Month: March 2018

In Lab, 3-D Printing Cuts Costs, Manufacturing Time of Heat Exchangers

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Heat exchangers are some of the most widely used energy-transfer devices, helping cool everything from car engines to power plants.

At the recent ARPA-e conference, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists from the University of Maryland showcased an advanced 3-D printer that, combined with a wire-laying head, cuts in half the time needed to manufacture heat exchangers.

David Hymas, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland, said that in most cases in a heat exchanger, the heat is transferred by forcing air over pipes or tubes with circulating water, which is often pumped from a nearby river or lake.

Reduce water use

“Currently power plants draw about 40 percent of all the freshwater supply in the United States,” Hymas said. Water consumption, he added, could be cut in half if lightweight air-cooled heat exchangers were created in 3-D printers.

“The water would flow in through one manifold entering these water tubes, right here, and then flow out through the other manifold. Air would blow across it, cooling these fins,” he said.

Printing a heat exchanger

At the school’s Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification Laboratory, Hymas showed off a heat exchanger manufactured in a lab-size 3-D printer that includes a wire-laying device. The first head in the machine builds up layers of polymer tubes, while another head lays copper or aluminum wire across them.

The printer used for testing the idea took almost 24 hours to create a shoebox-size heat exchanger, but research associate Farah Singer says the industrial-scale prototype machine proved to be much faster.

“It has 10 polymer heads and it is capable of printing, of laying at the same time, 45 fibers, 45 metal fibers, so we are talking about a full layer,” she said. “This machine is capable of printing in eight hours a 1 meter square heat exchanger. We are talking almost 20 kilowatts or 30 kilowatt heat exchanger.”

Reduction in weight and cost for 3-D-printed heat exchangers reaches 50 percent, depending on the application, which can range from power plants to air conditioning to cooling electronic devices.

“For the electronic cooling, for example, so far our experimental results have shown that we could have up to 52 percent reduction in cost while we have 26 percent increase in performance,” Singer said.

An added advantage is that 3-D printers allow creating very complex geometries, with the resolution between the cooling wires as low as 100 microns. The project was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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3-D Printing Lowers Manufacturing Costs

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

3-D printing is rapidly changing the process of industrial manufacturing as researchers find innovative ways to employ the new technology. At the recent ARPA-e conference, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists from the University of Maryland showcased an advanced 3-D printer, combined with a wire-laying head, that cuts in half the time needed to manufacture heat exchangers, an important part used in many devices from computers to power plants. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Weinstein Co. Tosses Nondisclosure Agreements, Could Bring New Wave of Accusers

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Is #MeToo part two on the way?

With its bankruptcy, the Weinstein Co. has tossed out the nondisclosure agreements that officials say its co-founder and former CEO Harvey Weinstein wielded as a weapon in his sexual predation, bringing with it the possibility of a new wave of victims coming forward.

Bankruptcy filings are normally shrouded in the jargon of finance, but on this point the movie and TV studio was clear:

“Since October, it has been reported that Harvey Weinstein used nondisclosure agreements as a secret weapon to silence his accusers,” a Weinstein Co. statement said. “Effective immediately, those ‘agreements’ end. No one should be afraid to speak out or coerced to stay quiet.”

Weinstein has own agreements

The rare move from a major business is likely to send new witnesses and victims to media outlets and investigators, which put out fresh calls Tuesday for their stories.

It’s unlikely, however, to spur a new surge in high-profile actresses coming forward, as Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and many others have in recent months.

That’s because the Weinstein Co. only has the power to end agreements made by the company not Weinstein himself, meaning its effect will be primarily on current and former employees.

Cris Armenta, a lawyer representing accusers in a proposed class-action lawsuit against the Weinstein Co., said she fears that because so many of the agreements are with Weinstein himself and still apply, the impact may not be major.

“What are they actually releasing, and is it just window dressing?” Armenta said Tuesday.

Armenta also worries that as creditors line up in front of those who have sued the company to get paid in bankruptcy, it could be “leaving the plaintiffs with nothing to hold on to.”

Employees may break silence

Still, there is a large pool of people, many of them less powerful, lower-level employees with more to fear, who may now break their silence over what happened to them or what they saw.

They include workers like Zelda Perkins, a former Weinstein assistant who was among the first of his accusers to break a commitment to stay quiet after keeping Weinstein secrets for nearly 20 years. She told The Financial Times in October that Weinstein sexually harassed her “on every occasion I was alone with him” and said she spoke out in part to demonstrate “how egregious these agreements are.”

Perkins is precisely the kind of workplace harassment subject that the Weinstein Co.’s move will free to speak, and who the move’s champions hope will be helped.

Attorney general 

“This is a watershed moment for efforts to address the corrosive effects of sexual misconduct in the workplace,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who fought for the provision in the Weinstein Co.’s bankruptcy. He added in his statement that it “will finally enable voices that have for too long been muzzled to be heard.”

On Tuesday, Schneiderman’s office sent out a tweet urging victims and witnesses to contact his office, which is conducting a civil rights investigation of the Weinstein Co. and of Weinstein himself.

