Belleville News-Democrat | O'Fallon robotics team qualifies for state tech tournament Belleville News-Democrat During regional competition, Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois robotics team, OOPS! Robotics, qualified for the Illinois FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) State Tournament, as well as won the tournament's Connect Award for the ties they have built with the ... |
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O'Fallon robotics team qualifies for state tech tournament - Belleville News-Democrat
New York Times | California Today: In Virtual Reality, Investigating the Trayvon Martin Case New York Times In turning the Trayvon Martin tragedy into a virtual reality film, the director Nonny de la Pea combed through public court records and stitched together 911 calls to structure an auditory narrative of the rainy night that ended in the shooting death ... |
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California Today: In Virtual Reality, Investigating the Trayvon Martin Case - New York Times
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CLEVELAND-- The Cleveland Auto Show starts Friday at 5 p.m. at the I-X Center with more than a thousand vehicles on display.
For more information, including dates, times, admission and schedule, click here
While every brand offers its own unique features, there is one car that is completely unlike the rest. In the Chevrolet section, you'll find the Lego Batmobile.
It stands 7 feet tall and 17 feet long with more than 344,000 Lego bricks. Master builders spent 222 hours designing the Batmobile and another 1,833 putting it together.
Another highlight of 2017 Cleveland Auto Show is the virtual reality test drive. Put on the headset to experience the look, feel and acceleration of the 2017 Honda Civic Si in Monument Valley, Ariz.
See what happened when FOX 8's Roosevelt Leftwich got behind the wheel.
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There are more traditional ways to test drive a vehicle and Camp Jeep draws a crowd. Take a seat and ride along with a professional driver through a course that demonstrates Jeep's off-road capabilities. New this year is the Ram Truck Territory, which takes participants through an obstacle course, plus shows off the trucks' torque and payload.
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Virtual reality, Lego Batmobile at this year's Cleveland Auto Show - fox8.com
UNM students, staff and faculty can now explore the world without even leaving campus. Centennial Science and Engineering Library launched two new tech spaces and one of them contains an entirely immersive virtual reality experience.
Its a presentation, communication and collaboration space here at Centennial Library, where weve focused on bringing a wide variety of new technologies into a space where our students and faculty can experiment with new ways of communicating their work, Said Karl Benedict, director of research data services.
Part of that work will include writing, coding and experimenting with new forms of virtual reality. The workshop space is equipped with sensors, speakers and microphones; and the participant wears goggles that completely cover their field of vision.
The virtual reality capability that we have here does provide us the opportunity to take our users anywhere in the world, while standing right in the basement of the Centennial Science and Engineering Library, Benedict said.
Karl Benedict checks the virtual reality system using a demo "lab" app
Right now, the system is run on a variety of demonstration applications among other things, you can walk through downtown London using Google Earth, protect your space ship from attacking robots in an immersive video game or play virtual fetch with a futuristic robot dog. But those demonstration apps will be phased out as faculty, staff and students suggest new ones and create their own bigger and better programs to bring into the lab.
This is a cutting-edge facility that is very important for Centennial, but is also really important for the whole university, said Richard Clement, dean of the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences. Were now providing students, staff and faculty a space that enables them to come together in a collaborative way, with resources rarely available for public use.
The hope is that technology like the virtual reality lab will attract future lobos interested in software and video game development. Already some faculty
The goggles worn during the simulation completely cut out light from the room.
members at UNM are integrating video game development to teach principles of communication, analysis and engagement in the classroom. The library is also considering facilitating development contests in the future, which would involve students bringing their innovation into the lab and going head-to-head in a competition.
We have another expectation too, Benedict added. That as users come into this space, we will learn more about what their particular needs are so we can continue to evolve what we have available as tools and platforms for being able to do the research and collaboration were trying to enable here.
In addition to the immersive virtual reality simulator, Centennial opened a second tech space that gives visitors access to Mac and PC operating systems equipped with a much wider range of functions than the standard university computer. These Analysis Workstations have specialized analytic and software development applications as well as the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite.
The virtual reality system and other tech gadgets were funded through a combination of sources including the librarys foundation endowment and general obligation bond funds. But Benedict says this is just the starting point of a bigger vision, including being able to provide a space for more extensive content collaboration and research; which will hopefully pique the interest of donors and financial sponsors in the future.
The analysis workstations can be reserved at the Centennial Science and Engineering Library, and the virtual reality and workshop room can be reserved online just like other study spaces within University Libraries. Simply visit library.unm.edu and click on Reserve a Room.
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Virtual reality at UNM opens new doors of collaboration and research - UNM Newsroom
Fighting McGregor Has any fighters road to boxing immortality been easier or come with more surefire wins than Floyd Mayweathers? Floyd just turned 40 years old. He is officially retired but there can be no doubt that he will be seen in a boxing ring sometime this year, against a man who is an elite combat sport participant but has never once fought as a professional boxer. The money is too good for Conor McGregor and Mayweather to pass it up and the challenge for Maywesather is too easy for Mayweather to decline.
Depending on your age and when you started following boxing, your opinion varies on what you think of Floyd as a fighter. If you were born after say 1982, you most likely started following boxing around 1997, a year after Mayweather made his pro debut. And by the time you were in your mid-twenties, Mayweather was one of the most elite fighters in boxing. Since beating a shopworn and rusty Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have been the two biggest box office draws in boxing, with Mayweather eventually eclipsing Pacquiao. Today Mayweather is undefeated (49-0, 25 KOs) and arguing his place among the all-time pound for pound greats with fans that never saw the greats circa 1967-2007, is like arguing politics. In other words its a waste of time because the opinions are so far apart.
Instead of going there Ill just say if Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns fought every opponent Mayweather did on the night that he fought them all three would be 49-0 with more than 25 knockouts. Just as if Sonny Liston fought every opponent Rocky Marciano did on the night Rocky fought them Sonny would also be 49-0 with one or two more than the 43 knockouts Marciano recorded.
Most fans who have been around and have seen the greats circa 1967-2007 see Mayweather as a fighter whose undefeated record is due more to brilliant management and matchmaking than to his ability as a fighter. More succinctly put, Mayweather picked his spots. I can name past greats between 1967-2007 who were faster and smarter and more skilled than Mayweather, and if you were around then and saw them you already know their names. However, if youre 35 years old or younger, theres nothing anyone can say thatll convince you there was one, let alone a dozen, fighters greater than Floyd who were active between 1967 and 2007.
Early in Mayweathers career, going back to when he was a prospect, he challenged himself more as a fighter. However, the more he learned about marketing and the more established he became, the less he challenged himself and the more confident he became about promoting himself as an all-timer. Floyd grasped somewhere around 2005 or 2006 that, as long as he could remain undefeated and played the bad guy character, the more the interest there would be in seeing him fight and hopefully lose.Since barely beating De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather has fought 11 times, but only three opponents Shane Mosely, Miguel Cotto, and Casnelo Alvarez went into the ring with slightly more than a snowballs chance.
Mosley was coming off a significant layoff and the fight in 2010 was five or six years past when beating Shane was a herculean feat. Eight years earlier, Vernon Forrest beat a prime Mosley much more convincingly than Floyd did and at the same weight, yet Forrest never got the accolades for beating him the way Mayweather did. When Floyd fought Cotto, Miguel had only lost twice, but was thrashed by Antonio Margarito, who may have been aided by loaded gloves and by Manny Pacquiao.
Pacquiao stopped Cotto and beat him beyond recognition and there were crickets after the fight. Three years later Cotto gives Mayweather one of the tougher bouts of his career en route to losing a decision and the Mayweather fans were screamingSee, he beat Cotto! And in another genius move, Mayweather fought undefeated Canelo Alvarez when Canelo was still on the way up, before he really blossomed. Not to mention that the style contrast suited Floyd perfectly. In between those bouts he picked his opponents carefully, yes, including Marcos Maidana, who made his name beating Mayweather wannabe Adrien Broner.
Finally, after a six year build-up and conning many fans into believing that he feared a fighter who weighed 106 pounds in his pro-debut, Mayweather agreed to fight Manny Pacquiao in the biggest grossing fight ever. Yes, Pacquiao was an eight division champ, but he picked his opponents and mastered catchweight bouts almost as great as the father of them, Floyd Mayweather.Floyd understood that Manny was like shooting fish in barrel for him stylistically. If you doubt that, read my pre-fight piece the day of the bout May 2nd, 2015.
