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A star-sprangled future for the US? TBCAM’s Saffaye responds

George C. Saffaye, portfolio strategist at The Boston Company Asset Management (TBCAM) and a member of the team managing the BNY Mellon American Fund, discusses why he’s optimistic about the US economy for 2014.

“There’s no denying our optimism with regards the US economy,” says Saffaye. “As far as we are concerned, the key factor is inflation which, if kept at bay, can provide a strong foundation across several aspects of the economy. There are four drivers of this: a slower rate of growth in China, which has in turn slowed the progress of commodity prices; the impact of ‘Abenomics’ in Japan, because as the Japanese yen devalues, the US dollar is bolstered; the US energy renaissance, which is benefiting both companies and the consumer (and acting in the same way as a tax break); and more stable government policy,” he explains.

Fuelling markets

Following the ‘11th hour’ avoidance of US debt ceiling and the US Federal Reserve’s delay on ‘tapering’, we expect the US equity market to be a bright spot among global economies in 2014,” says Saffaye. “Within the US, crude-oil production continues to surge and oil futures have declined sharply, largely because of the country’s vast shale reserves and easing tensions in the Middle East. What’s more,” he adds, “with around 80% of US trade deficit energy-related, the oil and gas re-awakening should bode well for improving the country’s fiscal stability.
“Meanwhile, inflation remains low in the US as China’s economic growth has slowed, leaving commodity prices at their lowest levels in three years. As consumers find more money in their pockets due to lower inflation and energy costs, as well as stronger confidence because of an improving housing market and employment situation, we expect a fillip for the American economy,” says Saffaye.

Tech boon

At the sector level, Saffaye and his team have found success within the technology space. “We favour companies in the social-media space as they continue to monetise within mobile. However, on the flip side, we are happy not to hold certain tech stalwarts, some of which have been unable to produce new categories of products that are as innovative as in the past. Furthermore, with increased competition, such companies could also face eroding margins,” he says.

“Elsewhere, within the US healthcare sector we are encouraged by the amount of innovation we are seeing, along with a greater willingness by larger pharmaceutical companies to engage in M&A activity.” He continues: “There is also a raft of new drugs coming through the pipeline – particularly those that aim to treat cancer – which could be ground-breaking.

“More broadly, while US corporates remain conservative when it comes to capital spending and investment, against the backdrop of more stable government policy we expect 2014 to be a year in which companies take advantage and invest in themselves. This is essential; in order to contribute to economic growth, companies must first become structured for growth. Expect US capital expenditure to return to the fore in 2014,” concludes Saffaye.

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The Palisades Water Index is an unmanaged benchmark that many water indexes and ETFs track. Why the interest in water? Like gold and oil, water is a commodity - and it happens to be rather scarce.

Tutorial: Commodity Investing 101

Global Water Resources
About 70% of the earth\'s surface is covered in water, but 97% of it is saltwater, which is unfit for human use. Saltwater cannot be used for drinking, crop irrigation or most industrial uses. Of the remaining 3% of the world\'s water resources, only about 1% is readily available for human consumption.

Global Shortage
Rapid industrialization and increasing agricultural use have contributed to worldwide water shortages. Areas that have experienced water shortages include China, Egypt, India, Israel, Pakistan, Mexico, parts of Africa and the United States (Colorado, California, Las Vegas and the East Coast), to name but a few.

Pollution also highlights the need for clean water. In the U.S., the dead zone off the Gulf Coast highlights the impact of fertilizer runoff, and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), an additive in unleaded gasoline, can be found in well water from California to Maryland. Overseas, highly publicized incidents in Russia, China and elsewhere demonstrate that pollution isn\'t limited to the West. Of course, fouled water supplies further limit the amount of fresh water available for human use.

Like any other scarcity, the water shortage creates investment opportunities. Here are some of the more popular indexes designed to track various water-related investment opportunities:

  • Palisades Water Index - This index was designed to track the performance of companies involved in the global water industry, including pump and filter manufacturers, water utilities and irrigation equipment manufacturers. The index was set at 1000 as of December 31, 2003 and not even 10 years later is has fluctuated around the 2,000 mark.

  • Dow Jones U.S. Water Index - Composed of approximately 29 stocks, this barometer is comprised of a large number of international and domestic companies which are affiliated with the water business and have a minimum market capitalization of $150 million.

  • ISE-B&S Water Index - Launched in January 2006, this index represents water distribution, water filtration, flow technology and other companies that specialize in water-related solutions. It contains over 35 stocks.

  • S&P 1500 Water Utilities Index - A sub-sector of the Standard & Poor\'s 1500 Utilities Index, this index is composed of just two companies, American States Water (NYSE:AWR) and Aqua America (NYSE: WTR) .

The Bloomberg World Water Index and the MSCI World Water Index provide a look at the water industry from an international perspective, although it can be rather difficult to find current information about either index. There are also a variety of utility indexes that include some water stocks. (For further reading, see Indexes: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.)

Investment Opportunities
A look at the holdings of any of the water indexes provides an easy way to begin your search for suitable investments. Companies from blue chip stalwart General Electric to small cap Layne Christensen are all seeking a piece of the water market. In addition to direct stock purchases, some of the larger firms offer dividend reinvestment plans. Firms seeking to profit from water-related businesses include beverage providers, utilities, water treatment/purification firms and equipment makers, such as those that provide pumps, valves and desalination units.

When it comes to bottled water, the market is growing internationally. Demand is on the rise from China to Mexico, following in the footsteps of the spike in U.S. consumer demand. Estimates suggest that within the last ten years American per-capita consumption of bottled water has doubled - the average American drinks approximately 200 bottles of water a years. On the desalination front, some 100 countries currently rely on desalination for at least part of their freshwater consumption needs.

If stock picking doesn\'t interest you, ETFs, mutual funds and unit investment trusts (UITs) also provide plenty of opportunities to invest in water. The PowerShares Water Resource ETF, mentioned earlier, tracks the Palisades Water Index, and the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Utilities Index ETF (ARCA:IDU) provides some exposure to water-related stocks. The largest water ETF is currently PowerShares Water Resources Portfolio (NYSE:PHO) but other new alternatives such as the PowerShares Global Water Portfolio ETF (NYSE:PIO) and the First Trust ISE Water Index Fund (NYSE:FIW) are also available. Based on popularity, new alternatives are slowly emerging.(To learn more, see Introduction To Exchange-Traded Funds.)

Additionally, two unit investment trusts that specialize in water-related investments are the Claymore-Boenning & Scattergood Global Water Equities UIT and the Claymore-Boenning & Scattergood U.S. Water Equities portfolio.

Recent years have seen an upswing in the demand for investments that seek to profit from the need for fresh, clean water. If the trend continues, and by all indications it will, investors can expect to see a host of new investments that provide exposure to this precious commodity and to the firms that deliver it to the marketplace. There are currently numerous ways to add water exposure to your portfolio - most simply require a bit of research.

Just as with any other investment in commodities or sector funds, wise investors should limit their exposure to water. Generally speaking, highly concentrated investments such as these should not represent more than 10% of the assets in a well-diversified portfolio. Limiting exposure to concentrated positions provides some opportunity to capture positive returns while limiting overall portfolio volatility.

For more information about concentrated portfolios and diversification, see Do Focused Funds Provide A Better Outlook?, Introduction To Diversification and The Importance Of Diversification.

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Amgen Buying DeCode Genetics To Find Targeted Drugs

Biotech Amgen (AMGN) announced Monday that it's buying privately held gene researcher deCode Genetics for $415 million.

