Monthly Archives: August 2017

Another Perspective on Health and Medicine – TAPinto.net

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To the editor: I am writing in regard to the July 20 column by Mara Schiffren, Patient, heal thyself. My two best friends are pediatric oncologists. One is a Harvard Medical School M.D., Ph.D. geneticist at Sloane Kettering, the other is my classmate from veterinary school at U.C. Davis, a DVM, Ph.D. pathologist at St. Judes Childrens Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. I have shared tears with both of my best friends as they described to me the trials of confirming an astrocytoma or glioblastoma, both brain tumors, to the parents of their 3- and 4-year-old children. Leukemias, lymphomas, retinoblastomas and more bring heartache and shatter to the lives of parents in pediatric oncology wards across the country. A 3-year-old child has not the worldly circumspect to alter their lifes nutrition and lifestyle. Ms. Schiffrens flippant remarks regarding health and medicine are reflective of a seeming cynicism, a lack of knowing and an absence of compassion. I disagree with her dark perspective of todays medicine. I see the world of todays therapeutics as wonderfully changing. How integrated has the world of medicine become! As an equine veterinarian, alternative medicine abounds: acupuncture, chiropratic, holistic and herbal therapeutics are all incorporated into managing the lives and careers of horses. My brother, a graduate from the Yale School of Medicine, integrates an array of holistic therapeutics into his practice. Nutrition, exercise, meditation, and lastly, therapeutics, are brought on board. The world of both human and veterinary medicine has been dramatically changing for good in the past recent years, incorporating an array of diverse perspectives. A milestone example of changing therapeutics in my world as an equine veterinarian would be in the world of treating autism. As an equine veterinarian, horses have been substantiated to be one of the few successful therapeutic modalities for improving cognition, speech, balance and empowerment in special needs children. Who would have thought that which nickers and whinnys would replace a pill bottle? The world of human and equine medicine is wonderfully changing for the better, despite the cynicism of Mara Schiffrens article. Matt Eliott, DVM North Salem

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Another Perspective on Health and Medicine - TAPinto.net

In the Japanese film Happiness, a technological fix for sadness just makes life worse – The Verge

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Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the New York Asian Film Festival.

The Japanese film Happiness is like a dark car driving by slowly in the shadows. As it moves closer, it hardly sheds any light. Then, a window rolls down, revealing a face, staring out at the audience. In a flash, the car is gone, leaving nothing behind but a fleeting impression.

Similarly, the film doesnt explain much about its main character: a stoic, brooding man with an Elvis Presley hairdo. Thats a pity, because Happiness is strongest when its fleshing out its characters and building up a narrative of why the audience should care. A eerie silence pervades the film, lingering in every single scene save the climax, where ambient sounds echoes the protagonists emotional state. The film doesnt need music, though. Silence lends the story a kind of realism, which is helpful in a story based in technological fantasy.

Whats the genre?

Indie mystery, featuring a gadget thats a mix of science fiction and Eastern alternative medicine.

Whats it about?

Happiness revolves around a mysterious helmet. Its an amalgamation of golden typewriter keys built in at different angles to create acupuncture stimulation to the noggin. It also looks like a particularly aggressive motorcyclists headgear. The helmets creator, Kanzaki (played by Masatoshi Nagase), attracts attention around a small Japanese town when he claims the helmet can make wearers happy by triggering forgotten memories of the past.

Although the locals initially regard Kanzaki and his helmet suspiciously, his helmet proves its ability to pull up nostalgic memories from the users past. A mother of an unruly teenage boy sees her child as a newborn baby, giggling in his cradle again. The films goofball, Ishida, sees himself scoring a home run in a baseball game, to the adoration of cheering fans. Kanzaki soon gains local hero status for revitalizing the town, but he still remains an inscrutable character, his past and personal life a mystery. But when he makes his way to treating Inoue (Hiroki Suzuki), a teenage convict who lives in isolation, and takes in the unkempt state of Inoues dress and his spa-style slippers, he asks for an extra hour alone with the kid. From there, the film begins to delve into Kanzakis personal life.

Whats it really about?

Kanzaki's motives for building the helmet aren't entirely altruistic. The film is concerned with how joy and pain overlap, and how peoples most painful memories could also be their most joyous ones. Happiness explores the extremities of human emotion, psychological trauma, a looming sense of mystery, helplessness (the Japanese belief in shouganai, literally it cant be helped), young misfits, and belligerent angst.

Is it good?

Happiness is so close to being enjoyable, but because it throws viewers into scenes without explanation, and delays getting into characters backstories until the near end, there isnt much opportunity to engage with and love these characters. Watching the film can feel like watching paint dry, but at other times, its more like reading Agatha Christies murder mystery And Then There Were None, or Natsuo Kirinos Out, where middle-aged Japanese women bury a person theyve helped kill. Those novels are packed with twist after blood-dripping twist, and in its best moments, Happiness is as well. It veers between enthralling and exhausting.

The flaws in the narrative crop up as early as the first scene, as Kanzaki strolls into a nearly abandoned shop and takes note of the sad old lady sitting in the corner. He returns moments later with the nostalgia helmet. Writer-director Sabu brings the helmet into the story in a such a quick, out-of-context, and contrived way, its as if it was dropped into the film from a bad science fiction novel. An aging woman whos beyond depressed? Throw in the deus ex machina of a magical helmet, and shes instantly crying and laughing again. Its an artificial, awkward attention-grabber.

Sabu makes silence do the job of words

Sabu makes silence do the job of words. The camera lingers on Kanzakis face, attempting to convey his inner turmoil and the quick turns of his mind as he plots his next move. This works for some scenes, but not all of them. As the camera pauses on Kanzaki walking up multiple flights of stairs, or as tears slowly leak down his face while hes on a bus, scenes seem to stretch out to eternity. Happiness is a short 91 minutes, but it certainly doesnt feel that way.

The best content darts by: the flashbacks that explain the films core mystery, the climatic fight scene, and Kanzaki powerfully hacking and drilling his way into crafting the perfect happiness helmet. Granted, it is a low-budget film, which forces the action to be short and minimal, but the seams shouldnt show through so easily.

What should it be rated?

It earns an R for gratuitous violence, but those scenes are so few and far between that the rest of this film could pass as G rated.

How can I actually watch it?

Happiness was released in Japan in 2016, and is showing in limited, sporadic theatrical screenings in the US.

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In the Japanese film Happiness, a technological fix for sadness just makes life worse - The Verge

The Battle to Give Nigeria’s Moms and Babies a ‘Golden Window’ to a Healthy Life – TIME

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There is no period more critical in a childs development than its first few months of life, which is why so much attention is paid to what the mother, and the child, eats during that time. Nutritionists like to call it the golden window the slim period of time where a child, if he gets the right nutrients, can set out on a healthy path, or, if he doesnt, risks irreversible stunting and developmental delays . Eighty percent of the brain development happens in the first 1,000 days of a childs life, starting from conception, says nutritionist Sanjay Kumar Das.

And while getting the right nutrition whole grains, plenty of fruit and vegetables for both the mother and child, once he starts eating solids is relatively simple in most situations, conflict can make eating right all but impossible. This is the situation in northeastern Nigeria, where for the past seven years the Boko Haram militant group has waged a violent insurgency that has kept farmers from their fields, food away from markets, and families living off paltry food donations in camps for the internally displaced. While few here in the Dalori camp just outside the northeastern town of Maiduguri display the emaciated limbs and swollen bellies common among victims of outright famine, the little food they do get a once-daily gruel made of pulses and grains provides little more than the minimum calorie requirement, and almost no additional nutrition.

An estimated 5.1 million are malnourished in northeastern Nigeria. According to the United Nations Childrens Fund [UNICEF], more than half of them are children. Das, who is the nutrition manager for UNICEF's program in Maiduguri, says this is likely to have severe long-term consequences. The impact of acute malnutrition, which happens when a child is suddenly deprived of food, can be reversed relatively easily with emergency food rations and supplements. Chronic malnutrition occurs when a child eats enough to stop from starving, but doesnt get sufficient nutrients to develop properly, especially in the vital first two years of life. That golden window is when all a childs cognitive and physical development happens, says Das. If children dont get good nutrition from an early age, they are vulnerable. The child can suffer from disease and stunting, launching the cycle of poverty.

Indeed, chronic malnutrition can hinder a nations economy. Stunting early in a childs life has educational, income, and productivity consequences that reach far into adulthood, the World Bank writes in its most recent Nutrition Overview.

Children who are deficient in essential micronutrients have on average 13 fewer IQ points. Similarly, stunted children are more likely to start school later, perform more poorly on cognitive functioning tests, and are more likely to drop out of school. Adults who were stunted as children earn 20% less than non-stunted adults and are 33% more likely to live in poverty, the report says. It concludes that malnutrition can reduce GDP in some countries in Asia and Africa by as much as 2% to 11% each year.

Which is why organizations like UNICEF and other humanitarian aid agencies place such a high priority on the first 1,000 days, from the point of conception to the child's second birthday. Childhood stunting, once it has set in, cannot be reversed. But it can be prevented.

Thats where good pre-natal health and education comes in, says Marylyne Malomba, a nutrition consultant for the International Medical Corps, a humanitarian organization that runs several food and nutrition programs in Maiduguri, which was once at the center of the insurgency, and is now home to some 700,000 people displaced by the war. The IMC provides food, supplements and education for mothers and children in weekly clinics around the city and in several of the camps, with a special emphasis on pregnant women.

Malnutrition starts from the womb, says Malomba. If the mother has not stocked up enough nutrients, then the child will not get enough. Limbs, organs; even brain development is affected with lack of nutrients when the child is still a fetus. So its important to understand that the health of the mother at the point of pregnancy is one of the most important places to start taking care of the child. And if a mother is well fed during her pregnancy, she will most likely have enough breast milk to feed her child for the first six months another key element of early childhood nutrition.

The problem is that in a crisis situation like the one in northeastern Nigeria, or in Somalia, Yemen or South Sudan, other countries on the brink of famine , it is all but impossible for new and pregnant mothers to obtain the vital nutrients that round out the right diet for those first 1,000 days. Emergency food distributions usually include grains, pulses and oil, but fresh vegetables and fruit are too difficult to transport and store. And even if the families could afford to buy fresh produce in the markets, they arent always available, especially if conflict is keeping farmers from their fields. We need these mothers to eat vegetables. We need them to eat fruits," Malomba says. "And these are the items that we are not able to supply in an emergency context.