Time’s Up, an initiative started by a powerhouse group of Hollywood industry women to fight systemic sexual harassment, also urged those newly freed by the Weinstein bankruptcy to come to it with their stories, as did The New York Times.

Nondisclosure agreements in spotlight

In addition to bringing unprecedented attention to sexual harassment, the post-Weinstein world has seen a new level of scrutiny of nondisclosure agreements — “NDAs” for short in legal jargon — contractual pledges not to discuss what happened that are common features of financial settlements.

They have since been a central part of news stories including porn actress Stormy Daniels saying she had sex with President Donald Trump, sexual misconduct allegations against casino magnate Steve Wynn, and settlements between USA Gymnastics and gymnasts who were forbidden to speak about their abuse at the hands of team doctor Larry Nassar.

Several states including California and New York have considered legislation stopping or limiting nondisclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct.

“Secret settlements serve one primary purpose: To keep sexual predators away from the public eye and continuing to torment and hurt innocent victims,” state Sen. Connie Leyva said in a statement introducing such a bill in California in January.

But while NDAs have become tools of the rich and powerful, they are not without benefits for their victims, who may want to keep their ordeal private or whose silence may be the only leverage they have in getting legal recourse.

Some 80 women, including prominent actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct ranging from rape to harassment.

He has denied any allegations of non-consensual sex.
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Peter Peterson, Billionaire and Philanthropist, Dies at 91

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Peter G. Peterson, a billionaire and business executive who became one of the most prominent voices to argue for entitlement reform and reducing the U.S. national debt, died of natural causes early Tuesday, his family said. He was 91.

Born in the small town of Kearney, Nebraska, to Greek immigrants, Peterson was CEO of two major U.S. companies and co-founded one of the world’s largest private-equity firms.

He was a national figure in business by the early 1960s, serving as chairman and CEO of Bell and Howell, one of the largest manufacturers of movie cameras at the time.

 

He left Bell and Howell to work for the Nixon administration in the early 1970s, eventually serving as secretary of commerce from 1972 to 1973.

Lehman Brothers 

He took over as chief executive of the investment bank Lehman Brothers in 1973 after leaving the Nixon administration. In 1985, he co-founded the private-equity firm Blackstone Group with Stephen Schwarzman.

“His intelligence, wit and vision made him an inspirational leader who brought people together from the White House to Wall Street,” his family said in a statement.

Blackstone went on to become one of biggest private-equity firms in the world, with $434 billion in assets under management at the end of last year. When the firm went public in 2007, Peterson’s stake in the company made him a billionaire. His wealth was estimated at $2 billion, according to Forbes Magazine.

Fiscal challenges

Peterson dedicated the rest of his life to what he called “key fiscal challenges threatening America’s future,” donating $1 billion to create the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in 2007.

He never publicly endorsed the fiscal ideals of the Tea Party. However, his ideas did give him some common ground with them.

 

He long argued that the United States’ entitlement programs, principally Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, had to be restructured or benefits cut back to avoid bankrupting the government. Through his foundation, he disseminated his ideas among the public and politicians.

“The fact he was able to start a serious debate about the future of Social Security and other entitlement programs was a huge accomplishment,” said Fred Bergsten, founder of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who worked with Peterson in various capacities going back to the 1970s.

Raising taxes

Peterson was not considered ideological when it came to dealing with Social Security and Medicare. A life-long Republican, he still believed that raising taxes should be considered as part of any major restructuring of the U.S. budget, Bergsten said.

The foundation quickly became a major voice on all budget-related matters, repeatedly quoted in national media outlets. In 2008, his organization helped bankroll the documentary “I.O.U.S.A,” with the goal of making the federal government’s ballooning national debt, then around $10 trillion, a central campaign issue.

 

“What is most significant is most of our challenges are not really being discussed,” Peterson told The Associated Press in 2008 when he created his foundation. “I’ve been a very lucky beneficiary of the American dream as the son of immigrants. And, the more I look at some of these problems, the more persuaded I am they will pose a serious threat to this country.”

Peterson is survived by his wife, Joan Ganz Cooney, who co-founded the Children’s Television Workshop, and children John Peterson, Jim Peterson, David Peterson, Holly Peterson and Michael Peterson, and nine grandchildren.
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Report: Women Short-Changed on Commercial Land Deals in Africa

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Women are often short-changed compared to men when communities are compensated or resettled during commercial land deals in Africa, and governments should take action to rectify that, researchers said Tuesday.

The World Resources Institute’s (WRI) research showed men had received up to six times as much for their land. And although women usually had smaller land parcels, they also lost access to resources such as rivers, forests and social networks.

Among other measures, the U.S.-based WRI said governments should enact laws ensuring women receive an equitable share of compensation payments made to households.

“There is usually a power asymmetry between the community and the investor. These deals are presented to the community as almost-done deals with women getting the short-end,” said WRI associate researcher Celine Salcedo-La Vina.