Many of Floyds bouts were against fighters that had 0% chance to be competitive with him and McGregor is the icing on the cake. Yes, in a boxing ring, McGregor has as much chance of beating Mayweather as Floyd would have to beat Conor in a cage, and it may even be less because Mayweather, being such an accurate striker, could get lucky and stop McGregor wearing 4-ounce gloves. But thats not the point. The point is that Mayweather is playing both boxing fans and MMA fans in this one.
Floyd knows boxing fans want to see him tune up McGregor so they can rub it in the faces of MMa fans saying boxers are tougher and better fighters than MMA combatants. And MMA fans want the same bragging rightsproclaiming that an MMA combatant crossed sports and beat one of boxings best at his own game. How can fans and observers be so foolish? Floyd is using McGregor because as of this moment hes the biggest star in MMA. Its easy money for Floyd and it may turn out to be the biggest or second biggest purse of his career. As for McGregor, hes trying to become the Mayweather, as far as earning potential, in mixed martial artsand at the same time stick it to UFC honcho Dana White. McGregor knows that after the exhibition with Mayweather hell never need to enter an octagon or a ring again if he doesnt want to.
The only other real all-time great who wrapped up his career by defeating an 0-0 guy from another sport was Archie Moore who knocked out wrestler Mike DiBiase. But Archie was 50 at the time (born 1913, not 1916), had 219 previous fights, and wasnt getting paid millions of dollars.
In the final analysis, Mayweather will eclipse Rocky Marcianos record by fighting a man who is 0-0 in the ring while at the same time making a ton of money. When its over Floyd will claim hes the king of combat sports and is the biggest star in both boxing and MMA.again strolling down one of the easier ways to immortality! No fighter or athlete mastered the game of playing the fans greater than Floyd Money Mayweather, nobody.
Fighting McGregor / Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com
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Fighting McGregor Just Another Easy Step to Immortality for Mayweather - The Sweet Science
Diane Sater-Wee, BS LMT Chief Executive Officer
Diane is responsible for AIAM's strategic direction and compliance with legal and accrediting standards. She has served on the National and State of Ohio Boards of the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), the Executive Committee for the National Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, the founding board of the Ohio Council of Massage Therapy Schools, and on various committees for the State Medical Board of Ohio and the Asian Bodywork Therapy Association.
Diane worked as an Account Representative for five years and as an Engineer for another five years with IBM. Diane received her undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University College of Engineering and her massage diploma from the Central Ohio School of Massage. email
Helen co-founded AIAM with Diane in 1990. She is responsible for setting the schools administrative and financial objectives, policies and practices. She also directs the acquisition, development, implementation and operation support systems. In addition to her work at AIAM, Helen serves on the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM) site visit team for the evaluation of acupuncture schools across the country.
Helen serves on the Stonewall Columbus Board of Trustees and is on the Board of Directors for State of the Arts Productions. She previously served as President of the Pacific Association of Women Martial Artists. Helen has competed in both national and international martial arts competitions throughout her career and was an alternate in the 1988 Olympics. She competed on the U.S. Tae Kwon Do team in 1990, earning a silver medal in the World Cup in Madrid, Spain. Helen was inducted into the Bruce Lee Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2015. email
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Filling the gaps in our daily nutrition with tablets and powders isnt a new concept. The large demand for nutritional supplementation has made the industry an attractive one, leading to a congested and difficult marketplace for consumers to navigate.
While federal regulations do exist that dictate the type of claims that can be made on a supplement label, supplement manufacturers are not required to submit their products to a pre-market approval process at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) like pharmaceutical manufacturers are required to do.
As the supplement industry has grown, supplement quality has been derailed and customer confusion has risen.
In 2007, the FDA issued the Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) regulatory program that dictate federal guidelines for the preparation, purity, and accuracy of labeling nutritional supplements. While these regulations are presented as minimum expectations, supplement companies are mostly left to police themselves.
Fortunately for consumers, there are companies that choose to hold themselves to high standards and fully comply with the regulations issued by the FDA.
Heres how you can be absolutely certain that you are choosing a supplement company that is making high quality, safe, and efficacious products:
Look for third-party testing. Nutritional supplement brands can, and should, retain outside, independent companies to audit their manufacturing processes and test their products to ensure the FDAs cGMPs are being complied with, thus ensuring that the companys products contain the ingredients listed on the label in the amounts listed and dont contain any harmful ingredients.
NSF International has created an advanced certification program for supplements geared toward elite athletes. NSF Internationals Certified for Sport program tests products for more than 200 substances that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (LINK). A supplement product that bears the Certified for Sport seal ensures that that the product contains exactly what the label claims it does, in the amounts listed, and nothing else.
Realize There is No Cure-All. Its illegal for a supplement company to claim that any of its products prevent, cure, or treat any medical condition. Supplements are intended to complement the diet and to support overall health and well-being. Any express or implied claims that a product will prevent, cure, or treat a medical condition is a red flag that the manufacturer isnt in compliance with the FDAs labeling regulations for nutritional supplements.Furthermore, if a supplements product label has a lot of buzz words that dont mean anything, such as white hot heat or blazing intensity the company is probably trying to distract you from a lack of evidence behind their product.
Companies often use phrases that imply theres science behind their product such as clinically proven but many of these claims are not backed by actual research. Be cautious of products claiming ancient formulas, cutting-edge science, miracle cures, or guarantees. A reputable and honest company will have contact information you can use to request further information for the research behind their claims. Lastly, if a product sounds too good to be true "Lose 10 pounds in one day" that's probably because it is.
Take a Lead from Sports. Be aware of ingredients banned in sports by agencies like the World Anti-Doping Agency and the United States Anti-Doping Agency. While these ingredients arent always prohibited for general consumption, these organizations see a problem with the ingredients, which should be a red flag to you as a regular consumer. Do your research to see if you should ban these ingredients from your nutritional game plan.
Watch out for warnings. Be wary of supplements with a long list of warnings or contraindications listed on the product label. Any serious adverse effects reported to a supplement company must be reported to the FDA by the supplement company.
Be an Educated Consumer. Registered dietitians are trained to evaluate the need for, effectiveness of, and safety of nutritional supplements. Always consult your health-care practitioner before starting a supplement regimen. The National Institutes of Health and the United States Anti-Doping Agency offer resources to help educate you on supplement before you use them.Always be sure to do your homework on your supplement company before taking their products.
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Molly Yatso Butz, For USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 10:13 a.m. CT Feb. 24, 2017 | Updated 9 hours ago
Molly Yatso Butz(Photo: file)
It wasnt until the mid-1930s that vitamin supplement tablets were sold. Up until then, vitamins were only obtained through food intake. Since the middle of the 20th century, vitamins have become inexpensive semisynthetic and synthetic-source dietary and food supplements and are easily available.A vitamin is defined as an organic substance essential to nutrition.Currently, 13 vitamins are universally recognized and are classified by their biological and chemical activity.
Vitamins are essential for normal growth and development and healthy maintenance of cells, tissues and organs.They are classified as either water-soluble or fat-soluble.The four fat-soluble vitamins include Vitamin A, D, E and K.Water-soluble vitamins are the eight B vitamins and Vitamin C.Water-soluble means the vitamins dissolve easily in water and are generally excreted from the body, which means consistent intake of these vitamins is important because they are not readily stored in the body.The fat-soluble vitamins are absorbed through the intestinal tract with help from lipids or fats.Fat-soluble vitamins are more likely than water-soluble vitamins to accumulate in the body
Every vitamin has a unique job within the human body.Vitamin A, otherwise known as beta-carotene, helps with treatment of some eye disorders, promotes bone growth, teeth development and reproduction. It also helps maintain healthy skin and hair. It is found in foods such as asparagus, broccoli, cantaloupe, carrots, eggs, kale, liver, milk and spinach.Vitamin K works in your body by regulating normal blood clotting, promoting growth and development and is essential for kidney function.Good sources of Vitamin K are dark leafy greens, oils from green plants and some dairy products.Vitamin D is sometimes referred to as the sunshine vitamin. It is used to absorb calcium and phosphorus to create bone.Vitamin D sources include fortified milk, liver, eggs and tuna.Vitamin E is required for proper function of many organs in the body, and it also is an antioxidant, which means it assists in slowing down the process that damages cells.
