That kind of intuitive problem solving, is not simple to explain and even harder to replicate with a computer. It's way beyond the best artificial intelligence programs, and it would be charitable to say that neuroscience has a firm grasp of how the brain manages such a task. But it's not magical either.

Complexity lies at the heart of Dodd's research and teaching as an assistant professor of mathematics and statistics. He's part of a group of researchers who make up UVM's Complex Systems Center launched in 2006 by the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.

     

Math And Intuition  (sciencedaily)

      

A team of investigators has developed a machine that separates automatically the seeds from the rind and pith of the pomegranate. The difficulty in peeling pomegranates and separating out the seeds disheartens many consumers when they eat the fruit of the pomegranate (Punica granatum).

Now a Spanish invention enables this food to be de-seeded automatically.“This involves a machine that discards the non edible parts and sorts the seeds according to their quality”.

Nearly 35,000 tons of pomegranates are produced in Spain each year, and the harvesting period is concentrated between the months of October and January.

    

Spanish invention   (alphagalileo)

        

   

Nanotechnology derives its name from the nanometre, which is a billionth of a metre. To get some measure of the scale of the materials and devices we are talking about, a human hair is about 80,000 nanometres wide.

The Royal Commission found no evidence of harm to health or the environment from nanomaterials, but this "absence of evidence" is not being taken as "evidence of absence". In other words, just because there are no apparent problems, this is not to say that here is no risk now or in the future.

   

The word at risk  (independent.co)

        

         

MCD Technologies explained that its Refractance Window (RW) process involves a slurry of liquid product being applied evenly to the top surface of a continuous sheet of impermeable, transparent plastic, which floats on hot water; infrared energy then passes from the water to the slurry at the speed of light.

“The infrared energy and conducted heat employed by RW drying deliver rapid drying at atmospheric pressure rather than under a vacuum, and also inhibits oxidation of the product due to the reduced surface area that results,” said Karin Bolland-Magoon, president MCD Technologies.

       

New drying method  (foodproductiondaily)

       

           

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's spoke earlier this week from the company’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters about his plans for managing Google in a downturn, the unraveling of an advertising partnership with Yahoo and his recent public endorsement of Barack Obama. Mr. Schmidt is also a member of Senator Obama’s transition economic advisory board.

     

Google forecasts  (nytimes)

    

      

Experts say hackers today continue to steal password, install malware or grab profits by employing a mix of old and new tactics.

Every industry has a short hand, according to Lifrieri. For exemple a social engineering criminal will study that language and be able to rattle it off with the best of them. "It's all about surrounding cues," he said.

"If I'm speaking a language you recognize, you trust me. You are more willing to give me that information I'm looking to get out of you if I can use the acronyms and terms you are used to hearing."

      

Hackers today  (csoonline)

       

        

Scientists fear that a shift in the tectonic plates converging there could produce a giant wave that would submerge Padang, a port city in central Sumatra, Indonesia's largest Island, in churning water within minutes.

Goseberg wants to reduce the threat of any potential deluge with sheer computing power. "We are developing a model of the city that is precise down to the last meter, so that we can point people to the best escape route in case of a disaster."

         

Next giant wave  (spiegel)

      

       

ISO/TC 176 (the technical committee responsible for the ISO 9000 series of standards) was careful not to make change just for the sake of making change. This was especially true when it came to editorial changes, which could have created the false impression that there was a change in requirements, carrying greater significance than was intended.

In some instances, when the committee members couldn’t come to a consensus in determining if a change added or deleted a requirement, they opted to retain the existing text. It was decided to err on the side of caution rather than to contribute to any misunderstanding in the marketplace.The key changes in the amendment that you need to know.

     

ISO 9001-2008: The changes  (qualitydigest)

       

       

The US is proving an avid investor in the latest water treatment technologies, as one European company proves. Siemens Water Technology (SWT) has won a number of significant water treatment contracts in the US, including one large technology licensing deal.

The licensing agreement is with CSO Technik to supply and service the Crown sludge disintegration system in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The US patented cell lysing process eliminates digester foaming, increases gas production by up to 30 per cent and reduces solids for disposal by 20 per cent.

     

Water management technology  (engineerlive)

       

      

The coming electrical unification of North Africa will advance a grand scheme known as the Mediterranean Electricity Ring, which has been the stuff of speeches and studies for decades. Engineers have recently made much progress on the ground, and perhaps as soon as mid-2009 they will cinch together all the power systems from Morocco to Syria with those of Europe.

