Tag: <span>spiral technology</span>

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Emotional intelligence is a valuable skill, because it means you know how to work with all kinds of people, understand them and get along with them. Once you understand emotional intelligence, you can see the people around you who have it, and those who don’t: at work, in politics, in the media and in your neighborhood. The media use both EI and EQ (like IQ) as shortcuts for emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is akin to empathy. It’s the ability to “read” other people’s feelings, and respond in an appropriate way. Emotionally intelligent people succeed because they form good connections with others, are trusted and liked. When you understand how and when to be sympathetic, supportive, direct, and trustworthy or gentle with people, they trust you and learn to rely on you. This creates a framework for business and personal interactions that form lasting, productive relationships.

To develop emotional intelligence, you must learn to focus not only on your own wants and needs, but the wants and needs of others. This requires learning delayed gratification, patience, and concern for more than just the bottom line. Emotional Intelligence is also essentially emotional maturity, which means your mind can manage your emotions. According to Goleman, the five characteristics of emotional intelligence are: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy and Social Skills.

• Self-Awareness: People with high EI understand their emotions, and because of this, they don’t let their feelings rule them. They know the difference between feeling and thinking, and can use thinking to moderate feelings, without ignoring them or quashing them. They’re confident-because they trust their intuition and their good judgment, which is a result of using feelings and intelligent thought to assess situations. People who have emotional intelligence are willing to take an honest look at themselves, see themselves realistically. They know their strengths and weaknesses, and they work on these areas so they can perform better. They have realistic positive self-regard, which means they have reasonable standards for their own good behavior. They care about others, but are not co-dependent. They can set boundaries for their own self-protection. This self-awareness is an essential foundation of EI.

• Self-Regulation: Also known as self-control and impulse control, this is the ability to control emotions and impulses. People who self-regulate typically don’t allow themselves to become too angry or jealous; they don’t have temper tantrums or hysterical outbursts and they don’t make impulsive, careless decisions. They think before they act or react. Characteristics of self-regulation are thoughtfulness, comfort with change, integrity, and the ability to say no. They are good at delayed gratification, understanding that waiting for what they want may bring better results. They operate on an internal code of ethics rather than a standard of behavior which is imposed from without.

• Motivation: People with a high degree of EI are usually motivated. They’re willing to defer immediate results for long-term success. They’re highly productive, love a challenge, and are very effective in whatever they do. They understand that motivation comes from celebration and appreciation, and are willing to motivate themselves and others when appropriate.

• Empathy: This is the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs, and viewpoints of those around you. Empathetic people are good at recognizing the feelings of others, even when those feelings may not be obvious. As a result, empathetic people are usually excellent at managing relationships, listening to, and relating to others. They avoid stereotyping and judging too quickly, and they live their lives in a very open, honest way. They exhibit generosity and benevolence, and a positive attitude towards others.

• Social Skills: Good social skills are another sign of high EI. They know how to cooperate, to be team players. Rather than focus on their own success first, they understand that success comes through helping others develop and shine. They can manage disputes, are excellent communicators, and are masters at building and maintaining relationships. In addition to the empathy on which these social skills are based, people with high EI also are good at patience, generosity, trustworthiness, gratitude, sympathy and they’re emotionally responsive.

Here is how to recognize emotional intelligence in yourself and others:

1. What’s one indication a person has no EQ whatsoever?

He or she has no idea what to respond to a statement or question about emotions. “How do you feel about… ” only elicits what he or she thinks, if anything.

2. What’s the downside of relating to someone with little or no emotional intelligence? It’s not very satisfying, because we all like to have emotional understanding and empathy. It also means the person will not be good at listening or sympathizing with your experience.

3. If we can’t detect any emotional intelligence, should we distance ourselves from the person?

If the relationship is going well, it’s going well. This question won’t matter. If you are frustrated by a lack of emotional intelligence, and everything else is OK, you could try to teach it, draw it out of your friend, relative or partner, but it takes a lot of patience. It’s like explaining feelings to a three-year-old.

4. What if the person has some EQ? What can you do to help them develop more EQ?

Be very responsive and supportive when his or her EQ is on display. If he or she does something thoughtful, be sure and express your gratitude. If she or he listens sympathetically to you or someone else, praise him or her for it.

5. What’s one way we can encourage others to continue being emotionally present and intelligent?

Be emotionally responsive to him or her. Give him or her room to respond emotionally and thoughtfully to you; don’t be impatient, it’s not very emotionally intelligent.

6. Why are people with good EQ desirable?

High emotional intelligence creates closeness, comforting, empathy and affection in your relationship. It’s easy to have fun or share feelings with someone with high EQ. You can count on a high EQ person to be kind and considerate.

To develop emotional intelligence:

Before embarking on any new encounter or activity, do the following steps:

1. Make a mental note of the possibilities: Can you learn something there? Can you meet a new friend? Will just getting out of the house and around new people feel good?

2. Remind yourself of your goals: You’re going there to enjoy the people there and to have fun.

3. Review your positive personal qualities: What do your friends like about you? What do you like about you? Your intelligence, your sense of humor, your style, your conversation skills? Are you a kind and caring person? Reminding yourself of these qualities means you will radiate that positive energy.

4. Have a positive outlook: Research shows that people who have a positive outlook have better lives, partly because a positive attitude is attractive and charming, and people are drawn to it. As a result, you make friends. When you are positive you are supportive of yourself and others, you notice the good things more than the bad things, which makes it easier to connect to others. In addition, you feel much better about yourself, which means you feel more deserving of friends. It’s a positive spiral, and goes up and up.

5. Be interesting: Wear attractive, but interesting, clothing-something that reflects who you are. If you like travel, for example, wear a shirt, scarf, tie or jewelry from another country, or wear something that reflects your ethnic background, or a hobby (sports, the outdoors, a Hawaiian-type shirt with surfboards, gardening implements or an animal print). It will help start conversations. Match your energy to the energy of the people around you. Obviously, if you’re dancing or eating barbecue poolside, the energy level will be pretty high. If you’re having quiet conversations at a cocktail party, discussing books, taking a class, or sitting down to dinner, the energy will be more mellow and focused.

6. Pay attention: Look around you, and seek to make friends. Notice who’s around you and what’s interesting or attractive about them, find an interesting thing about what they’re wearing, and complement it. “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing that gorgeous color; it looks great on you.” or, “What an interesting watch! Does it have a story?”

7. Prepare in advance: Read up on some fascinating topics to talk about-the background doings of a hit movie, some new technology advance, or a cool new trend. Then, when someone wants to talk to you, you’ll have something to say.

8. Find a way to help: What needs doing that you might enjoy? If you’re in a new environment, I recommend finding a “job” to do. Don’t just say “what can I do to help?” Instead, volunteer for something specific: to greet people and show them around, or keep the food table replenished, or refill drinks. It will give you a feeling of belonging, a great excuse to meet everyone, and you’ll be busy enough to keep your nervousness at bay. The host or hostess will be grateful and remember you later.

9. Follow through: If you do meet someone you’d like to know better, follow the event or meeting with an invitation for coffee. The best friendships begin in these social situations.

Emotionally Intelligent conversations are like tennis matches. That is, the other person “serves” he or she asks a question or makes a statement. Then, you “volley” back you answer the question with the kind of answer that invites a response. For example:

He: “How do you know our hostess?”

You: “We went to school together. I like Pam’s friendliness, don’t you?”

This invites your companion to respond, and keeps the “volley” going. If the conversational thread ends, the next “serve” is yours. If you have to re-start the conversation too often, excuse yourself and move on. That person is not interested enough. If you force the other person to do all the conversational “work” he or she will move on pretty quickly. One-syllable answers are a pretty clear indication of lack of interest, even if you didn’t mean it to be that way. Instead, turn on your charm, and the other person will want more time with you.

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Source by Tina Tessina

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I read this book sitting in a Thai food restaurant on the Oregon coast. The food was outstanding and what was very interesting was the fact that at the cash register there was a book and DVD set talking about going to college for free. The author was a young guy who graduated from Harvard. The whole book series was designed to show college students and parents how to find money to pay for college. Come to find out the author was the restaurant owner’s son. This is a classic example of the Millionaire Messenger in action.

Why is this important to me?

I am not doing this summary to waste your time. It is my vision to provide concise action steps that you can adopt right now to enhance your life. The best way to financial freedom is through a business. Now most people cannot simply quit their jobs and to start a new business. Typically you need to work your job and your new business until you have enough sustainable revenue to take your business full time. The Expert Industry is a caring community of people who share their advice and knowledge with the world and get paid for it.

You may be thinking I am not an expert in anything. This mindset has everything to do with Self-Esteem & Self-Confidence. Brendon addresses these concerns in the book. Think about this – every person has a unique finger print and unique life experiences. Those experiences with additional research can yield you an expert.