Vitamin B1, or thiamine, is necessary for normal function of the nervous system and metabolism.The best sources of Vitamin B1 are meat, whole grains, fish and nuts.Vitamin B2also is known as riboflavin and assists in energy generation, nerve development, blood cell development and hormone regulation.It maybe found in bananas, dairy products, eggs, fortified cereals and mixed vegetables.Vitamin B3, niacin, is like other B vitamins in which it is essential for metabolic cell activity, hormonesand nervous system function.Good sources are meat, fish and whole grains.Folic acid, or Vitamin B9, is very important for the growth and reproduction of all body cells, including red blood cells.The best source of folic acid is liver and dark green leafy vegetables.Vitamin B12 serves as a coenzyme for creation of DNA material and promotes growth and cell development.Vitamin B12 is not found in plants, but good sources are meats, fish, eggs and dairy.This vitamin also is important for fat, carbohydrates and protein to be metabolized in the body.Vitamin C is one of the most important vitamins in your body because it is vital for a healthy immune and nervous system. Vitamin C helps connective tissue, otherwise known as collagen, to remain the defense mechanism against disease and infection.Vitamin C produces antibodies during seasonal colds or when the body is being overworked.It maybe found in fruits, tomatoes, vegetables, Brussels sprouts, green peppers, spinach and kale.
The best way to ensure your body is getting the vitamins it needs is to eat a healthy, balanced diet, with a variety of color, whole grains and low-fat protein.If you believe you dont get enough vitamins through food, and feel vitamin supplementation would be beneficial, talk with your healthcare provider.For recommended daily intakes, visit the Food and Drug Administration website at fda.gov.
Molly Yatso Butz is the community health and wellness director for the Oshkosh Community YMCA.
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Vitamins have unique job within the body - The Oshkosh Northwestern
Artefact is a unique combination of adaptogens and vitamins to provide a strengthening, enriching complement to our modern lives.
(PRWEB UK) 23 February 2017
Artefact, one of the first British designer vitamin lines, makes its debut this spring. Formulated by medical experts and brought to life by a team of creative minds, the range blends natural ingredients and traditional know-how from across the world with cutting-edge science and contemporary design to produce a unique range of supplements tailored to modern living.
Over years working as doctors on humanitarian projects around the world, we saw first-hand how creative, life-changing ideas often came from the very people we had come to help, using adaptogenic and nutraceutical-like plants known to and trusted by them for centuries. These experiences gave us an understanding of how the forces of evolution and adaptation combined to shape these species, allowing them to survive, thrive, and become embedded in traditional medicine, where they were used both to combat deficiencies and to enrich the body and mind.
Artefacts Concept I [Maca Goji B12 D2] is a bespoke supplement formulated using a unique combination of adaptogens and vitamins to provide a strengthening, enriching complement to our modern lives. Maca root from the Peruvian Andes and goji berries from Northern China form the anchor ingredients. Gojis protective, stabilising nature forms the supplements baseline, whilst the potent and versatile maca improves lifestyle dynamics, cognitive capacity and resilience, and Vitamins D2 and B12 are included to supplement dietary deficiencies. Made in Britain, the line is vegan and vegetarian friendly.
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Artefact - bespoke food supplements created by doctors and ... - PR Web (press release)
Dr. Magdalena Kurkowska
Wind turbines are typically designed for a 20 years services life. In fact, many of them remain operational beyond this age. Industry experts believe, if carefully planned, the life of a wind farm can be extended even up to 40 years. Such an extension can increase assets value, maximize the revenue and reduce the Levelized cost of energy. In practice, the lifetime of the wind power project is most often determined by the length of the subsidy scheme which usually lasts 15 years.
Life extension may generate much less regulatory and permitting hurdles than repowering, which in many markets involves reapplying for a permit to operate.
Beyond that point, the decision what to do with the end-of-life assets must be carefully weighted. Dismantling and disposing of functional turbines does not sound like a good business practice, but on the other hand turbine components, as their age, are becoming increasingly failure-prone, resulting in high O&M costs, greater risks of structural failures, and associated health & safety hazards. How to minimize these risks and keep the project going? Lifeextension can be the answer. wind-farm-lifecycle.iqpc.de With the ageing fleet, an increasing number of wind farm operators face a dilemma which end-of-life strategy to pursuit. Can life-extension be the optimal option? What are the pros and cons? What is the market opportunity for life extension programs? What approaches can be taken to assess the suitability of wind farm for life extension?
In prequalification tests, commonly used standards are generally based on laboratory testing procedures, and it is important to know that these test procedures cannot often determine the true corrosion prevention potential of a coating system. No overall laboratory test exists which considers all the different stresses and includes the appropriate acceleration factor in order to relate an accurate number of hours in an accelerated test to lifetime in years in real file. Within a structure erected in a maritime environment (sheet pile walls, oil platforms or wind energy structures), there are generally different zones with different intensities of corrosive attack: bottom or sea floor, immersion and low water zone, tidal and splash zone and last but not least, the atmospheric zone. Therefore, it is necessary to consider different intensities of corrosion in any test procedure to be developed or applied.
Furthermore, a continuous mechanical stress from waves, floating matter and ice movement in winter that can attack coatings, and coatings also commonly suffer from mechanical impact during transport and erection, which can lead to localized damage and coating detachment.
Life extension exposes operators to lower risks than repowering, but there are also drawbacks. Replacing single components rather than full repowering seems to deliver less added value.
The study, conducted by National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Denver, Colorado, compared two scenarios: the full repowering versus replacement of the turbine drivetrain and rotor only using an existing tower and foundation.
Until recently, due to generous subsidies, market seemed to favor repowering over life extension. This trend, however, may change in the near future. As the governments gradually lessen or completely withdraws support for wind power projects, the life-extension option becomes increasingly attractive. A shift from repowering toward life extension was observed in Spain in 2013, when the government removed the feed-in-tariffs (FiT) support for wind energy developments.
Under a new scheme, the generators are offered 7.5% rate of return calculated over the plant lifetime. Many older wind farms have already received such amount through FiT and were not eligible for any further subsidies.
This change has left operators relying entirely on the sales of produced energy for their income, typically insufficient to allow investing in full repowering. Life extension can be achieved at a fraction of the cost the full repowering demands. Replacing a rotor hub or blades will obviously cost less than replacing the entire turbine structure. At present, the cost of extending the life of an operating turbine in Europe is about 100,000/MW comparing to one million for a new turbine required for repowering.
Moreover, life extension may generate much less regulatory and permitting hurdles than repowering, which in many markets involves reapplying for a permit to operate.
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A business case for wind farm lifetime extension - Windpower Engineering (press release)
The innovative packaging solution from Sirane has given diced beef two additional days shelf-life in recent trials with one major UK meat processing company, and the trade show in Birmingham will be a great chance to find out more about this unique product.
The independently-run trials showed a two-day increase from nine to 11 days on the shelf-life of the packs containing Siranes ABM pads compared to existing packaging. These trials are just one of many successful trials taking place using a variety of products.
Siranes Dri-Fresh ABM pads for meat/poultry, contain a blend of natural bio-flavonoids and organic acids which work together to extend shelf-life. Together with the absorbency within the pads, they offer an outstanding level of protection and significant shelf-life extension. The ABM technology is activated by moisture so only functions when needed.
Simon Balderson, Sirane MD, said: These results are great, and could result in significant financial savings for the processor in question as two additional days shelf-life is a huge step. At Packaging Innovations wed love to get the chance to explain more to people.
So much food gets thrown away, and Sirane has been trying to help companies with their food waste reduction targets ABM is one way meat and poultry packers can achieve this. ABM is a blend of natural ingredients which is incorporated into the absorbent pad.
The combination of flavonoids which are anti-oxidants and anti-microbial, with organic acids including citric acid and ascorbic acids is harmless, as all elements are found naturally within fruit. It is clean, simple, and effective. Nature itself often has the answers.
People have tried, and failed, in the past, to make anti-microbial packaging but the major difference here is the method of delivery. With the anti-microbial integrated into the pad, and activated only when needed, it gets efficiently to the heart of the problem.
Were encouraging all our customers to try our AB technology and run their own trials in their own unique supply-chain conditions, as this is just one of many success stories were hearing about, with many reports coming back to us of shelf-life extension.