The same momentum could see the entire MedRing finally completed by the end of the present decade, connecting more than half a billion people in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

     

The electrical unification  (spectrum.ieee)

    

           

The debate on the cause of the eruption took place at a meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, in Cape Town.It was the first time the two opposing sides had agreed to debate before an international conference of independent experts.

The contest was chaired by a professional football referee - Professor John Underhill, an Edinburgh University geologist, who is also a match official in the Scottish Premier League.

     

The Mud eruption  (news.bbc)

      

APNIC hopes the industry will be catalysed over the next two years to help to make up for lost time and allow for a smoother transition to IPv6, he said.

Philip Smith, consulting engineer at the internet architectures group, office of the CTO at Cisco, told ZDNet Asia that a number of barriers exist for industry implementation of IPv6: the lack of customer demand, few content sites supporting both IPv4 and IPv6, and the costs associated with upgrading hardware, software, processes and training.

     

IPv6 migration   (news.zdnet)

     

         

From January 2012, all airlines operating in or out of the European Union will have to limit carbon dioxide emissions to 97 percent of 2005 levels. From 2013, that figure will dip to 95 percent."The main objective of the new law is to reduce the impact of aviation on climate change, given the rapid growth of this sector," a statement said, after EU interior ministers approved the deal.

Airlines are furious about the change which they say threatens their survival as they struggle with high fuel prices and have warned that it could spark trade wars with other countries.

    

Future of airlines' 'interlining' rule (wbcsd)

     

            

The big question is whether these fourth quarter e-commerce outlooks will turn out to be too conservative. Analysts on Thursday noted that Amazon’s lower-end of its guidance is projecting a severe recession.

Amazon said its fourth quarter sales will be between $6 billion and $7 billion, or up 6 percent and 23 percent from a year ago. In other words, Amazon’s growth will be strong or anemic.

    

E-commerce outlook  (industry.bnet)

      

             

Still, while the nation's antitrust laws were fairly well applied to domestic oil operations, the largest oil companies functioned in the international arena as a cartel.

From approximately World War I to 1970, the three largest post-breakup companies, Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), and Standard Oil of California (Chevron), joined with Gulf, Texaco, BP, and Shell to form a cartel, earning them the nickname the "Seven Sisters".

These seven companies owned the vast majority of the world's oil and controlled the economic fate of entire nations.

    

Oil operations  (atimes)

     

     

It is international market forces (consumers and traders) united into a global green consumer campaign that have forced wood-based companies to have their wood certified as green by independent certifying companies.

Wood audit for forest certification aims at verifying that a particular wood is derived from sustainably managed forests. This process requires companies in the whole wood supply chain to hold chain-of-custody certificates so that the label or bar-code can follow the word from the forests to the finished product.

    

Certified Wood   (enn)

           

    

Statistical analysis of the data collected by MAMA has provided Opera's engineers with a unique understanding of emerging trends in web development and the way that standards-based web technologies are used on the Internet.

Opera plans to take the project to the next level by building a search engine on top of the indexed data so that web designers, browser implementers, and standards experts can easily obtain information about real-world usage of web technologies.

       

Web standards-compliant  (arstechnica)

       

      

Dramatic price increases have left nearly a billion people hungry worldwide. As World Poverty Day draws attention to the issue, DW's Dennis Stute speaks with activist Vandana Shiva about India's huge hunger levels.
Prices of staples have literally doubled in the last year and that has meant that the poor who were already only eating half of what they should be eating are now eating a quarter of what they should be. Unfortunately, it is the poor who must make a living by working physically and what we're basically doing is robbing them of their ability to earn a living.

       

Food problem in India   (dw-world)

     

                  

Carbon nanotubes are already beginning to be used to strengthen tennis rackets and bicycles, but in small amounts. The epoxy resins used in those applications are 1 to 5 percent carbon nanotubes, which are added in the form of a fine powder. Buckypaper, which is a thin film rather than a powder, has a much higher nanotube content — about 50 percent.
One challenge is that the tubes clump together at odd angles, limiting their strength in buckypaper. Wang and his fellow researchers found a solution: Exposing the tubes to high magnetism causes most of them to line up in the same direction, increasing their collective strength.

     

Buckypaper  (tech.yahoo)

        

      

Chandrayaan-1 planned to be launched in 2008 using spacecraft and launch vehicle of ISRO. The mission is expected to have an operational life of about 2 years. The idea of undertaking an Indian scientific mission to Moon was initially mooted in a meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1999 that was followed up by discussions in the Astronautical Society of India in 2000.