Nutritionists and scientists are working to develop supplements that can provide those essential micronutrients for use in future emergencies, but for the moment, nothing beats the fresh fruits and vegetables that are so hard to find in places like Dalori, or the scores of other IDP camps across northern Nigeria.

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The Battle to Give Nigeria's Moms and Babies a 'Golden Window' to a Healthy Life - TIME

University of Alaska Fairbanks intern looks at nucleotides as health supplement – KTOO

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Fish oil is oil derived from the tissues of oily fish. Fish oils contain the omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), precursors of certain eicosanoids that are known to reduce inflammation in the body,and have other health benefits. (Creative Commons photo by Natesh Ramasamy/Flickr)

Interns this summer with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute are looking at food science in Kodiak, and one is investigating a new health food fad.

University of Alaska Fairbanks student Alina Fairbanks is doing market research focusing on nucleotides.

A lot people when I explain this to them theyre like fish oil. Well, kinda. We want to extract nucleotides from pollock, right now because the Pollock Conservation Cooperative is funding me, but we want to utilize the entire product of a fish. A lot of people are exploring new ideas.

Fairbanks said her research is on the powdered form, as opposed to pills or liquid, such as fish oil.

Theres three markets right now that Ive discovered, so theyll put nucleotides in baby formula because nucleotides are commonly found in breast milk so, in baby formula, animal food, and for humans dietary supplements. A lot of body builders will actually take them.

She said nucleotides are supposed to improve the immune system and help in cell regeneration.

There are two other interns with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute on the island.

Camron Christoffersen, who recently graduated Brigham Young University, is looking into the Food and Drug Administrations methods for killing parasites before consumption.

The third intern, UAF student Phil Ganz, is helping to document the process. He uses video to make this and other scientific topics accessible to the general public.

All three interns wrap up their time on the island at the end of the month.

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University of Alaska Fairbanks intern looks at nucleotides as health supplement - KTOO

BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada in Peterborough lands five-year, $34M deal to make primary heat transport motors for … – Peterborough Examiner

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The BWX Technologies plant in Peterborough has been awarded a five-year, $34-million to supply seven primary heat transport motors for Bruce Power.

The motors to be produced at the BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Inc. plant on Monaghan Road are part of Bruce Powers life-extension program that will extend the life of six of its reactors to continue providing Ontario with low-cost nuclear electricity for decades to come, according to a release from the company.

The primary heat transport motors are required to drive the main circulating pumps used to push heavy water through the reactor core into the steam generators, the release states. The scope of the contract includes the project management, engineering and manufacturing of seven 11,000 horsepower motors.

Work under the contract will begin immediately, with the first motor scheduled to be delivered to Bruce Power in mid-2018.

We appreciate the opportunity to execute this important project for Bruce Power and take great pride in our contributions to its life extension program, stated John MacQuarrie, president of BWXT Canada Ltd. (which is the former Babcock and Wilcox). BWXT is pleased to be in a position to supply its customers with a multitude of product and service solutions to assist them in extending the lives of their nuclear plants.

Bruce Power supplies 30% of Ontarios electricity at 30% less than the average cost to generate residential power. Extending the operational life of the Bruce Power units to 2064 will create and sustain 22,000 direct and indirect jobs every year, create $4 billion in annual Ontario economic benefit, and will ensure low-cost, clean and reliable energy for Ontario families and businesses, the release states.

Partnering with BWXT for this important motor work is critical to ensuring the life extension and operation through 2064, stated Mike Rencheck, Bruce Powers president and CEO. Planning and preparation is key to our continued on-time and on-budget performance since January 2016 when our life extension program was started. Suppliers like BWXT and their performance are critical to our success; its a team effort.

Nuclear energy plays a significant role to Ontarios economy and it is great to see the positive effects of Bruce Powers life extension project being felt right here in Peterborough, Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister and Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal stated. Throughout its program to extend the life of six of its reactors, Bruce Power will inject billions into Ontarios economy and generate thousands of jobs.

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BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada in Peterborough lands five-year, $34M deal to make primary heat transport motors for ... - Peterborough Examiner

DARE TO BE 100. BIG BET – HuffPost

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Huffington Blog DARE TO BE 100

In 1991 I wrote a book titled WE LIVE TOO SHORT AND DIE TOO LONG. The fifth chapter was entitled Aging is a Self Fulfilling Prophecy. That was 26 years ago when I was 61 years of age. Now at eighty-seven my prophecy is intact. I intend to live till 100. I still have unfinished work to do. Like Alexander the Great observed toward the end of his triumphant career there are still worlds to conquer.

I certainly find much satisfaction in what I have accomplished so far, but its not time yet to fold my tent. My fixation still is on erasing health illiteracy from the world. This gigantic task is the ultimate vaccine. Were we able to teach everyone how to fulfill their human potential of a hundred healthy years mankind would triumph. We die too soon. A major part of my personal strategy is to establish 100 years as our natural life expectancy. I have written extensively to this purpose.

I am of course interested in a bet that was placed by two of my gerontologist colleagues Steven Austad of the University of Alabama and Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois. Stimulated by an article in the journal Nature in 2016, that used demographic data to assert that there is a natural limit to human lifespan of about 115 years, Olshansky agrees but Austad doesnt. Citing current research on animals life extension by some drugs Austad sees no upper limit. Earlier in 2000 he wrote in the Scientific American, the first 150 year old person is already alive.

To address their claims in September 2000 the two endowed their wager that any one born before 2001 will reach the age of 150. As the invested fund value keeps growing the winner will claim a handsome reward. Neither of the gamblers expect to be around in 2150. But I am confident that Olshanskys descendents will heap a bonanza from Jays recognition of the finitude of human life.

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DARE TO BE 100. BIG BET - HuffPost

adidas and Major League Soccer announce extension of long-term partnership through 2024 – LA Galaxy

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adidas and Major League Soccer today announce the extension of their long-term partnership through 2024. Marking adidas largest investment in soccer in North America, the six-year deal makes adidas the official supplier partner for the League, its Clubs, MLS youth academies and youth affiliated clubs. Key to the agreement is an expanded focus on youth development to drive creativity in sports for young athletes. Financial terms of the agreement will not be disclosed. Sport is the epicenter of our culture and, in the U.S. and Canada, soccer is the most popular sport for young people to play, said adidas North America President Mark King. Our partnership with MLS puts adidas at the core of sport in North America, allowing us to make a positive difference in an athletes game and life. Built from athlete and consumer insight, we are looking to create the future of sport and bring new and different things to the game the world has never seen before. Focusing on athlete performance, adidas will outfit MLS teams and their affiliates with uniforms, footwear, training gear and sideline apparel. In addition to world-class innovation and design in apparel and footwear, adidas will provide the leagues official match ball. Major League Soccer has built a legacy with adidas that has been essential in the rise of our League, said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. adidas has been a major collaborator with us since the inception of MLS, and we are proud that our partnership with this globally-respected brand will continue to enhance the growth of the game in North America for many more years. We will work with adidas on innovative concepts to showcase the sport and our elite athletes, and we will intensify our mission to develop top North American soccer players for generations to come. The new agreement emphasizes investment in young athletes, deepening both organizations focus on inspiring and supporting the next generation of players. adidas and MLS will drive youth development and programming to help young soccer players create and shape their future. Through sport, we have the power to change lives, said King. We believe in the power of sport and its ability to create positivity for young athletes and their world. Through our expanded youth development program, well provide high-level competition and unique life experiences for athletes who want to improve their game. Recognized for being the fastest-growing sports league on social media, Major League Soccer will create an innovative, socially powered and localized content approach for adidas as part of the new agreement. A multi-platform content experience, the new adidas "Creator's Network," will allow for enhanced, in-depth storytelling through fresh local and national content from League supporters and influencers. adidas and Major League Soccer began their relationship at the Leagues inception in 1996 with adidas partnering with the Columbus Crew, Kansas City Wiz and D.C. United. In 2004, the organizations announced an exclusive all-league partnership that put adidas on every MLS team. In 2010, adidas and Major League Soccer extended their commitment, with a new focus on advancing soccer in North America through youth development. For more information visitwww.adidas.com/us/soccerandMLSsoccer.comand join the conversation onTwitter with@adidassoccerand@MLSandInstagram with@adidasfootballand@MLSwith#HereToCreateand #MLS.

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adidas and Major League Soccer announce extension of long-term partnership through 2024 - LA Galaxy

New ICBM Cheaper Than Upgraded Minuteman: Boeing On GBSD – Breaking Defense

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Airmen install a new cable run on an aging Minuteman III missile.

ARLINGTON: A brand-new ICBM may cost the nation more than $85 billion, but keeping the geriatric Minuteman will cost even more. Thats according to Boeing, the aerospace giant that began building the original Minuteman I in 1958 and has maintained the much-modified Minuteman III since 1970.

Minuteman III in silo

Sure, the company can reset the odometer on the Minuteman with yet another service life extension program (SLEP), Boeing strategic deterrence chief Frank McCall told reporters this morning. But its still a 1950s design upgraded over six decades with a mix of technologies it was never intended to accommodate. While parts of the guidance and propulsion systems date to 1993, for example, some parts are so old the original manufacturers have long since gone out of business. That forces the Air Force to expensively reinvent the wheel or, say, a 1961-vintage mechanical coding device.

So for about the same price as a rebuilt Minuteman, McCall told us, Boeing would rather build you an all-new missile. Thats what the Air Force calls the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. (Lockheed and Northrop are also competing). GBSD would get you better performance, he said, including against modern, precision-guided missile defenses, which didnt exist when the Minuteman was designed. (Back then, cutting-edge missile defense destroyed incoming warheads by detonating a nuclear weapon over your own territory). It would be flexible for a wide range of scenarios, whereas the Minuteman was optimized for a massive exchange with Russia across the North Pole. And even sticking with low-risk, proven technology, it would be decades more advanced than Minuteman.

The new missile would also feature a modular, plug-and-plug design known as open architecture that would make replacing components both for maintenance and upgrades much easier than on the Minuteman III. Most important, perhaps, the new missile would be designed from the start to last for decades until at least the 2070s while Minuteman was originally meant to last just 10 years. Between the open architecture and the build-to-last philosophy, McCall said, GBSD would be cheaper to maintain over the long haul than Minuteman.

Back in June, Gen. John Hyten, head of Strategic Command, lamented the time and money it would take to develop GBSD: $85 billion over 20 years for 400 missiles, compared to $17 billion in todays dollars over five years for the initial 800 Minutemans. The military-industrial complex needs to relearn how to go fast, take risks, fail, and try again, he said, instead of grinding along in todays bureaucratic, cripplingly slow acquisition system.