DeCode, based in Iceland, has been taking advantage of its country's unusually pure gene pool to study the links between genes and diseases. It traded on the stock market from 2000 to 2009, but went bankrupt and was taken private. Amgen said in its press release that the acquisition will help it develop targeted therapies.

Amgen's move is one of many by drugmakers to use genetic research companies to help develop therapies. It was the major motivator for Roche's (RHHBY) attempt to buy Illumina (ILMN), a prospect still rumored to be alive. Myriad Genetics (MYGN) has also been forming companion diagnostics partnerships with a number of firms such as Merck (MRK) and Biogen Idec (BIIB) to create therapies personalized to a patient's genetic profile.

Amgen shares were up a fraction early Monday and are up more than 50% in 2012. The company sports an IBD Composite Rating of 97, putting it among the top 3% of all stocks on key metrics such as profit and sales growth.


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accounts receivable financing

The selling of a company's accounts receivable, at a discount, to a factor, who then assumes the risk of the account debtors and receives cash as the debtors settle their accounts. A firm that sells its accounts receivable may not be confident of its ability to collect those debts, or might think that the cost of collecting that debt is more than the discount which must be provided to the factor when of selling their receivables. also called accounts receivable financing.

Use this term in a sentence

The accounts receivable financing was an area that we liked a lot and there was a lot of things we had to look at.

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You should try to make sure that you are doing things in the correct way when dealing with accounts receivable financing.

 Was this Helpful? YES  NO 4 people found this helpful.

After a long and difficult struggle, we opted for accounts receivable financing, and there was a palpable sense of gloom in the air around the office.

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Browse Definitions by Letter: # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
factoring old-line factoring


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Johannesburg - The public has indicated its unambiguous rejection of the government's e-tolling system, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday.

“The last public hearing held on Thursday in Sunninghill delivered a clear and unambiguous rejection of e-tolls by government,” Cosatu said in a statement.

The Sunninghill meeting was the last and final e-toll public information session.

Last month, the government and the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) announced new tariffs for e-tolling on Gauteng's freeways.

The announcement, which was made on October 26, marked the beginning of a 30-day public consultation process, after which Transport Minister Ben Martins would have a fortnight to “apply his mind”, followed by another fortnight to gazette the final tariffs.

Cosatu has called for a strike action against e-tolls on November 30.

“This week's public sessions were also not clear regarding the enforcement procedures for those who do not pay the proposed tariffs,” it said. - Sapa


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Jerusalem - Israel's Shin Bet security service on Sunday announced the arrest on September 11 of an Iranian “spy” carrying photographs of the US embassy in Tel Aviv.

News of the arrest was released just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington and New York, determined to expose what he described as “sweet talk” by Israel's arch-foe Iran.

The suspect, holding a Belgian passport, was sent to Israel by Iran's elite Republican Guards and arrested at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion international airport, Shin Bet charged in a statement.

The domestic intelligence service identified him as Ali Mansouri, 58, and said he had enrolled in a “special operations unit of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for numerous terrorist attacks around the world.”

He had been using the fake identity Alex Mans after being recruited last year, the agency said, naming his four alleged handlers as senior Iranian officials.

The Shin Bet said that under questioning, the suspect had said he had been promised $1 million to use his position as a businessman to set up companies in Israel on behalf of the Iranian intelligence services to “harm Israeli and Western interests.”

He had previously visited Israel in July 2012 and last January.

An Iranian national, the suspect had in 2006 married a Belgian woman whom he had since divorced.

On the diplomatic front, Netanyahu has been dismissive in his response to the drive by Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani to mend fences with the international community, which culminated in a historic 15-minute telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama on Friday.

Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power, remains adamant that Iran is bent on developing a nuclear weapons capability, something it regards as a threat to its existence.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly vowed to take military action rather than see Iran develop a bomb and have called on its US ally to take tougher action against Tehran, saying they see no real change of policy under Rouhani.


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April 4-6, 2001
Embassy Suites Phoenix North, Phoenix, Arizona
International Performance, Computing, and Communications Conference (IPCCC) is the premier IEEE conference presenting research in the performance of computer and communication systems. For the last two decades, IPCCC has been a research forum for academic, industrial, and government researchers. The lively  interactions among the researchers from these merging fields provide a stimulating environment rich with new ideas.
Pervasive Computing has been chosen as the underlying theme for the 2001 conference topics in expectation of explosive growth in mobile and nomadic computing for secure access to information and services. We encourage submission of high quality papers reporting original work in both theoretical and experimental research that addresses the recent advances in algorithms, architectures, protocols, network infrastructure, embedded systems and wireless computing in support of the emerging world of billions of people interacting with trillions of devices.

Brief Overview of Scheduled Conference Activities New!

Registration: Online registration is now closed. Please register at the conference on-site registration desk.

Advance Program (HTML) (PDF)

Optional Group Tours New!

Call For Papers (Updated 11/21/00)

Author Information (Paper submission, etc)

IPCCC 2001 Tutorial information

IPCCC 2001 Executive Committee

Hotel Information for those attending the conference

Schedule of Events at IPCCC 2001: (Program has more detail)

Wednesday, April 4th, 2001

Thursday, April 5th, 2001

Friday, April 6th, 2001

Saturday, April 7th, 2001

For further information about IPCCC, please contact:
Co-General Chair
Nasr Ullah
Motorola Inc.
Austin, Texas
Phone: 512-996-4982
Co-General Chair
Horst D. Clausen
Institute for Computing Sciences
Univ. of Salzburg
Phone: +43-662 8044-6307

For webpages from previous conferences: IPCCC 1998  IPCCC 1999  IPCCC 2000
For questions/suggestions/problems with the IPCCC website please mail the webmaster: ipccc2001@yahoo.com
Link to internal page (Committee Members Only)


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Enda Kenny

Leader of the Fine Gael party Enda Kenny sacked his deputy leader Richard Bruton yesterday after he mounted a challenge for leadership of the party.

The Fine Gael front bench consists of 19 members with Bruton's supporters claiming more than half of them support his challenge.
Speaking on the current affairs panel show “Frontline” last night Bruton said, "It will be clear tomorrow that a number of frontbenchers have no confidence in him.”

Kenny sacked his deputy yesterday evening and called a meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party for Thursday afternoon. The parliamentary party consists of all of Fine Gael's 69 MEPs, MPs and Senators.

Kenny will call on his supporters to vote to pledge their full support in him.

Fine Gael Health spokesman Dr James Reilly said he was confident that a "substantial majority" of the parliamentary party supported Kenny.

"I firmly believe that when it goes to the parliamentary party, as it will, that Enda Kenny will carry the day," said Reilly.

It is widely believed that Bruton will not have the complete support of the party but the majority of the front bench is expected to resign unless Kenny steps down. If the most promising members of the front bench resign, Fine Gael will be virtually ruined.

Kilkenny based Senator John Paul Phelan, has backed Bruton and said that he was "shocked and disappointed" by Kenny's behavior and his sacking of Bruton.

Phelan said he had "serious reservations" about Kenny's leadership qualities and felt Bruton would be a perfect replacement.

"I have the height of respect for Enda, he's done a lot for Fine Gael in my time over the last eight years, but there comes a juncture I suppose where you just have to say that the baton of leadership has to pass," said Phelan.

"There has to be a recognition among everyone that at this current juncture in time we cannot ignore the general public and we can't ignore the membership of the party."