Based on the recommendations made by the learned members of these forums, a National Lunar Mission Task Force was constituted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

    

Indian Research Organisation Mission   (timesofindia.indiatimes)

     

Chandrayaan-1 Lunar Mission   (chandrayaan-i)

     

     

For many software development groups, managing change requests is a burden. We all want to work on the latest software projects. Using agile techniques such as Scrum or MSF Agile to manage projects works well for smaller teams focused on one project.

Scaling Agile to the enterprise sometimes proves difficult for many enterprise shops. Existing Agile techniques assume a team working on one project, not an enterprise team working on multiple applications. There is another agile way to mitigate these issu.

   

Lean Methods and a Kanban Board  (developer)

     

       

As companies focus more keenly on talent management and workforce issues, employee rewards play an increasingly important role in global, complex organizations. A new WorldatWork survey reports that consistency balanced with localization is key to compensating a globally dispersed workforce.

The 2008 WorldatWork Global Compensation Practice survey was conducted in July 2008 to update a survey first conducted in 2004.

      

New WorldatWork survey  (worldatwork)

       

   

Eighteen months ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told an audience at the Shanghai Futures Exchange that China risked trillions of dollars in lost economic potential unless it freed up its capital markets.
``The U.S. financial system was regarded as a model, and we tried our best to copy whatever we could,'' said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China's central bank. ``Suddenly we find our teacher is not that excellent, so the next time when we're designing our financial system we will use our own mind more.''

      

U.S financial model (macedoniaonline)

       

       

One might think, therefore, that everything is in order in this Alpine state that accounts for so much of Germany’s national identity.

Not so, say Bavarian purists, who have warned that Bavaria’s proud heritage is under threat from cheap imported Lederhosen and Dirndl dresses made in China, India and Eastern Europe. And indeed, Munich’s department stores and fashion boutiques admit that many of the outfits on sale are made from imported leather and fabrics or manufactured abroad to save costs.

   

Beer from abroad   (spiegel)

    

         

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species.

    

Arctic region becomes warmer  (independent.co)

    

        

Opportunities for the European Mass Spectrometry Markets in Basic Research Applications, finds that the market earned revenues of USD 562 million in 2007 and estimates this to reach USD 1078.8 million in 2014.

"In the field of environmental sciences, the analytical capabilities of MS platforms are extensively used in the identification of numerous toxins and pollutants," note Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Suraj Ramanathan.

"The influence of this technology has reached areas such as forensic science. Further areas of interest include polymer analysis, environmental sciences, food safety and nutrition, drug abuse and rehabilitation, defence research and space research."

     

EU Mass Spectrometry Markets  (genengnews)

     

     

Obviously, measuring the processing is the primary concern of the production engineers, but torque measurement has a second, equally important funtion. Because you are actually measuring plant performance, you get to see how the machinery is holding up.

Knowing what to look for will give you early warning of breakdowns, allowing you to schedule pre-emptive maintenance. For a continuos process where downtime can cost thousands of pounds an hour in lost production, this can be critical - ultimately the difference between a health profit and a catastrophic loss.

  

Torque mesurement   (engineerlive)

     

     

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, unveiled the World Wide Web Foundation, to fulfill a vision of the Web as humanity connected by technology.
The Web Foundation will pursue its objectives by funding projects around the world in three strategically integrated programs related to research, technology, and social development.

   

3W Foundation   (webfoundation)

     

            

The two most popular process improvement methodologies in use today, lean manufacturing and Six Sigma, originated at Toyota and Motorola, respectively. These pioneering companies are discrete manufacturers. Not surprisingly, the subsequent evolution and development of these two methodologies has focused mostly on improvements in discrete manufacturing.

Each methodology has a central focus that has been the basis for its structure and tools. For lean, it’s the delivery of value to the customer through the elimination of waste – anything that is non-value added from the customer’s perspective. For Six Sigma, the central focus is the elimination of defects – products or services that do not conform to the customer’s specifications.

   

Lean Principles   (reliableplant)

     

       
Google has been revealing ways in which search can evolve to better meet users' needs. Over the next three weeks, 10 of Google's search experts will be sharing their views on how search should evolve.

The search engines of the future will know where you are located, maybe they will know what you know already or what you learned earlier today, or maybe they will fully understand your preferences because you have chosen to share publicly that information.

    

Google search view  (vnunet)

          

   

Whatever the case, the most powerful atom-smasher ever built comes online Wednesday, eagerly anticipated by scientists worldwide who have awaited this moment for two decades.The multibillion-dollar Large Hadron Collider will explore the tiniest particles and come ever closer to re-enacting the big bang, the theory that a colossal explosion created the universe.

