polar) types of contaminations, aqueous cleaning agents are typically the first choice.

   
Cleanliness (engineerlive)

   

  International energy efficiency scorecard

   
The International Energy Efficiency Scorecard, we analyze the world’s 16 largest economies, comprising more than 81% of global gross domestic product and about 71% of global electricity consumption. We looked at 31 metrics, divided roughly in half between policies and quantifiable performance, to evaluate how efficiently these economies use energy.

   
Germany: most energy efficient country   (aceee)

   

  Russia's 2018 world cup

   
Seven out of 12 arenas planned for use in the World Cup must be newly built and two have to be thoroughly renovated. The price tag will not be small. After spending some €50 billion ($68 billion) on the expensive Winter Olympics in Sochi, Mutko's ministry estimates that Russia will spend €30 billion to host the 2018 World Cup. That's more than double what Brazil spent for this year's tournament.

   
How to touch the ceiling ? (spiegel)

   

  Deming’s principles today

   
Delivering better products or services to customers is the undisputed aim of any organization. They just don’t always act that way. Manufacturing organizations have circled the wagons since the 1950s, when Japanese competitors began capturing market share from the rest of the world. Looking back at the history of the quality and improvement movement, you can see the wake left through which we’ve traveled.

   
The man who discovered quality (qualitydigest)

   

  Improving the cryptographic standards

   
NIST representatives were particularly and probably overly hard on themselves in analyzing the Dual EC DRBG matter, but the retrospective analysis reinforces my view that NIST must achieve sufficient depth of cryptographic and mathematical knowledge to render itself fully capable of evaluating strength and weakness of proposed algorithms without dependence on NSA.

   
Guidelines development process (nist)

   

  Hiring overseas

   
Recruiting, interviewing and hiring staff overseas can be an adventure. There’s amazing talent across the globe, but finding it, discerning the best candidates and making a successful hire that works out can be a roll of the dice. Getting burned, on the other hand, is easy. Bad hires are common, as are disaster stories. It’s a matter of inexperience hiring abroad and not understanding nuances.

   
Nail the hiring process (thenextweb)

   

  The science of lost time

   
Psychologists haven’t pinned down exactly when our perception of time begins to accelerate, but they do offer a few interesting theories about why it happens. There are biological accounts, having to do with natural changes in heart rate, metabolism, and body temperature as we age. Neurologically, the mature brain also produces less dopamine, a chemical that plays an important role in controlling our internal clock.

   
Questionable decision-making (fastcompany)

   

  Organic vs Non-organic foods evidences

   
The main objectives of the present study were to carry out a systematic literature review of studies focused on quantifying composition differences between organic and conventional crops, conduct weighted and unweighted meta-analyses of the published data, carry out sensitivity analyses focused on identifying to what extent meta-analysis results are affected by the inclusion criteria and meta-analysis method.

   
Meaningful differences in composition (wsu)

   

  Deployable fibre optic systems

   
As the use of fibre optics has increased in the oil and gas industry to enhance production - via better data reliability, availability and performance than traditional copper communication systems - so have the number of ‘deployable’ systems used in remote locations. In contrast to fixed installations, deployable systems are designed to be quickly installed, retracted, and then relocated.

   
Data communications (engineerlive)

   

  Tracking clean energy progress

   
The theme of ETP 2014 , Harnessing Electricity’s Potential, reflects an opportunity arising from the convergence of two trends: rapidly rising global electricity demand and the evident need for increased system integration. Electricity production uses 40% of global primary energy and produces an equal share of energy-based carbon dioxide emissions today.

   
Key clean energy technologies (iea)

   

  Bypassing the country of "interdits"

   
France parliament voted on a law that would support local businesses and effectively ban online retailers from delivering books to customers for free. Amazon has cleverly sidestepped the situation by offering customers shipping for a € 0.01. This complies with the new law passed nearly a month ago, and still offers its customers the best possible deal in regards to books.