“Most of the time the expected benefits are not legally binding,” she told Reuters by Skype.

WRI focused on Tanzania and Mozambique, which are among the places where major commercial deals in agribusiness, tourism and mining have displaced thousands over the last decade, she said.

Land in Africa is often communally held, with fathers assumed to be the rightful owners who usually pass it on to their sons. That makes it hard for women to own land except through their husbands or by buying it, the World Bank has said.

Women are usually not compensated for lost farms because they are not deemed to own the fields they cultivate, and often grow subsistence crops. Men, on the other hand, typically plant cash crops whose value is easy to determine, WRI said.

Changing land laws

Some African governments, including Tanzania and Mozambique, have enacted new laws to address how investors engage communities during land deals to reduce inequality, WRI said.

But these changes have done little to address how women are compensated or resettled during commercial deals, because most of the laws use “gender-neutral language.”

“When applied in patriarchal contexts [these laws] result in women’s marginalization,” the report said.

Tanzania and Mozambique are working to change their land laws to bring in more rights for women during commercial land deals. However, those would first have to tackle the cultural norms of how women come to own land, Salcedo-La Vina said.

“We have seen where we have men and women working together during land deals, it usually strengthens community rights,” she said.

WRI also recommended that women’s land uses and contributions as heads of households be taken into account, that land titles be in both spouses’ names, and that intangible assets be included when determining compensation.
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Trump Tariffs Set Off Industry Scramble for Exemptions

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

When Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross held up a can of Campbell’s soup in a CNBC interview to make the case that the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs were “no big deal,” the canning industry begged to disagree — and they were hardly alone.

President Donald Trump’s strong-armed trade policies have set off an intense scramble among industry groups, companies and foreign countries seeking exemptions from tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on imported aluminum. The push comes ahead of a round of new penalties expected to be slapped on China by week’s end.

The Can Manufacturers Institute, which represents 22,000 workers at manufacturers across the nation, estimates the steel and aluminum tariffs will harm their industry and consumers alike. The institute says there are 119 billion cans made in the U.S., meaning a 1 cent tariff would lead to a $1.1 billion tax on consumers and businesses.

“Secretary Ross has made cans a poster child to dispel concerns about the costs of tariffs,” said Robert Budway, the institute’s president. He said his organization was concerned Ross “is already predisposed to deny our petitions.”

Trump’s one-two punch on trade has set in motion a deluge of requests to the Commerce Department for exclusions for certain steel and aluminum products. Foreign countries, meanwhile, complain the U.S. trade representative’s office has not provided specific guidance on gaining exemptions before the steel and aluminum tariffs are implemented on Friday.

Countries in the dark

“Typically, the countries are determined before tariffs are announced,” said Josh Zive, senior principal at the law firm Bracewell LLP. This time, countries don’t know whether they will end up being targeted or exempted — “that’s weird and no one knows what to make of it.”

The Trump administration, which has said steel and aluminum imports threaten U.S. national security, has already given Mexico and Canada a reprieve — provided they agree to a revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The European Union, South Korea, Australia and Brazil are among the groups and countries seeking the exemptions.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said tariffs are “sometimes necessary tools” to protect national security or fight unfair trade practices. But he said the administration’s approach is producing “chaos, uncertainty and an alienation of our closest allies.”

Emily Davis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, said the U.S “is engaged in discussions with several countries to determine if means other than tariffs can be arranged to address our national security concerns.”

Companies that buy imported steel and aluminum can request tariff relief from the Commerce Department, especially if they rely on types of imported steel and aluminum that aren’t available from domestic U.S. producers.

Expect a deluge: Steel and aluminum producers have 30 days to make their exemption requests. Commerce expects 4,500 requests for relief and 1,500 objections — and it is supposed to reach decisions in 90 days.

Commerce has said it intends to reach decisions on a company-by-company basis, not by making across-the-board exemptions for individual steel and aluminum products. That decision has created anxieties that certain companies could get tariff relief while others would be forced to pay tariffs on the same product — perhaps because in the time between the two requests domestic U.S. production has ramped up to fill shortages.

“The big thing is, it’s arbitrary,” said Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The government is becoming the matchmaker between the purchaser and the supplier.”

“It’s a real question to me whether they understand the magnitude of the requests they are going to get,” Zive said of Commerce. “How they’re going to get through them in 90 days is difficult to understand.”

Industry officials said other aspects of the exemption process will burden companies. Manufacturers are unclear whether companies will qualify for refunds if they end up getting exemptions after they’ve begun paying the tariffs. And since Trump set no timeline for ending the tariffs, the companies will need to reapply for the exemptions annually.

Stocking up

Companies, meanwhile, have been trying to beat the tariffs by stocking up on imports. Steel imports rose 15 percent last year and another 17 percent in January.

The steel and aluminum tariffs may only be the opening salvo.

Administration officials said Trump is expected to announce $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports by Friday on a wide array of consumer goods, from apparel to electronics, and even on imported parts for products made in the U.S.