   

Big_bang_machine   (news.yahoo)                 LHC-Milestones  (lhc-milestones.web.cern)

  

First Beam   (lhc-first-beam.web.cern)

    

             

The company is launching an extensive research program to seize the long-term opportunities for growth on the agricultural markets. To this end, a total of EUR 3.4 billion will be invested into research and development of innovative crop protection products and new solutions in seeds and plant biotechnology between 2008 and 2012.

       

BAYER Cropscience   (agrimarketing)

     

           

The 2008 Globalization Performance Study is one of the first to capture the same information from companies using leading Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) and those operating their own captive shared service centers in India and other low-cost labor markets.

  

The study confirms that companies can generate fairly comparable cost savings with either globalization approach, with most companies driving cost reductions of 25-50%.

        

Globalization Performance  (industryweek)

       

         

Of particular importance in this debate will be the proposals made by the European Commission to give consumers of fixed and mobile phones and Internet services more rights and better choice (IP/07/1677). Today's debate among the European Parliament's 785 members is expected to pave the way for a vote of the Commission's entire EU Telecoms reform proposals in first reading on 23 September.

The French presidency could broker a political agreement at the Council of Telecoms Ministers on 27 November. New consumer rights would then become law in all 27 EU Member States by 2010.

      

EU Telecoms reform  (iia.ie)

       

  

Boeing has more to fear than losing the tanker deal. Employment ads by EADS North America reveal that the company already has embarked on an internal strategic shift aimed at gearing up to bid on future U.S. defense contracts, while underpricing Boeing on commercial deals in the U.S. market—just what some analysts and Boeing insiders fear.

In the latest twist in the tanker drama, Boeing has threatened to pull out of the recompetition unless it gets an extension to prepare a bid that would involve a tanker based on a larger aircraft than the 767 that it originally proposed.

    

Boeing on commercial deals   (businessweek)

    

    

Dynamic languages are certainly popular. Almost 70 percent of the 1,200 developers surveyed by Evans Data for its most recent Global Development Survey currently use JavaScript, the most popular dynamic language, with fifteen percent more planning to adopt it. PHP is used by just over a third of developers, and Perl has captured about a quarter of developers.

Each has its place in a programmer's toolkit. Cio.com asked a group of luminaries in the scripting world for their perspectives on the current state of the scripting universe, and how it has changed since we last looked at the scripting language scene in 2005.

        

Dynamic languages today  (cio)

     

    

While the concentration of drugs in drinking water tends to be low, some medications, such as hormones, are able to operate potently even at concentrations of one part per billion. To make matters worse, there is evidence that the chlorine commonly used to treat drinking water may make some pharmaceutical chemicals more toxic.

Thus, the typical claim that "pharmaceuticals are only present in very low concentrations, and therefore could not be dangerous" holds no water (pardon the pun). Not only are some chemicals potentiated (made more toxic) by other chemicals in the water, but to date, there have been absolutely no studies looking at the increased danger posed by combinations of pharmaceuticals now being found.

       

EPA research and views   (enn)

         

       

One application for which abrasive waterjet cutting is proving popular is the processing of brick and stone for decorative architectural features.

Manchester Brick & Precast, one of the largest brick cutting companies in the UK, has used the process for several years and has recently upgraded the intensifier on its existing waterjet cutting machine, enabling thicker materials to be cut, delivery times to be reduced, and less time and money to be spent on maintenance. After many years of hard use, the original 25 HP (18 kW) pump, cutting head and abrasive handling system were reaching the end of their useful life.

    

Waterjet cutting  (engineerlive)

      

     

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and the IAF (International Accreditation Forum) have agreed an implementation plan to ensure a smooth migration of accredited certification to ISO 9001:2008, after consultation with international groupings representing quality system or auditor certification bodies, and industry users of ISO 9001 certification services.

    

Migration to iso 9001-2008   (iso)

      

      

The single biggest change you'll see is the way Linux evolves to meet the growing market of users who are not themselves Linux-savvy, but are looking for a low-cost alternative to Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) (or even the Mac). That alone will stimulate enormous changes across the board, but there are many other things coming down the pike in the next four years, all well worth looking forward to.

      

The future of Linux  (Informationweek)

                 

     

Today, a hijacked Web page--modern digital crooks' attack of choice--will launch a bevy of probes against your PC in search of just one unpatched vulnerability that a probe can exploit. If it finds one, better hope your antivirus program catches the ensuing attack. Otherwise you likely won't even notice anything amiss as it infects your system.

You don't have to be a genius to avoid these common attacks; implementing a few simple fixes will help you avoid most of the bad stuff out there
      

PC Security  (infoworld)

      

    

The OECD’s monitoring report noted that broadband penetration was deepest in countries that encouraged competition using regulation but also had more than one physical wire (cable, phone) going into each home.