I want to start with a potential example of being an expert in something. I have a good friend of mine that has been doing cement work for over 20 years. He does this with his four brothers. He does not think of himself as an expert. Have you ever considered how successful Home Depot is as business? They cater to the do it yourself community. My friend could simply film different cement jobs and sell them as a do it yourself venture. It would look like this:

1. Create simple how to videos on the basics and give them away for free.

2. Create a deeper video series on how to do a full patio, sidewalk or stairs and sell it with a checklist manual.

3. Offer paid for consulting for job layouts with customers.

4. Take high priced large concrete jobs that are above the do it yourself community and name your price.

This is a simple example of releasing 100 years of combined cement expertise that could easily be parlayed into a seven figure business model.

The Millionaire Messenger is packed with great how to advice. For the sake of time, I am going to chat about the 9 reasons you should consider unlocking your knowledge and passion in the expert business.

1. Your work is based entirely on your passion and knowledge. This is really important because it no longer seems like work when you wake up each morning doing what you love.

2. Relating and Creating – Your work activities center around gaining trust and relating to your audience as well as creating useful content that add real value to their lives.

3. Anytime / Anywhere – Creating information how to products allows you the comfort of working on your schedule from anywhere. I can tell you from personal experience that setting up your business to do this one great step toward personal freedom.

4. Work with who you want – This is a big deal because stress statistics show that stress related illness is interconnected with who you work with or bad working relationships in general.

5. Promotions based on promos – The amount of money you make is directly related to the promotional efforts you put into marketing your content. This is all up to you and your work ethic.

6. Pay equals value – This is the strongest and most relevant point in the book. If you deliver great value, people will pay you for it and you can decide what to charge. You are not trading hours of your life for dollars.

7. Small Teams – You do not need a big team to do this. You can outsource several of these steps so that your payroll does not spiral out of control. There are information marketers that make millions of dollars a year with very little staff.

8. Tools are cheap – Technology today really is cheap. There are so many excellent software packages that are free that you can craft your whole infrastructure for next to nothing.

9. Financial Income can beat that of other industries. There are six ways to market your stuff and each has a different price point. The best business models are summed up in one phrase – “one to many”. Creating something once and selling it over and over is the true key to unlocking the wealth puzzle.

The Millionaire Messenger is a good book that will give you the direction you need and the questions required to get you on the path to personal wealth and freedom.

I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is one to many. When crafting your business model or tweaking an existing model, remember to leverage the power of “one to many.” In our software business, we create a software module once and sell it many times. This is how Microsoft and Oracle generate billions of dollars each year.

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Source by Joe Mosed

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The first exoplanet to be observed circling a Sun-like star was an enormous roaster, spotted by two Swiss astronomers who made the historic discovery back in 1995. Since then, around 1800 exoplanets orbiting stars beyond our Sun have been detected, bringing with them a treasure trove of information describing many rich and strange alien worlds for astronomers to pour over. In May 2014, a team of astronomers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, announced their bizarre discovery that some faraway Sun-like stars, inhabiting our Milky Way Galaxy, hungrily devour tasty Earth-like planets that circle them in searing-hot, close-in orbits. These “Earth-eaters,” during their development, snack on large quantities of the rocky stuff from which “terrestrial”planets–like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars–are composed.

Trey Mack, a doctoral student in astronomy at Vanderbilt, created a model that estimates the effect this sort of sinister diet has on a parent star’s chemical composition. Mack and colleagues have also used this model to study a distant duo of twin stars that both possess their own set of planetary offspring.

The results of this study were published online May 7, 2014 in the Astrophysical Journal.

After obtaining a high-resolution spectrum for a target star, astronomers can now actually spot the tattle-tale signature of this evil feast.

“Trey has shown that we can actually model the chemical signature of a star in detail, element by element, and determine how that signature is changed by the ingestion of Earth-like planets. After obtaining a high-resolution spectrum for a given star, we can actually detect that signature in detail,” noted Dr. Keivan Stassun in a May 16, 2014 Vanderbilt University Press Release. Dr. Stassum is a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt.

This new model will enable astronomers to better understand the process of planet formation–as well as helping them in their ongoing and dedicated hunt for Earth-like worlds dwelling beyond our Sun.

Stars are enormous, seething, and searing-hot balls composed of more than 98 percent hydrogen and helium gas. All of the other elements that may exist in the glaring furnace of a star compose less than 2 percent of their mass. In astronomical jargon, all atomic elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are termed metals, and they have coined the term metallicity to define the ratio of the relative abundance of iron to hydrogen in a star’s chemical composition.

Over the past twenty years, astronomers have developed new strategies to help them detect exoplanets in great numbers–and there have been several recent studies that attempt to link stellar metallicity with planet formation. One study, conducted by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, suggests that stars sporting high metallicity are more likely to give rise to planetary systems than stars that are less richly endowed with elements heavier than helium. A second study argues that hot Jupiter planets are seen primarily in close, fast orbits around high metallicity stellar parents, while smaller planets are most frequently observed in orbit around stars with a diverse range of metallicities.

The first alien planet to be discovered in orbit around a distant Sun-like star was a hot Jupiter dubbed 51 Pegasi b–or 51 Peg b, for short. This sizzling distant world proved to be enormous, hugging its parent-star, 51 Pegasi, fast and close. In fact, 51 Peg b orbits its stellar parent at a distance of only 4,300,000 miles–which is only a small fraction of the distance separating Mercury, the innermost planet in our Solar System, from the Sun.

51 Peg b was discovered by Dr. Michel Mayor and Dr. Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, and the existence of such a roasting hot Jupiter surprised astronomers, who believed that Jupiter-like planets could only dwell in the cold, outer regions surrounding their stars–like Jupiter in our own Sun’s family.

Since the discovery of 51 Peg b, almost a generation ago, many other strange and unforeseen alien worlds have been spotted by surprised astronomers, as they orbit around stars that are very similar to our own.

Of Stars And Exoplanets

All stars are born when a very dense blob secreted deep within a cold and dark interstellar molecular cloud–composed of star-birthing gas and dust–collapses under the mighty weight of its own gravity. Many such dark, enormous, and amorphous clouds haunt our Milky Way Galaxy, floating around in spooky silence in the Space between stars.

Brilliant, young stars are surrounded by swirling protoplanetary accretion disks that whirl around them. Baby planets are born from these accretion disks–composed of nourishing fine dust particles and gas. The dust particles that dance around within the whirling disks are very sticky, and cling to one another, forming ever larger and larger objects–from pebble size, to boulder size, to mountain-size, to planet-size. The larger primordial planet-forming bodies that eventually form, termed planetesimals, ultimately collide with one another and merge to create major planets–the full-grown children of the stars that they circle.

Almost 2000 alien worlds have been spotted by planet-hunting astronomers circling distant stars beyond our Sun. Approximately 1790 exoplanets dwell in 1110 planetary systems that include about 460 systems sporting multiple planets–at least, as of May 13, 2014.

The ill-fated, but highly productive Kepler Space Telescope spotted a few thousand candidate alien worlds of which, perhaps, 11% could be false-positives.

Astronomers think that there are at least 100 billion planets inhabiting are starlit, barred-spiral Milky Way Galaxy, with at least one planet-child on average per sparkling stellar parent. Our Galaxy also possibly hosts trillions of rogue–alternatively termed orphan— exoplanets, that are not bound to any star at all, but wander around through interstellar Space bereft of a stellar family. Such unfortunate, lonely worlds were likely unceremoniously evicted from the families of their parent-stars, as a result of catastrophic gravitational interactions with sister planets.

About 1 out of 5 Sun-like stars are thought to possess “Earth-sized” planet offspring, dwelling in their habitable zones–and the closest one is calculated to be situated within 12 light-years from our Solar System. The habitable zone surrounding a star is that comfortable region where liquid water can exist in its life-friendly liquid state–the so-called Goldilocks zone, where it is not too hot, not too cold, but just right for life as we know it to arise, evolve, and flourish. Where liquid water exists, the potential is there for Earth’s kind of life to develop.

For hundreds of years scientists and philosophers alike speculated that exoplanets might exist around distant stars–but they had no way of spotting them, or of knowing their frequency. Several claims of exoplanet detection were made by planet-hunters back in the 19th century, but they were ultimately rejected by other astronomers who were unable to confirm the “discoveries”.

The first confirmed discovery of exoplanets came in 1992, with the detection of several terrestrial-mass planets circling the pulsar PSR B1257+12. Pulsars are not hydrogen-burning, main-sequence stars like our own Sun. They are the dense remains of massive stars that blasted themselves to pieces in the fiery conflagration of supernovae explosions. Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, that emit regular lighthouse-like beacons of light into Space. The pulsar planets are bathed in a constant shower of deadly radiation–emanating from the stellar corpse that they are doomed to circle–and, as such, they are weird and very unfortunate worlds, likely to be extremely hostile to delicate living tidbits.