Ross, appearing before a House budget panel on Tuesday, faced questions about the trade moves, with lawmakers warning the tariffs could lead to retaliation from foreign countries and wreak economic havoc for consumers.

“I worry that now we’re engaged in a trade war which is further going to alienate us from our adversaries,” said Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Representative Derek Kilmer, a Washington state Democrat, noted that the decision to exclude aluminum and steel producers on a company-by-company basis — rather than by individual products — could create the possibility that some companies will gain a huge advantage over their competitors if they win exemptions.

Ross vowed that “the process will be open and transparent” and that Commerce was working to “minimize the amount of inconvenience that any of the affected parties will suffer as a result of the process. We’re gearing up to be fast, to be fair and to be practical.”
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Twitter: ‘Black Panther’ Most Tweeted-About Movie Ever

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

The pop culture sensation Black Panther has set another record: most tweeted-about movie ever.

Twitter said Tuesday that Ryan Coogler’s box-office smash has been tweeted about more than 35 million times. That pushes it ahead of the previous record-holder, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The most recent Star Wars installment, The Last Jedi, ranks third.

Over the weekend, Black Panther became the first film since 2009’s Avatar to top the box office in North America five straight weekends. It has grossed more than $607 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide. In the next week, it’s expected to pass The Avengers as the highest-grossing superhero film ever, not accounting for inflation.

Twitter said Black Panther had the most tweets in the U.S., followed by the United Kingdom and Thailand.
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‘The Crown’ Producers Apologize to Stars After Pay Dispute

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Producers of the Netflix drama The Crown apologized Tuesday to actors Claire Foy and Matt Smith over the revelation that Foy was paid less than her male co-star.

A producer disclosed last week that Foy, who starred as Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, was paid less than Smith, who played Prince Philip, because Smith was better known.

The gender pay gap has become a big issue in Hollywood after revelations that many female stars were paid less than their male counterparts.

Since news of The Crown pay gap broke, a petition has urged Smith to donate part of his salary to the Time’s Up campaign, which is campaigning against sexism and sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry.

Production company Left Bank Pictures said the actors “are not aware of who gets what and cannot be held personally responsible for the pay of their colleagues.”

The production company apologized that Foy and Smith “have found themselves at the center of a media storm this week through no fault of their own.”

The company said it was “absolutely united with the fight for fair pay, free of gender bias” and was keen to speak to Time’s Up.

The Crown traces Elizabeth’s journey from princess to queen, beginning in the 1950s. Foy and Smith are being replaced by older performers in the next season.
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Hawking’s Ashes to Be Interred Near Graves of Newton, Darwin

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

British physicist Stephen Hawking is to take his place among some of the greatest scientists in history when his ashes are interred inside Westminster Abbey, close to the graves of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Hawking, the world’s most recognizable scientist, died last week at age 76 after a lifetime spent probing the origins of the universe, the mysteries of black holes and the nature of time itself.

Ravaged by the wasting motor neuron disease he developed at 21, Hawking was confined to a wheelchair for most of his life.

As his condition worsened, he had to speak through a voice synthesizer and communicate by moving his eyebrows.

Westminster Abbey, the final resting place of 17 monarchs and of some of the most significant figures in British history, said Tuesday that it would hold a service of thanksgiving for Hawking this year, during which his ashes would be interred.

“It is entirely fitting that the remains of professor Stephen Hawking are to be buried in the abbey, near those of distinguished fellow scientists,” said the dean of Westminster, John Hall, in a statement.

Newton, who formulated the law of universal gravitation and laid the foundations of modern mathematics, was buried in the abbey in 1727.

Darwin, whose theory of evolution was one of the most far-reaching scientific breakthroughs of all time, was buried close to Newton in 1882.

Interment inside Westminster Abbey is a rare honor. The most recent burials of scientists there were those of Ernest Rutherford, a pioneer of nuclear physics, in 1937, and of Joseph John Thomson, who discovered electrons, in 1940.

Hawking’s death last week was met with tributes from around the world.
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Egyptian Court Rules Uber, Careem Illegal; Appeal Expected

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

An Egyptian court on Tuesday ordered authorities to revoke the operating licenses of the Uber and Careem ride-hailing services and block their mobile apps and software.

The government and the companies are expected to appeal the administrative court verdict, which would prevent it from being implemented until a higher court weighs in.

The administrative court in Cairo ruled that it is illegal to use private vehicles as taxis.

Both companies provide smartphone applications that connect passengers with drivers who work as independent contractors.

In a brief statement posted on its Facebook account, Careem said it “hasn’t been notified officially to stop its operations” and was operating normally. There was no immediate comment from Uber.

Uber was founded in 2010 in San Francisco, and operates in more than 600 cities across the world. Careem was founded in 2012 in Dubai, and operates in 90 cities in the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey, and Pakistan.

The applications took off in Cairo, a city of 20 million people with near-constant traffic and little parking. The services have recently started offering rides on scooters and tuk-tuks, three-wheeled motorized vehicles that can sometimes squeeze through the gridlock.