Customers benefit most when they can choose among a large number of broadband providers and particularly if each of the providers has its own physical wire into the home. But investors shy away from building different networks for each company the same way they avoid building different airports for each airline serving a city.

     

The broadband penetration  (oecdobserver)

     

         

Fish scales and seashells are not what come to mind when we think "armor.", but Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have suggested that the study of these materials could lead to the development of lighter and more resistant armor material.

The researchers aren't thinking of literally making body armor out of fish scales. Instead, they are studying everything from ancient fish to mother-of-pearl, plumbing millions of years of evolution for hints on how to construct tougher, lighter, more versatile materials.

       

Making body armor  (boston.com)

         

     

According to TechRepublic’s Bill Detwiler, Apple’s original iPhone was little more than an iPhone 3G beta test, which Jobs convinced Apple fans to pay for. The iPhone’s lack of common Smartphone features and prototype-like construction, along with the iPhone 3G’s evolutionary design, provide the evidence for Detwiler’s iPhone Betagate theory.

The original iPhone had a lot to love — a sleek design, innovative touch-screen interface, beautiful display, and great multimedia capabilities. Yet Apple’s cell phone/music player combo lacked basic features found on many competing Smartphones.

Most noticeably, the iPhone relied on AT&T’s painfully slow EDGE network. By the time Apple released the iPhone in July 2007, I had been using one of AT&T’s 3G-enabled 8525s for several months. The iPhone’s Web browser was much better than the version of IE running on the 8525’s Windows Mobile 5 OS, but the slow data speed ruined the experience.

      

The beta testing iPhone 3G  (blogs.techrepublic.com)

     

     

The study was able to investigate the water content and water activity separately and found that water content is perhaps more significant than water content.

              

The fuel cell concept has existed since the mid-nineteenth century but it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that fuel cell research led to units being produced commercially, albeit in small numbers.

Now, with record oil prices and concerns over global warming, fuel cell development has reached a point where there are units available for a variety of applications, from automobiles to lighthouses (see panel).
Unlike burning fossil fuels, there is no carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen or sulphur, or particulates.

    

The hydrogen fuel   (engineerlive)

      

     

The baobab fruit pulp is a very important nutritional supplement with interesting medicinal properties and is best-known for its high vitamin C (Ascorbic acid) content and is thus often given as a calming agent against fever.

The pulp also contains high values of carbohydrates, calcium, potassium, thiamine and nicotinic acid. Most significant is the Integral Antioxidant Capacity (IAC), which is due to the presence of ascorbic, citric, tartaric, malic and succinic acids.

Other essential vitamins present are riboflavin and niacin. In addition, the pulp contains 23% pectin making it an important binding and diluting ingredient. The antioxidants are essential for protection against free radicals, maintenance of metabolic processes, synthesis of steroidal hormones, connective tissues, assisting neurotransmitters and preventing degenerative diseases, as well as increasing the body’s ability to absorb calcium and iron. The pulp has proven to stimulate intestinal microflora making it a potential prebiotic ingredient.

Tests have also confirmed its importance as an anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, antipyretic and analgesic agent.

        

The baobab fruit analysis  (africanredtea)

        

                 

The open Symbian and open Android operating systems should combine into a single open-source operating system for mobile devices. Such a combination will occur in three to six months. The analyst provides his comments on conditions in the market and not on information that officials in either movement told him.

Symbian sources have indicated a willingness to work with other open-source groups. "With so many players on both teams, there has to be some cross-fertilization going on and no doubt some discussion.

       

Some contraction is in order  (computerworld)

      

 

How much could you save if some of your machining operations were performed by robots?

             

The Use of LC/MS/MS in Environmental Analysis: Screening for EDC (endocrine disrupting chemicals) and PPCP (pharmaceutical and personal care products) in River Water Samples: Applied Biosystems/MDS Analytical Technologies invites you to view a free on-demand seminar highlighting a straight forward approach for the analysis and confirmation of up to 100 EDC and PPCP compounds, with excellent sensitivity and ruggedness.

     

Applied Biosystems Technologies (externalreview.comparenetworks)

        

         

The Closed Loop recycling plant claims to be the first in the world to take both milk bottles and clear drinks bottles and turn them back into food-grade plastic.

            

With the Chevy Volt, General Motors—battered, struggling for profitability, fed up with being eclipsed by Toyota and the Prius—is out to reinvent the automobile, and itself.
Given the challenges, standard procedure dictates first building and testing the battery, and only then designing a car around it. That process, however, would take until 2012 or 2013—time GM does not have if it wants to beat Toyota.