51 Peg b was the first exoplanet to be discovered circling a hydrogen-burning star still on the main sequence–like our own Sun!

Earth-Eaters!

The hydrogen and helium that compose still-living stars on the main-sequence are used as fuel for the nuclear fusion reactions that manufacture their sizzling heat and brilliant light. However, stars do carry within them a sprinkling of other atomic elements on their surfaces. By analyzing starlight, astronomers are able to determine which elements are present in a stellar system–and it gives some tattle-tale clues about the kind of planets the system harbors.

To discover more, the Vanderbilt team used telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile to peer at a stellar system harboring a duo of Sun-like stars bearing the bland names of HD 20781 and HD 20782. The two sister stars were born from the same dark, frigid molecular cloud of dust and gas–indicating that they should have been born with the same chemical composition. Any differences that might have developed after their starry birth, would have to be attributed to the influence of their planets. The team of astronomers found that one star possesses a Jupiter-like planet in a highly eccentric orbit, while the other sports two considerably smaller Neptune-mass worlds.

The team of astronomers studied the levels of 15 elements in both stars, including calcium, aluminum, silicon, and iron because they have melting points higher than 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, and are the refractory materials that serve as the building blocks for Earth-like, “terrestrial” worlds. Both stars displayed higher levels of these elements than our own Sun, indicating that they have both consumed large dinners of Earth-like material–an estimated 20 Earth-masses for the star with the two Neptune-sized planets, and 10 Earth-masses for the one with the Jupiter-sized planet.

The Vanderbilt astronomers based their study on the work of coauthor Dr. Simon Schuler of the University of Tampa, who had expanded the examination of stars’ chemical composition beyond their iron content. Mack, Schuler, and Stassum applied this technique to the stellar duo HD 20781 and HD 20782. Both stars are G-class dwarf stars akin to our Sun.

When the team of astronomers analyzed the spectrum of the sister stars, they discovered that not only were the relative abundances of the refractory elements significantly higher than that of our Sun, but also the higher the melting temperature of a particular element, the greater its abundance. This trend provided a precious clue that Earth-like rocky planets had been devoured.

The results of the study support the theory that a star’s chemical composition and the nature of its planetary system are linked.

“Imagine that the star originally formed rocky planets like Earth. Further, imagine that it also formed gas giant planets like Jupiter. The rocky planets form in the region close to the star where it is hot and the gas giants form in the outer part of the planetary system where it is cold. However, once the gas giants are fully formed, they begin to migrate inward and, as they do, their gravity begins to pull and tug on the inner rocky planets,” Mack explained in the May 16, 2014 Vanderbilt University Press Release.

If a sufficient number of doomed, rocky Earth-like worlds plummet into their fiery parent-star, they will leave behind a sad testimony to their former existence in the form of a special chemical signature that astronomers can spot. “With the right amount of pulling and tugging, a gas giant can easily force a rocky planet to plunge into the star. If enough rocky planets fall into the star, they will stamp it with a particular chemical signature that we can detect,” Mack added.

Following this line of reasoning, it is not especially likely that the two Earth-eaters possess circling rocky planets. The two Neptune-sized planets orbit their star quite closely–at one-third the distance between our planet and the Sun. The other star’s Jupiter-sized planet spends a great deal of its time in the outer limits of the planetary system–however, its eccentric orbit also brings it sweeping inward very close to its star.

The team of astronomers found that the star hosting the two Neptune-sized planets devoured more terrestrial rocky-planet material than its sister star. The astronomers speculate that this may be because the two planets were more efficient at pushing luckless Earth-like planets into their star, than the lone Jupiter-sized planet was at bullying unfortunate Earth-like planets into the fiery furnace of its own hungry stellar parent.

If the tattle-tale chemical fingerprint of Sun-like G-class stars–that hungrily devour rocky Earth-like planets–turns out to be universal, “When we find stars with similar chemical signatures we will be able to conclude that their planetary systems must be very different from our own and that they most likely lack inner rocky planets. And when we find stars that lack these signatures, then they are good candidates for hosting planetary systems similar to our own,” Mack explained in the May 16, 2014 Vanderbilt University Press Release.

Stassun added that “This work reveals that the question of whether and how stars form planets is actually the wrong thing to ask. The real question seems to be how many of the planets that a star makes avoid the fate of being eaten by their parent star?”

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Source by Judith E Braffman-Miller

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With increases in fuel prices and a slowing economy worldwide, the international freight industry faces new challenges.

So what are the trends we are seeing in the international freight market and how will they affect the customer?

The global freight forwarding market stood at 116.8 billion Euros in 2007, growing by just under 11%.

This was the lowest level of growth seen by the international freight market for four years. The slowdown was caused mainly by the impact of the weak economy in the US on the freight market but, with the European economy now also showing signs of trouble, growth in freight is expected to slow still further this year and next.

The credit crunch has had a big impact on China import to the US, a freight market which had previously been flying high. Although this decline in freight was offset a little by an increase in US exports caused by the weakness of the dollar, shipping companies are now thinking about how best to weather stormy market conditions ahead.

The good news is that as they are asset light, freight companies are better placed than some to ride out the coming recession and forwarders are in one of the strongest positions in the freight industry. So it is from the freight companies that customers can expect to see most innovation in the international freight industry in the next year or two.

International freight customers can expect to see some big changes on the horizon.

We can expect to see migration of some air freight traffic to the cheaper option of shipping by sea, as many customers decide to make savings in this way.

This is likely to be accompanied by less growth in the ‘express’ sector of the international freight market as some customers opt to compromise speed in freight for cost savings.

We are also likely to see more mergers and amalgamations between international freight companies as freight companies look to increase profitability through building economies of scale.

Inevitably, some weaker freight companies will go to the wall as the tough trading conditions define the winners and the losers in the international freight market. But the stronger freight forwarding companies will become still stronger as they continue to innovate to address the market challenges.

Some question marks hang over the China import market as labour costs in China spiral and it becomes more costly as a manufacturer. For example, Asda has said recently that they may shift some of their sourcing to Vietnam as the benefits of China import are being eroded by rising labour and suppliers’ costs, and more supermarkets are expected to follow suit. However, despite this, China import and trade with Asia will continue to be the rising star of the international freight market and profits from Asian freight forwarding will help freight companies invest in new customer services.

Increased competition between freight forwarding companies is likely to lead to new product development as freight forwarders add on more value-added services to differentiate themselves from the shipping company down the road.

There is also likely to be an increasing focus on improving customer service.

What’s more, the freight forwarding industry will see more use of IT to automate processes and reduce costs. This will be good news for customers as it means more transparency in the international freight industry. Increased use of technology will improve communications between shipping companies, customers and the end recipients, providing a better service all round. Integrated IT will also be used to increase customer choice in international freight – for example, between ‘green’ options for freight forwarding as an alternative to the fastest freight transport options.

And lastly, excess shipping capacity leading to cheaper freight rates will be a help to freight forwarders, with the customer again being the ultimate winner as competition in the international freight market hots up in the year ahead.

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Source by Stephen Willis

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The very first vending machine was said to have been invented by Hero of Alexandria, a 1st century inventor. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed a fixed amount of “holy water.”

Basically, a vending machine is a machine that dispenses merchandise after a customer deposits money. Vending machines have a currency detector which determines if the money inserted is sufficient to purchase the desired item.

Common locations where vending machines are usually placed include: next to the entrances/exits, next to the water fountain, in front of the restroom, in the break room, by the coffee maker, next to the other vending machines, by the receptionist, next to the cash register, next to the listening station at a music store, next to the change machine or in the waiting area.

The items sold in vending machine vary. In the U.S. vending machines may even carry alcoholic beverages such as beer and cigarettes. This practice is increasingly rare though, due to concerns about underage buyers. I

n Japan, there seems to be no limits to what is sold by vending machines. These include: drinks and cigarettes, bottles of wine, cartons of beer and pairs of underwear. Japan has the highest number of vending machines per capita, with about one machine for every 23 people.

Vending machines are classified mainly according to the products it carries. Below are just some of them:

Newspaper vending machines

With newspaper vending machines, a customer could open the box and make off with all of the newspapers after paying for one. Such assumes that the customer will be honest.

Candy vending machines

Candy vending machines are mechanical machines that vend a handful of candy, a bouncy ball, or perhaps a capsule with a small toy or jewelry, for one or two quarters.