Kenny replaced Bruton with Limerick MP Kieran O'Donnell as Finance spokesman. Kenny said he would announce a new front bench next week.

Last night Bruton called on his colleagues to put their loyalty with the Irish people and acknowledge the fact that the general public consistently disapprove of Kenny's leadership in opinion polls.

"There are many opinion polls and ratings of his leadership and many occasions on which he has faltered at crucial times – and we do need people’s confidence now.”

A phone poll has suggested that Kenny has 32 declared supporters with five others thought to be swaying towards Kenny. Bruton has eight declared supporters with a further 16 believed to be ready to support. A further eight Fine Gael politicians are undecided.


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Getting back to where he once belonged

HIS ARRIVAL IS announced by nervous, giggling laughter from the young women standing by the stairs. “Hey, how are you doing?” he says to them, before sharing a quiet joke. More laughter ensues.

Paul McCartney, ladies and gentlemen, has entered the Hempel Hotel in north London to promote his latest album, Kisses On The Bottom, an homage, mostly, to the music of his childhood.

Music journalists have come from Canada, Colombia, throughout Europe and beyond for an audience with the ex-Beatle, who, despite being surrounded by staff, conveys an air of informality. The mood is respectful, no, deferential; with one asking how it felt to be a British icon “alongside the Queen and Michael Caine”, while another wonders where he found his “sweet-spot” for the album.

Kisses On The Bottom, named from a line in a Fats Waller song, is a collection of the timeless classics McCartney listened to as a child in Liverpool, along with two new compositions.

In particular, it evokes memories of home-life on the Forthlin Road in Allerton, as his father, Jim, sat at the family’s piano, playing the songs of Fred Astaire and others. “He knew all these songs and he would play them, so I wanted to do them. He was a great guy. And he never thought that he was any good at music, because he was just an amateur and he had learned by ear.”

He refused to teach his son how to play, believing that a boy who would one day go on to write some of rock’n’roll’s greatest hits needed “to learn properly”. Three times McCartney tried and three times he failed, frustrated by music teachers’ obsession with “five-finger exercises” and homework.

By the time he went to his second teacher, McCartney “had already written, When I’m Sixty-Four”. By the third, he had already penned Eleanor Rigby.

Undoubtedly, it is a tale that McCartney has told before, and he just about manages to not sound boastful. Rather, it is pride in great things done. He knows he is going to get a laugh; the room unsurprisingly erupts.

“Nowadays, people don’t start you like that. They teach you stuff to get you interested, but then it was a strict thing, you had to go back and learn properly. I never got it: the stuff that I was hearing in my head was different from what I was seeing on the page. I couldn’t go backwards.”

The idea for the new album has been in gestation for more than four decades. “When I got into the recording world with the Beatles I thought it would be nice to do them, but I never got around to it because we were writing Sergeant Pepperand writing all of our new stuff.” The influence of others on McCartney’s actions is surprising. In 1970, Ringo Starr, produced his version of the classics with the Sentimental Journeyalbum.

Years later, he was put off because “every time I came to make this album someone else would make one”, such as Robbie Williams’s Big Band tribute Swing When You’re Winning. “So I thought, I can’t do it now, because it is going to look like I am jumping on his bandwagon and then that dust settled down and then Rod Stewart came out with one. So, ‘Whoops, I can’t do it now’, and then just when I thought it was okay to go back into the water Rod released his next one.”

In the end, he heeded the advice of producer Tommy LiPuma “to just go and make it”, with the help of Canadian singer and musician Diana Krall as well as Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton.

The delay of decades has wrought a different album from the one originally conceived: “The songs are not quite as well-known as some of the songs that Rod has been doing. His are the favourites out of the American song-book. Some of these are not that well-known. More I Cannot Wish Youis from Guys and Dolls.

A myriad of influences made themselves felt by the time McCartney and others gathered in the Capitol Studios where Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra had laid down some of their greatest work. Despite near-unparalleled success, McCartney stills gets nervous. “To be there where all these guys recorded, I found it a little bit intimidating because I had no idea of what we were going to do. So we chose a song and then Diana worked out what she was going to do, so we did it very organically. We didn’t want to write charts, because that would make it too stiff. We just wanted to figure it out.”

The process of creation still fascinates, the seemingly insurmountable problems, the lack of inspiration, followed by “the moment when it all unlocks”. Like every 16-year-old, McCartney believed that 30 was ancient, but that perspective, predictably, has changed with the years: “I must admit that I didn’t expect to be singing, playing at the level I am now, but it just kept being interesting. It just keeps being fun. We were in South America last year and the crowds were just amazing, the best. When you come on-stage and you get that reception, it is very difficult to retire from it. Every time I go out on tour, someone says, ‘Is this your last tour?’ I don’t know if they are hoping it is, or what, but I think it is a rumour spread by some unscrupulous promoters: ‘Come and see it, it is his last tour.’ But I always say at the end of my concerts, ‘see you next time’. And I mean it, so I’ll keep going as long as they let me.”

None of that means life in the studios is easy, he says. On the first song performed in studio, Cheek to Cheek, which eventually ended up on the cutting-room floor, McCartney says he had used “a big voice” – he breaks into a high, full-throated version of the line “I’m in Heaven” to illustrate.

“God, no, it was terrible and I was feeling really uncomfortable because they were all playing great and I was singing badly. So, then, I started to think of people I liked, like Fred Astaire, and some records I had made in the past where you get into the mic, where there is hardly any effort. That way, the notes don’t seem high any more.

“That is what happened, I decided to use this ‘littler’ voice and I felt very good about it because it unlocked the whole album. That is what we wanted to do. We wanted to just get in the room and say, ‘Hey, Diana, what song are we going to do?’ So we’d choose that song. That was the first time anyone knew that we were going to do that song. So we’d all pull up the chords and I’d pull up the lyrics. And then I’d say: ‘How are we going to do it?’”

Weeks later, McCartney, by now back in London, was struck by a memory from the past: “I realised that that is how we recorded with the Beatles – bring a song in that nobody knew, figure it out, kick it around and then record it. So what you get is very fresh, something that you have all just figured out how to do. There isn’t anyone in there with more information than anyone else, so, yeah, I think that is why I had so much fun doing it. It was just made up on the spot.”

Fred Astaire, he says, is responsible for “a little bit of the signature” of the album: “Musically, his vocal style is very interesting. Everyone used to think he was a lousy vocalist, except the songwriters, who used to think that he did a really good job on their songs because he could sell a song well.” It is not the first time that Astaire has cast his shadow: “Yeah, who wouldn’t want to move like Fred? Baby, give it up. [He] was just a fantastic character from that era and he summed up so many things.

“He was so elegant. I remember in the 1960s when we were making Sergeant PepperI used to have a guy who would make my jackets and I used to say to them, ‘Could you make it like Fred Astaire’s?’ He figured out that Fred’s jackets were cut very close here,” the singer goes on, pointing to his upper arms as he does, “with very thin sleeves, so those kind of stylistic things came from people like him.”

Now 69 and recently re-married, McCartney is still competitive. Having Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton join him in the studio for Only Our Heart,in Wonder’s case, and for My Valentineand Get Yourself Another Fool,in Clapton’s case, helped to “lift your game”.

Wonder had not been part of the original plan, but was suggested by LiPuma as they struggled to find an appropriate solo for Only Our Hearts. “Tommy LiPuma said, ‘No, what about Stevie?’ I said, ‘Wow, that is a little bit out of left-field.’ So I rang him up and he very nicely offered to come along, so that was it.