The only hope of meeting the 2010 deadline is to invent the battery while simultaneously designing the car. Just-in-time inventory is common now in the car business, but just-in-time invention on the Volt’s scale is new to GM and probably to the modern automotive industry.

   

GM: How to beat Toyota  (Theatlantic)

     

      

The National Research Flagships programme is one of the largest scientific endeavours ever undertaken in Australia. The Light Metals Flagship was set up to meet the challenge of global demands for ultra-strong, ultra-light, recyclable materials as the world switches to low-emission vehicles, energy-saving devices and sustainable products. As a result of this, aluminium demand is forecast to climb by 30percent, magnesium by 200percent, while the sky is the limit for emerging industrial light metal titanium.

         

Research Flagships programme  (Engineerlive.com)

             

            

How exactly does the human brain do what it does? Lots of people are trying to answer this question, and there's a growing impetus toward using high- definition brain scans to find out how the brain works.

Like an IC, the fruit-fly brain (Drosophila melanogasteris brain) subjected to logic and optical testing to derive its circuit diagram. With one approach, called neuronal electro physiology, researchers can record the electrical activity of neurons. “But the fly brain is even more complicated than an integrated circuit,” says engineer and group leader Eric Betzig.

   
“With an IC, you know that every transistor fires the same—it's either on or off. But the neurons in the brain don't necessarily do that—they fire sometimes 20, sometimes 80, sometimes 100 percent.”

     

Reverse Engineering The Brain  (Spectrum.ieee.org)

                 

                  

The Coverity Scan site was developed with support from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of the federal government’s ‘Open Source Hardening Project.’ The report is based on 2 years of analysis of more than 55 million lines of code on a recurring basis from over 250 popular open source projects with Coverity Prevent™, the industry-leading static source code analysis solution.

     

The Open Source Hardening Project  (Coverity)

       

         

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how collective and distributed skills are considered in a professional competence management system by associating sociological and ergonomic work approaches.

Collective work in companies is currently paradoxical: on the one hand, its value is increased through various forms of cooperation, and on the other hand, it is restricted in its makeup and sustainability by new kinds of employment.

However, the results of our study, carried out in a large industrial and retailing company in a high-risk sector, highlight that a “single” and individual professional competence management system is a partial system.

       

Collective and distributed skills  (Pistes.uqam)

                

           

The new laws in the European Union require companies to demonstrate that a chemical is safe before it enters commerce -- the opposite of policies in the United States, where regulators must prove that a chemical is harmful before it can be restricted or removed from the market. Manufacturers say that complying with the European laws will add billions to their costs, possibly driving up prices of some products.

       

Chemical Law Has Global Impact  (Washingtonpost)

             

       

Too many Six Sigma practitioners rely on static models that don't account for inherent uncertainty and variability in their processes or designs. However, in the quest to maximize quality, it's vital to consider as many scenarios as possible. That's where a risk analysis and simulation add-in for Microsoft Excel like @RISK can help. @RISK uses Monte Carlo simulation to analyze thousands of different possible outcomes, showing you the likelihood of each occurring.

        

way of measuring outsourcing value   (developer.com)

             

             

In IBM's labs, miniscule rivers of water are cooling computer chips that have circuits and components stacked on top of each other, a design that promises to extend Moore's Law into the next decade and significantly reduce the energy consumed by data centers.

This follows IBM's leadership in advancing chip-stacking technology in a manufacturing environment announced one year ago, which drastically shortens the distance that information needs to travel on a chip to just 1/1000th of that on 2-D chips and allows the addition of up to 100 times more channels, or pathways, for that information to flow.

               

IBM 3-D Computer chips  (Sciencedaily)

                  

        

Compounding this year's figure, Morgan Stanley predicts that emerging economies will spend $22 trillion (in today's prices) on infrastructure over the next ten years, of which China will account for 43% (see left-hand chart). China is already spending around 12% of its GDP on infrastructure. Indeed, China has spent more (in real terms) in the past five years than in the whole of the 20th century.Last year Brazil launched a four-year plan to spend $300 billion to modernise its road network, power plants and ports. The Indian government's latest five-year plan has ambitiously pencilled in nearly $500 billion in infrastructure projects.

       

The Emerging Economies   (Wbcsd.org)

                

       

The investors plan to consolidate small plots of land into more productive large ones, to introduce new technology and to provide capital to modernize and maintain grain elevators and fertilizer supply depots.But the long-term implications are less clear.