Soda snack/vending machines

Soda/snack vending machines are, as the name suggests, sell cans or bottles of soda and/or small packages of snacks. For operators, soda/snack machines have the advantage that many locations recognize their need for such machines.

Specialized Vending

Specialized vending machines are those that dispense personal products, typically in public toilet facilities. These vending machines are often found in toilets used by transient persons in high traffic locations, such as bus stations and truck stops.

The machines in ladies restrooms typically sell sanitary napkins, tampons and tissue paper. In men’s rooms, the vending machines contain tissue paper, cleansers and sometimes condoms.

These vending machines use a spiral kind of mechanism to separate and to hold the products. When the machine vends, the spiral turns, thus pushing the product forward and falling down to be vended.

Most vending machines are designed as large safes. They have also been extensively tested and designed to inhibit theft. Like any machines, vending machines are susceptible to malfunction. The causes are many-fold.

Coin acceptors often jam up, especially if a child inserts a bill or other foreign object into the coin slot. Bill validators sometimes falsely reject a legal tender bill that happens to be crumpled, ripped, or dirty. Vending machines usually have a phone number that angry users can call for service.

One of the newest vending innovations is telemetry, which is made possible by the advent of reliable, affordable wireless technology. With telemetry, data can be transmitted to a remote headquarters for use in scheduling a route stop, detecting component failure or verifying collection information.

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Source by James Monahan

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Mars is a true Wonderland world that has sung its enticing Sirens’ song for centuries to those who seek to solve its many mysteries. Indeed, the two moons of Mars, named Phobos and Deimos, present some mesmerizing mysteries all their own. Where did the two moons of Mars come from? For a long time their strange irregular shapes have suggested that they were both born asteroids that escaped from the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter–only to be snared by the Red Planet’s gravitational embrace when they wandered too close to what was to become their adopted parent-planet. However, in April 2018, planetary scientists at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas, presented an alternative scenario to explain the origin of these two tiny potato-shaped moons. The new theory proposes that Phobos and Deimos were really born as the result of an ancient impact when a small dwarf protoplanet blasted into the primordial Mars. The paper describing this new model is published in the April 16, 2018 issue of the journal Science Advances.

The primordial Solar System has frequently been likened to a “cosmic shooting gallery” where objects, large and small, were continually crashing into one another–wreaking havoc. The ancient giant collision between the young Mars and an ill-fated protoplanet would have been almost identical to the one that is generally thought to have been responsible for the formation of Earth’s own large Moon. According to this model, Earth’s Moon was born when a doomed Mars-sized protoplanet named Theia crashed into our still-forming planet.

Astronomers have been debating the origin of the mysterious duo of Martian moons for decades. The perplexing puzzle, that has been difficult to solve, is whether the moons are really captured asteroids or were born instead from a debris disk whirling around the primordial Mars. This surrounding debris disk would have originated as a result of the proposed giant impact. This giant impact model explaining the origin of Phobos and Deimos has been considered the most promising explanation. Alas, earlier models of this process were hindered by low numerical resolution, as well as overly simplified modeling technology.

In the case of the giant impact model between the primordial Earth and the tragedy that was Theia, the violent impact hurled debris into the sky above our planet. Eventually, the debris coalesced to create Earth’s lovely lunar companion.

“Ours is the first self-consistent model to identify the type of impact needed to lead to the formation of Mars’ two small moons,” noted study lead author Dr. Robin Canup in an April 16, 2018 SwRI Press Release. Dr. Canup is an associate vice president in the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division, as well as one of the leading scientists using large-scale hydrodynamical simulations to model planet-scale collisions, including the favored giant impact Earth-Moon formation model.

Quite A Pair

Ever since their discovery in 1877 by the American astronomer Asaph Hall (1829-1907), Phobos and Deimos have bewitched and bewildered astronomers seeking the elusive answer to the question of how Mars managed to acquire its duo of oddly-shaped little moons. Phobos has an orbit that carries it closer to Mars than its sibling moon, with a semi-major axis of 5,827 miles, as opposed to Deimos’ 14,580 miles.

When a moon is in orbit around its parent-planet, all goes well for both the planet and its moon–just so long as the gravity that is keeping the moon in one piece exceeds the relentless and powerful pull of its planet. The trouble begins if the ill-fated moon wanders too close to the gravitational grip of its destructive parental planet. This is because the tidal forces of the planet start to exceed the gravitational bind that is holding the unlucky moon together–this means that the moon will fall apart. Earth’s relatively large Moon is very lucky because the limit–termed the Roche Limit–is a bit under 10,000 kilometers, and it is a safe and secure 385,000 kilometers from our planet.

Alas, other moons may not be as lucky. This fortunate state of affairs for Earth and its lunar companion is not the case for the Martian moons. Phobos is the larger moon of the duo, at about 22 kilometers in diameter, and it is currently slowly wandering inward towards Mars. Phobos is a doomed little moon-world, because it will approach the Martian Roche Limit in about 20 million years. When it does so, Phobos will be pulled apart, forming a mess of debris that will create a spectacular ring around the Red Planet. In contrast, Deimos–the smaller of the duo–will remain without its companion moon. Deimos orbits its parent-planet at a safer, greater distance. This last surviving Martian moon will become a lonely object lingering in the Martian sky.

If an observer stood upon the Martian surface near its equator, full Phobos would appear to be approximately one-third as large as Earth’s full Moon. However, Phobos would look considerably smaller if the observer stood further away from the Martian equator–and it would be completely invisible if the observer gazed up at the Martian sky while standing on one of its polar ice caps. Deimos looks more like an especially bright star or planet when viewed by an observer on Earth. There are no total solar eclipses on Mars. This is because the moons are much too small to completely block the Sun. In dramatic contrast, total lunar eclipses of Phobos occur almost every night.

The motions of the Martian moons would appear very different from those of Earth’s own Moon. The speed-demon Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and then rises again only eleven hours later. On the other hand, Deimos–being just outside synchronous orbit–rises as expected in the east. However, Deimos performs this feat very slowly. In spite of its 30-hour orbit around its parent-planet, it takes 2.7 days for Deimos to set in the west as it lazily falls behind the rotation of Mars.

Both Martian moons are tidally locked, always showing the same face towards Mars. Several string craters have been observed pockmarking the Martian surface, and they are inclined further from the equator the older they are. This suggests that there may once have been many small moons that perished in the way currently predicted for the doomed Phobos–and that the Martian crust as a whole shifted between these events. In contrast, Deimos is far enough away from its parent-planet to have its orbit slowly boosted instead–as is also the case for Earth’s own Moon. When Earth’s Moon was born it was much closer to our planet. The primordial Moon was a considerably larger object in Earth’s ancient sky than it is now. As time went by, Earth’s Moon traveled farther and farther away; appearing to be smaller and smaller in the sky as a result.

The birthplace of the Martian moons is a subject of hot debate. Both little moons have much in common with carbonaceous C-type asteroids, with albedo, density, and spectra very similar to those of C- or D-type asteroids. Because of this similarity, one theory suggests that both moons may be captured Main Belt asteroids. However, both Phobos and Deimos have circular orbits that are located almost exactly in Mars’s equatorial plane. For this reason, a capture origin requires a mechanism for circularizing the initially highly eccentric orbits, and adjusting their inclinations into the equatorial plane. This would have probably resulted from a combination of atmospheric drag and tidal forces–although it is not clear that enough time was available for this to happen in the case of Deimos. Circular orbits are an indication that the orbiting body was born where it is, while eccentric orbits indicate the opposite. Another problem with the capture theory is that the capture itself requires dissipation of energy. The atmosphere of Mars today is much too thin to capture a Phobos-sized object by way of atmospheric braking. However, a capture may have possibly occurred if the original body was really a binary asteroid that separated as a result of tidal forces.

A Blast In The Martian Past

The new model proposes a much smaller impacting protoplanet than those considered in previous studies. The catastrophic impact thought to have created Earth’s Moon occurred approximately 4.5 billion years ago–a time when our 4.6 billion year old Solar System was very young. The Earth’s diameter is about 9,000 miles, while the diameter of Mars is just a bit over 4,200 miles. Earth’s Moon is a little over 2,100 miles in diameter, about one-fourth the size of Earth.

Phobos and Deimos formed within the same time frame. Both tiny moons hug their parent-planet in close orbits. The proposed Phobos-Deimos forming impactor would have been approximately the same size as the asteroid Vesta–the second-largest inhabitant of the Main Asteroid Belt after the dwarf planet Ceres. Vesta sports a diameter of 326 miles, while Ceres is about 587 miles wide.