   
How to protect your market & Invade others ? (neowin)

   

  Anti-poverty strategies

   
This report considers the many different strategies for reducing poverty, across the UK, Europe, North America and Brazil. No single strategy has been unambiguously successful, though some have been associated with significant reductions in poverty over a long period. There are many examples of well-intentioned strategies that fail to achieve the political purchase necessary for success.

   
Well-intentioned strategies (npi)

   

  ECHA' practical guide

   
This practical guide aims to assist registrants of intermediates and the downstream users in assessing if the use of a substance complies with the definition of intermediate according to Article 3(15) of REACH. In addition it will assist the registrants to identify the relevant information to include in their registration dossiers in order to comply with their legal obligations.

   
Registration of intermediates (echa.europa)

   

  Net threats

   
As Internet experts look to the future of the Web, they have a number of concerns. We call this research study a canvassing because it is not a representative, randomized survey. Its findings emerge from an “opt in” invitation to thousands of experts who have been identified by researching those who are widely quoted as technology builders and analysts.

   
Security and political control (pewinternet)

   

  Redefining wearable device

   
So what does it take to merge technology and fashion? The world isn’t lacking for talented designers, who have already turned out good-looking pieces of hardware like the Jawbone Up and Ringly. What was missing until now were electronics small enough to fit into clothing the same way as a button or a single cotton fiber. That started to change with the advent of the mobile phone & more powerful chips and batteries.

   
Clothes are getting smarter (gigaom)

   

  FDA's social media guidance

   
In drafting a new federal guidance document on social media use, FDA offers medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies insight on how to share benefit and risk information on 23 electronics digital platforms, ranging from Twitter and blogs to online paid search programs. Specifically, it calls for a balance between risk and benefit information posted to online platforms.

   
"A great leap forward" in healthcare (fda)

   

  Korean growth

   
Despite these headwinds, output growth of around 4% is projected in 2014-15 (Table 1). A moderate rebound in world trade will help Korean exporters overcome the appreciation of the won, which has gained 38% relative to the Japanese yen since 2012. The won-yen exchange rate is important as around two-thirds of Korean exports are thought to compete directly with Japanese products in world markets.

   
Improving the innovation system (oecd)

   

  EU opposing power of US digital giants

   
Within the salons of the Elysée Palace, along the corridors of the European parliament and under the glass dome of the Reichstag, Old Europe is preparing for a new war. This is not a battle over religion or politics, over land or natural resources. The raw material that Paris, Brussels and Berlin are mobilising to defend is the digital environment of Europe's inhabitants.

   
The big four (theguardian)

   

  That toy is now a drone

   
According to my best reading of a notice the FAA announced on Monday, things like the US $154 Husban X4 quadcopter are no longer toys—they are true drone aircraft in the FAA's eyes and cannot be flown without a certificate of authorization or special airworthiness certificate. Up to now, the FAA has been distinguishing model aircraft from small drones.

   
FAA’s small-drone (ieee)

   

  Plastic debris in the open ocean

   
Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, we show a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density. However, the global load of plastic estimated about thousands of tons, far less than expected.

   
Between input and removal (pnas)

   

  GM talks fuel-cell cars

   
General Motors has invested over $2.5 billion in fuel cells. So it's serious about the technology. But so is Toyota and Japan. Rather than selling a lot of cars and subsidizing them with huge losses on the cars, we have found ways that we can advance rapidly in our development activities based on the learnings from our Equinox fleet that's out there today.

   
Is GM ready for Toyota ? (cnet)

   

  What looks like Neanderthal meal ?

   
We present direct evidence of Neanderthal diet using faecal biomarkers, a valuable analytical tool for identifying dietary provenance. Our gas chromatography-mass spectrometry results from El Salt (Spain), a Middle Palaeolithic site dating to ca. 50,000 yr. BP, represents the oldest positive identification of human faecal matter.