“Stevie just came to the session and he just listened to the track and said, ‘Can you play it one more time?’, and he listened again and he just went to the microphone and he just started making solos and then he came up with the solo that you hear and it was all over in about half-an-hour. That’s talent.”

Besides Krall, who was happy to be listed as an accompanist on the album’s sleeve because McCartney did not want the record to look like a duets album, Kisses On The Bottombears the influence of two of his daughters – Mary, who took the photographs, and designer Stella, who provided advice on the sleeve. “I love women, I am always fascinated by them. They are quite different from us men, you know,” he tells a German (female) questioner.

McCartney was one of the guests at Krall’s marriage to Elvis Costello and admired her albums, but he had not worked with her before Kisses On The Bottom. “She’s great. You have to take this the right way, she’s like a guy. I mean that as the highest form of compliment. She’s like a woman, but she thinks like a guy. She’s a musician. Gender doesn’t come into it. We would just kick things around. She would just throw in suggestions and finally we would light on something. She brought a lot to the album.”

The German writer seems just a little perplexed, though politeness and, perhaps, a little awe, stops a follow-up. The audience with McCartney, for such it seemed to be, ends in applause.

Kisses On The Bottomis out this week


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Around the block: Councillors call for local authority to purchase historic gardens from Nama

Fernhill House and gardens: Photograph: © Jonathan Hession

Fernhill House and gardens: Photograph: © Jonathan Hession

A motion calling on Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to buy the historic Fernhill House and gardens at the foot of the Dublin Mountains has been tabled for debate by councillors at a meeting later this month.

Located 11km south of Dublin on the Enniskerry Road between Sandyford and Stepaside, Fernhill gardens were begun in the early 19th century and enlarged and developed by their owners over the decades, including the Walker family who owned the property from 1934 onwards.

The property was famously purchased by developer David Arnold for approximately €45 million in 2008 and was subsequently taken over by Nama. It is expected to come to market next week through Colliers at a guide price of €5 million.

The gardens contain rare collections of plants, trees and shrubs, including specimen rhododendrons and magnolias. The house itself was first built in 1723.

The site contains a total of 84 acres, about 45 of which are wooded, and the property is close to housing developments at Park View, Belarmine and Aiken’s Village. It had been open to the public but has been closed for the past few years.

Local councillor Lettie McCarthy (Lab), who tabled the motion for the property to be purchased, said the gardens were ideally placed for residents in the area.

“It would be an investment and would complement the other parks owned by the council,” she said. “It is a national treasure and should be open to the public.”

Councillor Victor Boyhan (Ind), who is also a landscape gardener, said Fernhill’s rare collection of plants, trees and shrubs should be protected. He added that the area had been identified as in need of a public park based on the high density housing developed locally over the past 10 years.

He called on the council to investigate all options with Nama to acquire Fernhill, including a land swap.

A spokesman for the council said they would not be commenting at this stage.


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Introduction to IRMSA
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The Institute of Risk Management was formed through the amalgamation of The Society of Risk Managers (SRM) and The South African Risk and Insurance Manager Association (SARIMA) in September 2003.

Operating from permanent offices in Johannesburg, it is a registered non-profit organisation representing individuals and companies committed to the enhancement of the Risk Management discipline in its widest context - enterprise-wide.

The effective management of risk is central to the achievement of any Company’s vision. By understanding and managing risk they can provide greater certainty and security for all their employees, customers and stakeholders. They will be better informed, more decisive and move with increased confidence to achieve their vision and objectives. Risk Management also forms a crucial part of Corporate Governance and is mandated by King III as well as the Companies Act.

Taking the above into consideration, the Institute has embodied the essence of this principle in delivery of a range of services including:

·Professional accreditation of individual members.

·A forum for discussion of and interaction on current risk issues.

·A credible platform enabling practitioners to speak on matters affecting the discipline.

·Research and project development.

·Education and Training.

·Opportunities for networking and professional development through conferences, briefings and topic focused workshops.

The Institute of Risk Management South Africa is the leading source of information and

networking opportunities within the Risk Management industry, with members from

a wide range of corporations both from the private and public sector.

Our non-profit organisation aims at representing individuals and

companies committed to the enhancement of the Risk

Management discipline.

Since the formation of the Institute of Risk Management of South Africa (IRMSA) in 2002, its committees have constantly acknowledged both itsimportance ofrole as custodians of best Risk Management (RM)practice, and its deep responsibility to develop the profession and individuals in the occupation of Organisational Risk Manager (ORM). Further to this, we believe that we need to acknowledge best practices in South Africa, thus our yearly Risk Management Awards are very close to our hearts.

The Institute of Risk Management South Africa (IRMSA) host the annual Awards Ceremony and Gala Dinner as well as the Annual Conference.

The IRMSA Risk Management Awards recognises and rewards South Africa’s top Risk Management Professionals. The Awards Programme has been established specifically to acknowledge, encourage and celebrate excellence within the Risk Management Sector.

The Risk Management Awards are presented at our annual Gala Dinner, which is a showcase event to thank all our corporate members for their support, and to acknowledge those in the field of Risk Management for their phenomenal contribution.

The organisers of this event greatly acknowledge and salute organisations support and contribution to promoting Risk Management. By growing the Awards, we’re aiming to profile this initiative as the highest accolade in the Risk Management Sector in South Africa and beyond.

At the IRMSA Annual Conference in 2009, the Institute received a mandate from stakeholders to develop an occupational qualification for Risk Managers. An Educational and Technical Sub-Committee was then tasked by the IRMSA Executive Committee to drive this initiative. Being recognized as the Professional Body for Risk Management in South Africa by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) in 2012 has elevated IRMSA to the next level and has created an awareness of Risk Management in South Africa for those working in the industry. This goes hand in hand with the development of the Risk Management Qualifications (Organisational Risk Officer and the Organisational Risk Practitioner Qualifications) that IRMSA is currently developing with BANKSETA and the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO). Risk Managers finally have the opportunity to climb a professional ladder and be accredited as Professional Risk Managers in South Africa by being members of IRMSA.

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Wheel Choices for Ironman Courses

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If you’re gunning after a Kona slot at your next Ironman, your wheel choice could make all the difference on race day.

When it comes to improving your bike split in an Ironman or Ironman 70.3 event, your first priority needs to be your fit on the bike. The longer you can stay in an aero position (stretched out on your aero bars), the better off you will be. Once you’ve got your bike position dialed in, though, your next most important aerodynamic purchase will be a set of aero race wheels.

Estimates are that a set of race wheels will shave 1.5 to 2 percent off your total time. Over the course of a six-hour bike split at an Ironman race, that adds up to between five and seven minutes (5:24 to 7:12). That’s five to seven minutes off your overall time without having to expend any extra energy.

If you’re gunning after a Kona slot at your next Ironman, your wheel choice could make all the difference on race day. As a general rule, aero rims with bladed spokes will be your first level of improvement over a standard flat rim. A rear disk wheel is considered the gold standard when it comes to aerodynamic performance, but can be a challenge to ride in windy conditions. Disk wheels also tend to be a bit heavier and stiffer, which can be a detriment on extremely hilly courses (weight) or at races that feature rougher roads as you will feel more of the road vibration (stiffness).

"I believe that old adage that a disk is best for many terrains and conditions," says Troy Jacobson, the official coach of Ironman, "Unless the winds are excessive and/or the hills are too. Stability and comfort is just too important for the age group athlete to choose 'speed' over safety and stability."