But as expensive as GBSD was, Hyten emphasized, it was still cheaper than re-re-rebuilding the Minuteman: You will have ended up replacing just about everything on the missile, which will cost you more (than GBSD), but nobody believes me. Now that weve heard more of the details from Boeing, maybe we will.

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New ICBM Cheaper Than Upgraded Minuteman: Boeing On GBSD - Breaking Defense

Teachers fear compulsory extended school days would damage pupils’ family life – TES News

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Teachers fear that any compulsory extension of the school day could increase pressure on pupils and damage their family life, new research published by the DfE has found.

Researchers carried out qualitative research in secondary schools to examine the attitudes of school leaders, teachers, parents, pupils and community groups to extended provision.

Their report, published today, says: Staff and parents could see some potential benefits to a [compulsory] extension, such as more time to engage with life skills and enrichment activities, improved relationships with teaching staff, the school as a safe haven, as well as support for working families.

However, the perceived negative impact on student pressure, fatigue, impact on family arrangements, student safety, as well as their involvement in activities within the community had much greater weight with parents and staff.

It says the majority of school leaders held a predominantly negative view of compulsory extension, both in principle and in practice.

And although some saw the value in the basic concept, they questioned how it would happen in practice. A small number were generally positive and supportive.

When the researchers questioned teachers, they found that concerns focused on the impact on the work-life balance of pupils, the extent to which participation should be intrinsically motivated or imposed, the impact on teachers and practicalities of staffing, and the potential of disruption to family schedules.

Staff and parents raised concerns that a compulsory extended school day could have negative effects on family time with children, as well as compromisetheir ability to engage in the local community.

And in focus groups, pupils said they believed the range of activities they engaged in would be narrowed, because they would have to give up activities outside of school if the school day was extended.

They were also concerned about their safety and how they would get home. The report adds: This applied particularly during the winter months, with many pupils expressing discomfort at returning home in the dark.

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Teachers fear compulsory extended school days would damage pupils' family life - TES News

Letter to the editor: Rallying behind Trump – South Strand news

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America is experiencing an extraordinary episode in the history of manufacturing opinion. Never has there been such focused determination to ruin an American president by the opposition party and the press that supports them.

Why is the Left dedicated to destroying the Trump presidency? Because Trump is the one person who says he wont submit to the world around him. He is the symbol of national sovereignty in the battle with globalism, and a symbol of the sovereignty of individuals We The People in the battle with steroidal expansion of government and government control.

The Left cannot allow the zeitgeist of nationalism or self-determination; a government party barreling toward socialism must quash both wherever they appear. They must cut off Trumps head and stab him to death politically and personally, just as Kathy Griffin and the Shakespeare players did in effigy. The American press, as part of that Leftist movement, is a vital tool in the mission to destroy anything and anyone that threatens their forward motion. That determined destruction clearly centers on the current President and his administration. Turn on network news, pick up a major paper, and there is no denying the collaboration.

Resist, Resist, Resist, they say. But what is the rest of their message? Rise with us to silence those who disagree? Rise to make american leadership less significant in the world? Rise to preserve uncontrolled government expansion and soaring national debt? Rise to redefine our military into an experiment in social engineering rather than a force to protect the nation and its allies? Rise to disdain American values? Rise to remove gender as well as excellence from our lexicon and the lives of our children? Rise to deconstruct the Constitution and ignore Federal law?

All those things were initiated and/or amplified under Barack Obama. Those things and more like them are what the progressive left, dragging silly liberals with them, stands for. The complete rejection of those things and those people by millions of americans gave us the Trump presidency. We can only watch and see which vision prevails, but if there is any hope, it lies in patriotism... in the continued commitment of Americans to personal freedom, and in the vision, personal strength, and determination of Donald Trump.

Hartley Porter

Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

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Letter to the editor: Rallying behind Trump - South Strand news

Olympic Games face crucial turning point: The Japan News columnist – The Straits Times

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Wakako Yuki

TOKYO (THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC), facing a critical trend of bid city withdrawal, opened the way for a double award for Paris and Los Angeles as the 2024 and 2028 summer Olympic Games hosts. Los Angeles responded on Monday that the city would accept 2028 candidacy.

The fact that the IOC resorted to such an unusual measure suggests that the Olympic Movement today faces a historic turning point.

"Our discussions and decisions today will chart the course of the Olympic Games for the foreseeable future."

With these words, IOC President Thomas Bach began his speech to open the Extraordinary IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 11.

"Today, when people see that the government, the opposition, business and the sport community - in other words, the entire establishment - is united behind one project (an Olympic Games bid), then the people immediately have mistrust and conclude that something must be terribly wrong.

"Populist movements are on the rise. There is a profound change in the decision-making process in many Western countries. For all these reasons we had and continue to have a much smaller number of potential candidate cities," he said.

By giving Paris and Los Angeles, the two remaining cities in the 2024 bid race, the right to host the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympic Games, the IOC has found a way to ensure stability for the next 11 years. Emphasising this point, Bach secured unanimous agreement to the proposal.

However, establishing stability is not the same as solving the problem. It is necessary to focus on the root of the trend.

Why are there such strong public criticisms slowing down the Olympic bid momentum?

Many cities withdrew from the 2022 and 2024 Olympic bidding after defeats in local referendums or due to political decisions citing negative public opinion. Is the Olympic Movement coming to a crossroads? I listened to the views of the IOC members at the extraordinary session.

Many IOC members endorse the view put forth by Bach that today's political and social climate, the zeitgeist, is a factor. In other words, it is a view that looks for the cause in trends outside the Olympic Movement, not internally.

Europe, the birthplace of the modern Olympics, has been shaken by economic crises, terrorism and immigration issues.

Today there is less need for city redevelopment as many European and U.S. cities have matured, changing the meaning of hosting the Games. In the age of the internet, negative impressions move freely, making it easy for critical opinion and opposition movements to spread.

The public movements that led to the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in the United States, and to the Brexit decision in Britain, contain at heart misgivings toward the existing political and economic system and long-held values. The same adverse wind faces Olympic bids.

Hence the modern Olympic Games, which for last three decades have built and expanded their reach using a capitalist model and by gaining support from political and economic systems, are now prone to face criticism, often under the banner of "concern for cost."

IOC members often point out that the only Games cost for which the IOC has any responsibility are the operation costs of the organising committees, which are not on the rise and are almost all in surplus.

There is no doubt that the Olympics are a mirror reflecting international society and are influenced by present trends. However, if one were to look back over the Olympics' history, it may seem that the shortage of bid cities can be attributed to external factors in those particular eras, as well as overlapping incidents that have occurred during the preceding Olympiads. Two factors seem to affect the decline most: costs being out of control, and the damage to Olympic values based on ethics and ideals.

When in the past the number of bidding cities decreased to two or less, it was thought to be a warning signal for the continuation of the Olympics. For the 2022 Winter Olympic bid (won by Beijing in 2015) and for the 2024 Summer Games (to be voted on in September) only two cities remained in the final selection for each.

The last decline in Olympic history took place in an era that the late Juan Antonio Samaranch, who became IOC president in 1980, called "a challenging period which was labeled by critics as the demise of the Olympic Games."

The decade featured the terrorist incident during the 1972 Munich Games, the financial overrun of the 1976 Montreal Games (after this there was only one candidate city), and the 1980 Moscow Games that were hit by boycotts. The host city selection held in 1981 featured two Asian cities, Seoul and Nagoya (won by Seoul). Though the boycotts were an external factor, they damaged the philosophy set forth by the Olympics, and lowered their perceived value. The opposition movement in Nagoya at the time serves as proof of this.

The trend was turned by the commercialisation of the Games led by then-President Samaranch, and right after the financial success of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the number of Olympic bid cities recorded a new surge. However, in the last several years, they have declined again.

Looking at the current situation in light of the past, a similar trend may emerge. There were reports that the total cost of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which actually included massive urban development, reached 5 trillion (S$61.47 billion), an all-time high for either the summer or winter Games.

This, combined with the economic recession in Europe, scared off European candidates for the 2022 Winter Games bidding. The following year saw a damning revelation of systematic doping in Russia, together with the corruption of the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, then an IOC member.

These led to a loss of confidence in the fairness of competitions and damaged ethical values. For the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, Brazil's political and economic turmoil obviously played the key part, but the delayed preparations and financial challenges left a negative impression.

"There may be some of that reaction (rooted in current political and social trends), but I suspect much of it is the result of growing concerns about corruption and moral leadership," was the observation of Dick Pound, who led an investigation into the Russian doping scandal. "Sport has, to a considerable degree, allowed those values to become tarnished. If it can re-instate them, I believe that much of the current doubt or cynicism could be dissipated."

Using the 11 years of "golden stability" that will be secured by choosing hosts for both the 2024 and 2028 Games, how can the IOC restructure the Olympic Games and the bidding system? Bach responded that he intends to "increase the value of the Olympic Games."

By reducing costs, and making reforms that will attract more bidding cities, Bach hopes to establish historical proof in the examples of successful Games organisation, including Tokyo 2020.

He often says: "If you react to a challenge, your options are limited. We want to be the leaders of change, not the object of change."

So he did, at the end of 2014, when the IOC approved the "Olympic Agenda 2020" for reform, which already highlighted the need for cost reduction and changes to the bidding process.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be the first summer Games under the reformed policy, expected to be the cornerstone of efforts to change the tide.

Paving the way for two cities to hold the 2024 and 2028 Olympics is another strategic cornerstone.

While putting on a strong face, the IOC can break the negative trend of cities withdrawing bids.

Furthermore, the two cities are expected to present "golden opportunities" for raising the value of the Olympic Games; Paris, where the modern Olympic Games saw their creation by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, and Los Angeles, promising another private-funded Olympic organisation.

What then?

"The rest is up to my successor," said Bach, with a big smile hiding the meticulous calculations behind it.

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Olympic Games face crucial turning point: The Japan News columnist - The Straits Times

Here’s where you can buy the "Equal Rights Now" tee you’ve seen almost every celebrity wearing – HelloGiggles

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Females Are Strong As Hell

If youve been on Instagram at all since November, then youve probably noticed a resurgence in politically-charged tees. Tees have always been loud statement-makers, especially in a political context. How clothing is made, what it means in relation to the zeitgeist, and what it represents are all inherently political, even though it may not always be obvious. And in case youre looking to wear your woke-ness on your sleeve with a shirt, then you may want to grab this Equal Rights Now tee featuring iconic feministsDorothy Pitman HughesandGloria Steinem.