   
Neanderthal dietary reconstructions (plosone)

   

  Laser scanners vs Tactile probing

   
Smart laser intensity adaptation allows any surface, such as those with varying color or high reflectivity, to be scanned without the use of a matt spray or other user interaction. This is enabled by automatic, real-time adjustment of sensor settings between successive laser stripes and for each individual point along the laser stripe. The XC65Dx-LS installed at TOFAS has a longer stand-off distance and offers distinct advantages.

   
Metrology (qualitydigest)

   

  GE' smartest locomotives ever

   
After making most of its locomotives in a century-old plant in Erie, Pa., General Electric is relocating production to Texas to turn out what it says will be the most efficient trains in the history of the industry. This spanking-new factory, located beyond the 190,000-spectator Texas Motor Speedway in the northeastern part of the state, is tricked out with the latest technology.

   
Rolling power plant (cnet)

   

  Open Source: How to start Contributing ?

   
ontributing to open source can be a fun and rewarding experience, but it can also be difficult to know where to start. This article will guide you through making your first contribution to the world of open source; from deciding which project you want to get involved in, right through to raising your first issue and making your very first code contribution.

   
Making your first contribution (developper)

   

  Constructive explosion protection

   
In the physical sense an explosion is a simple combustion reaction. The great danger, however, is the high reaction rate. The temperature rises in fractions of a second, and the explosion overpressure increases very quickly, potentially causing catastrophic damage to equipment components and endangering people. Various measures are aimed at precluding the possibility of an explosion in the first place.

   
Be prepared (engineerlive)

   

  3 Major Quality Management Gaps

   
You know that old saying “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”? Unfortunately, that is the thought process many executives adopt around quality management. It is not necessarily that their quality management systems are broken, per se, but the challenge of having disconnected quality systems and data sources has grown to become so normal that it has become just something they “deal with” or “make work.”

   
How to fill them ? (qualitydigest)

   

  Indus.: Best available techniques

   
This document is a working draft of the European IPPC Bureau (of the Commission's Joint Research Centre). Forum members have nominated technical experts constituting the technical working group (TWG) that was the main source of information for drafting this document. The work of the TWG was led by the European IPPC Bureau (of the Commission's Joint Research Centre).

   
Organic chemical industry (eippcb.jrc.ec.europa)

   

  Have you hugged a concrete pillar ?

   
The car I drive to work is made of around 2,600 pounds of steel, 800 pounds of plastic, and 400 pounds of light metal alloys. The trip from my house to the office is roughly four miles long, all surface streets, which means I travel over some 15. I’ve been saying for many years that widespread computing would eliminate the need for paper, so I was curious to see where Smil thinks things stand.

   
Getting back to relative dematerialization (gatesnotes)

   

  Nanoparticle Self Assembly

   
The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors predicted as early as 2007 that block copolymers will be a needed to make the next generation of computing. Eighteen months ago, researchers at the University of Texas Austin in collaboration with disk drive company HGST exploited the directed self assembly of block copolymers to create a new type of disk drive with up to five times the storage capacity of today’s models.

   
Wafer-scale thin films (spectrum.ieee)

   

  Microsoft: Fight over US warrant

   
Microsoft is challenging a US search warrant for customer emails stored on a data center outside the country, and tech companies are lining up in support. Apple and Cisco are the latest to file a friend-of-the-court brief backing the software giant's position. The joint filing, made Friday, is in addition to ones earlier in the week by Verizon and AT&T showing their support.

   
The door to unfounded law  (scribd)

   

  Data Warehouse "ETL" processing

   
The main component (brain and heart) of the data warehouse system is data Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL). The challenge is to extract the data, often from a variety of disparate systems, to transform that data, so that it is uniform in terms of format and content, and finally to load the data into a warehouse where it can serve as the basis for future business intelligence needs.