“We used state-of-the-art models to show that a Vesta-to-Ceres-sized impactor can produce a disk consistent with the formation of Mars’ small moons. The outer portions of the disk accumulate into Phobos and Deimos, while the inner portions of the disk accumulate into larger moons that eventually spiral inward and are assimilated into Mars. Larger impacts advocated in prior works produce massive disks and more massive inner moons that prevent the survival of tiny moons like Phobos and Deimos,” Dr. Julien Salmon explained in the April 16, 2018 SwRI Press Release. Dr. Salmon is a research scientist at the SwRI.

These new findings are important for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2024. MMX will include a NASA-provided instrument. The MMX spacecraft will visit the Red Planet’s two little moons, as well as land on the surface of Phobos in order to obtain a surface sample that will be returned to Earth for study in 2029.

“A primary objective of the MMX mission is to determine the origin of Mars’s moons, and having a model that predicts… the moons’ compositiions would… provide a key constraint for achieving that goal,” Dr. Canup explained in the April 16, 2018 SwRI Press Release.

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Source by Judith E Braffman-Miller

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Sailing and navigation…Measuring Direction and Distance

For Measuring distance at sea, the old type of log that gave us the knot as unit of speed has long since given way to more sophisticated mechanical and electronic devices.

Walker logs

One of the oldest is the Walker log. This uses a torpedo-shaped spinner a few inches long towed behind the boat on a length of braided line. As it moves through the water, spiral fins on the torpedo make it spin, twisting the line. The on-board end of the line is hooked on to the back of the log instrument, where it turns a shaft connected to a reduction gear box. This in turn moves the hands on a series of dials, rather like those of an old fashioned gas meter, to give Direct reading of the distance the spinner has moved through the water.

Advantages of the Walker log are its rugged simplicity and the ease with which weed or debris can be cleared from the pinner. Its disadvantages are that its display has to be mounted right at the back of the boat; that the log line (usually 30 or 60 feet in length) has to be streamed before the log can be used, and recovered before entering harbour; it tends to under-read at very low speeds; and at speeds over about ten knots the spinner is inclined to jump out of the water and skitter along the surface. There are definite techniques for streaming and recovering a mechanical trailing log, intended to reduce the risk of the line tangling. To stream the log, first attach the on-board end to the hook on the back of the display unit. Then, keeping the spinner in hand, feed out all the line to form a long U-shaped loop astern before dropping the spinner overboard, well off to one side of the loop. Some owners like to hold on to the line just astern of the display unit for a few seconds, just to absorb the snatch as the load comes on to the line.

When recovering the log, speed is essential, especially if the boat is moving fast. Unclip the inboard end from the hook on the back of the display, and drop it overboard, allowing it to trail out astern while you pull in the log line. Then holding the spinner, gather in the line, coiling it as you go. Trailing the line astern like this allows any kinks to unravel.

Electrical trailing logs

The electrical trailing log is superficially similar to a Walker log, inasmuch as it uses a spinner towed astern of the boat on a long line. In this case, however, the spinner is in two parts, and the ‘log line’ is an electrical cable. The front part of the spinner is attached to the cable and only the rear part is free to rotate. As it does so, an electronic sensor in the front part makes and breaks an electrical circuit, so the on-board display unit receives a short pulse of electricity each time the spinner rotates. These pulses are counted electronically and are presented as a digital display of speed and distance run.

The advantages and disadvantages of this type of log are much the same as for the mechanical Walker log except that it is dependent on electrical power from internal dry batteries, which in return allows the display unit to be mounted almost anywhere on board, and that because the line itself is not twisting, it is rather easier to stream and recover.

Hull-mounted impeller logs

On cruising boats, hull-mounted logs are by far the most popular type, though in principle they are much the same as the electrical trailing log: a rotating impeller sends a stream of electrical impulses to a display unit mounted in the cockpit or near the chart table.

The impeller – which can be either a miniature version of the trailing log’s spinner, or a paddle wheel an inch or so in diameter – is mounted in a fitting called a transducer, which either protrudes through the bottom of the boat or hangs down below the transom.

The disadvantages of this system are that an impeller so close to the hull can be affected by the water flow around the hull itself, and that it is difficult and potentially dangerous to withdraw the transducer to clear weed or debris from it at sea. The reason in-hull logs are so popular is primarily the convenience of not having to stream and recover 30 feet or more of log line at the beginning and end of each passage.

Other logs

At the top of the scale of price and sophistication are several alternative methods of measuring speed through the water:

Electromagnetic logs are based on the same principle as generators and electric motors: that electricity is created if you move a magnetic field past an electrical conductor. In this case the conductor is sea water and the magnetic field is created by the transducer. As the transducer moves through the water a small electric current is set up, measured by sensors on the transducer.

Sonic logs use accurate measurements of the speed of sound between two transducers mounted one ahead of the other. Each transducer emits a continuous stream of clicks, inaudible to the human ear, while listening for clicks transmitted from the other. When the boat is moving, the movement of the water past the hull slows down the clicks travelling forward whilst speeding up those travelling aft. The instrument accurately measures the time taken for each click to make the trip, compares them, converts the results into a display of speed through the water, and from this calculates the distance run.

Another type of sonic log uses sophisticated echo sounder technology to measure the rate at which plankton and debris are moving past its transducer.

The big advantages of all three types are that they are much less susceptible to fouling than ordinary in-hull logs and that they can go on working at very high speeds or in rough sea conditions, when turbulence or air bubbles make impeller logs unreliable.

Calibrating logs

No log can be relied upon to be 100 per cent accurate. This is particularly true of hull mounted logs because – quite apart from any inherent inaccuracies in the instrument itself – the gradual build-up of fouling as the season progresses means that the boat is dragging an ever-thickening layer of water along with it, so the water flow past the impeller will be slower than the boat speed through the water. Conversely, around some parts of the hull, such as alongside a sailing boat’s keel or near the propellers of a motor boat, the water flow may actually be accelerated, making the log over-read.

Errors can always be allowed for if you know about them, and most electronic logs have a calibration facility that allows them to be adjusted to take account of these variations. Finding, and if necessary, correcting, log error is known as calibration. In principle it involves measuring the time taken to cover a known distance, using this to calculate true speed, and comparing this with the speed indicated by the log. Any accurately-known distance can be used, though the best are undoubtedly the measured distances’ set up specially for the purpose. They consist of two (or sometimes three) pairs of transit posts, marking the start and finish of a precisely-measured distance, and shown on the appropriate chart. The course to steer to cover the Measured distance is also shown.

Settle the boat on course and at a steady speed before crossing the first transit line; note the time at which you cross the start ine and hold that course and speed without making any allowance for wind or tide until you cross the finish line, and note the time taken. Note the actual log reading at intervals of, say, 15 seconds so that you can work out the average log speed for the whole run.

As perfectly still water is rare, it is important to repeat the process in the opposite direction. Having found the speed over the ground in both directions, the speed through the water can be calculated by taking the average, by adding the two speeds together and dividing by two.

A more accurate result can be obtained by making four or six runs, but this can be a very

time-consuming process, especially as log errors are not necessarily the same at all speeds, so the calibration runs need to be carried out at a range of different speeds, and repeated as a double check after the log has been adjusted.

A common mistake is to work out the average time taken and divide the distance by this. The result invariably understates the boat’s speed, because it must have been travelling in the ‘slow’ direction longer than in the ‘fast’ direction.

Some large scale charts (harbour plans) have a clearly marked scale of distance – rather like the one you might find on a road atlas – usually printed somewhere near the bottom edge. But this is not always the case, and on the smaller scale charts used for coastal and offshore navigation it would be impractical to provide such a scale because the scale of the chart varies slightly from top to bottom. One sea mile, however, is by definition one minute of latitude, so the latitude scales on each side of the chart constitute a scale of distance.

The slight difference between a sea mile and an international nautical mile is so small that for normal navigation it can be ignored: what is important, on small scale charts, is the distortion caused by the Mercator projection, which means that distance has to be measured at the latitude at which it is to be used. The longitude scale on the top and bottom edges of the chart is useless as a scale of distance.

It is relatively rare to find ourselves faced with the job of measuring distance in an exactly north-south line, so we need some means of transferring the distance between any two points on the chart to the latitude scale. Dividers are the tool for the job. For classroom navigation the kind of dividers used in technical drawing are perfectly adequate, and their sharp needle points give a reassuring sense of precision, but for practical navigation, traditional bow dividers have the big advantage that they can be opened and closed with one hand, by squeezing the bow to open them, and squeezing the legs to close them.

Sometimes it is necessary to draw arcs of measured radius on the chart, for which it is useful to have a drawing compass. Again, the type intended for technical drawing can be used so long as it is big enough, but it is generally better to use the larger and less sophisticated versions intended for marine navigation.