The photo on this shirt, which first appeared in a 1971 issue of Esquire magazine, features Gloria and Dorothy with their fists up. Its a stern and timeless testament to everything the womens empowerment movement stands for: Intersectional equality on every front. Now, the famed photo is getting a DIY makeover on this shirt and furthering the demand for equal rights for all.

Thanks to everyone who supported our represent.com/equalrights campaign so far! Help raise money and awareness for the Equal Rights Coalition to finally pass the Equal Rights Amendment! #EqualRightNow

Giving some background on the amendment, Represent states,

The ERA still hasnt been passed, and the goal of this shirt is to help promote awareness so that it can finally be adopted. And for $24.99, you know your money is going to a good cause while also helping you spread the word about the importance of this amendment.

The shirts start shipping on August 25th, so prepare your bodies. Youll be able to wear these sooner than you think.

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Here's where you can buy the "Equal Rights Now" tee you've seen almost every celebrity wearing - HelloGiggles

Should the Leading Online Tech Companies Be Regulated as Public Utilities? – Lawfare (blog)

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Should the leading online tech companies be regulated as public utilities? Maybe so, according to White House advisor Steve Bannon. His basic argument, according to The Intercept, is that Facebook and Google have become effectively a necessity in contemporary life. Thus far, the tech sector and Washington think-tank crowd have not grappled with that possibility in much depth, if at all. This post will provide a look at some reasons that leading tech companies today resemble sectors traditionally subjected to public utility regulation, and then consider some strong critiques of such a regulatory approach.

Historically, utility regulation has been more prominent where we see: (1) high market share; (2) a service that is vital for consumers; (3) a natural monopoly; and (4) barriers to exit by consumers. For the first factor, one can debate which market measurements to use, but Facebook and Google are unquestionably large. Both have billions of users globally. Google has about an 88 percent market share globally for search, and Facebook now reaches about 89 percent of U.S. Internet users. As to the second, online services are perhaps not quite as vital to daily life as electricity, but Bannon is likely correct to say that services such as search, navigation, and social networks are effectively a necessity of modern life.

The third factor appears more complicated; at first glance, tech companies are not a great fit with the traditional concept of natural monopoly, which economist William Baumol defined as an industry in which multi-firm production is more costly than production by a monopoly." Traditional utility regulation focused on sectors such as electricity, telephone, and cable: high capital costs to entering those markets meant it usually made no economic sense to build a duplicative set of power, phone, or cable lines to the home. For online services, by contrast, the cost of creating a new web site is trivially small, so new social networks can easily begin with an innovative approach and instantly get to the users home or mobile device. However, a network becomes more valuable as more people joina concept called a network effect. Network effects can readily exist for social networks, with sites like Twitter and Facebook increasing in value to each member as more users join. Strong network effects can create costly if not impossible conditions for new entrants seeking to compete with the market leader.

Lastly, as for barriers to exit for consumers, the government applied traditional utility regulation when consumers had no easy way to cut themselves off from a service, such as electricity or phone service. This condition may well apply to Facebook, Google, or other major tech firms. For Facebook, ending use would risk losing touch with friends, accessing news and emergency alerts, and quite a bit more. For Google services, logged-in users could lose access to some of the most advanced email, navigation, video, search, and other personalized services.

There are also compelling arguments against the view that online services today deserve regulation as public utilities. For online services, a competing service really is just a click away if the current service does not serve customer needs. In addition, antitrust experts emphasize the importance of leapfrog competition, in which a different company or business model does not compete head-on with the current market leader, but instead jumps to the next generation and displaces the incumbent there. This phenomenon has many examples in information technology. MySpace lost out to Facebook. Windows and Microsoft Office dominated the PC market for many years, but have no similar hold on todays pervasive mobile devices, while Google Docs and other cloud software services have successfully challenged Microsofts software license model.

More broadly, public utility regulation as a cure may be worse than the disease. A major deregulatory backlash followed the public utility regulation applied to numerous U.S. industries in the 1960s. Under President Carter, a progressive alliance of economist Alfred Kahn, then-Senate staffer Stephen Breyer, and Ralph Nader succeeded in eliminating the Civil Aeronautics Board and price setting for airline tickets, opening the way for discount airlines. Under President Reagan and afterwards, deregulation spread to many previously-regulated utilities, including energy, telecommunications, and other sectors.

Observers vary greatly in which of these deregulatory changes they favor, and my intention here is not to pronounce judgment on which of the changes was desirable. Instead, I suggest that the deregulatory movement had at least three insights that corrected for some of the earlier preference for public utility regulation. First, as airline deregulation exemplifies, the traditional public utility approach does not work well for markets characterized by innovation and rapid change. Second, the debate over proper designation of public utility status should cite more than a study of market failures to justify public utility or other regulation; instead, as Neil Komesar has ably argued, policymakers should look empirically at both government failures and market failures to assess whether regulation is likely to be worthwhile in a given setting. Third, even Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama have issued Executive Orders supporting use of cost-benefit analysis to proposed regulations (while recognizing the difficulty of quantifying important variables). Applying these three insights to tech firms, innovation and rapid change are common to the tech industry, government imperfections in regulation can be high when applied to cutting-edge technology, and the costs of regulation can be especially steep in industries that otherwise would continue to innovate.

In short, there are some reasonably strong arguments that the biggest online services today are similar to traditional public utilities due to their high market share, network effects, and difficulty for consumers to live without the service. On the other hand, the old public utility approach to regulation had numerous flaws, and does not adapt readily to high-innovation markets where competition is typically based on factors other than price.

Rather than fitting public utility models for electricity or airline pricing, the emerging calls for regulation bear a closer resemblance to some of the Federal Communications Commissions past efforts to use its public utility authority to regulate television content. The growing calls for online services to take down ISIS and other terrorist communications can be seen as an update to the FCCs prohibitions on profanity (George Carlins seven dirty words) and broader historical efforts to prohibit indecent content. The calls for limits on fake news can similarly start to resemble a modern-day Fairness Doctrine, where fake news is unfair and blocked, while real news is fair and goes out to viewers.

The efforts to regulate online services as utilities, moreover, are likely to advance more quickly in countries other than the United States. The United States is more laissez faire than the rest of the world and proud of and reluctant to interfere with American-grown tech success stories. By contrast, the European Union has been willing to take high-visibility actions against Google, in the right to be forgotten limits on what can be shown in search results, and in the recent EU antitrust order that Google must avoid prioritizing search results of Google-affiliated services.

In conclusion, those who thought public utility regulation was a thing of the past might want to reconsider what is likely to happen with respect to the largest online tech companies. Steven Bannon, in calling for public utility treatment, may be expressing something in the American zeitgeist, and other countries are likely even more willing to regulate in this area than the United States. For those who are familiar with the many problems of public utility regulation, the time has likely come to make more considered and persuasive explanations for the flaws of that approach.

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Should the Leading Online Tech Companies Be Regulated as Public Utilities? - Lawfare (blog)

How to smother a resource economy to death, starting with LNG – Financial Post

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By Joe Oliver

Last week, Canada received more bad news in its prolonged failure to export energy resources abroad. Petronas decided not to proceed with its $36-billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project, dealing a body blow to B.C. employment, economic growth, funding for social programs and revenue to First Nations. Understandably, the federal and provincial governments sounded defensive, characterizing it as a business decision based entirely on the decline in liquified natural gas prices.

However, Petronas had previously emphasized it considers the industrys long-term prospects, including costs, not just the current market. Furthermore, LNG projects are moving forward south of the border and in Australia. An initial project description was filed with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) in February 2013, raising the question why it could not have been approved sooner when prices were higher and costs potentially lower. For the sponsor, it must have felt like death by a thousand cuts, with frustrating delays and ceaseless demands for concessions from politicians and regulators, as well as lawsuits from environmental and aboriginal opponents.

Norway green policies have not prevented it from exploiting its vast offshore resources

When I was minister of natural resources, our Conservative government legislated one project, one review in a defined time period, a significant regulatory improvement. Later, we provided an accelerated capital allowance for the projects facilities and extended export licenses. In contrast, the Liberal government denigrated the National Energy Board (NEB), politicized, duplicated and lengthened the consultation and review processes and broadened their scope. It is now considering the addition of social and cultural impacts, which would exacerbate uncertainty and delay.

Former premier Christy Clark imposed a provincial carbon tax and took her time in pressuring Petronas to commit up to $1 billion in investment over 20 years. For its part, the CEAAs numerous and onerous requests for information stopped the clock and added a one-and-a-half-year delay. Meanwhile, the B.C. NDP, later to form government, officially rejected the project. In September 2016, the federal cabinet finally gave its approval, subject to 190 conditions including a cap on carbon emissions. So, a lot of people contributed to killing the deal.

Lets put the project in perspective. Canada has enormous natural gas reserves (1,100 trillion cubic feet), enough for 350 years of domestic use at current consumption. It is just common sense that we export as much as we responsibly can, as soon as we can. However, according to the NEB, Canada will be a late entrant in the highly competitive global LNG market and the next several years will be critical to the development of the Canadian LNG industry. Unfortunately, only the $1.6-billion Woodfibre LNG project has any chance of being built in the next five years.

Canadas strategic challenge is that our sole customer, the U.S., has discovered vast domestic shale reserves. Its companies are buying our gas at the low Alberta border price and exporting gas at the higher Henry Hub price. A substantial oil price differential also exists between Western Canadian Select and international Brent. Our exporters only option is to pay U.S. pipeline tariffs and contract with Gulf Coast facilities. For Donald Trump, its a great deal. For Justin Trudeau, not so much.

That leads to Kinder Morgans $6.8-billion Trans Mountain pipeline extension, which would transport 890,00 barrels of oil a day to Burnaby, east of Vancouver, for export to Asia. The new minority NDP government promised its Green Party supporters it will immediately employ every tool available to stop its construction. To avoid being sued for bad faith, the government is cautious about how it handles permit approvals and its role in lawsuits launched by opponents. Nevertheless, its historical opposition was fierce and Green votes are crucial to keep it in power.

The$12-billionEnergy Eastpipelineis also encounteringNIMBYopposition. Itwould deliver 1.1 million barrels of crudefrom Western Canada toQuebecand New Brunswickfor refining, consumptionand export.

These are nation-building projects. Trudeau should look to Norway, whose passionate commitment to green policies has not prevented it from enthusiastically exploiting its vast offshore resources and becoming the worlds third-wealthiest country per capita. Canada is 19th.