   
The highest level approaches (developer)

   

  Reducing the need for animal testing

   
Every three years, the ECHA reports on progress into fulfilling the requirements of Reach using alternatives to animal testing. The most common ways of doing this include: inferring risk from data on similar compounds ('read-across'); combining evidence from multiple sources; computer modelling of structure-activity relationships; and in vitro alternatives to live animal tests.

   
Some available alternatives (echa.europa)

   

  Europe at risk of blackouts

   
The IEA said the world needs $48 trillion of investment to head off a crunch by 2035, warning that cheap energy is gone forever as oil and gas companies deplete easy reserves. Capital costs have doubled in 10 years. More than 80pc of investment by oil companies goes to replace exhausted fields. The solution must come from a blitz of spending on solar power, hydro and other renewables.

   
Current energy policies (telegraph)

   

  Understanding today’s R&D management

   
As organizations focused on new knowledge creation and technology development, bridging institutions typically are flat and decentralized, and therefore vary much more culturally and informally than structurally. Developing an understanding of organizational cultures in bridging institutions is important not just because these can be relatively tacit and difficult to imitate.

   
The edge of the future (issues)          Outlook: R&D G20 Nations (sciencewatch)

   

  Sustainable aviation fuel

   
Virgin Australia, SkyNRG and Brisbane Airport Corporation have joined forces to assess if Australia’s first ‘bioport’ could become a reality. In order to determine if the production of a renewable jet fuel to replace fossil based jets is feasible, a study is currently underway to develop a bioport at Brisbane Airport, which would be capable of supplying aircraft with sustainable jet fuel produced from biological sources.

   
Brisbane’s bioport approaches (airport-technology)

   

  Dead and buried: MS's holy war

   
''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' former Windows chief Jim Allchin famously quipped in 2001. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.'' "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches," former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the Chicago Sun Times a few months later.

   
How to grow market share ? (cnet)

   

  Universities can’t fulfil the myth

   
I would argue that the majority of university courses are the same. A degree course in just about any subject doesn't actually provide the core skills required for independent thought and critical thinking. The course teachers are so busy trying to cram those details into student's heads that they have no time to explicitly teach critical thinking skills.

   
The structural problem (arstechnica)

   

  Health IT innovation

   
Georgia Tech’s Interoperability and Integration Innovation Lab (I3L) was established to stimulate new ideas in health IT by creating a standards-based environment in which resources can be shared, barriers reduced, and new products more rapidly developed and introduced. Beyond addressing existing challenges for the industry, the lab will help participants—including academic and nonprofit organizations.

   
How to improve patient care ? (qualitydigest)

   

  EVolo skyscraper competition

   
The 2014 edition marks the ninth anniversary of the competition established in 2006 to recognize outstanding ideas for vertical living through the novel use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations. The first place was awarded to Yong Ju Lee from the United States for his project “Vernacular Versatility”.

   
Winner 2014 (evolo)

   

  Europe: 1, Google: 0

   
The European Court of Justice has now ruled that data belongs first and foremost to the individual. Its decision means that, under certain circumstances, users can now demand that Internet companies -- including Google and others -- delete links to their data. Almost more important is that the justices ruled that Google and other Internet companies must also respect the laws of the countries in which they are operating.

   
A Victory for Privacy (spiegel)

   

  How to turn light into matter ?

   
The new research, published in Nature Photonics, shows for the first time how Breit and Wheeler's theory could be proven in practice. This 'photon-photon collider', which would convert light directly into matter using technology that is already available, would be a new type of high-energy physics experiment. The breakthrough was achieved in collaboration with a fellow theoretical physicist from MPI.

   
How to undertake this experiment ? (phys)

   

  Scouting for skills

   
Youth unemployment remains a public concern. Changes in the UK labour market – including the sharp decline of middle skilled jobs – have impacted negatively on many young people’s job prospects. The decline of skilled, craft-based manufacturing and the rise of the service sector means that twenty-first-century employers place a stronger emphasis on ‘character’ or ‘employ-ability skills’.