Some traditional players in the farm economy, and others who study and shape agriculture policy, say they are concerned these newcomers will focus on profits above all else, and not share the industry’s commitment to farming through good times and bad.

When crop prices are climbing, holding inventory for future sale can yield higher profits than selling to meet current demand, for example. Or if prices diverge in different parts of the world, inventory can be shipped to the more profitable market.

             

The food chain   (nytimes.com)

                   

       

When Eka, the 117.9 teraflop supercomputer built by the Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) in Pune, India, was named the fourth most powerful machine in the world last November, the global computing community—and even the computer's developers—were surprised True to India's software and services tech culture, rather than try to outdo Cray, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, or Silicon Graphics at designing and selling  supercomputers, CRL will provide end-to-end supercomputing services—renting computer time, adapting and fine-tuning applications, and offering analytical services.

         

CRL Supercomputer   (Spectrum.ieee.org)

               

            

As part of its commitment to providing the tools that public health laboratories, food companies and water authorities need to protect consumers, Applied Biosystems (NYSE:ABI), an Applera Corporation business, and its joint-venture partner, MDS Analytical Technologies, a business unit of MDS Inc. (NYSE:MDZ)(TSX:MDS), have expanded the capabilities of Analyst® Software to improve the identification of contaminants in food and water.

This mass spectrometry-based solution is capable of identifying more than 600 contaminants in a single analysis, more than doubling the amount that can be detected by alternative testing solutions.

             

Expanding contaminants identification   (Medicalnewstoday)

                       

                       

The state-of-the-art bionic arm looks and feels to its user like his or her native arm.
DEKA Research founder and Segway creator Dean Kamen comes to D6 to demonstrate his “Luke Arm” prosthesis.

Kamen recalls a visit with some very high-level people from DARPA years ago. The good news, they told him: Battle fatalities have greatly declined. The bad news: Many soldiers that survive battle have lost their arms. And the prosthetics we currently have don’t offer bilateral movement or fine motor control.

          

“Luke Arm” prosthesis   (D6.allthingsd)

                
Related project:  (A Manhattan Project for the Prosthetic Arms Race: spectrum.ieee.org)

                   

        

The clumsiest thing is human memory. We pull things out of our memory using context, or clues, that hint at what we're looking for. But it could pretty easily have been organised like computer memory, which would have been much more systematic, much more reliable.
In computers, everything has a particular place, but our memories are much more disorganised than that.

That makes it much more difficult for us to do things like give eyewitness testimony, or remember where we parked our car. It also means that a lot of our thinking gets contaminated because our memories aren't very systematic.

   

Human memory  (Newscientist)

            

              

"This is not about the Commission telling lobbyists how to behave,In fact, we have only consolidated in one text the principles the profession itself already adheres to." stressed one commissioner.

Lobbyists intending to participate in the EU executive's upcoming lobbyists register will be required to accept the terms of the accompanying code of conduct for interest representatives. What's new, said Kallas, is that "all lobbyists commit to the same code and accept that their adherence to [it] be subject to independent scrutiny, enforcement and sanctions".

    

EU: lobbyists code of conduct  (Wbcsd.org)

European Transparency Initiative   (europa.eu)

      

       

Based on a review of the information provided by the French authorities and on additional scientific data, the Panel recommended that five of the citrus pests evaluated should be added to the EU list of organisms harmful to plants and plant products.

Of those five the fungus Ceratocystis fimbriata is considered by far the most likely to cause a serious disease in many plant species.

        

Citrus pests evaluation  (efsa.europa)

         

         

HP today unveiled a broad effort to help make it easy for customers to reduce the environmental impact of their imaging and printing.
Many of the announcements today are part of the new HP Eco Solutions program, which helps customers identify HP initiatives, products and services designed with the environment in mind.

The clear and simple-to-read HP Eco Highlights label helps customers understand the environmental attributes of a specific product, tool or service. The label will be used across all HP product categories, with the newly introduced HP Deskjet D2545, HP LaserJet P4015x.

             

HP Eco Highlights label   (HP)

              

            

The eight quality management principles are defined in ISO 9000:2000, Quality management systems Fundamentals and vocabulary, and in ISO 9004:2000, Quality management systems Guidelines for performance improvements.

This document gives the standardized descriptions of the principles as they appear in ISO 9000:2000 and ISO 9004:2000. In addition, it provides examples of the benefits derived from their use and of actions that managers typically take in applying the principles to improve their organizations' performance.