In terms of safety, anewFraser Institutestudydemonstratesthat while global tanker shipmentsdoubledfrom 1970 to2015, spills plummetedby 98 per cent.Therefore, whena projects environmental impact hasbeenscientifically vetted,it is timefor the federal governmentto grab thenettleanduse all itsauthoritytoget itbuilt.Ambivalence doesnot cutit.

We urgently need a national campaign strategy and a federal champion to explain to Canadians what is at stake. Otherwise, time will pass without progress, lengthening a distressing record of lost opportunities. It would be an inexcusable failure for Canada to be the only resource-rich country incapable of exporting its resources for the benefit of its people.

Joe Oliver, chairman of investment dealer Echelon Wealth Partners, is the former minister of natural resources and minister of finance.

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How to smother a resource economy to death, starting with LNG - Financial Post

Experts talk automation in Acme – Traverse City Record Eagle

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ACME The people responsible for shaping the future of transportation have gathered this week at the annual Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars.

The five-day conference attracts major players in the automotive industry from around the globe. Speakers include Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and the director of Ministry of the Economy of Mexicos Trade and NAFTA Office. But executives from BMW, Toyota, Tesla, General Motors, AM General, Bosch, Mazda, Volkswagen, IBM, Nissan, ExxonMobil and Lear Corporation took center stage, along with experts from dozens of development companies and suppliers.

Governors Hall at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa was filled with business people in dark blue jackets and black pantsuits, all of them focused on one thing the future of the automobile. Transportation is big business on a global stage, and the industry is in the midst of a technological upheaval.

Gasoline and diesel displaced horsepower a century ago. Electricity now is pushing fossil fuels off the worlds roads. At the same time, computers are in the early stages of removing humans from the drivers seat. Thats the gist of this weeks meeting in Acme electricity and automation.

As seen here today, highly automated driving is no longer a dream, but a reality, said Continental North America President Jeff Klei.

He spoke Monday afternoon outside the resort, where two cars a Cadillac ATS and a Chrysler 300 fitted with autonomous technology created by Continental and Magna International completed a 7-hour, 300-mile journey, 92 percent of it without any human driver input. The cars began in Detroit, drove through the Detroit-Windsor tunnel to Ontario, returned to the U.S. on the Bluewater Bridge, then cruised northwest to Acme.

Klei referred to the technology installed in the cars as a cruising chauffeur. Technically, that level of automation is called Level 3 or conditional automation. The designation means the vehicle can drive itself in certain environments, such as on a highway. Human control is required at toll booths and in complicated situations like busy city streets.

Levels 4 and 5 are designated as fully automated, technologies in which a human driver never is required. Level 4 is limited to a certain geographic area, such as on a proving ground or within a certain pre-mapped region. Level 5 would allow a vehicle to travel anywhere.

Current technology cant provide full automation, Ryan Eustace, vice president of autonomous driving for the Toyota Research Institute, told the crowd in Governors Hall.

Theres a lot of top-down human awareness that needs to be built in, he said.

He described the constant stream of unknowns on the road pedestrians, animals, broken water mains, traffic cops, accidents, poorly-marked detours as the social dance of driving.

It will be years, he said, before the eventual goal of an automated car that cant crash (because it warns the driver or automatically intervenes to prevent a crash) becomes reality.

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Experts talk automation in Acme - Traverse City Record Eagle

Automation May Lead to a Workless Future for Humans. Here’s How We Can Cope. – Futurism

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The Automation of Everything

To add to our apprehensions about the future, it seems were running out of letters with which to name successive generations: after Baby Boomers, came generation X, then Millennials (aka Gen-Y), who have now been succeeded by Generation Z.Whether or not one finds any symbolism, omen, or irony in this is beside the point. What is important to ask is: what kind of world will those born in the XXI century grow up in?

Will the automation of everythingleave many people behind, bringing despair and disappointment? Or will it urge humanity to redefine self-actualization? Will the realization of ones potential no longer be defined by career success or measured by net-worth? If and when it becomes unnecessary for a significant portion of the population to be working, will we be able to adapt our value system to allow for guilt-free leisure, encourage more creative exploration, and recognize the value of lifelong learning?

Just days after the e-commerce giant from Silicon Valley dazzled the world with the introduction of Amazon Go, it has made the first commercial delivery by drone. The fantasy world of tomorrow with flying cars and cashless stores seems to be turning into the mundane reality of today. This fantasy, though, is all too real for people whose livelihoods are threatened by it. Just imagining a scenario where the jobs of cashiers and retail salespersons in the U.S. are fully automated, we are looking at adding 7.5 million people to the ranks of the unemployed.

For comparison, since the beginning of XXI century, the American economy has been adding, on average, 0.8M jobs per year. Whether its Uber, Google, Apple, Tesla, or any other company that will bring a viable driverless technology to the market, it is not a matter of if but when. Here again, 3.5 million jobs in America could disappear in a heartbeat, should this technology become commonplace. Loss of just those two narrowly-defined professions could undo 14 years worth of job creation.

Beyond those vivid examples, a widely-shared blog on the World Economic Forums Agenda platform projects that roughly half of all jobs will be lost to automation in less than two decades. One could take solace looking at past experiences where some vocations fade away, but the new ones come in their stead. Many analysts argue, though, that this time will be different.If those predictions come true, and we are indeed heading for a workless future, now would be high time to kick off a policy discussion on how we must prepare for it.

Just as we intellectually recognize that the world of tomorrow will have much less employment, (or at least, much less of what we define as employment right now), the job-creation rhetoric continues to dominate our political discourse. This proverbial tomorrow may take a decade (or two, or five) to arrive. Undoubtedly, some version of it will and burying ones head in the sand is no solution. Focusing on the skills necessary to compete for the yet-to-be-invented jobs is only part of the puzzle. As the gap widens between population growth and automation on one side, and job creation to meet the needs of our machine-powered future on the other, we have to begin making serious adjustments to maintain social cohesion.

What if continued automation of work be it legal research, or medical diagnostics, or writing of newspaper articles delivers productivity gains that can be distributed among the population without the need for everyone to contribute in a traditional way? Should such future be imagined, it will require a major paradigm shift in how our society is organized, how we define contribution, where we find fulfillment, and how we draw meaning from our daily activities.

The first question, which is already being vigorously debated, is how can one support oneself when one is not expected to be working. Unconditional basic income, or digital dividend, is one concept thats gathering momentum. Some jurisdictions have either toyed with the idea or are piloting it. The political debate needs to engage the taboo topic of guaranteeing economic security to families through a universal basic income. writes David Ignatius for The Washington Post.

This novel policy proposal is often contrasted with welfare, with the resulting arguments being both for and against. The problem with that discourse is that its framed in terms of the current situation where policies are designed to discourage freeriding of some upon the efforts of others. What we should be considering instead is the circumstance where all humans are freeriding on the efforts of machines. The latter do not create demand, which in turn creates a serious conundrum for our economic system.

As radical as the universal basic income idea may sound, in strict terms, its a simple technical solution to a significant social problem. It would be far more difficult to imagine, let alone incorporate, a new value system where unemployment is not stigmatized. Adopting norms in a society where ones contribution is no longer defined by economic output, is a challenge of a different scale and complexity altogether. To address it before the societal tensions boil over, we will need a ton of courage, a lot of blue-sky thinking, and a great deal of policy experimentation.

We must begin by openly acknowledging and ultimately facing the reality. As political careers are made and broken on the promises of job-creation, it will require a great deal of courage for our leaders to take responsibility and initiate a frank debate on the possible workless future. To better cope with the uncertain future, well have to develop a new vocabulary to articulate the dilemmas we have yet to face.

It is also the intellectual framework within which we look at our economic systems that needs to change. Here we can start with redefining GDP to better account for non-compensated contribution (such as childcare and housekeeping) or better yet, move towards a wider matrix such as Social Progress Index or any other methodology that recognizes human contribution and progress in new ways. Perhaps we should also retire terms like labor productivity and, instead, refocus on measuring self-actualization.

One of the simplest, and yet also more complicated, questions to ponder in a world free of traditional employment, is what will we do with our free time? It would be good to ease our way into it by looking at the 6 Hour Workdaypolicies that Sweden is introducing to increase productivity and make people happier. Shorter work days will help prevent burnout and allow people a space to find other activities from which they can derive meaning. For those who are employed, a job isnt just a vehicle to earn ones living, it is a means to address the basic human need for belonging. Exploring how this need could be met outside of the workplace would be a worthy undertaking.

Given that the ambition of an individual today is often conflated with professional aspirations and then measured by ones career success, ambition of the future could potentially be viewed through the prism of building ones capacity for imagination and aspiration to learn, generate, and exchange ideas. Popularizing the idea of a sabbatical breaks in professional fields beyond academia (where it is already fairly commonplace), would help us in making this a smoother transition.

All of those efforts will have to go hand-in-hand with addressing the rising inequality and recognizing the Spiritual Crisis of the Modern Economy, where failure [to find a job after losing one] is a source of deep shame and a reason for self-blame.

The imagined future where humans may not have to work as machines will be taking care of ever-widening range of our needs and wants is not assured, but it is highly probable. We can debate the timeline and keep stuffing this difficult conversation into a can, so that we could kick it down the road. What would be more constructive, though, is delving into this debate headfirst, trying out new policies, learning from one another, and shaping our workless future to minimize its discontents. Our kids (the Gen-Zs) will thank us for it!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Futurism or its affiliates.

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Automation May Lead to a Workless Future for Humans. Here's How We Can Cope. - Futurism

Providing Industrial Robots with Senses for Automation – R & D Magazine

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In 2012, two inspiring Ph.D.s, kos Tar and Jzsef Veres, were studying bionics and robotics in the same class in college. The two started a project to build a two-legged robot. During this research and development, one of the focus areas was to develop the senses of the robot to create its ability to touch and feel objects to measure forces on its leg along the X-Y-Z axes. This led them to the development of a layered structure in which silicone would actually change its form under a greater load and made measurement possible in all directions.

Since that time, OptoForce has become a market leader in helping to bring multi-axial force and torque control with optical technology to a wide range of businesses and industries relying on industrial automation and robotics for their operations.

Today, OptoForce equips industrial robots with a sense of touch so that more tasks can be automated, freeing production from redundant, tedious tasks that are needed, and helping businesses save significant time and money.

The company, based in Budapest, Hungary with customers and distributors located around the world, recently announced the opening of its U.S. office to help companies across the U.S. and Canada.

Here are some of the company capabilities.