   
The key "soft skills" (demos)

   

  China’s Healthcare Industry

   
China is the third largest healthcare market in the world and this is growing by double-digits. Yet the country’s spending on healthcare per capita is only about 5 percent of its GDP—versus around 10 percent in Japan and Europe, and 18 percent in the U.S. Despite this, the Chinese government is expanding its healthcare budget and has said it welcomes foreign investment.

   
The largest potential opportunity (china-briefing)

   

  Looking outward with big data

   
For some, “big data” is a revolution poised to transform everything from how we gather intelligence on terrorists, to how we manage our supply chains, to how we brush our teeth. For others, it’s an evolution, little more than the latest twist in the decades-old notion of business intelligence. Sorting out its true potential is no easy task.

   
How we use data in decision making ? (strategy-business)

   

  Genetically engineered Measles' version

   
Yet for all the misery Measles virus has caused and continues to inflict on mankind, it now appears that a genetically engineered version of the virus may be on its way to becoming an effective treatment for another deadly human malady, late-stage incurable myeloma. The choice of MV as a therapeutic agent for myeloma was not happenstance, but rather of thoughtful biological experimentation.

   
An effective therapeutic answer  (mayoclinicproceedings)

   

  Statins' adverse effects ?

   
The true incidence of adverse events from use of statins in people at low risk continues to be disputed. This editorial aims to alert readers, the media, and the public to the withdrawal of these statements so that patients who could benefit from statins are not wrongly deterred from starting or continuing treatment because of exaggerated concerns over side effects.

   
Peer reviewing (Bmj)

   

  Solar wind modulation of lightning

   
Activity on the sun significantly increases the rate of lightning strikes on Earth, say researchers, making it feasible to predict when lightning strikes will become more frequent. They discovered that when streams of high-speed solar particles strike the Earth's atmosphere, the average number of lightning strikes increased by 32% for more than a month afterwards.

   
The increase in lightning rates (iop)

   

  Coding is all just a game

   
Microsoft's research department has unveiled a 3D web browser that displays content over multiple surfaces in a room.Called Surroundweb, the software is peddled by Microsoft as an "immersive room experience". However, as far as we can see, it's simply a means of projecting different parts of a web page on different surfaces around a room.

   
3D web browser (research.microsoft)

   

  Metal 3D Printing

   
The magic word in industrial manufacturing these days is 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing. But the shift from mold-based component concepts to additive geometric freedom is not just a fad; it’s a major trend. The advantages are striking: faster processing times, lower-cost components, and a level of design freedom that is so far unheard of.

   

Additive manufacturing (qualitydigest)

   

  Gerontechnology could reinvent aging

   
In 1989, a small medical device company by the name of Life Call hired Edith Fore, a 74-year-old customer, to star in a commercial promoting its signature product, a medical alert button that seniors could wear around their necks like a charm and press to call for help in an emergency. Today There are also several types of “smart” pillboxes that remind users to take their medicine.

   
Why aren’t we using it ? (news.yahoo)

   

  Reclassifying broadband Internet access

   
AT&T’s anti-regulatory view isn’t surprising. It’s already arguing that the Public Switched Telephone Network should be shut down and replaced with largely unregulated Internet-based voice service. The company’s eight-page ex parte filing claims that the reclassification of broadband would backfire in all sorts of unintended ways that would wreak havoc on the Internet.

   
AT&T critics (arstechnica)

   

  The culture of job changing

   
This constant churn of engineers moving from company to company is considered part of Silicon Valley’s magic; when ideas move and merge, they grow faster than they could in a more static environment.Indeed, protecting this freedom of movement is the main point of antitrust law, explains Silicon Valley attorney Mary Russell, a specialist in employee stock options.

   
With Silicon Valley culture (spectrum.ieee)

   

  Boeing unveils new cabin design

   
Boeing has seen the future of private human spaceflight, and it is blue. Sky blue, that is. The aerospace giant unveiled its new concept for the cabin of a future commercial spaceliner — a vision based in part on the blue-lit Boeing "Sky" interior of the company's modern airliners, as well as work on the company's CST-100 space capsule to ferry NASA astronauts on roundtrips to the International Space Station.