Compasses and Measuring direction at sea

Direction at sea is measured using a compass – essentially an instrument which points north, and goes on pointing north regardless of the movement of the boat around it. In practice most yachts carry at least two compasses. One, steering compasses are relatively large, fixed to the boat, and used to measure heading. The other is usually smaller, portable and is used to measure the direction of distant objects, so it is called a hand bearing compass. Sometimes one compass can do both jobs: on many ships and a few large yachts an attachment called a pelorus allows the steering compass to be used for taking bearings, while on very small craft, a hand bearing compass clipped into a bracket can serve as a steering compass.

There are many ways of making an instrument that will stay pointing in one Direction, including gyroscopes, and what are called ‘ring laser gyros’, but although these have their advantages, they are much too sophisticated, and therefore expensive, to be of practical interest for yachts. The Overwhelming majority of yacht compasses Depend on magnetism, and in that respect can be seen as direct developments from instruments that were probably in use several thousand years ago. Compasses make use of the fact that the earth has a magnetic field, which is very much as though a huge bar magnet were embedded in its core and aligned with its North-South axis.

Any magnet that is free to swing tends to line itself up with the earth’s magnetic field. This effect is particularly obvious in the small, flat compasses used for orienteering and rambling on land, in which a single straight needle-like magnet gives a direct Indication of north. In marine compasses, several such magnets, or a single magnet in the shape of a ring, are mounted underneath a circular ‘card’, with a scale of degrees or compass points marked on it. The whole thing is suspended in a bowl filled with a mixture of water and alcohol, which slows Down the movement of the card, to reduce the swinging that would otherwise be caused by the pitching and rolling of the boat.

Compasses intended for fast motor boats are much more heavily damped than those intended for sailing craft; the rapid slamming of a planing boat can be enough to make the card of a sailboat compass rotate continuously.

Steering compasses

On a steering compass the fore-and-aft line of the boat is marked by a line or pointer on the compass bowl, called the lubber line, against which the boat’s current heading can be read from the card, so it is obviously important for the compass to be installed so that the lubber line is accurately aligned with, or parallel to, the centre line of the boat. Many compasses have supplementary lubber lines offset by 45° and 90° on each side, intended mainly for use in situations such as tiller-steered boats where the helmsman is likely to be looking at the compass from one side or the other.

Of course, there are variations intended to suit particular applications. On many small and medium sized sailing yachts, where cockpit space is at a premium, the compass is set into the aft bulkhead of the superstructure, so that the rear edge of the card is visible, rather than its upper surface. A compass intended for this type of mounting has an aft lubber line and a scale of degrees marked on the down-turned rim of the card. An even more extreme variation is occasionally found in compasses intended for steel craft, whose structure effectively masks the compass from the earth’s magnetic field. This problem can be reduced by mounting the compass as high above the hull as possible, so compasses have been produced that can be mounted on the wheelhouse roof, with mirrors or prisms arranged so that the helmsman effectively looks upwards at the bottom of the compass card.

Grid compasses

Grid compasses, intended primarily for aircraft navigation, enjoyed a surge of popularity after the Second World War, when many boats were fitted out from Army surplus stores! The claim that they were easier to steer by maintained their popularity for at least 20 years and several marinized versions were produced. A grid compass has a card with a particularly prominent north set in a flat-topped bowl. On top of the bowl is a transparent cover, marked with a grid of parallel lines and with a scale of degrees es around its edge. The required course is set by rotating the cover, and the helmsman then steers so as to keep the –. mark on the card lined up with the grid.

Hand bearing compasses

A hand bearing compass is basically a small, portable version of a steering compass, fitted with some form of sighting arrangement that allows it to be accurately lined up on a distant object. They can be subdivided into two groups: those intended to be used at arm’s length, which are usually fitted with a handle; and those intended to be held close to the eye, which are usually supplied with a neck strap. Which kind is best is very much a matter of personal preference, but anyone who uses spectacles or a hearing aid is well advised to go for an arm’s-length compass because even small pieces of ferrous metal such as the hinges of spectacles can cause compass errors if they are only inches away.

Sighting arrangements vary. The classic Sestrel Radiant, for instance, has a prism mounted above the bowl, with a V-shaped notch on top. When the compass is held up at arm’s length and eye level the lubber line and compass card can be seen in the prism. To take a bearing of a distant object, you line up the ‘target’ with the notch, rotate the compass until the lubber line appears in the prism immediately below the target, and then read off the bearing. Another common arrangement has two sights on top of the bowl, like the fore sight and back sight of a gun, and an edge-reading compass card. Close-to-the-eye compasses do not have such obvious sighting arrangements: instead they have a small prism mounted on top, whose optics are arranged in such a way that when you look at a landmark across the top of the compass, its bearing appears in the prism immediately below.

Fluxgate compasses

A new type of compass is rapidly gaining in popularity. Unlike a conventional ‘swinging card’ compass, a fluxgate compass has no moving parts, but instead uses electronics to detect the earth’s magnetic field and present that information on some kind of display. A fluxgate depends on the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction – as used in transformers and the ignition coil of a petrol engine. If you pass an electric current through a coil of wire wound around a suitable metal core, the core becomes a magnet. Which end is the north pole, and which the south, depends on the direction of the current flow in the wire, so if you apply an alternating current to the wire, the north and south poles of the core change places each time the current reverses. If you have a second coil of wire wound around this whole assembly the constantly-reversing magnetic field induces an electric current in the secondary winding.

In a fluxgate there are two cores side by side, with their primary windings receiving alternating current from the same source, but wound in opposite directions. This means that in a magnetically ‘clean’ environment (with no external magnetic influences) the induced magnetism in the two cores would be equal and opposite, so they would cancel each other out and produce no current at all in the secondary winding that surrounds both of them. The presence of an external magnetic field upsets the balance, causing a short surge of electricity in the secondary winding each time the primary current reverses. This effect is most pronounced if the two cores are parallel to the external magnetic field. In a practical fluxgate compass, several fluxgates are arranged in a circle. By comparing the voltages induced in the various secondary windings it is possible to deduce where north is relative to the ring of flux-gates.

At present, the most common use of this technology is to provide heading information for other electronic equipment such as autopilots or radars, but it can also be used to provide a steering display for the helmsman or as the heart of an electronic hand bearing compass. Apart from the ease with which fluxgate compasses can be connected to other navigational electronics, their big advantages are that they can be fitted with an automatic correction facility, and that because the sensor and display are usually separate from each other, the sensor can be mounted anywhere on board and well away from distorting magnetic Influences. Fluxgate hand bearing compasses also have the facility to ‘store’ headings, to save the navigator having to memorize them.

Their main disadvantage is that very large errors can occur if the fluxgate ring is not kept perfectly horizontal. There are electronic solutions to this problem, but the fact remains that the compass without moving parts actually requires more sophisticated gimbal arrangements than its swinging card counterparts.

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Source by John Routledge

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1. Crisis – Spotlight on Credit Rating Agencies

“Credit-rating agencies use their control of information to fool investors into believing that a pig is a cow and a rotten egg is a roasted chicken. Collusion and misrepresentation are not elements of a genuinely free market ” – US Congressman Gary Ackerman

The smooth functioning of global financial markets depends, in part, upon reliable assessments of investment risks, and Credit Rating Agencies play a significant role in boosting investor confidence in those markets.

The above rhetoric, although harsh, beckons us to focus our lens on the functioning of credit rating agencies. Recent debacles, as enunciated below, make it all the more important to scrutinize the claim of Credit Rating Agencies as fair assessors.

i) Sub-Prime Crisis: In the recent sub-prime crisis, Credit Rating Agencies have come under increasing fire for their covert collusion in favorably rating junk CDOs in the sub-prime mortgage business, a crisis which is currently having world-wide implications. To give some background, loan originators were guilty of packaging sub-prime mortgages as securitizations, and marketing them as collateralized debt obligations on the secondary mortgage market. The agencies failed in their duty to warn the financial world of this malpractice through a fair and transparent assessment. Shockingly, they gave favorable ratings to the CDOs for reasons that need to be examined.

ii) Enron and WorldCom: These companies were rated investment grade by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s three days before they went bankrupt. Credit Rating Agencies were alleged to have favorably rated risky products, and in some instances put these risky products together for a fat fee.

There may be other over-rated Enron’s and WorldCom’s waiting to go bust. The agencies need to be reformed, to enable them pin-point such cancer well-in-advance, thereby increasing security in the financial markets.

2. Credit Ratings and Credit Rating Agencies

i) Credit rating: is a structured methodology to rank the creditworthiness of, broadly speaking, an entity, or a credit commitment (e.g. a product), or a debt or debt-like security as also of an Issuer of an obligation.

ii) Credit Rating Agency (CRA): is an institution, specialized in the job of rating the above. Ratings by Credit Rating Agencies are not recommendations to purchase or sell any security, but just an indicator.