Aero rims come in a variety of depths. One of the more standard wheels used at Ironman races, the Zipp 404 (about 60 percent of the field at last year’s Ironman World Championship used Zipp wheels), has a 58 mm rim.

"A deeper dish front rim like a Zipp 404 seems to set the 'gold standard' for most athletes over most distances and terrain," continues Jacobson. He suggests that athletes could use a deeper rim (Zipp’s 808, which uses an 81 mm rim, for example) as a front wheel on "super flat and fast courses," or as a fairly stable rear wheel where a disk might not be effective.

There are a number of factors to take into consideration, though, when it comes to making that race day call:

Some events restrict the use of disk wheels due to the extreme wind that sometimes comes into play on race day. Two events where this comes into play are the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and Ironman Cozumel.

On extremely hilly courses weight can become an issue. "For many, the decision comes down to weight on a hilly course, so a set of 404's (or even 303's) might be the best choice," Jacobson says.

Road conditions:

Courses that feature rougher road conditions might warrant use of a more forgiving wheel. A comfortable spoked wheel will likely be of help at a race like Ironman New Zealand, which features chip-seal roads.

Most athletes won’t have the option of purchasing a different set of race wheels for all these different conditions, which is why services like that provided by Ironman Wheel Rentals have become a popular option for athletes. Rather than buy a set of wheels that might only get used a few times a year, athletes can use the service to rent a set of aero wheels for their specific race. Wheels can either be delivered to the athlete’s home, or picked up at certain events.

In next week’s "wheel choice" column we’ll look at some of the technology that goes into aerodynamic race wheels. In two weeks we’ll start to look at choices for specific Ironman events.

You can reach Kevin Mackinnon at

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This is Why the Entire Western World Must Support Israel Right Now

Americans should care very deeply about this current conflict. First and foremost because of 9-11. “Hamas knows that if we abondon Israel, if we allow Israel to be destroyed, then we are next…”

Published: July 19, 2014
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Dead Island Riptide – “They Thought Wrong” – Gameplay Trailer

They thought they had escaped…
Having survived the ordeals of the zombie infestation on the once beautiful island resort of Banoi…

They thought they were safe..
… the group of survivors thought they had finally found a safe place to escape from this terrifying nightmare.

They thought wrong..
Shortly after the battle-hardened team had landed their helicopter on a military ship, a furious storm hits and havoc quickly spreads on board.

Hope is drowning.
Together with newcomer John Morgan they find themselves struggling for their lives again, stranded on the secluded island of Palanai with its luxurious town of Henderson surrounded by deep jungles and mangrove swamps.

The Overlord, the master, the one who tries to get things done… I think they call it the “Editor-in-Chief”… I may even be cooler than Master Chief, but that remains to be questioned.

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  • TechniKyle

    Can’t wait for this. I’m a big fan of the first one. The only problem I have with it, is that their eyes are still looking in two different directions…

    • Darryl Linington

      The case of the cross-eyed Zombie… Dun, dun, duuuuuuun!


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Microsoft starts public test of Cortana app for Android smartphones

An iPhone version is expected to arrive later this year

Credit: Microsoft

Android phone owners in the U.S. can now take Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana for a spin thanks to a new public beta test that opened today

Those interested in kicking Cortana's tires can sign up for the test  and install the app from the Google Play Store. Users will be able to search Bing with their voice, set reminders and send text messages. The app will sync with preferences users have set up on any Windows 10 devices, so they get access to information like news stories personalized to their interests, along with reminders and flight information.

However, the Android version doesn't yet have all the features currently in the Windows version, such as opening apps and responding to "Hey Cortana." It's not clear whether those capabilities will ever come to the Android app. In addition, the app is only available to people in the U.S., though Microsoft says it plans to roll it out to other markets at an unspecified date.

It's part of Microsoft's overall strategy of porting its services to multiple platforms, even those it doesn't own. In this case, Microsoft is making Cortana portable and thus more convenient for people who use it on Windows PCs and tablets but whose smartphone runs Android.

Because the Cortana app uses Bing, its availability on Android could help Microsoft gain search share against Google.

Microsoft plans to release a version of Cortana for iPhone users later this year, though it's likely that the Apple app will be hobbled compared to its Android and Windows counterparts. Apple doesn't allow third-party apps to do things like replace Siri's functionality when users press and hold their device's home button, a feature that is available to Cortana on Android.

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Mileage based charging offers secure future for funding

First publishedin ITS International
July August 2016
[ Zoom ]
Timeline depicting the evolution of road-way pricing
Timeline depicting the evolution of road-way pricing from the 1960's through to today

HNTB’s Matthew Click sets out why a move to mileage-based pricing is inevitable.

Infrastructure is the most neglected yet the most critical engine of our society, and our continued indifference could lead to a dystopian future. Our roads, bridges and highways have been largely passed by in the digital age—marginalised in an era when funding is limited and stewardship of physical assets has given way to our preoccupation with technological innovation and data—the stuff of the virtual realm.

Without sustainable funding our infrastructure faces an uncertain future and the impact on society will be tangible.

The current fuel tax is inadequate and economic and behavioural trends are forcing us to seek a better solution.

One compelling alternative is road pricing. We’re all familiar with pricing as congestion management; the concept of charging drivers a fee for a faster trip has proven effective time and again so it’s not difficult to envisage a user fee based on miles traveled as a principal revenue source.

Priced managed lanes are an embryonic version of mileage-based pricing—a logical first step to an inevitable conclusion. The evolution is underway. In Los Angeles, LA Metro converted high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on sections of the 10 and 110 freeways, collecting a fee from non-exempt vehicles for the privilege of using the faster lane.

Other HOV lanes have been converted to HOT lanes in Atlanta, southeast Florida, northern Virginia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle and Houston.

Priced managed lanes are here to stay because there’s a direct correlation between the mechanism and the desired outcome: they improve overall mobility and help manage congestion at peak times. They generate revenue and help pay for road maintenance and reduce capital costs by maximising the use of the existing infrastructure and reducing the need to build more.

It’s a simple case of optimising lane utilisation and selling the spare capacity to drivers willing to pay for convenience and reliability.

The need for a sustainable funding source is ‘the elephant in the room’. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nation’s roads a ‘D’ grade and the economic impact is staggering. It is estimated that the annual cost of substandard infrastructure to the economy will be $210billion by 2020 and $520billion by 2040. The impact on individuals is sobering. For example, Californians pay on average $762 a year in vehicle repairs and operating costs due to poorly maintained roads.

An indispensable utility we all use multiple times every day deserves our full attention but has been marginalised over the years.

The Congressional Budget Office says public transportation spending has declined as a proportion of GDP since 1959. When infrastructure is neglected the impact is felt in a myriad of ways such as increased vehicle damage and operating costs and longer journey times. In addition the cost of repairing deteriorating facilities is higher than maintaining them in good condition and congestion is exacerbated by outdated design

[ Zoom ]
People rather higher taxes than road user fees
While most people would opt for higher taxes than road user fees. they disagree on which tax should be increased.

Historical Perspective

The need to relieve traffic congestion led to the creation of the first managed lanes in the 1970s when a bus strike in Los Angeles led officials to open the El Monte Busway to carpools. In suburban Virginia, carpools were allowed on a busway when gas prices became unbearable.