The apps are especially popular among women, who face rampant sexual harassment in Egypt, including from some taxi drivers. Cairo’s taxi drivers are also notorious for tampering with their meters or pretending the meters are broken in order to charge higher rates.

In 2016, taxi drivers protested the ride-hailing apps. They have complained that Uber and Careem drivers have an unfair advantage because they do not have to pay the same taxes or fees, or follow the same licensing procedures.
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WHO: Tainted Food Outbreak Threatens 16 African Nations

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

A deadly outbreak linked to tainted food in South Africa is now threatening other African nations, with neighboring Namibia reporting a confirmed case that might be connected, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

In a statement, WHO said it has reached out to 16 countries to help with preparedness and response to the listeriosis outbreak that has killed nearly 200 people since January 2017. South Africa’s health minister has said there have been 950 cases in all.

Contaminated meat products may have been exported to two West African countries and a dozen southern African ones, the U.N. health agency said. The countries include Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation.

A South African factory has been identified as the outbreak’s source.

Despite an international recall of the products, further cases are likely because of listeriosis’ potentially long incubation period, WHO said.

“This outbreak is a wake-up call for countries in the region to strengthen their national food safety and disease surveillance systems,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa.

The 16 countries are Angola, Botswana, Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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WTO Members Say US Actions Threaten Trade Body’s Credibility

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Nearly 50 countries expressed concern on Tuesday about the “serious threat” to the World Trade Organization posed by unilateral trade actions, a pointed reference to U.S. import tariffs that have caused a global outcry.

Delivering concluding remarks after a two-day informal meeting of the WTO members in New Delhi, Indian Trade Minister Suresh Prabhu did not refer to the United States by name.

He said members expressed deep concern over the “serious threat” posed to the credibility of the WTO, particularly on its principle of “non-discrimination” following the cycle of recent unilateral trade measures.

“In some interventions, the need for WTO members taking urgent and coordinated action to address the underlying issues was highlighted,” Prabhu said.

“It was recognized by almost all the participants that it is the collective responsibility of WTO members to address the challenges facing the system and putting it back on a steady and meaningful way forward so that it continues to serve the people of our countries.”

Calling for a united front to respond to the U.S. tariffs, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo said the recent unilateral trade measures have the potential to escalate tensions.

“We heard today, many, many countries saying we have a concern over this. There is a potential of escalation. We should try to work in the framework of WTO,” Azevedo said.

Separately, Prabhu told reporters that the United States was committed to the World Trade Organization, even though Washington has raised concerns about the functioning of the WTO and asked for reforms.

U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed ahead with import tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent for aluminum, but exempted Canada and Mexico and offered the possibility of excluding other allies, backtracking from an earlier “no-exceptions” stance.

Prabhu also said India will bilaterally discuss import curbs on steel with the United States.

 
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EU Tightens Labor Laws Despite Polish, Hungarian Opposition

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The European Union said on Tuesday that the right of citizens from poorer member states to work in richer ones on a low salary would be limited to 18 months under a reform of the bloc’s labor laws sought by France.

The new law, promoted by French President Emmanuel Macron and backed by Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, among others, would rein in current rules on the so-called posting of workers, which richer EU states say undercut their labor markets.

Poorer EU states from Spain to Poland have opposed the change, saying their citizens should be allowed to work in a wealthier state on a lower salary than a worker from the host country under the bloc’s competition rules.

The deal, which had been tentatively agreed earlier this month, also introduces a two-year transition period. It is likely to be finally endorsed in April in a session in which Poland and Hungary expect to be outvoted.

Under the incoming rules, posted workers would start earning the host country salary after the maximum period allowed.

The European Parliament on Tuesday hailed the deal as a way to ensure “equal pay for equal work” but Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski said it was a case of more powerful EU states like France imposing their will on the others.

“Such initiatives undermine the European project because they undermine its fundamental elements – the single market, the freedom to provide services, the freedom of movement for workers,” he told reporters.

“Unfortunately, member states have not gathered enough resolve to tame such ideas.”

An estimated 2 million posted workers in the EU currently make up only a tiny fraction of the bloc’s workforce, but the issue has become politically highly sensitive.

 

 

 

 

 
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Britain, US Probing Use of Facebook Data by British Voter Profiling Company

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Social media giant Facebook faced new investigations Tuesday in both Britain and the United States about the vast troves of information compiled by the company about their users and how that data has been deployed to influence elections by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling business.

British information commissioner Elizabeth Denham said she is seeking a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s London headquarters to see whether Facebook did enough to protect users’ personal information about themselves and their friends.  Weekend reports said Cambridge Analytica had improperly used information about more than 50 million Facebook users, including $6 million in work to influence Americans to vote for real estate mogul Donald Trump in his successful 2016 run for the U.S. presidency.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Facebook violated terms of a consent decree it had agreed to with the agency and allowed Cambridge Analytica to use the personal data based on information Facebook users post online about themselves.  Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica from its vast social network.

Several U.S. lawmakers have called on Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to testify in Congress about his firm’s use of its users’ information.