Ratings can further be divided into

i) Solicited Rating: where the rating is based on a request, say of a bank or company, and which also participates in the rating process.

ii) Unsolicited Rating: where rating agencies claim to rate an organisation in the public interest.

Credit Rating Agencies help to achieve economies of scale, as they help avoid investments in internal tools and credit analysis. It thereby enables market intermediaries and end investors to focus on their core competencies, leaving the complex rating jobs to dependable specialized agencies.

3. Credit Rating Agencies of note

Agencies that assign credit ratings for corporations include

A. M. Best (U.S.)

Baycorp Advantage (Australia)

Dominion Bond Rating Service (Canada)

Fitch Ratings (U.S.)

Moody’s (U.S.)

Standard & Poor’s (U.S.)

Pacific Credit Rating (Peru)

4. Credit Rating Agencies – Power and Influence

Various market participants that use and/or are affected by credit ratings are as follows

a) Issuers: A good credit rating improves the marketability of issuers, as also pricing, which in turn satisfies investors, lenders or other interested counterparties.

b) Buy-Side Firms : Buy side firms such as mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies use credit ratings as one of several important inputs to their own internal credit assessments and investment analysis, which helps them identify pricing discrepancies, the riskiness of the security, regulatory compliance requiring them to park funds in investment grade assets etc. Many restrict their funds to higher ratings, which makes them more attractive to risk-averse investors.

c) Sell-Side Firms: Like buy-side firms many sell side firms, like broker-dealers, use ratings for risk management and trading purposes.

d) Regulators: Regulators mandate usage of credit ratings in various forms for e.g. The Basel Committee on banking supervision allowed banks to use external credit ratings to determine capital allocation. Or, to quote another example, restrictions are placed on civil service or public employee pension funds by local or national governments.

e) Tax Payers and Investors: Depending on the direction of the change in value, credit rating changes can benefit or harm investors in securities, through erosion of value, and it also affects taxpayers through the cost of government debt.

f) Private Contracts: Ratings have known to significantly affect the balance of power between contracting parties, as the rating is inadvertently applied to the organisation as a whole and not just to its debts.

Rating downgrade – A Death spiral:

A rating downgrade can be a vicious cycle. Let us visualise this in steps. First, a rating downgrade acts as a trigger. Banks now want full repayment, anticipating bankruptcy. The company may not be in a position to pay, leading to a further rating downgrade. This initiates a death spiral leading to the companys’ ultimate collapse and closure.

Enron faced this spiral, where a loan clause stipulated full repayment in the event of a downgrade. When downgrade did take place, this clause added to the financial woes of Enron pushing it into deep financial trouble.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company is another case in point which was pressurised by aggrieved counterparties and lenders demanding repayment, thanks to a rating downgrade. PG&E was unable to raise funds to repay its short term obligations, which aggravated its slide into the death spiral.

5. Credit Rating Agencies as victims

Credit Rating Agencies face the following challenges

a) Inadequate Information: One complaint which Credit Rating Agencies have is their inability to access accurate and reliable information from issuers. Credit Rating Agencies cry, that issuers deliberately withhold information not found in the public domain, for instance undisclosed contingencies, which may adversely affect the issuers’ liquidity.

b) System of compensation: Credit Rating Agencies act on behalf of investors, but they are in most cases paid by the issuers. There lies a potential for conflict of interest. As rating agencies are paid by those they rate, and not by the investor, the market view is that they are under pressure to give their clients a favourable rating – else the client will move to another obliging agency. Credit Rating Agencies are plagued by conflicts of interest that might inhibit them from providing accurate and honest ratings. Some Credit Rating Agencies admit that if they depend on investors for compensation, they would go out of business. Others strongly deny conflicts of interest, defending that fees received from individual issuers are a very small percentage of their total revenues, so that no single issuer has any material influence with a rating agency.

c) Market Pressure : Allegations that ratings are expediency and not logic-based, and that they would resort to unfair practices due to the inherent conflict of interest, are dismissed by Credit Rating Agencies as malicious because the rating business is reputation based, and incorrect ratings may lower the standing of the agency in the market. In short reputational concerns are sufficient to ensure that they exercise appropriate levels of diligence in the ratings process.

d) Ratings over-emphasised: Allegations float that Credit Rating Agencies actively promote an over-emphasis of their ratings, and encourage corporations to do like-wise. Credit Rating Agencies counter saying that credit ratings are used out of context through no fault of their own. They are applied to the organizations per se and not just the organizations’ debts. A favourable credit rating is unfortunately used by companies as seals of approval for marketing purposes of unrelated products. A user needs to bear in mind that the rating was provided against the stricter scope of the investment being rated.

6. Credit Rating Agencies as Perpetrators

a) Arbitrary adjustments without accountability or transparency: Credit Rating Agencies can downgrade and upgrade and can cite lack of information from the rated party, or on the product as a possible defence. Unclear reasons for downgrade may adversely affect the issuer, as the market would assume that the agency is privy to certain information which is not in the public domain. This may render the issuers security volatile due to speculation.

Sometimes eextraneous considerations determine when an adjustment would occur. Credit rating agencies do not downgrade companies when they ought to. For example, Enron’s rating remained at investment grade four days before the company went bankrupt, despite the fact that credit rating agencies had been aware of the company’s problems for months.

b) Due diligence not performed: There are certain glaring inconsistencies, which Credit Rating Agencies are reluctant to resolve due to the conflicts of interest as mentioned above. For instance, if we focus on Moody’s ratings we find the following inconsistencies.

All three of the above have the same capital allocation forcing banks to move towards riskier investments like corporate bonds.

c) Cozying up to management: Business logic has compelled Credit Rating Agencies to develop close bonds with the management of companies being rated, and allowing this relationship to affect the rating process. They were found to act as advisors to companies’ pre-rating activities, and suggesting measures which would have beneficial effects on the companys’ rating. Exactly on the other extreme are agencies, which are accused of unilaterally adjusting the ratings, while denying a company an opportunity to explain its actions.

e) Creating High Barriers to entry: Agencies are sometimes accused of being oligopolists, because barriers to market entry are high, as the rating business is reputation-based, and the finance industry pays little attention to a rating that is not widely recognized. All agencies consistently reap high profits (Moody’s for instance is greater than 50% gross margin), which indicate monopolistic pricing.

f) Promoting Ancillary Businesses: Credit Rating Agencies have developed ancillary businesses, like pre-rating assessment and corporate consulting services, to complement their core ratings business. Issuers may be forced to purchase the ancillary service, in lieu of a favorable rating. To compound it all, except for Moody’s, all other Credit Rating Agencies are privately held and their financial results do not separate revenues from their ancillary businesses.

7. Some Recommendations

a) Public Disclosures: The extent and the quality of the disclosures in the financial statements and the balance sheets need to be improved. More importantly the management discussion and analysis should require disclosure of off-balance sheet arrangements, contractual obligations and contingent liabilities and commitments. Shortening the time period, between the end of issuers’ quarter or fiscal year and the date of submission of the quarterly or annual report, will enable Credit Rating Agencies to obtain information early. These measures will improve the ability of Credit Rating Agencies to rate issuers. If Credit Rating Agencies conclude that important information is unavailable, or an issuer is less than forthcoming, the agency may lower a rating, refuse to issue a rating or even withdraw an existing rating.

b) Due Diligence and competency of Credit Rating Agencies Analysts: Analysts should not rely solely on the words of the management, but also perform their own due diligence, by scrutinising various public filings, probing opaque disclosures, reviewing proxy statements etc. There needs to be a tighter (or broader) qualification to be a rating agency employee.

c) Abolition of Barriers to Entry: Increase in the number of players may not completely curtail the oligopolistic powers of the well-entrenched few, but at best it would keep them on their toes, by subjecting them to some level of competition, and allowing market forces to determine which rating truly reflects the financial market best.

d) Rating Cost: As far as possible, the rating cost needs to be published. If revealing such sensitive information raises issues of commercial confidence, then the agencies must at least be subject to intense financial regulation. The analyst compensation should be merit-based, based on the demonstrated accuracy of their ratings and not on issuer fees.

e) Transparent rating Process: The agencies must make public the basis for their ratings, including performance measurement statistics, historical downgrades and default rates. This will protect investors and enhance the reliability of credit ratings. The regulators should oblige Credit Rating Agencies to disclose their procedures and methodologies for assigning ratings. The rating agencies should conduct an internal audit of their rating methodologies.

f) Ancillary Business to be independent: Although the ancillary business is a small part of the total revenue, Credit Rating Agencies still need to establish extensive policies and procedures to firewall ratings from the ancillary business. Separate staff and not the rating analysts should be employed for marketing the ancillary business.

g) Risk Disclosure: Rating agencies should disclose material risks they uncover, during the risk rating process, or any risk that seems to be inadequately addressed in public disclosures, to the concerned regulatory authority for further action. Credit Rating Agencies need to be more proactive and conduct formal audits of issuer information to search for fraud, not just restricting their role to assessing credit-worthiness of issuers. Rating triggers (for instance full loan repayment in the event of a downgrade) should be discouraged wherever possible and should be disclosed if it exists.