The history of the federal gas tax has been chequered as it was enacted in 1932 but did not actually fund roads until 1956 with the growth of the interstate highway system. It has not increased since 1993, hasn’t kept up with inflation for decades and much of the revenue is diverted to unrelated government programs and debt servicing.

A University of Minnesota study cites a number of deficiencies of the gas tax, including not accounting for inflation or rising fuel efficiency, and not paying for the full cost of building and maintaining local roads or addressing congestion.

With more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles on the road not only is less tax being collected, it has also invoked criticism that it’s unfair to owners of older vehicles and a burden on lower income drivers. Similar complaints have been raised about the inequity of using general revenue sources that spread the cost of maintaining roads across non-users as well as users. There are also viable arguments against a transition to mileage-based pricing, so the concerns of multiple stakeholders must be addressed.

Trial and Acceptance

A viable, long-term solution may be on the horizon in the form of mileage-based pricing. Several states are conducting pilot programmes and the federal government will soon award grants to more states to run their own tests. The Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives programme, part of the FAST Act, has allocated grants totalling $95million in 50/50 federal matching funds over five years to states wishing to participate.

Oregon is piloting a mileage based pricing program called OreGo and California will launch a similar pilot programme this year. This makes perfect sense in states with shrinking gas tax revenue due to brisk sales of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Other states - such as Washington and Colorado - will be conducting similar pilot programs, which should offer key learnings for policy makers and transportation leaders. Right now, there’s no established right way. For example, the University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies has floated a two-pronged approach of ‘a mileage-based user fee to recover the fixed costs of transportation services and time-based user fee to pay for the additional capacity needed in peak times.’

In practice mileage-based pricing must start with a groundswell of local successes and develop into a national programme. The federal government will monitor state pilot programmes and should do what it can to enable those programmes to flourish, resulting in a transformation to a singular, national funding mechanism—or at least a multi-state mechanism that effectively replaces the gas tax and maintain the Highway Trust Fund’s long-term solvency.

Addressing the Critics

As with any sweeping policy change there will be trade-offs, and it’s imperative to enter this period with eyes wide open. The University of Minnesota estimates if user fees pay for the full social cost of travel then drivers would experience a four-fold increase in the direct user-paid costs of roads. However, the gains could outweigh the cost in the form of lower taxes as well as reduced healthcare and insurance costs and time lost due to congestion. The study says further impacts include reduced demand for travel, increased off-peak demand, shorter trips, denser development, more delivery shopping and telecommuting and more widespread use of alternative modes such as biking, walking and public transit.

There is already ample evidence that collecting fees from drivers demanding swifter travel is successful, but priced managed lanes have also taught that it takes political will and sponsorship, consistent communication and public acceptance to succeed. Notably, the argument that it’s unfair to lower incomes has credence. Asha Weinstein Agrawal of San Jose State University has detected trepidation among rural and low-income drivers who have to drive long distances. They could pay more than they do now at the pump and might have difficulty budgeting for a monthly highway-use payment.

[ Zoom ]
Younger generations are more supportive of price managed lanes.
Younger generations are more supportive of price managed lanes.

 There’s also the argument that eliminating the gas tax reduces the incentive to buy fuel-efficient cars and there are privacy concerns when it comes to data collection. California has addressed the privacy issue in its pilot program by offering participants a choice of how they report mileage - from paper diaries to in-car GPS systems.

Future Generations

This issue is as much behavioural as it is economic - if not more. Investing in and maintaining the nation’s infrastructure in a sustainable way requires not only accepting rapidly changing social trends but also a comprehensive assessment of public opinion.

A new America THINKS survey by HNTB reveals that 65% of Americans support road-usage fee options such as mileage-based user fees to help fund transportation costs. That’s a 15% increase in just two years, due largely to local governments rolling out tangible projects and more people experiencing them. Anyone who gets to a meeting on time or makes their flight thanks to a priced managed lane is more amenable to mileage-based pricing. Perhaps the most telling statistic is nearly four in five Americans (77%) aged between 18 and 24 are likely to support user fees, versus 63% of older Americans. This is the demographic of the future, the people who will be driving on the roads for decades to come.

Older Americans have a history with the interstate highway system and an expectation of free roads - a conviction not found in younger generations. Baby Boomers have a love affair with the automobile and the freedom it confers while Millennials are less romantic about transportation. They see trip making as using their smartphone. For them, technology is transportation; the smartphone gets them to their destination - whether it’s summoning an Uber or purchasing a train fare.

The case for mileage-based pricing is further validated by the inception of connected vehicle technology. The car of the future will operate itself while generating data on miles travelled and where travelled, making it easy and seamless to monitor usage and collect the fee. The connected vehicle will also help solve the ever-growing congestion problem in urban areas. Infrastructure will be able to accommodate more vehicles, thereby reducing or eliminating the need to build on to roadways.

Projects to date have provided lessons and offered some guiding principles for transportation officials, policymakers and engineers:

  • Understand the community, project history, context and purpose
  • Define success broadly; this is a programme not just a project
  • Don’t under or overestimate the project benefits
  • Focus on operations and consider the entire corridor
  • The public’s willingness to pay may come as a surprise

But perhaps the biggest key to success is communication and never letting progress on the ground outpace the message. This means conducting outreach before, during and after construction because how an authority responds can build, or destroy, credibility. This is not a traditional type of project so people may not know what to expect.

A sea change in infrastructure funding starts with strategic visioning and leadership, followed by stakeholder engagement, advocacy and careful economic calculation. The seeds are only now being planted and it may take years to achieve a nationwide system of mileage-based pricing, but any historic pursuit of sweeping proportions is worth it.

  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Matthew Click is vice president and national director of priced managed lanes at HNTB Corporation. He has more than 20 years’ experience of tolling, transportation policy and finance, including priced managed lanes, traffic and revenue forecasting, congestion pricing/road pricing and public-private partnerships. Over that time he has worked on road pricing, priced managed lane and tolling projects in more than 12 states for both the public and private sector.

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Live updates

Hundreds march in bid to save specialist heart unit

Families from our region whose children have benefited from surgery at a specialist heart unit in the Midlands joined hundreds of people on a march this afternoon in a bid to save it from closure.

Credit: ITV Yorkshire

NHS bosses want to axe the childrens' heart unit at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester because they say not enough operations are carried out there.

Patients could be sent to Leeds instead. But parents argue lives could be lost if the move goes ahead.

Thousands gather to pay respects to the last King of the House of York

The last King of the House of York , Richard the Third, is to be re-buried this week in Leicester Cathedral 530 years after he died in battle.

Yesterday a coffin carrying his remains was carried through the city - today thousands queued for a glimpse of the casket which will be lowered into a tomb made from Swaledale stone on Thursday.

A legal challenge for the remains to be brought to York Minster was defeated in a modern-day battle in the courts. Lisa Walton reports

Leeds man among eight in court over fatal arson attack

An innocent family perished in a petrol-fuelled blaze at their home when it was mistakenly targeted in a revenge attack following the fatal stabbing of a fitness coach, a court has heard.

Bilal and Jamal Taufiq

Shehnila Taufiq, 47, her 19-year-old daughter Zainab, and sons Bilal, 17, and Jamal, 15, all died when the fire engulfed their terraced house in Wood Hill, Leicester, in the early hours of September 13 last year.

Aaron Jeffers who is 21 and from Carr Mills, Buslingthorpe, Leeds and Kemo Porter, 19, Tristan Richards, 22, Nathaniel Mullings, 19, Shaun Carter, 24, Jackson Powell, 20, Aaron Webb, 20, and a 17-year-old youth who cannot be named for legal reasons, each deny murdering the family.