“We want to know how this happened,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said.  “What’s the extent of the damage?  Fifty million of these Facebook profiles were basically stolen, hijacked, including information of people’s residence.  And then how did it happen?  Why did it happen?  And how are they going to fix this?”

White House spokesman Raj Shah told Fox News that Trump “believes that Americans’ privacy should be protected.  You know, if Congress wants to look into the matter or other agencies want to look into the matter, we welcome that.”

Denham told BBC Radio, “We are looking at whether or not Facebook secured and safeguarded personal information on the platform and whether when they found out about the loss of the data they acted robustly and whether or not people were informed.”

Investors have reacted negatively to Facebook’s role in the data breach, with its stock price dropping by nearly 10 percent in the last few days, and the company losing billions of dollars in valuation.

British television station Channel 4 News broadcast surreptitious footage Monday showing an undercover interview one of its reporters conducted with Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix in which he claimed to have used “a web of shadowy front companies” to influence elections.

According to the broadcast, with the reporter posing as someone who wanted to influence an election in Sri Lanka, Nix suggested using an attractive woman to seduce a candidate the client was looking to defeat, or sending someone posing as a wealthy developer to pass on a bribe to a politician.

After the telecast, the company said Nix’s answers came in a discussion with “ludicrous hypothetical scenarios.”

In a statement, Nix said, “I am aware how this looks, but it is simply not the case.  I must emphatically state that Cambridge Analytica does not condone or engage in entrapment, bribes or so-called ‘honeytraps,’ and nor does it use untrue material for any purpose.”

The company has disputed reports about its use of vast data troves from Facebook.

Facebook says its data was initially collected by a British academic, Aleksandr Kogan, who created an app on Facebook that was downloaded by 270,000 people, which provided not only their personal data, but also that of their friends they had exchanged information with.  Facebook claims Kogan then violated the company’s terms by passing the information on to Cambridge Analytica.

Britain’s Cambridge University, where Kogan teaches, on Tuesday asked Facebook for all information it has about Kogan’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

Kogan has told colleagues at the university he would answer questions from U.S. and British lawmakers, along with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, about his data collection from Facebook users, but so far no one has asked to interview him.
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Facebook Under Fire for Developer’s Data Mining

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

The Facebook backlash is intensifying.

Congressional leaders, regulators in the United States and Europe and state officials are putting pressure on Facebook to answer questions about fresh allegations over how the social networking giant was manipulated in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

 

The Senate Commerce Committee has sent questions to the company about how a data consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, allegedly used 50 million Facebook users’ data to aid political campaigns.  British and U.S. lawmakers called for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify.  The company is reportedly holding an employee meeting Tuesday to answer questions.

 

Among the tough questions the company faces is why it did not inform the affected users about the issue.  On Monday, the firm’s stock dropped nearly seven percent, losing $36 billion in value, Facebook’s biggest one day decline in nearly four years.  In early trading Tuesday, Facebook shares were down about three percent.

 

The probe over Cambridge Analytica is just the latest flashpoint around Facebook’s role in the 2016 election and comes as the company faces questions about how it should be regulated and monitored going forward.

 

With its more than two billion monthly users and billions of dollars in profit, Facebook has become a powerful conduit of news, opinion and propaganda, much of it targeted at individuals based on their own data.  The social media site and investigators have found that Russia-backed operatives had used Facebook to spread disinformation and propaganda.

 

In recent months, the company, along with YouTube and Twitter, has changed some of its practices to reduce the power of automated accounts and propaganda.  Facebook has said it would hire 10,000 security employees.

 

A professor and the data-mining company

 

Facebook’s most recent troubles began in 2013 when an app called “Thisisyourdigitallife” developed by Aleksandr Kogan, a Cambridge University professor, offered users a personality survey.  The users were invited to download the app, which then gathered user information about their profiles and that of some of their friends.

 

The professor shared data with Cambridge Analytica, the data-mining firm that worked with U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign, according to The New York Times and The Observer.

 

While the gathering of the data was legitimate at the time, Facebook says the professor did not abide by the company’s rules when he passed the data to a third party – Cambridge Analytica – thus violating Facebook’s terms and conditions.  Facebook discovered the violation in 2015 and required Cambridge Analytica to delete the data, but didn’t tell affected users.

 

Cambridge Analytica has denied that it kept the data.  One Facebook executive in charge of security is reportedly leaving the firm as a result the matter.

 

Facebook suspends accounts

 

Last week, as the story broke, Facebook suspended the accounts of Cambridge Analytica and other parties, including the professor. 

 

Facebook says its policies around outside parties and data collection have since changed.  Now all apps requesting detailed user information go through the company’s App Review process.  The company has hired a digital forensics firm to conduct an audit of Cambridge Analytica to see if the data was deleted.

 

“If this data still exists, it would be a grave violation of Facebook’s policies and an unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments these groups made,” Facebook said

 

What to do about Facebook

 

In recent months, privacy advocates, regulators and lawmakers have discussed new ways of regulating Facebook.  At the moment, lawmakers are calling for answers.