Every processor and retailers supply chain is different, with different parameters, so we would never say to every retailer you will get two days more. Were saying you could get additional shelf-life by using a pad like this, you might even get more than two days extra.
Our Dri-Fresh ABM pads are part of a range of anti-bacterial and anti-microbial absorbent pad solutions; we also offer ABV pads for fruit and ABS for seafood. These pads work in the same way, but with the blend adjusted to help provide the optimum shelf-life.
Cooking bags are another area of specialism for Sirane and Bags of Ideas a new campaign from Sirane aimed at showcasing our varied cooking bag solutions will form the other main focus of our stand at Packaging Innovations which runs from March 1-2.
Sirane offers a wide selection of cooking bags from oven to microwave, BBQ to sous-vide and incorporating flavoured cooking bag options theres something for everyone.
Bags of Ideasbrings everything together under one banner, in one simple to use catalogue, and helps guide the customer through the process of choosing what works for them.
Simon Balderson, Sirane MD, said: Bags of ideas, bags of innovation and bags of possibilities. Siranes range of cooking bags has it all. Whether you want to steam cook in the oven or microwave, roast in the oven, or have a bag to throw on the BBQ, we can help.
We can help guide you through the many options we have to help you decide what cooking bag will work best for you. Whether it be a non-stick BBQ bag or a printed steam-cooking bag, a bag with a special vent or a bag with added flavours, you decide.
The choices can sometimes seem daunting, but were here to help you make the right decision, as the right cooking bag can have a hugely positive impact on sales
As well as BBQ/oven bags, Sirane manufactures a wide range of other cooking bags including steam-cooking bags for oven/microwave (including a new stand-up version), nylon roasting bags and sous-vide bags and even multi-compartment bags.
For more information, visit http://www.sirane.com or email jeremy@sirane.com. Sirane is exhibiting at Packaging Innovations at Birminghams NEC in March. Visit us on our stand E12.
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PACKAGING INNOVATIONS 2017: Anti-microbial absorbent pads ... - WorldPressOnline (press release)
The weather radar used by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Amarillo will be down for approximately four days beginning Monday, Feb. 27 for technicians to install an important technological upgrade. The work on the WSR-88D has been scheduled to minimize any potential impacts to office operations and will be delayed if hazardous weather is forecast.
During the outage, radar coverage is available from adjacent radar sites including: Cannon Air Force Base, Frederick, Dodge City, Pueblo and Lubbock.
A crew will install a new signal processor, which replaces obsolete technology, improves processing speed and data quality, provides added functionality, and supports IT security.
This is the first of four major upgrades, known as service life extension projects, planned in the next five years to replace and refurbish major components of the 20 year old WSR-88Ds and to keep the radars operational into the 2030s. The $150M investment is being made by the three organizations that use these radars, the NOAA National Weather Service, United States Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration. The other service life extension projects include refurbishing the transmitter, pedestal, and equipment shelters.
The tri-agency Radar Operations Center, which supports the radars, estimates it will take about 10 months to upgrade the signal processor on all 159 operational WSR-88Ds.
These radar upgrades will continue to support the mission of the National Weather Service which is to provide weather, water, and climate data, forecasts and warnings for the protection of life and property and enhancement of the national economy, as well as NOAA's broader mission to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.
Please join the National Weather Service in Amarillo on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube today.
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Every once in a while an art exhibition seems to so perfectly tap into the nations zeitgeist that it takes on a kind of urgency. Occupancies, the ambitious new show currently on view at three BU galleries, is such a show.
Displaying the work of 22 emerging and mid-career artists, the show, at the 808 Gallery, the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery, and the Annex, explores the ways individual and collective bodies create, negotiate, and inhabit space. The physical body takes on a kind of heightened political weight here, as the artists use it to express ideas about visibilityor the lack of visibility. The politically and sexually charged exhibition packs a wallop.
The very titleOccupanciesconnotes images of direct action and nonviolent resistance: think the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, the recent Black Lives Matter protests, this years womens marches in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, and the countless rallies protesting the Trump immigration ban.
Occupy can mean many different things, says Lynne Cooney, (GRS10,16), artistic director of the Boston University Art Galleries, who curated the show with Kimber Chewning (GRS17). We were interested in the different real and symbolic dimensions of the term. The exhibition is not really about protest movements, but alludes to acts of protest in some of the works.
Cooney says the exhibition, which includes painting, photography, sculpture, video, and mixed media, asks whether certain individuals have different kinds of access to public and private spaces than others and the various ways bodies read in different spaces. From these questions, the exhibition considers how creating and inhabiting space or making oneself visible is in itself a form of resistance, she says.
Occupancies is notable for being the first exhibition to be held concurrently in both the 808 and the Stone Galleries, as well as the Annex. We wanted the show to feel as full as possible, taking up all of our gallery spaces and presenting a multitude of different bodies and mediums, Cooney says. There are so many mediums and methods artists are working in, and we wanted to represent them as best as possible.
Not the Nightmare, Not the Scream, Just the Loving Human Dreamof Peace, the Ever-flowing Stream, Bring the Message Home, gouache and graphite on tea-stained paper, by Ellen Lesperance. Courtesy of Isabella Hutchinson. On view at the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery.
The show abounds with images of resistance that are by turns personal, poignant, and urgent. At the Stone Gallery, the viewer encounters artists who engage with the absent body. For example, a series of drawings by Ellen Lesperance was inspired by sweaters worn by female activists who committed their lives to fight for womens rights. Her geometric works on paper, which straddle figuration and abstraction, address the invisibility of female protesters.
Similarly, in Jonah Groeneboers multichannel sound installation Double Mouth Feedback, 2015,a circle of six speakers mounted on scaffolds serves as a stand-in for corporeal bodies. The artist recorded the voices of 37 people providing vocal responses to a series of prompts, like Make a genderless sound, or Make the sound of your gender yesterday. The varying frequencies and pitches have been woven together to collectively imagine a new language freed from current rigid biases about genderand the sound produced is haunting.
If the Stone Gallery focuses on the absent body, the works on display at the 808 Gallery more specifically addresses the performative body and the archival body and historical memory. Ramiro Gomezs Laborers at Lunch, 2015, is a tribute to the workforcelargely Hispanicof the more affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods, people too often rendered invisible. Gomez presents the laborers as cardboard cutouts, surrounded by objects from the real worldcoolers, thermoses, Tupperware containers, a lone paint can. Their faces are nearly featurelessparticularly their eyesunderscoring the way society ignores these laborers. Similarly, the arresting painting Blue Evening, 2015, borrows heavily from David Hockneys famous California pool paintings. Like Hockneys work, Gomezs painting features heavily saturated color. But here, Hockneys affluent Caucasian swimmers and homeowners have been replaced by a dark-complexioned pool cleaner, again presented as nearly featureless to stress how certain segments of the population are ignored.
Laborers at Lunch, 2015, mixed media installation, by Ramiro Gomez. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. On view at the 808 Gallery.
Also at the 808 Gallery are self-portraits by a number of artists using their naked bodies to make a political statement. Internationally acclaimed artist Shen Wei, based in Shanghai and New York, says his photographs allow him to explore his sense of security through understanding the tension between freedom and boundaries, each image at once a moment of introspection and rebellion. By capturing the juxtaposition of his body to his environment, he explores questions of confidence and sensualitycharacteristics, the show notes, that are often not attributed to Asian males.
Photographer Nona Faustine uses her body as a conduit to the past. In a triptych of self-portraits shot outside the Lefferts House in Brooklyn, N.Y.a site that has deep associations with the slave tradethe African American artists half-naked torso becomes an act of solidarity with women who were objectified and commodified through slavery.
Ann Hirschs mixed media installation horneylilfeminist, 2015, a series of 14 videos shown on simultaneous monitors, centers around female desire. While many of the videos focus on self-pleasure, mimicking the how-to format popularized by YouTube, others reflect the artists ambivalence about participating in the kind of submissive female roles promoted by pornography. (A sign warns viewers that the videos contain adult content.)
Sideline, 2017, mixed media installation (paint, tape), by Marlon Forrester. Courtesy of the artist. On view at the 808 Gallery.