Opening the Crown's case against the eight defendants in their trial at Nottingham Crown Court today, prosecutor Richard Latham QC told the jury the fire was a "retribution process" for the fatal stabbing of their friend, Antoin Akpom, hours earlier.

Mr Latham told the jury the Taufiq family had no connection to the incident involving Mr Akpom or the eight defendants.

The court heard that Mr Akpom had been stabbed in the back in a "confrontation" involving two 19-year-olds, Hussain Hussain and Abdul Hakim, at around 5.30pm on September 12, less than a mile away in Kent Street. He was pronounced dead in hospital at 7pm.

Hussain was jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years for Mr Akpom's murder following a trial at Stafford Crown Court earlier this month.

The jury was told that Hakim's mother lived two doors down from the arson attack on the Taufiq family home.

  1. Central

Did Richard III undergo painful treatment for spine?

Portrait of King Richard III Credit: University of Leicester

King Richard the Third, whose bones were discovered in a car park in Leicester, could have undergone painful medical treatments for his spinal curvature, according to research from a University of Leicester researcher.

In the late medieval period, one of the cures for spinal curvature, or scoliosis, was "traction". Traction worked on the same principle on which “the Rack” worked as an instrument of torture.

The patient would be tied under the armpits and round the legs. The ropes were then pulled at either end, often on a wooden roller, to stretch the patient’s spine.

Richard III would certainly have been able to afford this expensive medical care – and his physicians would have been well aware of the standard “traction” methods for treating the condition.

  1. Central

Midlands hospitals ready to take on patients from Leeds

Surgeons in theatre Credit: PA

Birmingham Children's Hospital and Glenfield Hospital in Leicester say they are ready to take on patients from Leeds General Infirmary.

Children's congenital heart surgery service has been suspended at the Yorkshire hospital whilst an internal review is carried out by the Care Quality Commission.

It's after data suggested a death rate twice the national average.

Giles Peak is the Head of Children's Heart Surgery at Glenfield Hospital. He has confirmed to ITV News Central that the hospital is ready to take on patients that need surgery.

He is awaiting a decision to be made in Leeds as to where the patients need to go.

A spokesperson for Birmingham Children's Hospital said they were also ready to take on patients in urgent cases, should the need arise.

For more on this read ITV News.

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The face of Richard III officially unveiled to the world's media

After centuries of speculation, the face of King Richard III has been unveiled

A reconstruction of the head of King Richard III has been unveiled to the world's media in London following yesterday's announcement that his skeleton had been found under a Leicester car park.

The model was built using a CT scan taken of the king's skull by the archaeological dig.

The unveiling is being held at The Society of Antiquaries in London.

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Richard III Twitter jokes

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IBM Watson cooks up some new dishes

Using Watson Chef, master cooks have created a tasty Vietnamese apple kabob and other novel dishes

When not busy helping to find new treatments for cancer, IBM Watson is helping to cook up a few new dishes as well.

To show off Watson's powers, IBM is training its cognitive computing system to suggest new combinations of ingredients that could help cooks to create new, and sometimes quite delicious, recipes. It does so by analyzing the chemical compounds in each ingredient.

IBM joined Bon Appétit magazine to create a Web application called Chef Watson, now in beta, that offers lists of ingredients that can be used to create recipes. Bon Appétit is also working up a cookbook of the best Watson-based creations submitted by users.

IBM focused Watson on the culinary world to "help the public understand what these new types of technologies are capable of doing," said Mike Rhodin, IBM senior vice president in the Watson Group, at an event Thursday to promote a new cloud service, called Watson Discovery Advisor. That service can help researchers in any field find fresh connections within vast realms of data.

"Much the same way Jeopardy helped people understand that cognitive systems could understand questions using natural language, Chef Watson helps us understand how these new systems can be used in our everyday lives," Rhodin said.

Tuning Watson to the culinary arts has proved to be a success story for IBM.

Watson "starts building an understanding of what ingredients and compounds work well together, and it then extrapolates and looks for new patterns," Steve Gold, IBM vice president for the Watson platform, said in an interview. "Turns out, Watson is really good at coming up with combinations of ingredients that have never been tried before."

In February, IBM set up a food truck at the SXSW interactive arts conference to show off some Watson-inspired recipes. It drew long lines of hungry attendees.

IBM Research first developed Watson to compete with human contestants on the Jeopardy game show in 2011, using natural language processing and analytics, as well as many sources of structured and unstructured data, to answer the shows questions.

In the years since, the company has been working to commercialize the Watson technology, identifying industries that could benefit from cognitive computing, such as health care, law enforcement and finance.

To help its researchers better understand the culinary arts, IBM paired with the Institute of Culinary Education in New York.

"Working with the system has augmented our creativity as chefs. It changes the whole way we approach our craft in the kitchen," said James Briscione, director of culinary development at the Institute of Culinary Education, speaking at Thursday's event.

Tasteful combinations of ingredients are at the core of good cooking. Some combinations have long been known: A nice piece of fish can be accentuated with some lemon, butter and herbs.

In the culinary arts, chefs often deploy "known combinations" of ingredients and foods, Briscione said. But they're are always looking for new combinations, too, scanning cookbooks and magazines and travelling to exotic locations to taste local foods.

"The challenge in our world is to move to the next step," Briscione said. "We want to push forward and try to find new ways of putting things together."

In the past few years, a trend has been to combine ingredients with complementary aromatic properties, the chemical compounds that produce the flavors people experience.

For example, caviar and white chocolate go really well together, even though one is salty and the other is sweet, because those two ingredients share a lot of aromatic compounds. Tomatoes, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese share common compounds, making pizza a naturally delicious dish.

Watson puts this new wave of experimentation in overdrive, offering cooks lists of ingredients that may go well together by way of their aromatic properties. The chef can then look for ways to combine the ingredients in novel ways.

Because Watson is a learning machine, it's producing better recipes now than it was at the start of the project 18 months ago, Rhodin said.

"It was a little challenging to work with at first, and now it is making really innovative, incredible and exciting food," Briscione agreed.

For example, working with Watson, the Institute of Culinary Education came up with a Portuguese-inspired lobster roll with saffron, green olives, basil, and shreds of crispy pork. "I never would have set out to put [these ingredients] in a lobster roll," Briscione said. Yet the combination proved to be quite tasty.

Mixed drinks are also game for Watson. For SXSW, the chefs came up with a bourbon cocktail with vanilla, bananas and turmeric. Again, these are not ingredients that have historically been combined, but the Watson matching proved to be "an amazing combination," Briscione said.

Watson-inspired dishes can span different cultures and regions. Another dish the culinary school created was the Vietnamese Apple Kabob, consisting of pineapple, pork, chicken, mushrooms, and strawberries, which all share similar flavor compounds.

"We try to put together combinations of regions and ingredients that make no sense, and we try to make sense out of them," Briscione said.

In much the same way it is helping in cancer research, Watson is proving to be quite the time-saver, suggesting approaches that would take humans too much work to arrive at otherwise.

"Coming upon this information on your own, you'd be locked away for months at a time, digging through chemical analyses and trying to line up all the ingredients, and you still may never get there," Briscione said.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is

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Wall Street Beat: As earnings season begins, tech looks stable

Confidence in technology, especially software, appears to remain strong

With companies including Oracle, Tibco and Adobe issuing quarterly financial statements this week, earnings season is under way and despite mixed reports on the economy, confidence in tech appears to be stable.