 

“They’ve got responsibility to make sure that that information is used in an appropriate way, so we want to find out how it was gotten, how it was used, and we want Facebook obviously to be transparent about that,” said U.S. Senator John Thune, a Republican representing South Dakota.  

 

“I have serious concerns about the role @Facebook played in facilitating and permitting the covert collection and misuse of consumer information by Cambridge Analytica,” tweeted U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

 

 

 
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Opera on Alzheimer’s to Debut in Philadelphia Festival

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

An opera involving two characters with Alzheimer’s will premiere at Opera Philadelphia as part of the company’s latest festival of experimental fare.

Unveiling its 2018-19 season on Tuesday, the opera house of the US East Coast’s second most populous city announced a festival dubbed 018, a follow-up to last year’s inaugural stretch of new works.

The September 20-30 festival will feature the world premiere of “Sky on Swings,” an opera about two women with Alzheimer’s who come together in a care home.

Composed by Lembit Beecher with a libretto by Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch, “Sky on Swings” explores “the impermanence of memory and the new hallucinatory experience, untethered from identity and history, which can follow in its wake,” the opera house said in its announcement.

Another world premiere will be “Glass Handel,” a multimedia opera performed and co-produced by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo featuring new arrangements of music by leading US composer Philip Glass and videos by Oscar-winning director James Ivory.

“Glass Handel” starts as a traditional concert but members of the audience will be presented with different visuals, leading them on divergent paths.

“Opera Philadelphia is really pushing the boundaries of what opera can be, and we want to take it even further and reach out to new audiences,” Costanzo said.

Highlights of Opera Philadelphia’s 2018-19 season will include the US premiere of the much talked-about Robert Carsen production of Benjamin Britten’s opera “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The production of the opera based on the Shakespeare play premiered in 1991 at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in France and caused a stir with the stage’s sleek sheets of green under a crescent moon.

Opera Philadelphia’s inaugural experimental festival last year featured the world premiere of “We Shall Not Be Moved,” which won wide critical praise.

The hip-hop-infused opera, directed by leading choreographer Bill T. Jones, reflects on the 1985 police helicopter attack in Philadelphia on the black liberation group MOVE.

 
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Crash Marks 1st Death Involving Fully Autonomous Vehicle

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A fatal pedestrian crash involving a self-driving Uber SUV in a Phoenix suburb could have far-reaching consequences for the new technology as automakers and other companies race to be the first with cars that operate on their own.

The crash Sunday night in Tempe was the first death involving a full autonomous test vehicle. The Volvo was in self-driving mode with a human backup driver at the wheel when it struck 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk in Tempe, police said.

 

Uber immediately suspended all road-testing of such autos in the Phoenix area, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. The ride-sharing company has been testing self-driving vehicles for months as it competes with other technology companies and automakers like Ford and General Motors.

 

Though many in the industries had been dreading a fatal crash they knew it was inevitable.

 

Tempe police Sgt. Ronald Elcock said local authorities haven’t determined fault but urged people to use crosswalks. He told reporters at a news conference Monday the Uber vehicle was traveling around 40 mph when it hit Helzberg immediately as she stepped on to the street.

 

Neither she nor the backup driver showed signs of impairment, he said.

 

“The pedestrian was outside of the crosswalk, so it was midblock,” Elcock said. “And as soon as she walked into the lane of traffic, she was struck by the vehicle.”

 

The National Transportation Safety Board, which makes recommendations for preventing crashes, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which can enact regulations, sent investigators.

 

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed condolences on his Twitter account and said the company is cooperating with investigators.

 

The public’s image of the vehicles will be defined by stories like the crash in Tempe, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies self-driving vehicles. It may turn out that there was nothing either the vehicle or its human backup could have done to avoid the crash, he said.

 

Either way, the fatality could hurt the technology’s image and lead to a push for more regulations at the state and federal levels, Smith said.

Autonomous vehicles with laser, radar and camera sensors and sophisticated computers have been billed as the way to reduce the more than 40,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S. alone. Ninety-four percent of crashes are caused by human error, the government says.

 

Self-driving vehicles don’t drive drunk, don’t get sleepy and aren’t easily distracted. But they do have faults.

 

“We should be concerned about automated driving,” Smith said. “We should be terrified about human driving.”

 

In 2016, the latest year available, more than 6,000 U.S. pedestrians were killed by vehicles.

 

The federal government has voluntary guidelines for companies that want to test autonomous vehicles, leaving much of the regulation up to states.

 

Many states, including Michigan and Arizona, have taken a largely hands-off approach, hoping to gain jobs from the new technology, while California and others have taken a harder line.

 

California is among states that require manufacturers to report any incidents during the testing phase. As of early March, the state’s motor vehicle agency had received 59 such reports.

 

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey used light regulations to entice Uber to the state after the company had a shaky rollout of test cars in San Francisco. Arizona has no reporting requirements. Hundreds of vehicles with automated driving systems have been on Arizona’s roads.

 

Ducey’s office expressed sympathy for Herzberg’s family and said safety is the top priority.