      

ISO management principles (iso)

               

                    

Crucially, the EPICA (for European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) research uncovered evidence of rapid climate changes in the past; around 770,000 years ago, levels of both CO2 and CH4 changed drastically within just a few decades. Similar changes also took place around 40,000 years ago during the last glacial period.

The researchers determined the temperature in the past by studying the mix of water isotopes in the ice, while information on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations was gathered from tiny air bubbles enclosed in the ice. Their findings are published in two papers in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

             

The climate changes  (Cordis.europa)

                      

                   

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) announced today the launch of Quality at work: an introduction to Quality Management ISO 9001, an on-line training tool available free to organizations around the world who want to learn more about the characteristics and advantages of quality management system.
The announcement was made at the World Congress of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) focuses on the theme of quality improvement.

             

E-learning tool  (free9000)

              

       

The revision process for ISO 9001 is designed such that whenever there are significant changes to be made (major revision), the next revision will be less significant (minor). Since the revisions issued in 2000 were major, it follows that the next one will be minor. Indeed, the proposed changes are more based on the clarification of points already in the standard rather than the inclusion of new requirements.

     

ISO 9001: 2000 review  (ClarkQuality-Lrqa)

              

     

More than anything, Ghosn wants to be prepared rather than try to predict: "We can't know what consumers will want 10 years out." But generally he is betting on smaller engines, smaller vehicles, and higher fuel economy due to the probable rise in gas prices.

In green technology, he is stressing all-electric vehicles (EVs) more than gas-electric hybrids: "People used to think electric cars were ugly, hard to drive, and unsafe, but it's completely different now." The goal is to build a lineup of EVs starting in 2012.

              

Renault Ceo forcast  (BusinessWeek)

                             

                    

The technology has faced criticism over the past year as an over-hyped technology that isn't as reliable as High-Speed Packet Access 3G technology, and even as a "disaster" by Garth Freeman, the CEO of Australian WiMAX operator Buzz Broadband, who described problems such as latency, jitter and poor indoor service.

               

Wimax today   (Networkworld)

               

                 

The pharmaceutical industry maintains its strength in innovation by the growing number of valuable new products during the last quarter of 2007. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed no fewer than seven new drugs between October and December on a total of eighteen approvals.

Among the products which should have a significant effect on the market, Fitch raised the antithrombotic Effient (Eli Lilly and Sankyo), a rival of Plavix (4 billion dollars turnover in USA in 2007) of Sanofi Aventis.

Fitch survey   (Lemonde) (Fr.)

                    

             

EDF Energies Nouvelles announces the signing of a photovoltaic panel supply master agreement with Nanosolar and a $50 million investment (€31 million) in the company via EDF Energies Nouvelles Réparties.

Nanosolar is a global leader in solar power innovation. Nanosolar's solar electricity panels deliver unparalleled cost efficiency, enabling customers to use green power without paying more. The main founders of Google "Larry Page and Sergey Brin" are shareholders of Nanosolar.

Silicon Valley based Nanosolar uses innovative technology to manufacture thin-film photovoltaic cells of Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenide (CIGS) using a printing deposition process. Under the master supply agreement, EDF Energies Nouvelles will gain access from 2009 onwards to part of Nanosolar's production of solar panels.

                

Edf-Nanosolar agreement   (Berlinews.de)

       

Technology  (Nanosolar)

                 

                 
"Cyber-Sight" is a means for connecting people via the internet in their efforts to provide quality eye care leading ultimately to the elimination of avoidable blindness. For 25 years ORBIS has been assisting ophthalmologists and other eye health care providers around the world, initially with the world’s only flying eye hospital (FEH) and now with the addition of hospital based programs, and 5 permanent “in country programs”.

The stimulus for "Cyber-Sight" was the perceived need to add continuity to a long series of successful but time limited projects. With Cyber-Sight, ORBIS can now achieve extended presence meaning that contact with those served is not limited by how long the FEH is in place or how long a hospital program lasts. The program is available to all qualified ophthalmologists in the developing countries and needs the support of any qualified ophthalmologist who wishes to donate his/her time and expertise.

           

Orbis "Cyber-Sight" (Orbis)

                 

       

Hidden in the mountains, a new megalopolis is built at breakneck speed. When Chongqing awakes, nothing can stop China.

11 years ago, with 32 million inhabitants, Chongqing has become "the largest city in the world". But we must keep quotes, for the moment.

Tokyo remains the most populous city, with 12.4 million inhabitants. Chongqing is in fact the latest town production from the chinese Communist Party, which has expanded an area of eight million city-dwellers to include the surrounding countryside, where 24 million peasants have been crammed.

      

City of Chongging (Yu)  (lactualite.com) (Fr.)

                    

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