Stocks on the Nasdaq Computer index rose in aggregate by Friday, closing out the week at 1724.13, about 12 points higher than last week's close. As has been the case for most of the year, software remains a bright spot.

Oracle, which traditionally kicks off the earnings season for tech, on Thursday said that new software license sales and cloud subscription revenue rose 5 percent year over year for the three-month period ending Aug. 31. This helped the company's profit rise by 11 percent to US$2 billion. Overall sales, however, dropped 2 percent to $8.2 billion. Hardware sales were a culprit, declining by 24 percent to $779 million in the quarter.

Canaccord Genuity technology analyst Richard Davis called Oracle's performance "a solid but unexceptional quarter." Oracle shares, meanwhile, ticked up by $0.21 to close at $32.41 Friday.

Middleware vendor Tibco on Thursday reported a solid quarter, with revenue for the three months ending September totaling $255 million and net income rising to $26.1 million. This compares to revenue of $229 million and net income of $23.5 million for the year-earlier period. Tibco shares Friday rose by $0.47 to close at $30.33.

Tibco sales are being fueled to a large degree by efforts on the part of enterprises to do real-time analysis of "big data," not only from customer data generated via mobile devices but also information transmitted via machines such as point-of-sale devices, said Tibco CEO Vivek Ranadivé in an interview.

"We continue to see what I believe to be early signs of growing dollar commitments to our platform," Ranadivé said. Customers who were buying pieces of Tibco's real-time analysis software are now moving toward fitting those products together into systems that offer actionable information, he said. "If you're in a retail store looking for medium-size blue jeans and can't find them, the store should be able to look at its inventory system and suggest another store location where you can find something similar," he noted.

Meanwhile, digital publishing software maker Adobe on Wednesday reported sales and income that edged out year-earlier results. Sales for the three months ending Aug. 31 came in at $1.08 billion, up from $1.03 billion for the year-earlier period. Net income was $201 million compared to $195 million one year earlier.

"Customers globally are adopting our new Creative Cloud subscription offering more quickly than we projected," said Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in a statement.

Small-business financial software vendor Intuit earlier in the week reiterated guidance for growth for the company's current fiscal year, which ends next July. At an investor meeting Tuesday, the company said sales for the fiscal year would increase by 10 percent to 12 percent, totaling $4.55 billion to $4.65 billion. The company forecasts operating-income growth of 12 percent to 14 percent, amounting to $1.315 billion to $1.345 billion.

Reports from software makers have helped keep up investor confidence in tech stocks despite continued uncertainty in the economy. For example, a U.S. Department of Labor report Thursday showed that the four-week average for jobless benefits rose for the fifth consecutive week. However, computer stocks on the Nasdaq are 25 percent higher than they were at the beginning of the year, higher than any other major component of the exchange.

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Microsoft, Googler tussle over bug timeline

Spar over Google security engineer's 'fuzzer' release, IE vulnerability

Microsoft and a Google security engineer are sparring over a bug the researcher reported to Microsoft last July.

On Saturday, Michal Zalewski, a vulnerability researcher who works on Google's security team, publicly released a new "fuzzing" tool called "cross_fuzz" that he had used to find more than 100 bugs in the five major browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE), Opera and Safari. He also published a crash dump of one of the IE bugs he believed could be exploited.

Zalewski said he released cross_fuzzer and the crash dump because Chinese hackers were already investigating the vulnerability, and because Microsoft had not responded for months to his bug report. To support his decision, Zalewski published a timeline of his discussions with Microsoft about the fuzzing tool and the IE bug.

He first contacted Microsoft last July, when he told the company's security team he had found "multiple crashes and GDI [graphics device interface] corruptions," and provided Microsoft with two early versions of cross_fuzz for them to use to verify the problems.

According to Zalewski, he had no contact with Microsoft between Aug. 5 and Dec. 20, when he told them he would release the fuzzer in early January. When Microsoft asked that he delay its release, he declined.

On Monday, Microsoft chastised Zalewski.

"Working with software vendors to address potential vulnerabilities in their products before details are made public reduces the overall risk to customers," said Jerry Bryant, a spokesman for the Microsoft Security Research Center, or MSRC, in an e-mail late Monday. "In this case, risk has now been amplified."

Bryant also disputed Zalewski's contention that the July versions of cross_fuzz had not found an exploitable bug in IE, but that only a later edition, which Zalewski sent Dec. 21, identified the problem.

"In July 2010, Zalewski reported two versions of the cross_fuzz tool to Microsoft," Bryant said. "Neither Zalewski or Microsoft found any vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer at the time, with either version of the tool."

On Tuesday, Zalewski responded.

"The current PR messaging from Microsoft implies that substantial differences existed between July and December fuzzer variants, and that the July 29 [fuzzer] could not reproduce the vulnerability," Zalewski said in an update to his timeline.

"This is inconsistent with my record [of events]," he added.

By Zalewski's account, the MRSC admitted on Dec. 29 that when it reran the July versions, it did find the flaw. In the timeline, Zalewski quoted a message he said came from Microsoft.

"The IE team did exhaustively run the fuzzers but were unable to find the same crashes that you and Dave [of Microsoft] are now able to identify," the message stated. "I can't really say as to why we are able to hit some of these conditions now rather than before but please know that this was not intentional."

By comparison, Mozilla kept Zalewski in the loop as it worked on the Firefox bugs he reported.

The pertinent thread on Bugzilla, Mozilla's bug and code change database, includes 44 messages between Zalewski and Mozilla developers from July 23 to Jan 1. Zalewski provided several crash dumps to illustrate vulnerabilities his fuzzer had uncovered, and Mozilla's engineers posed questions.

Zalewski asked Mozilla to keep the Bugzilla thread under wraps until other browser makers had had a chance to patch their products' bugs.

"[For what it's worth], the blurb does not make you look bad in comparison," he told Mozilla on Dec. 29, referring to the patch status summary he intended to publish in a few days. "Microsoft will probably come off poorly, all other browsers are roughly in the same shape."

Microsoft and security researchers regularly skirmish as the former pushes what it calls "coordinated vulnerability disclosure" (CVD) -- a term it coined last summer -- while the latter often complain that the company drags its feet before patching flaws they report.

Under Microsoft's definition of CVD, it wants researchers to stay quiet until a patch is released.

When it announced CVD, it acknowledged the new nomenclature was essentially just a name change from "responsible disclosure," the policy it had supported for years, but the company also emphasized it wanted to keep open the lines of communication between itself and researchers, even when the latter broadcasted their findings without reporting a bug or waiting on a patch.

Microsoft and Google also have a history when it comes to reporting bugs.

Last summer, Google security engineer Tavis Ormandy released exploit code for a bug in Windows' Help and Support Center after he said Microsoft refused to set a patch deadline. In September, Chris Evans , another Google security researcher, published attack code for an IE vulnerability after he said he had not been able to persuade Microsoft to fix the flaw.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is .

Read more about malware and vulnerabilities in Computerworld's Malware and Vulnerabilities Topic Center.

This story, "Microsoft, Googler tussle over bug timeline" was originally published by Computerworld.

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Poster

I saw you looking up from sweeping the floor and reading the notice board with the poster about someone winning a holiday for being the hardest working person in the company. I saw you sigh and walk away. I saw the poster was lying.

1 comment:

Amalia Grey said...

This breaks my heart.