Optical Force Sensing

Optical force sensing measures deformation and deducts the applied load. Strain gauge technology has been the most prominent on the market since its inception in 1938. The principles havent changed much since that time, and so the primary limitations such as brittle structure, expensive manufacturing and heavy weight, has been constraining widespread application. Optical, silicone-based-force sensors, which were first commercially available from OptoForce, are now opening up new possibilities in automation for companies around the world.

3-Axis Force Sensing: OptoForce sensors have only one structure for measuring deformation along the 3-axes (X, Y, Z). In optical force sensors, photodiode measures the amount of reflected light, originally emitted by the LED. By comparing the measured values on the photodiodes, the acting forces can be precisely reconstructed, not just by the magnitude but also the direction

6-Axis Force/Torque Sensing: Six-axis sensors can measure the lateral forces along with the torques around the X, Y and Z vectors. An array of the three-axis sensors can be used to construct a six-axis force/torque sensor as well.

The OptoForce six-axis Force/Torque Sensors provide six degrees of freedom force and torque measurement and are designed for industrial automation applications that require human hand dexterity. The sensors are made to fit most of the currently used industrial robot arms and were developed so that integration with various interfaces is simple.

Available Applications

Typical applications are force control devices and also include assembly; teach in activities; crash detection; hand guidance tasks; fix and rotate; connectors insertion; peg insertion or pin-in-the hole tasks; used next to end effectors in case of grinding, polishing, deburring, finishing; and arc welding. OptoForce sensors provide a cost-effective yet smart solution. High durability and an unlimited number of custom opportunities resemble all of OptoForces sensor types.

More specifically, the following applications are examples of where robotics can take advantage of OptoForces sensors:

Presence Detection: The OptoForce Force Torque Sensor, along with the OptoForce Move application, fine tunes a Universal Robots protective stop function, so that even the smallest counterforces that are smaller than 10 N - can be perceived.

Center Pointing: The Center Point solution provides for an easy-to-find center point, even if the object has moved away from the original position.

Hand Guiding:It is possible to move the robot by hand on all 6 axes or by locking the movement of any selected axes for precise positioning. This is an easy-to-use for guiding the robot in a fast and precise way.

Path Recording: Using the Path Recording function of the OptoForce Hand Guide Toolbar can create a program within minutes so that any complex path can be easily recorded.

Polishing (Plastic and Metal): With this solution, you can remove the parting lines of plastic objects fast and easy. OptoForces polishing application provides high quality polishing, even with forces under 10 Newtons.

Box Insertion:The Box Insertion solution helps to insert items; for example, inserting a battery inside an electronic device with speed, accuracy, and simplicity.

Pin in the Hole:With this solution, robots can precisely fit or insert mating parts with very high tolerances. This solution helps to find the hole and place any pin into it in a fast and precise manner.

Stacking/Destacking:A force controlled application enables the stacking and de-stacking of products without needing to know the exact thickness and the height of the stack.

Palletizing: The force controlled application also allows the robot to stack products onto pallets. This can be quite advantageous for items that are hard to work such as cardboard boxes.

Metal Part Sanding:Force controlled metal sanding gives the robot the ability to precisely remove excess material from the machined surface. In addition to saving time and cost, it also reduces the health impacts to machine operators.

OptoForce sensors are being used by various companies on numerous projects around the world. A few real-world examples of where the sensors are being used include: a plastic parting line removal; an obstacle detection for a major car manufacturing company; and a center point insertion application for a car part supplier, where the task of the robot is to insert a mirror, completely centered, onto a side mirror housing.

The 6-Axis Force/Torque Sensors are available in two models: Model HEX-E and Model HEX-H. The main difference between the two is that the HEX-E has higher precision, while the HEX-H has lower deformation.

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-E

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

1.7 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.3 mm

500%

Txy

10 Nm

( 2.5 )

500%

Tz

6.5 Nm

( 5 )

500%

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-H

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

0.6 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.25 mm

500%

Txy

20 Nm

( 2 )

300%

Tz

13 Nm

( 3.5 )

300%

The Advantages of OptoForce Force/Torque Sensors

OptoForces HEX-E and HEX-H are sold through a global network of distributors primarily to systems integrator companies. The HEX-E and HEX-H hardware and software helps to shorten the systems integration time, as users have less programming to do when using the sensors, as well as the significant time savings derived from automating precision-oriented tasks.

During the research and development of its sensors, OptoForce took great strides to advance the capability of its sensors in contrast to existing sensors on the market:

Robust and Durable: Businesses generally have found it quite frustrating in robotics that many sensors tend to be fragile, and easy-to-break. OptoForce sensors represent regardless of the application durability and robustness. On numerous occasions, customers have stated that they have broken multiple, highly valuable F/T sensors manufactured by others over the years because of overload and higher impact forces. However, OptoForce has developed a highly deformative property of silicone to ensure its sensors guarantee precise measurements all the way up to 200% overload. Even after total deformation during 600% overload, the silicone regains its original form and is able to measure forces with the same precision, without any hint of permanent damage. This is because these sensors were built to resist sudden shocks.

Resolution:OptoForces sensors possess much greater resolution than other competitive offerings with a 0.1N or 0.001Nm.

Pricing/Value: Leveraging modern technological advances, the company has built sensors and can offer businesses a strong price and value for money. Its low prices give access to highly precise force/torque sensors to the marketplace.

Compatibility: OptoForce sensors received Universal Robot + Certification to validate its suitability for a product environment. OptoForce hardware and software components allow users to extend their force/torque sensing capabilities for those using Universal Robots or KUKA robots.

A Variety of Solutions: Depending on the application, there is a wide range of uses for both the 3 and 6 axis OptoForce sensors.

About the Author

kos Dmtr is the CEO of OptoForce. kos leads all strategic initiatives at OptoForce in helping customers save production time and money by equipping their robots with a sense of touch to automate tasks. He can be reached at akos.domotor@optoforce.com.

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Providing Industrial Robots with Senses for Automation - R & D Magazine

Automation To Blame – The Free Weekly

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Advice

Husband needs flashing arrow to keep towel off bed

My otherwise wonderful husband always leaves his wet towel on the bed (on my side!). Ive asked him to stop doing this countless times, but I dont think hes being passive-aggressive or anything. I think he just spaces out after showering. How can I get him to remember?

Soggy

Its good for a man to have goals, though ideally not one that involves growing a fern out of your comforter.

As you appear to understand, the problem isnt ill will; its I, Robot. The first time your husband wondered Where do I put this wet towel? perhaps at age 10 his brain said, Easy peasy just drop it right there on the bed. Sadly, it seems his superhero bedspread didnt pipe up: Supermans got a ton to do today, and flying your wet towel over to the hamper is not on his agenda.

Our brain is an efficiency expert. Figuring things out the first time around (a la what should I do with this towel?) takes a bunch of energy. But, as neuroscientist Donald Hebb pointed out (in somewhat more neuroscientific terms), as you do an action over and over, your brain goes, Oh, that again. The trigger for the action in this case, approaching the bed (while in a towel, ready to get dressed) becomes automatic. Automatic means theres no stopping to muse, Wait! I have a wife now, and shes threatening to Saran Wrap the bed. Theres only the old familiar launch code: Bed! cueing Drop wet towel here!

This automation thing with thinking removed from the equation is the reason nagging or even asking nicely before or after the fact is so often useless in changing behavior. You need to break in to the automatic sequenceas its in progress when he gets to the bed kind of like an air traffic controller coming in over the planes intercom: Attention Southwest two-two-niner

Interrupting the trigger sequence allows you to send a yoo-hoo to areas of his prefrontal cortex, the brains department of rational thought asking them to kindly wake the hell up and take over from the basal ganglia and other parts of the brains department of automation.

No, Im not suggesting you stand guard by the bed like one of those decorative architectural lions, waiting for wet towel time. And hiring one of those street-corner sign spinners would probably be both impractical and a little creepy.

To grab your husbands attention in a positive way, I suggest collecting cartoons (like one of my faves, Bizarro, by Dan Piraro) and leaving one marked Towel alert! xo on the area of the bed he turns into terrycloth swampland. (Pair it with a battery-operated flashing light if he ends up dropping his towel on top of it.) The cartoon should break him out of his auto-daze, reminding him to return the wet towel to its ancestral home, Ye Olde Towel Rack. (If there is something missing for the two of you in bed, it probably isnt mildew.)

Fame Fatale

Im a novelist whos suddenly getting successful (after 20 years of crappy jobs and rejected manuscripts). Every day, several people make this annoying and rather insulting comment to me: Dont forget about me when youre famous! This got me wondering: What keeps some people grounded while others let success go to their head?

Published

Of course youll stay in touch with your old friends. Youll have your assistant call them to see whether theyd like to come over and clean out your rain gutters.

The quality that keeps success from turning you into, well, Kanye East, is humility. People confuse humility being humble with being humiliated. However, humility is basically a healthy awareness of your limitations what social psychologist and humility researcher Pelin Kesebir describes as a down-to-earth perspective of yourself in relation to all other beings.

Thats something youre more likely to have when you make it at 40 after 20 years of working crappy jobs, driving a car held together with duct tape and hope, and selling your blood to buy a tuna melt. Contrast that with hitting it big at 17: Bro, I was just on my hoverboard at the mall, and some dude handed me a recording contract!

The cool thing is, social psychologist Elliott Kruse and his colleagues find that you can bolster humility by expressing gratitude appreciation for how another person has helped you. Expressing gratitude both inhibits internal focus and promotes external focus focus on others. This sort of wider view may help you keep any fame you get in perspective. After all, theres a way to live on in the hearts and minds of many, even after you die, and its by creating brilliant, spirit-moving art or by being a chinchilla videotaped while eating a Dorito.

(c)2017, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail AdviceAmy@aol.com (advicegoddess.com). Weekly radio show: blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon. Order Amy Alkons book, Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say The F-Word (St. Martins Press, June 3, 2014) at amazon.com.

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Automation To Blame - The Free Weekly

Audiologists, Emergency Managers and Occupational Therapists Face Low Risk from Automation – EHS Today

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How likely are you to be replaced by a robot or a computer program? It depends, according to a new report,How Vulnerable Are American Communities to Automation, Trade and Urbanization? Workers in data entry, telemarketing and watch repair are most likely to be targeted by automation, while surgeons...not so much.

The study, prepared by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) and the Rural Policy Institutes Center for State Policy at Ball State University, found that the rise of automation and offshoring could extend such job losses beyond the factory floor.