 

The crash in Arizona isn’t the first involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March 2017, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.

 

Herzberg’s death is the first involving an autonomous test vehicle but not the first in a car with some self-driving features. The driver of a Tesla Model S was killed in 2016 when his car, operating on its Autopilot system, crashed into a tractor-trailer in Florida.

 

The NTSB said that driver inattention was to blame but that design limitations with the system played a major role in the crash.

 

The U.S. Transportation Department is considering further voluntary guidelines that it says would help foster innovation. Proposals also are pending in Congress, including one that would stop states from regulating autonomous vehicles, Smith said.

 

Peter Kurdock, director of regulatory affairs for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington, said the group sent a letter Monday to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao saying it is concerned about a lack of action and oversight by the department as autonomous vehicles are developed. That letter was planned before the crash.

 

Kurdock said the deadly accident should serve as a “startling reminder” to members of Congress that they need to “think through all the issues to put together the best bill they can to hopefully prevent more of these tragedies from occurring.”
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Child Meningitis Remains a Challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa, India

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Children in South Asia and Africa continue to face the threat of infection from meningitis. Despite progress in vaccines, there are still poor health infrastructures in key areas and inadequate access to medical services.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says promoting vaccination programs faces challenges, with outbreaks of several forms of meningitis causing child mortality rates as high as 60 percent across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Meningitis still threatens children

Mathuram Santosham, a professor of pediatrics and pediatric medicine at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Medicine, said while vaccinations programs have been very successful in the West and developed regions, children in developing countries remain at risk.

“The disease pretty much disappeared in the U.S., Europe and other countries. It’s now working well; but the places where children are dying are not Western countries and European countries, it’s India and Africa,” he said.

“When a child gets meningitis, even when the best care is available the mortality is between three and 10 percent. But in the poor countries where there isn’t good access to medical care, it can be as high as 60 percent,” Santosham told VOA.

The disease largely affects young children.

Meningitis has lasting effects

Even for those who survive, there is a 30 to 40 percent chance of serious neurological complications affecting the child’s long term health.

The major cause of bacterial meningitis – one of several forms of the disease – is the Haemophilus Influenza type b or Hib.

The disease causes an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known together as the meninges.

Vaccines have been very effective since 2000

In 2000, the WHO estimated Hib was responsible for 8.13 million cases of serious illness worldwide, leading to some 371,000 deaths a year. Reports say the annual death toll has now fallen to less than 200,000.

A 2015 paper in The Lancet magazine noted the success of the new vaccines, such as Hib, in reducing mortality rates and globally an almost two-thirds decline in global meningitis deaths by 2030.

Developing a vaccine for meningitis has been a long term challenge.

A professor at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Porter W. Anderson, began work on a Hib vaccine in 1968 with a vaccine effective for older children, but not in those under the age of two.

Help for children under age 2

A breakthrough in the research for younger children came in the collaborative work between U.S. scientists John B. Robbins and Rachel Schneerson, who succeeded in developing a vaccine for children under two years of age.

Robbins told VOA the breakthrough was significant. “The ability to prevent an infection that not only killed infants and children but maimed them after they were treated was wonderful. It kept on pushing us,” he said.

Up to the end of 2016, the WHO says the Hib vaccine has been introduced in 191 countries. Vaccine coverage varies from 90 percent in the Americas but falls to around 28 percent in the Western Pacific Region.

In Africa, the WHO recommends large scale vaccinations of “population groups that are at risk” amid the constant threat of outbreaks especially in Sub Saharan regions.

Schneerson said it is crucial the vaccine reaches globally.

“It’s for everybody and most of those infectious diseases are more prevalent in poor countries. We live in one world. We live in a boat which is becoming smaller and smaller. We all live together. We have to take care of each other,” Schneerson said.

In the U.S., the success of the vaccination program has led to a dramatic decline in cases.

Prior to the launch of the immunization program in the mid-1980’s, Hib-meningitis infected 20,000 U.S. children a year with five percent of those dying and one-third left with intellectual disabilities. Since then the the annual death toll has been less than 100.

Opposition to vaccines

But Santosham said there was resistance to the vaccination program’s implementation.

“There’s also a tremendous amount of anti-vaccine lobbies in countries like India and even the United States and in many parts of Europe also. They were putting out false information saying this vaccine is dangerous,” he said.

In India, a strong anti-vaccine lobby stalled a national vaccination program, leading medical authorities to directly appeal to the individual states and local politicians about the need for the program.

But Santosham said China and Thailand had not yet signed up for the program, but he expected China’s private medical sector to play a key role, while Thai health care workers are looking for government funding “in the next year or two”.

Projections of the success of the vaccinations led experts to predict more than seven million lives would have been saved due to the program by 2020. “So this is a tremendous success story,” Santosham said.

The four scientists, Rachel Schneerson, John B. Robbins, Porter W. Anderson and Mathuram Santosham, recently visited Thailand as recipients of the Prince Mahidol medical awards in Public Health.

 
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