   
Commercial spaceliner (news.yahoo)

   

  How to assess team’s productivity ?

   
Well, it's perfectly simple to increase velocity by 40% — just add 40 % more points to all your estimates and do the same amount of work. Given that this is so, it should be apparent why using velocity as a target is wrong; it just encourages inflated estimates. A less glib answer is that your estimate already assumes you are going as fast as you can while doing everything correctly.

   
Inflation can undermine velocity (arstechnica)

   

  Maternal diet in periconceptional period

   
In experimental animals, maternal diet during the periconceptional period influences the establishment of DNA methylation at metastable epialleles in the offspring, with permanent phenotypic consequences. Pronounced naturally occurring seasonal differences in the diet of rural Gambian women allowed us to test this in humans.

   
Genes' periconceptional expression (nature)

   

  How to set up an IPv6 tunnel at home?

   
For a long time most of my VPS are IPv6 enabled. Raymii.org is reachable over IPv6. I've not had IPv6 at home yet, over my residential DSL line. And as you know, providers are not that fast with rolling out IPv6 at home. A friend pointed me to SixXS, which provide IPv6 tunnels. I had looked at them in the past, only then you needed to have a static IP for the tunnel. These days you don't need that anymore.

   
IPv6 at Home (raymii)

   

  NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement

   
This is the non-binding outcome of a bottom-up, open, and participatory process involving thousands of people from governments, private sector, civil society, technical community, and academia from around the world. The NETmundial conference was the first of its kind. It hopefully contributes to the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem.

   
The global multistakeholder meeting (scribd)

   

  US Views: Tech. & The future

   
Overall, most Americans anticipate that the technological developments of the coming half-century will have a net positive impact on society. Some 59% are optimistic that coming technological and scientific changes will make life in the future better, while 30% think these changes will lead to a future in which people are worse off than they are today.

   
Impact of scientific advancement (pewinternet)

   

  Building Trust and Growth

   
The paper finds that tax strategy and policies are best dealt with by the Board of Directors and should include consideration of such issues as impact on stakeholders, transparency, governance and controls and communications. It also examines the data on the impact of rising taxes on business, CEO opinions on tax transparency and the prospects for international tax reform.

   
Where will growth come from ? (pwc)

   

  M2M: We cannot stop the rise of machines

   
After the cloud, M2M is projected as one of the fastest growing technology segments of the IT sector. But what is M2M? Machine2machine (M2M) is technology that allows both wireless and wired systems to communicate with devices of the same ability*. Wired M2M has been around for a long time, as well as machines guiding machines.

   
IT' developping segments (developer)

   

  Are you ready for IT of things ?

   
For more than a decade, the aerospace giant has deployed thousands of communications-enabled smart devices to sense, control and exchange data across the factory floor, on the battlefield, and within the company's 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The Internet of Things require for the CIO to insert himself into the product design and management process, and start a new discussion to initiate the pocess.

   
4 things to do immediately (computerworld)

   

  UK: Invasive Non-native Species

   
Invasive non-native species can have detrimental effects on the native species they supplant, as well as on human health and business. Their presence has accelerated with the expansion of international trade and travel. In this inquiry we examined the measures covered in a proposed EU regulation on the management on invasive species, as well as proposals from the Law Commission to change the law on invasive species.

   
Tackling invasive species (publications)

   

  Antibiotics impacts: trials

   
We carried out a systematic review of randomised controlled trials to determine whether improvements in growth are seen among prepubertal children (1 month to 12 years old) treated with antibiotics in low and middle income countries; to determine the magnitude of these growth effects; and to identify moderators of this treatment effect.

   
Growth in children vs Income (bmj)

   

  Government institutions & Innovation

   
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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)
   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  $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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)
   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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)

   

  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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