Automation is likely to replace half of all low-skilled jobs, says CBER director Michael Hicks. More worrisome is that there is considerable concentration of job loss risks across labor markets, educational attainment and earnings. This accrues across industries and is more pronounced across urban regions, where economies have concentrated all net new employment in the United States for a generation.

The study also found that low risk of automation is associated with much higher wages, averaging about $80,000 a year. Occupations with the highest risk of automation have incomes of less than $40,000 annually.

The top automatable occupations, number of jobs and average annual salary includes data entry keyers, 216,000, $29,000; mathematical science occupations, 1,800, $66,210; telemarketers, 237,000, $23, 530; insurance underwriters, 103,000, $65,000; tax preparers, 90,400, $36,450; photographic process workers and processing machine operators, 28,800, $26,590; library technicians, 101,800, $34,750.

The leastautomatable occupations, number of jobs and average annual salary includes recreational therapists, 18,000, $45,890; emergency managers, 10,000, $67,330; first-line supervisors of mechanics, installers and repairers, 447,100, $63,010; mental health and substance abuse social workers, 117,000, $42,170; audiologists, 13,200, $74,890; orthotrists and prosthetists, 8,300, $64,430; health technologists and technicians, 102,200, $41,260; and hearing aid specialists, 5,900, $49,600.

While drafters, computer programmers, data entry keyers, statisticians and mathematicians and film and video editors were considered the most offshorable occupations, the list of least offshorable occupations closely mimicked the list of least automatable occupations, with the edition of the 6,800 oral and maxillofacial surgeons who average an annual wage of $233,900.

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Audiologists, Emergency Managers and Occupational Therapists Face Low Risk from Automation - EHS Today

Brooks Automation’s (BRKS) CEO Steve Schwartz on Q3 2017 Results – Earnings Call Transcript – Seeking Alpha

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Brooks Automation, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRKS)

Q3 2017 Earnings Conference Call

August 2, 2017 4:30 P.M. ET

Executives

Lindon Robertson - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Steve Schwartz - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analysts

Paul Knight - Janney Montgomery Scott

Amanda Scarnati - Citi

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Brooks Automation Q3 Fiscal Year 2017 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded, Wednesday, August 2, 2017. I would now like to turn the call over to Lindon Robertson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Lindon Robertson

Thank you, Ash, and good afternoon, everyone. We would like to welcome each of you to the third quarter financial results conference call for the Brooks fiscal year 2017. We will be covering the results of the third quarter ended on June 30, and then we will provide an outlook for the fourth fiscal quarter ending September 30 of this year.

A press release was issued after the close of the markets today and is available at our Investor Relations page of our website, http://www.brooks.com, as are the illustrated PowerPoint slides that will be used during the prepared comments during the call.

I would like to remind everyone that during the course of the call, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Securities Act of 1995. There are many factors that may cause actual financial results or other events to differ from those identified in such forward-looking statements.

I would refer you to the section of our earnings release titled Safe Harbor Statement, the Safe Harbor slide on the aforementioned PowerPoint presentation on our website and our various filings with the SEC, including our annual reports on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

We made no obligation to update these statements should future financial data or events occur that differ from the forward-looking statements presented today. I would also like to note that we may make reference to a number of non-GAAP financial measures, which are used in addition to, and in conjunction with, results presented in accordance with GAAP.

We believe that these non-GAAP measures provide an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations and performance. But when considered with GAAP financial results and a reconciliation of GAAP measures, they provide an even more complete understanding of the Brooks business. Non-GAAP measures should not be relied upon to the exclusion of the GAAP measures themselves.

On the call with me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Steve Schwartz. We will open with his remarks on the business environment and our third quarter highlights then we'll provide an overview of the third quarter financial results and a summary of our financial outlook for the quarter ending September 30, which is our fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2017.

We will then take your questions at the end of those comments. During our prepared remarks, again we will, from time to time, make reference to the slides I mentioned available to everyone on the Investor Relations page of our Brooks website.

With that, Id like to turn the call over now to our CEO, Steve Schwartz.

Steve Schwartz

Thank you, Lindon. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. We're particularly pleased to announce the results from a very strong June quarter in part because the results that weve delivered, but more importantly because were able to demonstrate the earnings power of our business, which is made up of a portfolio of strong market leading technology positions and key growth segments of the semi-conductor and Life Sciences markets. A foundation that we strongly believe will continue to deliver going forward.

Revenue at $182 million was up 7% from March and up 23% over the prior year. Gross margins increased sequentially by 100 basis points to reach 40%, which is a very meaningful threshold for the company, and a heavy lift from the 32% to 33% gross margins we delivered in fiscal 2011, the year we first entered the Life Sciences space and began to restructure our semiconductor product portfolio.

The top line and gross margin performance led to a non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.36, more than double what we delivered in the June quarter one year ago, and up 27% from the March quarter. Growth came from both segments as we delivered our eighth consecutive quarter of growth in Life Sciences and semiconductor, which is riding the wave of strong momentum in the capital equipment space, also benefited from our expanding market share position in our key growth segments.

The part that we find most energizing is the momentum that weve established inside the company to continually ratchet down on costs and improve efficiency, while we advance new product development and sales activity to deliver top line growth. We continue to see more potential and thats what drives us even harder.

Today, we report on some of the highlights from the quarter and give color as to what makes us enthusiastic about the prospects from the very solid positions weve captured in two important markets. Ill begin my comments today with a recap of our Life Sciences business performance.

Revenue came in at a robust $37 million, thats up 6% from March and represents organic growth of 27% from the June quarter one year ago. And including organic growth and revenue from acquisitions was our seventh consecutive quarter of greater than 25% growth.

Bookings at $42 million had another $7 million to backlog, which now stands at $260 million. And though gross margin was slightly softer on mix, Life Sciences delivered $2 million of operating profit in the quarter even as we made additional investments to expand our global sales team.

Ill add just a few additional highlights from the quarter. Our automated storage systems business grew 63% versus prior year coming from both bio and cryo automation solutions we delivered to compound and bio-banks, cell therapy, and regenerative medicine applications.

In a particularly positive sign, our BioStore three cryo system bookings topped $2 million for the quarter with account penetrations in North America, Europe, China, and the Middle East. We had 26 new customers expanding our base across a broad spectrum of customers in the Pharma, Biotech, healthcare clinical, and academic end markets.

We also delivered on some important milestones that will generate future revenue. We launched BioStudies, a bioinformatics platform that enables customers to virtualize and visualize all of their global samples. And we received a first order from a major bio-bank by demonstrating the utility of this configurable sample management software platform.

We completed and commercially launched two new configurations of a BioStore III cryo automation products, one that stores a common Life Sciences industry standard sample container called an SPS rack and the other a variable temperature version of the BIII C for customers select the automated configuration and liquid nitrogen sample security, but would want the store at user selectable temperature set points anywhere between minus 80 and minus 190 Celsius. Initial units of both new products have already been shipped to a major customer.

In our consumables and instruments sector, we released a universal instrument that will allow customers to simultaneously cap and de-cap 96 sample tubes of various types and brands. This is the first in the market. And we just recently developed a new small footprint minus 80 degree C automated store that expands our customer universe to include those who need automated minus 80 storage, but for whom up to 300,000 samples is adequate storage capacity.

And at the beginning of last month, we completed the acquisition of Pacific Bio-Material Management or PBMMI, a highly regarded biological sample transport and storage company with customers that include Memorial Sloan Kettering and Mount Sinai Hospital, plus an a list of research and academic institutions that they won because of their high quality and outstanding service capability.

Along with the strong and talented team we had more East and West Coast geographic footprints and more than 250 customers that meaningfully expands our academic market presence. And with each sample under management, we have the possibility to deliver more value to customers from the broader portfolio of offerings that weve developed at Brooks over the years.

Our cold chain sample management portfolio is proving its value, as we provide customers with a one-stop shop for all of their cold sample needs. Were working to increase the depth and breadth of all of our offerings along the cold chain. Our new product development initiatives and the addition of PBMMI are all representative examples of this strategy in action.

In Life Sciences, our priority is growth. We continue to invest in new products additional go-to-market sales capability and acquisitions that allow us to grow in this important and expanding space of sample management. And although were focused on growth, were careful to strike the right balance to maintain profitability as we grow. This business has tremendous earnings leverage and we know that if we elected to slow investment for growth, we could deliver much higher profitability.

As a matter of fact, we maintain our position that the potential profit margin of Life Sciences is greater than in our semiconductor opportunity, but for now we believe that the best thing that we can do for shareholders is to continue to make investments to capture more of this market through targeted investments in organic and inorganic growth opportunities. We believe that were taking the right steps, and I illustrate with two examples.

First, weve meaningfully expanded our customer base over the years. When we started in the automated stores and services space, we acquired companies that gave us approximately 200 customers. At the beginning of fiscal 2015, when we acquired FluidX, a consumables and instruments company, we added another 300 customers. BioStorage Technologies came with an additional 300 customers and PBMMI 250 more bringing the number of customer relationships to more than 1000.

Over the past three years, this represents a five-fold increase in the number of potential opportunities we have to expand our cold chain offerings. Weve already started to leverage this portfolio to win more business at many of these customers who are eager to streamline their sample management solutions.

In terms of results, Life Sciences revenue for the first three quarters of fiscal 2017 was $105 million, almost equal to the $108 million of revenue we delivered in all of fiscal 2016. That represents 37% growth over the same period one year ago, and for the fiscal year-to-date bookings totaled $154 million, up 35% over the same period last year.

Were forecasting another strong quarter for Life Sciences and we expect to deliver double-digit sequential revenue growth in Q4 with revenue above $40 million and we expect revenue will continue to grow in every quarter of 2018.

Ill now turn to the semiconductor business, which remains our main cash and profit engine. In our semiconductor business, we set a number of new high water marks as we successfully tested our operational capabilities against another surge in customer demand. We delivered revenue of $145 million, up 8% sequentially and up 22% versus the same quarter one year ago.

Its important to note that this 8% quarter-over-quarter growth was net of reduction in our CCS revenue of approximately $5 million, due to the decrease in leading-edge foundry spending that some of our OEM customers have already mentioned. This makes the growth in our semi business all the more impressive as its driven mostly by 3-D memory capacity and advanced packaging.

Ill provide a quick update on these three growth drivers, starting with vacuum automation. The tremendous growth in vacuum process technologies, primarily deposition and etch led us to yet another record in vacuum robots with revenue up 14% from this previous record we delivered in March. These are unprecedented times and were reaping the benefits of our powerful market position in the vacuum automation space.