These measures, if implemented, can improve market confidence in Credit Rating Agencies, and their ratings may become a key tool for boosting investor confidence, by enhancing the security of the financial markets in the broadest sense.

List of resources

i)[http://www.zyen.com/Knowledge/Articles/assessing_credit_rating_agencies.htm]

ii)http://www.chasecooper.com/News-Regulatory-Basel-II-2007-10-01.php

iii)http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2005.00284.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=gove

iv)http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/ny05_ackerman/WGS_092707.html

v)http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article2373869.ece

vi)http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/9861731/c_9866478?f=home_todayinfinance

vii)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agency

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Source by Nagraj Gummala

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The year was 1999 and I had just been hired as a full time high school biology teacher. As a reward for getting hired I bought myself a gift, my first cell phone. I was excited because this would allow me to communicate with my friends and family from virtually anywhere. I justified the purchase to myself since my classroom did not have a phone in it and my increased pay would allow me to take on a few more monthly expenses. Last year my nephew got his first phone. He was 8, and it was his reward for being promoted from the 3rd grade to the 4th grade. Things have definitely changed in the past 12 years.

In 2010 the Pew Research Center published that 75% of 12-17 year olds own a cell phone. This number has increased from 45% in 2004 and is most likely more than three-quarters of all students today. It will not be long until every high school student in America brings their phone with them to school. Naturally, with so many students having access to cell phones, it makes sense that cell phones can be used to help students get better grades in school.

When students walk into my classroom, they can look up on white board for announcements. They can view their upcoming homework assignments in addition to the dates of any upcoming tests or projects. As part of my daily classroom routine, I bring attention to these assignments during the beginning of class and remind my students to write their homework assignments in a planner or notebook.

Each day I have my students write down their assignments. I walk around the class and ask students to show me that it is written down. A common problem is that many students frequently forget or loose where they wrote down their homework by that evening. Sometimes poor organizational skills cause students to misplace where their assignments were written. For others students, they have a separate notebook for each class and write their homework assignments down in multiple locations.

A simple solution to this dilemma is for students to write their daily homework assignments into their phone. For a high school student, a phone is an essential possession that goes with them virtually everywhere. While a student may leave a textbook or spiral notebook in a class and forget about it, chances are they will not leave their phone.

In addition to a student always having their phone with them, they are constantly using it. The Pew Research Center discovered through their study that texting the primary method for cell phone communication among teens. 88% of teen cell phone users text as a form of communication and 54% text daily. The typical high school (14-17 years) age texter usually sends and receives 60 text messages a day.

The technology is available now for students to use a standard notepad feature on their phone and type into a continually building list what their nightly homework assignment is in every class. If their phone has a calendar option, upcoming tests and projects can be typed in as well. With most phone calendars there is an option to set reminders about upcoming events. This is so powerful for a student to receive a reminder at 6:30 pm as a cue that they need to study for tomorrow’s math test.

If the student owns a Smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, or Palm) then the sky is the limit as to how their phone can help keep track of all of their assignments. While the specific apps available are unique for each phone, all of them have a “To-Do List” app that is either free or very inexpensive. Awesome Note, Cozi, Evernote, and Lister have all received positive reviews. The key is to find one that is available for your phone that works well for you. Each day I write my “To-Do List” with Lister on my Blackberry and categorize my entries as near term, this week, or priority. Then throughout the day I refer to my list every time I use my phone to call, text, email, or even check Facebook. It keeps me focused and I add to the list or check items off as needed.

If you have an iPhone, I definitely recommend you check out the app called myHomework. It allows you to set your class schedule, enter in homework and assignments, view upcoming assignments on the calendar function, and even displays reminders when you open up your phone. With new apps being constantly developed it is just a matter of time before multiple apps are available that specialize in organizing school assignments for all phones.

As we continue into the 21st century it is important that we take advantage of the technology available to increase student achievement. Just as computers at school have evolved from a novelty to a necessity, cell phones are proving that they can have a positive impact on student achievement. I encourage you (or your student for all the parents reading this article) to educate the teachers at your school as to why using a cell phone to keep track of assignments is better than the old fashion way of writing them down in a notebook. In a short amount of time I suspect that bringing your phone to school will be as accepted as bringing a pencil.

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Source by Mark W Coziahr

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What is integrity? Integrity is like an iceberg. We can easily see the visible part above the waterline, but the larger part is below the water. “Above the waterline ethics” are usually very clear and written. Violating codified ethics can get you fired, fined, or thrown into jail.

While there are few grey areas above the waterline, integrity goes much deeper. What’s under the waterline is grey and not immediately visible. There are no laws, bibles, regulations, or company ethics guides to lean on. You won’t go to jail, you probably won’t get fired or maybe even promoted for compromising your integrity. But colliding with the invisible part of an iceberg can sink a person, an organization, or an entire nation. The Titanic sank because the iceberg popped rivets far below the waterline that held together the hull plates of the “unsinkable” liner.

Integrity and intellectual honesty ultimately determine your value as a human being, the trust of society, friends, and family. The cultural integrity of an organization is a strong factor in its long-term results. Success requires vision, being in the right business at the right time, innovation, resources, and a good bit of luck. But without integrity the right ideas can’t flourish. Without integrity, the wrong initiatives are funded for political reasons when it is impossible to have an intellectually honest discussion.

One of the telltale signs of an organization that has lost its integrity is forecasting. I have observed organizations that quite frequently missed their projections by a wide margin. Good planners often develop plans with optimistic and pessimistic assumptions, and then run the business with a realistic plan somewhere in between. But some organizations tend to present an overly optimist plan to their stakeholders. Unless everything goes perfectly the company is forced to announce missed earnings and usually layoffs. I have observed the most glaringly optimistic “hockey stick forecasts” in declining businesses, projecting a bright future where none exists, to postpone the inevitable downsizing. The same is true in government, in this case to protect positions and budgets for services that are no longer important.

Another symptom of compromised integrity is evident in new product development. Product programs are launched with unrealistic cost targets and revenue projections until “make or buy” decisions are settled in favor of “make”. By that time, the company invested too much to abandon the project.

Missed forecasts are often the result of a culture that lacks integrity, from the individual sales rep and product manager up to the CEO. Everybody knows that the projections are unrealistic, but over-commits to obtain funding or save their job for another quarter. This culture avoids “fessing up” until the CEO has to announce quarterly results, and then the stock takes a dive.

Integrity does not mean that forecasting is an accurate science, or that intellectually honest organizations never miss their projections. A trustworthy company can miss their objectives, and that presents an opportunity for the smart investor. The key question to ask is whether the underperformance was caused by one time, unpredictable and temporary market conditions, the delay (not loss) of a key deal, weather – or due to more fundamental problems. Investors may accept a quarterly earnings shortfall, or an “extraordinary charge”, and the stock recovers, but the market is astute enough to sense a downward spiral.

The downward spiral of many companies can be linked to a culture of compromised integrity. It starts with unrealistic projections leading to disappointing results, R&D cuts, layoffs, low morale, the avoidance of innovative risk taking, outdated product lines, the loss of key talent, more layoffs… the cycle continues.

In the downward spiral, organizations reward compliance rather than promoting an open dialog that is needed for success. A sign of trouble is frequent reorganizations, designed to show activity to stakeholders, but without a clear vision on how the change deploys resources and talent more effectively and makes the company more competitive. In survival mode, weak management often sidelines the brightest talent that may challenge the status quo. These reorganizations accomplish nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Without a radical change in management and culture, the slow and agonizing downward spiral caused by a missing integrity culture can be more damaging than “above the waterline” offenses. Changing top management alone usually does not solve the problem. A low integrity culture that has spread throughout the organization is like cancer. It requires radical and painful surgery and a long recovery.

When caught, organizations that violated laws usually end up in bankruptcy, or pay the fines and recover. But companies who lack integrity, especially technology companies who rely on innovation, seldom recover. They are sold at bargain prices, dismantled, or shrink to a fraction of their former value.

The most admired and successful companies are in a similar but positive cycle: Apple, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, and Amazon. Google gave up market share and potentially billions in revenue to avoid censorship in China but the stock is at near record heights. Winners attract the best minds, who seek not just big paychecks and stock options, but belonging to an organization they can be proud of.

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Source by U Bockli