Other works in the 808 Gallery consider the body in more abstract terms. For example, Indira Allegras digital installation Blackout weaves testimonials from the families of victims of police violence with twill, the fabric used to manufacture police uniforms, to examine the ways certain narratives are obscured while others arent. And then theres Marlon Forresters Sideline, 2017, a mixed media installation that uses the conceptual and geometric frameworks of a basketball court to examine ideas about race. The work evolves over time, with visitors invited to add a mark, shape, or some kind of form that, the accompanying text notes, responds to boundaries or constraints, real or imagined, that impose or inform racist stereotypes. A stack of rolls of masking tape, along with scissors and a ruler, are stacked on a table. Visitors are asked to construct some artistic symbol that addresses the question: What does resistance and community mean when your body is a tool?
Cooney acknowledges that the showwhich she and Chewning began planning more than a year agohas taken on a heightened meaning with todays changing political climate. In the wake of recent political events in the United States, we feel it is more important than ever to provide space for underrepresented individuals to assert themselves, she says. Making art is a way for underrepresented people to be seen and acknowledged, and our hope is viewers will come away from the show considering their own positions and with a desire to make room for others.
A special symposium tied to the exhibition, Making Room: Practicing Feminisms Today, will be held tomorrow at the 808 Gallery from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., free and open to the public (RSVP below). It will consist of a roundtable on gender and equity in higher education, and two panels, The Archival Body and the Feminist Voice, and Intersectional Feminisms.
Occupancies is at the 808 Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Ave., and at the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery and Annex, 855 Commonwealth Ave., through March 26. Gallery hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., Thursday, noon to 8 p.m., closed Monday. The exhibition is free and open to the public.
The symposium Making Room: Practicing Feminisms Today is tomorrow, Saturday, February 28, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the 808 Gallery. Find more information about the three panels here. The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please RSVP in advance here. The panels will be followed by a community lunch and a group discussion.
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Less than three months ago, after a pair of articles about the rise in Anti-Semitism appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the nation learned that during Twitters internal investigation the organization found that 2.6 million anti-Semitic messages were posted from August 2015 to July 2016, 19,253 of which were directed at journalists. Readers also learned that anti Jewish rhetoric, and incidents of anti-Semitism had risen markedly, and that Jewish journalists, many of whom seemed not to be voting for a particular candidate, were receiving hate mail at a rate not seen in recent history. When one such writer announced the birth of his second child on Twitter, he received this reply: Into the gas chamber with all four of you. More recently, there have been reports of bomb threats, nearly seventy in all, called into Jewish Community Centers across the nation. And this week, at least 170 headstones were knocked over at an historical Jewish cemetery in suburban Saint Louis, Missouri.
One has to be careful to choose ones words carefully, and to be circumspect about whom to blame. After all it would be easy to paint the 45th president with the broad brush of anti-Semitism, (may I just call it Jew-Hatred from here on?) That would be wrong, I dont believe he hates Jews. I do believe that in taking his support from any quarter, no matter how insidious, as hed done during his presidential campaign, his refusal to disavow strident voices of Jew hatred (along with hatred of other minority groups) seems to have stirred up a long simmering cauldron of malevolence. Having been brought up in Minnesota, a former home to the National Socialist American Workers Freedom Movement, I believe I know at least three things that motivate Jew-Haters.
1. Sloth. The slothful Jew-Hater has a perpetual sense of being ripped off. Youll hear things like: Hey, why are they getting ahead so fast? and Look at those cheaters, howd they do that? I was born in a place called Saint Louis Park. Because there were approximately six percent Jews there, and because those Jews in my home town were astoundingly creative and productivewell beyond their numbers, as is often the case with Jews in generalbe they Nobel prize winners, artists, writers or even the founders of the State of Israel, there is always an attendant animus that crops up among those that are less so. The slothful JewHaters of my youth called my city by the wildly un-clever pejorative: Saint Jewish Park, as if that six percent were far too many Jews to bear. The advice Id share with this type of Jew-Hater is: spend less time grousing about the accomplishments of others, get up off your ass and accomplish something yourself, something other than self-pity and rage.
2. Jealousy. Sloth and jealousy go hand in hand dont they? One can either be impressed or depressed with the success of others, there arent a lot of options, and to choose jealousy is to always choose the latter. Unfortunately, as we all know, depression is not a much admired way to move through the world, and often a depressed person will use anger to compensate for his or her deficiencies. Anger, after all, has long been a more socially acceptable substitute for sadness. And who better to take ones anger out on than the Jews?
History has shown us that path. And it seems easy enough. Without fear of reprisal, (at least not a physical reprisal), the jealous Jew-Haters feel safe meting out their anger on minorities, particularly those who like the Jews are not known for a propensity towards violence. The Jews therefore, make an excellent target for the jealous Jew-Hater.
3. Fanaticism. Fanaticism has within it, the qualities of both sloth and jealousy, but it also brings with it another, more troubling one: myopia. By seeing complex issues in only their most narrow framework, its easy to draw hasty conclusions. And while those conclusions will often be simple, they are almost never accurate. Although with fanaticism of any sort, accuracy and truth are thought to be superfluous at any rate, and therefore safely dispensable as weve seen of late.
The fanatical Jew-Hater believes in all the discredited cabals; the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (that great old Russian canard), and in the Blood Libel, (the falsehood promulgated in Europe and elsewhere, that the Jews murdered Christian babies to use their blood in Passover matzos), along with Anti-Zionist conspiracy theories about things as wide ranging as 911 and the AIDS epidemic. As absurd as these stories are, they nonetheless, slide down the gullets of fanatics like gruel, warming their bellies and nourishing hatred for generations.
As Ive said, I dont believe our 45th president is a Jew-Hater in any real sense, but he often seems so dead set on self aggrandizement that for example, during his campaign at least, he had no compunctions whatsoever about turning over stones to garner votes and attention, stones, which hid all sorts of horrible ideas. By not immediately repudiating those ideas (as a leader must) he allowed them to fester, to take root, and to ripen. Once seeds of hatred are permitted to grow into poisonous weeds they possess a life of their own, a dark power, which in turn invites other such fanatical ideas to flourish.
One may prefer one party, over another, one set of values perhaps one is more liberal or more conservative, more religious or less so but what has been released into the American zeitgeist is something altogether different. America is confronting a Pandoras box of pure madness that hasnt been seen in this measure for decades, at least.
Dont be fooled, power doesnt exist only in intelligence, creativity, and compromise. It exists as well, in intolerance, hatred and fanaticism. We humans have an animal instinct, a powerful visceral nature that left unchecked, gravitates to power for powers sake. When unleashed it hungers for it power to fight, power to consume, power to terrorize. To prevail over these dark forces we must see this tendency, first, in our selves, and only then can we discourage it in others.
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Turning Over Stones (What The Election Set Free) - Huffington Post
The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, said that the Federal Government would redirect its energy to harness natural resources to bridge technology gaps in the country.
The Chief Secretary to the Minister, Mr Taye Akinyemi, in a statement quoted on Friday in Abuja, quoted Onu as saying making the remark when he received the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Jigawa State,Hajiya Rabi Eshaq.
According to him, the ministry will utilise natural resources to enable diversification of the economy to yield better results.
The minister called for synergy between the Federal Government and the state governors to convert natural resources of the country to diversify the economy, create jobs and wealth for all.
Onu said that the ministry would intensify efforts to move Nigeria from a resource-based to a knowledge and innovation-driven economy.
He pledged to support science and technology initiatives in the in the country for national development.
He said that the ministry would assist education institutions by distributing science equipment to secondary and tertiary institutions to encourage students to embrace science and technology early in life.
Onu said that the ministry would continue to strive to ensure that the country produced most of its technology needs locally.
The commissioner had told the minister that the aim of her was to establish a better relationship between the ministry and her state in the area of science and technology.
This is with a view to expanding the scope of science and technology in Jigawa state,Eshaqsaid.
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Science and Technology: Minister says FG will harness natural ... - Pulse Nigeria
Fresh off a visit to Europe to discuss global hot spots with G-20 partners, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is now attending to another important relationship simmering much closer to home.
His meetings this week with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his cabinet, alongside U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, spanned a broad agenda from border security to law enforcement to trade. The latter has certainly galvanized public sentiments on both sides of the border. Feisty rhetoric of walls, tariffs and win-lose trade deals risk driving a wedge in the bilateral relationship.
Tillerson was tapped to be Americas top diplomat in large part for his acumen working with foreign governments to advance strategic interests and establish long-term commercial ties experience honed while heading one of the worlds largest energy companies. Those same skills will be needed as the U.S. reevaluates its trade relations with Mexico.
Change of some sort is likely and implementing it is bound to be complex. While discussions will necessarily drill down to the brass tacks, it is important to keep in mind a top line message that the U.S. and Mexico have and will continue to gain from their interconnected economies.
Fittingly, Tillersons former industry epitomizes the type of deep economic integration between the U.S. and Mexico that businesses in both countries are keen to preserve. If youre searching for common ground to defend economic openness in a future trade agreement, look no further than the mutual gains from the U.S. and Mexicos interconnected energy trade.
Energy is indelibly an industry based on trade. The free movement of labor, equipment, and commodities allow for resources in one country to be put to productive use in another.
This interaction is firmly embedded between the U.S. and Mexico. Every day, Mexico exports roughly 688,000 barrels of crude oil to the U.S. The U.S., meanwhile, sends a similar volume of refined petroleum products to Mexico each day. Approximately half of Mexicos gasoline imports come from the U.S.
The linkages are further entrenched when it comes to natural gas. The U.S. exports about 3 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of natural gas to Mexico. These flows are mainly one-way from the U.S. to Mexico, but absent a southern outlet, the glut of supply would put downward pressure on U.S. natural gas prices and hurt domestic producers.
The industry that goes into Mexican bi-lateral energy trade is also a major source of jobs in the U.S. In Texas, the nations top hydrocarbon-producing state, the oil and gas industry is responsible for nearly two million jobs, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute. In Pennsylvania, the second largest natural gas-producing state, the industry accounts for almost 340,000 jobs.
But its future planning that reveals just how tightly interdependent the U.S. and Mexico are on the energy front.
Mexico is banking on the sustained boom in U.S. shale gas production for its energy infrastructure expansions. Over the past five years, natural gas pipeline capacity between the U.S. and Mexico has nearly doubled from approximately 3.7 bcf/d in 2011 to 7.2 bcf/d in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. That capacity is expected to again double by 2018 to more than 14 bcf/d.
In turn, Mexico is expanding its domestic pipeline network to accommodate greater U.S. natural gas based on its energy ministrys current five-year plan. Some 3,300 miles of new gas pipelines are planned or under construction in Mexico, mainly to support its power sector.
Likewise, U.S. companies have placed long-term bets on developing natural resources in Mexico. U.S. oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron were among the international investors who paid large sums in December to lease acreage in Mexicos deepwater portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Those investments came despite the sustained slump in oil prices that has tightened budgets across the entire global energy industry.
Their long-term commitments are capitalizing on Mexicos historic reforms to liberalize its energy industry and other key sectors of its economy. Mexicos national hydrocarbons agency is currently finalizing rules to auction off unconventional gas blocks, a process that could garner interest from similar mid-sized operators that unleashed the shale revolution in the U.S. Whether deepwater or onshore, the ability to develop energy resources cost-efficiently depends partially on the competitive pricing of goods and services that are traded across the border.
The energy industry is uniquely dependent on trade. Investments must be made where the resources are located. Goods and services must then flow to develop them. In this regard, the energy supplies and demands of the U.S. and Mexico have benefitted each other enormously. But the same principles of open economies for efficient resource management can be also applied to any number of industries.
Revisions to U.S.-Mexico trade relations will necessarily veer towards the technical if and when they arise. Potential negotiations would be well-served if they are underpinned from the start by visions of integration and opportunities rather than deficits and losses. The energy industry is an obvious pillar for future economic cooperation.
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Energy as a Model for US-Mexico Economic Partnership - RealClearEnergy
Universal basic income -- or #UBI -- has been gaining traction in recent years as a utopian alternative to the punitive, stigmatising and declining welfare state in neo-liberal societies. The confluence of increased automation, declining wages and under-employment has been seized by the Left as a powerful reason for the establishment of a basic income (although interestingly, the UBI has always had supporters on the Right who want to do away with big government).
For women as mothers, however, the UBI opens up the possibility of a hitherto unseen equality that includes freedom from dependence on a male wage.
A basic income is a sum of money sufficient to live on, paid to all citizens unconditionally by the government. Basic income scholar Phillipe Van Parijs defines it as "an income paid by a political community to all its members on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement".
There are other definitions, including a basic income that operates as a supplement but is insufficient to live on, also called a 'non-liveable basic income'; a negative income tax whereby all those who earn below a minimum threshold are reimbursed by the government (up to a minimum standard); and basic capital, sometimes referred to as stakeholding, which is a lump sum paid at the onset of adulthood.
I am concerned here with the first definition -- that is a regular income paid to all citizens without conditions at a frugal but functional standard. This is also referred to as a Basic Income Guarantee or BIG.
UBI research and commentary has gained momentum over the past decade with an increasing focus on the social problems associated with declining employment resulting from automation and digitisation (think tram conductors and bank tellers); the declining welfare state resulting from neoliberal austerity policies -- the so-called 'welfare to workfare' regimes; and as a result of increasing income disparity in late capitalism.
For example, in Australia over the past 15 years, incomes of the top 10 percent have grown 13 percent higher than the bottom 90 percent, while incomes of the top 1 percent have grown 42 per cent higher.
Former Greek finance minister and economics professor, Yanis Varoufakis argues, somewhat polemically, that 'capitalism died in 2008' and was replaced with what he calls 'bankruptocracy'-- a system in which financialisation trumps labour deflating wages and undermines extant systems of social welfare (or, in other words, the conventional forms of redistributing income).
He notes that the original bargain struck between capital and labour altered after the financial crisis of 2008 and that the working class -- a broad term that ultimately includes anyone who works for wages -- no longer has the capacity to insure itself, producing a situation of deep economic precarity.
Wage-labourers have to increasingly accept the parsimonious terms of capitalism, generating the well-known situation of falling wages (relative to profits),less job-security and a widening income gap. As political theorist Kathi Weeks says, "Today's 'jobless recovery' is perhaps the most obvious sign that the wage system is not working." While profits are increasing, jobs and wages are not keeping apace and are indeed falling.
This divergence, also referred to as the 'productivity wedge', shows the growing gap between productivity and wages (or GDP and wages) and, in turn, the monopolisation of profits by the 10 percent and, more still, by the 1 percent. Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of the neo-liberal era has been the divergence between real wages growth and productivity growth.
Automation and digitisation will greatly exacerbate this process in the coming decades leading to further massive job losses.
Australia is no exception to this pattern. According to the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA)'s 2015 research report, Australia's Future Workforce -- somewhat ominously titled with a question mark -- we are on the cusp of a 'very different industrial revolution'.
Indeed, according to CEDA's Chief Executive Professor Stephen Martin, "More than five million jobs, almost 40 percent of jobs that exist today, have a moderate to high likelihood of disappearing in the next 10 to 15 years". While "...in some parts of rural and regional Australia there is a high likelihood of job losses being over 60 percent".
UBI is proposed as a utopian alternative to this confluence of technological, economic and social change because it offers a viable alternative for the redistribution of wealth; something the nexus of capitalism, waged labour and the (declining) welfare state is no longer achieving.
Basic income has become a very hot topic over the past year with a number of pilot programs being developed in Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, and California, a referendum in Switzerland, a lengthy parliamentary debate on the topic in France (resulting in this recent report), a parliamentary report in Australia as well as a discussion paper by Australian think-tank the Greens Institute. In a 2016 report, the Australian Productivity Commission stated: "While Australia's tax and transfer system will continue to play a role in redistributing income, in the longer term, governments may need to evaluate the merits of more radical policies, including policies such as a universal basic income."
What I find interesting immersing myself in the basic income literature -- including academic and journalistic articles alike -- is the assumption that this precarious access to employment is something new.
Certainly, on a mass scale it is for most (though not all) men and the spectre of middle class professionals losing their jobs -- something already happening in fields such as journalism and academia and likely in the health sector next -- a very significant social and economic change; but for all but the most privileged women this economic precarity is the historical and contemporaneous norm.
While a full-time, well-paid job over a lifetime is the route to economic security, notwithstanding the rhetoric of gender equality, very few women have ever had such jobs.
So, my argument isn't just that basic income is the only viable macro-economic answer to increasing economic inequality -- specifically, the decline of full-time, secure jobs -- but that it is a crucial answer to the as yet unresolved issue of gender justice under capitalism.
While I support a UBI for everyone -- that is, I support the 'U' in 'UBI' -- why, you may ask, am I singling out mothers in particular?
I think it is important to identify the specificity of mothers in this debate, given both the tendency to ignore the centrality of gender justice and the extent to which gender is centred around motherhood. My view is we need to make the socio-economic impact of becoming a mother and of mothering work explicit.
But first, a word on the 'standard female biography': one of the reasons a 'matricentric feminism' -- to use Andrea O'Reilly's excellent term -- is required is that we can no longer conflate the categories of mother and woman given delayed and declining fertility, and the increasing numbers of childless women.
Women who are not mothers, not-yet mothers, or long past actively mothering dependent children are all in quite different socio-economic positions (although of course the structural effects of mothering last a lifetime). It's not that gender doesn't matter; it's just that motherhood matters more.
We can look at this more demographically variegated landscape by looking at the gender pay gap, and then looking at how motherhood impacts this.
In Australia as of March 2016, women's full-time wages were 82.8 percent of men's, with a wage gap of 17.2 percent. The gender pay gap has grown over the past decade from 14.9 percent in 2004, to a record high of 18.8 percent in February 2015 before falling slightly again in 2016.
As a result, women are earning less on average compared to men than they were 20 years ago.
However, this figure is calculated without including overtime and bonuses, which substantially increase men's wages, or part-time, which substantially decreases women's wages. In other words, '83 cents in the dollar' substantially overstates wage parity.
When this difference is factored in, the pay gap widens to just over 30 percent. And in the 'prime childrearing years' between ages 35-44, this gap widens to nearly 40 percent.
A more realistic figure is gained by looking at full-time versus part-time earnings, as well as average male and female earnings directly. Here we see the pay gap more clearly.
For example, in 2016, average weekly earnings were $1,727.40 for male employees and $1,010.20 for female employees (a difference of close to $720 per week). However, most mothers work part-time which exacerbates this pay gap yet again.
If we consider full-time and part-time work, the wage disparity widens further: average weekly full-time earnings were $1,727.40 for full-time male employees and $633.60 for part-time female employees; now we have a gap of over $1100 per week!
Close to half of all Australian women worked part-time in 2015-16 -- 44 percent (double the OECD average). However, this figure rises to 62 percent for mothers with a child under 5, and almost 84 percent for those with a child under 2.
Close to 40 percent of all mothers worked part-time regardless of the age of the child, while only 25 percent worked full-time.
The remainder, it needs to be remembered, were out of the workforce altogether. As the ABS put it:
"Reflecting the age when women are likely to be having children (and taking a major role in child care), women aged 25-44 years are more than two and a half times as likely as men their age to be out of the labour force."
Age of youngest child is a key predictor of women's labour force participation, although it has almost no bearing on men's labour force participation and when it does it is in the opposite direction: fathers of younger children typically undertake more paid work.
Moreover, a quarter of all female employees work casually and their average weekly earnings were just $471.40.
Think about that -- a quarter of all working women earn less than $500 a week! These days that barely covers the rent, let alone food, bills, educational and commuting costs.
Occupational segregation and motherhood wage penalties also kick into this mix. If we look at labour force participation we see that coupled mothers have higher rates of participation than single mothers given the additional support they receive with childcare and income.
As the government report, 'Parenting, Work and the Gender Pay Gap' points out:
"Economists have reported that raising children accounts for a 17 percent loss in lifetime wages for women. Many women move into 'mother-friendly' occupations when they have children. These occupations may be lower-paid than the work a mother may have done prior to having a child, and often do not reflect the woman's abilities, education level or work experience ('human capital')."
Given the average full-time male wage is significantly higher than the average female wage and, moreover, that women carry the overwhelming share of unpaid care and domestic work and thus typically work part-time in their key childrearing years -- and, we should add, fully a quarter do not work at all -- this is not simply a matter of two incomes being better than one (which is of course true), it is that access to a share of male monopolised wealth -- that is, to put in in stark terms, access to a husband -- is essential for mothers to avoid poverty.
I'm not talking about the small number of high-earning, professional mothers, but the great majority of women. In broad terms, the closer we are to mothering dependent children, including especially infants and pre-schoolers, and the further we are from access to a male wage, the poorer we are as women.
Never married single mothers with dependent children are the worst off and it moves progressively from there with young, educated, urban, never-married, childless women in fact outstripping average male wages. This contrast gives us a sense of the variegated nature of women's socio-economic position and again highlights that mothers are a distinct group and, more fundamentally, that the life course transitions of marriage and motherhood continue to negatively affect women's (independent) socio-economic status.
As a recent government report, Parenting, Work and the Gender Pay Gap put it:
"Women's disjointed career trajectories are mirrored in the way the gender pay gap changes over the life course.
The gender pay gap exists from first entry to the workforce and increases substantially during the years of childbirth and childrearing, a time when many women have reduced their engagement with paid employment to take on family care work.
The gap then stabilises and narrows slightly from mid-life, when many women increase their paid work and sometimes develop new careers after their children have grown up. The pay gap narrows further in the years leading up to retirement with a substantial drop during retirement when men's income is usually reduced."
So, often when we're talking about women's lower labour force participation and lower earnings, we're actually talking about mothers' lower labour force participation and lower earnings and, more specifically again, we're talking about mothers with dependent children; although the lasting effects of caring labour means women across the spectrum have reduced earnings, assets and retirement savings if they have mothered.
To highlight this point, Australian sociologist and time use scholar Professor Lyn Craig has shown that many of the socio-economic disadvantages affecting women are, in fact, specific to mothers. As she says:
"An implication of this is that the marker of the most extreme difference in life opportunities between men and women may not be gender itself, but gender combined with parenthood. That is, childless women may experience less inequity than women who become mothers."
Another important reason we need to differentiate mothers from women is that over the past 40 years, the standard female biography has changed significantly. Whereas once adulthood was by and large synonymous with marriage and motherhood for women, on average women now have a long stretch of adulthood -- from the late teens to around age 30 -- before they have a first child.
For educated and/or unpartnered women, the birth of a first child is often later again into the 30s, and sometimes up to age 40. Moreover, while only around 10 percent of women did not become mothers in the mid and later twentieth century, this has now risen to 24 percent. So, not all women are mothers, and many women experience a large chunk of adulthood before they become mothers and after they are actively mothering dependent children.
So, to clarify my point, there are structural and individual injustices that are specific to mothering dependent children including an unequal division of domestic labour, unequal access to jobs given the unpaid work load at home, employment built on an implicit breadwinner model that is incompatible with parenting (including school hours, school holidays, sick kids and the like), discrimination in the workplace and, in the event of unemployment and/or divorce, an increasingly punitive welfare state and a high risk of poverty.
Single mothers and their children make up the bulk of those under the poverty line in the western world. In Australia, of all family groups, single parents constitute the largest single group of those living in poverty (proportionally).
Marriage is no longer the safety net (or gilded cage) it once was, with just over 30 percent of marriages ending in divorce in Australia and predicted to rise to 45 percent in the coming decades.
Additionally fewer people are entering into marriages and cohabiting relationships have even higher rate of relational breakdown than marriages.
This means a large and growing number of women who are mothering children -- the next generation no less -- are caught in this literal economic no-man's land without adequate access to waged employment, a breadwinner husband or welfare. I am not suggesting that access to a husband is a right; I am suggesting that the liberal dissolution of the institution of marriage has not been followed with any viable economic alternatives.
Mothers undertake the bulk of unpaid care work, without which our society would cease to function. To turn this around: is it acceptable that as a society we free-load on this care?
Mothers' economic autonomy -- that is the very foundation of their citizenship and their liberty -- is undermined by the extant intersection of the institutions of marriage, employment and welfare. It is on this basis that I am identifying mothers, and more still single mothers, as a specific socio-economic and political group in urgent need of basic income. This is a human rights crisis given that lone parent families are one of the fastest growing family forms in western societies and, moreover, that women head 80-90 percent of these families.
Unlike the contemporary issues put forward for basic income -- namely, mass unemployment from automation and digitisation -- the issues facing mothers are not new.
Indeed they have been with us since the very inception of capitalism and the waged-labour system. Moreover, they are among the most compelling given that women and their dependents comprise the majority of the poor.
With the liberalisation of markets and marriage, a large and growing body of women and children are being left out of the social contract. Basic income is the critical policy answer to this problem.
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Australia Needs A Universal Basic Income, And We Should Start ... - Huffington Post Australia
John Solari 12:34 p.m. PT Feb. 24, 2017
John Solari(Photo: RGJ file)
In an era many business leaders are calling the age of automation, the power of teamwork still remains a key to unlocking business results.
These two seemingly opposing forces are actually tightly interlinked. While automation, robotics and technology will continue to absorb rote, repetitive work, companies that unlock the skills that automation cannot bring to the table collaboration, creativity, and team-driven problem-solving will rise to the top.
Companies today must harness the power of their teams to deliver products, services and experiences that automation cannot provide. The power of an intelligent, collaborative and creative team can unlock ideas, relationships and new service lines that automation simply cannot deliver.
Marlin Steel in Baltimore, Maryland, was able to stay in business by automating its processes to stay competitive when many other manufacturing jobs went overseas. Video by Jasper Colt, USA TODAY
Peter Drucker, one of the foremost thought leaders in management culture, coined the term knowledge worker and said the most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, whether business or nonbusiness, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.
The challenge for companies today is how to attract, retain and inspire knowledge workers. And that can be done most effectively through the power of the team and through the strength of a companys culture.
As Drucker famously said, Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Culture and team are the prime drivers of recruitment, innovation, productivity and growth. But they are often ignored or downplayed by executives focused on measuring, monitoring and analyzing every aspect of business operations, mostly because culture and teamwork often defies measurement.
Some business experts even call culture the invisible ingredient that propels a company forward. But that invisible ingredient is vital to the execution of strategy. If strategy runs counter to a companys culture, it is almost impossible to implement. But when strategy and culture align, execution becomes almost effortless.
To create a winning culture, it is more important than ever to hire and cultivate team players who understand how to build culture and use it to drive performance.
Renowned business author Patrick Lencioni advises company leaders to look for three qualities when hiring and promoting team players: humility, hunger and people smarts.
Humility allows team players to put the team above their individual egos, and cultivate all members of the team. To truly grow a team you need to focus on the entire group, not individual egos or results.
Hunger is the ambition that fuels great work, but also makes team members self-motivated. If you have hungry team members who push for the best result without having to be coaxed along by a manager, you have the ingredients of a great inspired team.
And people smarts is the sensitivity to the team dynamics in the workplace that are critical to high-functioning teams. This is the emotional or relational intelligence that is so important in building trust and collaboration across an organization.
Automation and technology will continue to advance and change the workplace, but these changes will never alter the foundation of great companies the team dynamics and culture that fuels innovation, creativity and productivity that are the true hallmarks of great companies.
John Solari is the managing partner of J.A. Solari & Partners. He has 25 years of accounting experience and is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Nevada Society of Certified Public Accountants.
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Solari: Teamwork still holds power in the age of automation - Reno Gazette Journal
Weigh the needs of your packaging operation as it relates to workforce interaction and skill, quality, safety, productivity and profitability when deciding to use semi-automated or fully automated packaging machines on your production line.
With the growing implementation of robotics and automation into production lines, various manufacturing sectors are able to reduce costs, provide even more consistent quality products and improve profit margins. But just how much automation do you really need on your packaging line?
Simply eliminating workers and oversight on the line does not always bring about greater efficiency. Manufacturers should understand the requirements of their lines to select the right level of automation. Will semi- or fully automated packaging equipment meet their needs?
Differences between semi- and fully automated lines
Depending on its use, full or partial automation can greatly assist manufacturers in achieving their business goals. The differences between the two hinge on one major factor: employee interaction. Fully automated lines operate with little to no workforce involvement, while semi-automated lines rely on some employee interface to maintain operations.
There are advantages and disadvantages depending on the circumstances. Both semi-automated and fully automated operations have a proven track record of reducing production costs, increasing profits and improving product quality.
Lets look at the pros and cons of each one separately.
Considerations of semi-automation
Semi-automated manufacturing lines give way to a collaborative model that allows automated robots and equipment to operate alongside employees on the manufacturing floor. While employee interaction along a packaging line requires consideration for human error and safety concerns, it can also help manufacturers increase line flexibility.
Not all applications require the high speeds or positioning accuracy of fully automated packaging systems. Sometimes a semi-automatic solution provides the right level of flexibility and affordability. Photo courtesy of Piab.
Employees can think critically about problems that can occur on the manufacturing floor that are beyond what any machine is equipped to handle. Instead of awaiting feedback from machines themselves, a skilled workforce has the ability to work with equipment to ensure any machine stoppages are addressed in real time, rather than relying on machinery to properly correct errors on their own.
This model provides the opportunity for continuous improvements along the line for smooth production and an increase in efficiency. However, a major challenge among manufacturers across various industries in the Unites States today is acquiring, developing and retaining skilled employees, which can necessitate greater steps toward a fully automated line.
Considerations of full automation
By implementing a fully automated system, manufacturers eliminate significant levels of workforce on the production line. These processes are especially suitable for the pharmaceutical and meat and poultry industries. According to a report from FDAnews, human error accounts for nearly 80% of deviations in the pharmaceutical and related manufacturing industries. By fully automating product lines and reducing workforce interaction, pharmaceutical manufacturers can continue to improve such deviations and ensure customer satisfaction.
In the meat and poultry industry, manufacturers focus mainly on quality and sanitation. By removing the human element, food processors can help decrease the risk of product contamination. Fully automated lines can help ensure that manufacturers are complying with the latest Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations and help improve product quality and safety.
Additionally, fully automated lines can help to guarantee safety of the workforce on the manufacturing floor. As automation equipment design improves to allow for safer employee interfaces, the workforce can increasingly interact with equipment without compromising safety and skilled workers are able to interact with automation equipment remotely. Fully automated equipment can help increase employee safety on the line without compromising product quality.
Scope out solutions
As automation advances revolutionize manufacturing, its imperative for packaging engineers to keep up with the latest technologies. Manufacturers looking to automate their packaging lines with semi- and fully automated equipment can find many solutions on the show floor at Pack Expo East (Feb. 27-Mar. 1; Philadelphia).
Exhibitors at Pack Expo East are taking major steps in automation along product lines with the intention of helping end users comply with the latest regulatory and safety standards while increasing efficiency and product quality. Event attendees can also learn tips and gain more insight at the Innovation Stage, a series of 30-minute sessions in which a range of solutions and case histories will be shared by subject matter experts addressing automation, regulatory compliance, workforce development and best practices. The Innovation Stage is located on the show floor and is free to all attendees.
Sean Riley is the senior director, Media & Industry Communications, for PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. PMMI owns and organizes the Pack Expo portfolio of trade shows. He began his work with PMMI in 2006 as editor of its Packaging Machinery Technology magazine. He is a member of various industry organizations including the International Packaging Press Organization (IPPO) and the American Society of Business Press Editors.
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How much automation do you really need on your packaging line? - Packaging Digest
By Jon Gold
Senior Writer, Network World | Feb 24, 2017 5:08 AM PT
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The Linux Foundation announced yesterday that it had combined open source ECOMP and the Open Orchestrator Project into ONAP, the Open Networking Automation Platform, with the aim of helping users automate network service delivery, design, and service through a unified standard.
Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said that ONAP should be a boon to enterprise IT departments, thanks to improved speed and flexibility.
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As virtual functions move to cloud, eliminating manual steps and processes across businesses and service providers is an integral part of the value provided by ONAP, he told Network World via email.
Some of the tech worlds biggest names are on board with the ONAP project, including Huawei, AT&T, Cisco, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, VMware and many others. The idea behind the merger is to take the best architectural components from both frameworks and put them to work in a unified project. The foundation will implement a governing board and a technical steering committee to that end.
David Ward is the CTO of engineering and chief architect at Cisco. He said that the value of the open source model in networking cannot be overemphasized.
This project along with other projects like ODL, FD.io, OPNFV and PNDA that we have invested heavily, have proven the value of open innovation and created a developer community around networking, Ward said in a statement.
Jon covers open source, mobile, and network managment for Network World.
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