Year-over-year our vacuum robot business was up 56% and indications are that were in for a period of sustained strength in the equipment industry and that vacuum process steps that serve 3-D memory will continue to be in high demand into 2018. Our leading market position at more than 15 OEMs who supply vacuum equipment virtually assures that if any capacity additions are a benefit for Brooks.

In advanced packaging, we saw a 60% increase in automation solutions, from $9 million in March to more than $14 million in the June. Advanced packaging growth was driven by strong investment by Chinese OEMs, as well as increased shipments of 200 mm vacuum systems to support the unique packaging needs for MEMS, power, and plasma dicing markets. We also added to our share by winning the automation design for an advanced packaging lithography tool.

Looking forward, we see positive momentum for additional investment in leading-edge foundry to support integrated fan-out. The advanced packaging business is robust and the in the opportunities that exist are expanding to a broader number of companies, which are building lines to adapt these new technologies. As a result, we feel that were at a step change from the $40 million annual run rate that we sustained from most of the last couple of years to something that can be meaningfully higher.

The only part of our semiconductor business that was not up in the June quarter was contamination control solutions, which still came in at a healthy $20 million, but was down from record $25 million in the March quarter. This reduced level was expected as leading-edge 10 and 7 nm foundry spending, which drove extremely high shipments in December and March has subsided as that manufacturing capacity is brought online.

On the positive side, we believe we have one 100% market share for all 10 nm and 7 nm manufacturing capacity thats being installed and in these technology nodes ramp, so too will our CCS business, but were forecasting CCS to be down again in the September quarter by another $6 million to $8 million as leading-edge foundry spending is expected to remain low.

That said, we are counting on new factory capacity in China and the restart of foundry spending to be meaningful drivers of additional market opportunities in 2018 and our forecast, which are based on new fab capacity expansion plans are for CCS business to grow again in 2018.

Finally, in the quarter we also supported another jump in our cryo vacuum pump business, which was up 10% from the prior quarter and up more than 50% from the prior year as both ion implantation and PVD activity has strengthened. Our Polycold cryochillers business that supports applications for advanced displays was similarly in very high demand, more than double the level of the same quarter one year ago, and at levels weve not seen for several years.

We anticipate similar revenue for our cryo vacuum products in the September quarter. In total, we forecast our semiconductor business to be down approximately 7% to 8% at September, after our record June quarter, which included a couple million dollars of pull-ins to help customers who wanted more product in June, but even with the pause in September, well be very busy in manufacturing operations as we will be preparing for what we are forecasting to be some high demand quarters after that. So although revenue will be slightly less, well be no less busy in our preparedness for a strong demand outlook.

Overall, were extremely pleased with our performance. Were in two growth businesses that are supported by strong market dynamics in which we hold defensible positions that we continue to build. Our outlook for Life Sciences for more quarters and years of accelerated top line and margin expansion as we continue to build a growth engine centered in the sweet spot of sample management.

This market is exploding as bio samples are the key elements to support drug discovery, cell therapy, regenerative medicine, and cancer research. The demands for our capabilities are accelerating and our ability to define standards of handling and transport are going to be essential for our success and to the benefit of the industry.

In the semiconductor space, were benefiting from the strong growth in 3-D memory and all of the vacuum equipment that requires. We are well positioned for advanced packaging automation opportunities where we have shown our capability to capture share and were far and away to market choice for CCS solutions for wafer and radical carrier cleaning. All-in, we see another strong quarter in September, even with the pause in the semiconductor business. We remain extremely bullish about our position in both markets and we anticipate growth in the December quarter from both segments.

That concludes my formal remarks, and Ill now turn the call back over to Lindon.

Lindon Robertson

Thank you, Steve. Please refer now to the PowerPoint slides available on the Brooks website under our investor relations tab. To start the remarks, I would like to draw your attention to Slide 3, which is consolidated view of our operating performance. Our top line revenue increased 7%, sequentially to $182 million, driven by an 8% increase in semiconductor solutions, and a 6% increase in Life Sciences.

In the GAAP results, operating income expanded 27%, driving GAAP based earnings per share upwards $0.05 to $0.25 per share. Looking at the non-GAAP picture, adjusted earnings per share was $0.36 per share, an increase of 27% from second quarter. Non-GAAP gross margin increased 100 basis points to 40%, driven by improvement in the semiconductor segment.

At the bottom line, we produced 25 million of non-GAAP net income and 37 million in adjusted EBITDA. Comparing these results on a year-over-year basis to third quarter of fiscal 2016, revenue was 23% higher and our adjusted EBITDA has increased 93%.

Turn with me over to Slide 4 to start our discussion of segment results. The Life Science business grew 6% sequentially and 26% year-over-year with $37 million of revenue. BioStorage revenue increased 9%, sequentially, while the remaining core Life Sciences revenue grew 4%.Gross margins came in at 38%, 2 points lower than the prior quarter. Softness occurred on both the storage and the infrastructure business.

On the BioStorage services side, the result was driven by mix as genomic services revenue came in higher. Storage service margins remained very strong. On the infrastructure side, the business had certain projects driving a lower margin this quarter. We expect margins to return to 40% next quarter. In the third quarter, new orders in contracts totaled $42 million adding backlog to the business.

Year-to-date, Life Science bookings totaled $154 million, up 35% compared to just $114 million for the same year-to-date period in 2016. The fuel is there to continued organic growth above 20% year-over-year, and we will have the added benefit of our latest acquisition of PBMMI in the BioStorage space. They had $10 million of revenue in the past 12-months and are also growing. This latest acquisition fits the margin profile of our current BioStorage business that being about 40% to 45%.

Lets turn to those semiconductor business on Slide 5. This business accelerated with 8% sequential revenue growth this quarter. As Steve indicated, we saw some customers pulling product through in the final weeks ahead of our anticipated schedules. Across the product lines, we saw double-digit sequential expansion in vacuum robots and atmospheric robots and cryopumps and services and in our Polycold line. The offset bringing us down to 8% was in contamination control solutions, which was still above $20 million.

As we have shared previously, these systems sell for approximately 1 million each. So, the timing of the fab line expansions can cause a swing in our quarterly revenue. Based on our fab customer schedules, we anticipate another drop in contamination control shipments again in our fourth quarter and are rebounded in the 2018 calendar year, just as Steve outlined.

As the strikes some variability in our revenue lines well continue to give you visibility to the specifics, but I also want to emphasize the moment this business has provided. We acquired this business in 2014 for 32 million from an owner that saw 28 million of revenue in their prior year. In 2015, we had $44 million of revenue and in 2016 $52 million and we will be above $80 million when we finish 2017. We foresee another year of growth in our fiscal 2018.

The adjusted gross margins for semiconductor solutions struck above 40% this quarter. The value of our newest products and the reduction of fixed cost over the past 18 months have made 40% possible. The additional volumes this quarter had drove over the line on improved absorption of overhead.

Let me drop a highlight around this point. Our $10 million of expansion in the top line dropped through to operating income at a rate above 60%. In the year-to-date picture, our semiconductor revenue has grown 24%, and has dropped through to operating profit at a rate of 50%.

Lets turn to the balance sheet on Page 6. With the growth of the business, weve seen expansion of receivables and inventory. The increase in deferred revenue reflects the life science bookings that often carry advance payments. We finished the quarter with $120 million of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities and no debt. We carried $49 million of this cash in the U.S. at the close of the quarter, which enable closing the $34 million acquisition of PBMMI at July without touching a credit revolver.

Lets turn over to Slide 7. Net income of $17 million drove cash flow from operations of $18 million. Were in our seventh year of paying a dividend returning $7 million to shareholders in this quarter alone. Capital expenditures were $2 million, bringing the total for our first three quarters to $7 million.

Cash from operations has accumulated to $61 million for the nine months ended June 30, rounding out free cash flow to $55 million year-to-date. In total, our cash balances expanded by $29 million since the beginning of the year to $120 million on this report. I will highlight again that this is prior to using $34 million on the acquisition of our latest BioStorage acquisition on July 5.

Slide 8 addresses the outlook of our fourth fiscal quarter of 2017. Fourth quarter revenue is expected to be in the range of $172 million to $178 million. Adjusted EBITDA is anticipated to be between $30 million to $33 million. Non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be $0.27 to $0.31 per share. And the GAAP earnings per share is expected to be $0.17 to $0.21.

As we drive to this guidance, were very cognizant of the step change, our business has made in this past year. The annual numbers represent a 22% growth at the top line, the non-GAAP earnings per share is more than double the $0.47 we turned in 2016.

So that concludes our prepared remarks, so I will now turn the call back over to Ash, our operator, to take questions from the line.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Paul Knight with Janney Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open. Please proceed with your question.

Paul Knight

Hi Steve, could you put some color around the equipment versus the service size, the revenue in the quarter and any attributes on why maybe a little softer, was it capital equipment? And then lastly, the Pac bio deal was closed, correct?

Steve Schwartz

The Pac bio deal was indeed closed. So Paul let me give you a little bit on the quarter. So out of the 37 million, I'm going to give you a really rough numbers, the stores was about 20%, a little bit more 25%. The consumables and instruments was probably about 15%, and the bulk of the business was the services and the service combined. So when we look at the bio storage and service combined that was about half.

Paul Knight

Okay. And then you are offering genomic services as part of your strategy obviously, is that your fastest growing business?

Steve Schwartz

It turns out that all of the elements are growing pretty significantly. The genomics is a little bit, is not as steady. In the aggregate it is growing, but the samples that we provide to that are growing considerably. So thats a business thats still up and down for us, but year-on-year well see growth in the genomic services, but we find the activity there is sometimes budget -related and so there are bursts in that business, more so than the steady annuity that we get from the consumables and from the storage elements.

Paul Knight

And youve been posting somewhere in the 20s on organic growth, do you see that as a number thats ahead of this?

Steve Schwartz

We do. So for the foreseeable quarters we see that continuing to grow in the 20% plus range.

Paul Knight

Okay. Thank you.

Steve Schwartz

Thanks Paul.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Amanda Scarnati with Citi. Your line is now open. Please proceed with your question.

Amanda Scarnati

Hi thanks for taking the question. Just continuing on the Life Sciences business, Steve I think you mentioned that profitability could be greater than semi down the road, and what are the puts and takes to get there, is it adding more scale into the business, is it continuing to integrate the acquisitions that have been done or are there other things that are already in process that are helping to drive profitability up.

Steve Schwartz

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Brooks Automation's (BRKS) CEO Steve Schwartz on Q3 2017 Results - Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha