Methven Limited was awarded the Supreme Award at the 2016 New Zealand Plastics Industry Design Awards Gala Dinner for their Aurajet AIO Twin Shower System. Methven have reinvented showering with new and innovative concepts to form and control water droplets and spray. These provide a highly efficient, luxurious showering experience from a uniquely styled halo shaped showerhead.
The judging comments highlighted that this New Zealand development is based upon comprehensive market research and features considerable design originality. A range of plastics materials have been employed to meet specific part requirements. Tooling and production are complex and have followed classic concept and prototype development processes. Commercial performance has been impressive.
The Design Awards are presented and hosted by Plastics New Zealand. The Special Guest at this hugely enjoyable Gala event was Sir Ray Avery with MC Paul Ego entertaining guests throughout the evening.
Ten Gold medals were presented in various Award categories. “This year entries were again of an extremely high standard highlighting the plastic industry’s innovative design, development and manufacturing capabilities Plastic New Zealand Business Manager” Ken Sowman said.
For more information, and to reach a full list of award winners, visit www.plastics.org.nz
From an act of thuggery and violence (one at the upper end of the scale) once again a no-consequence scenario has come out of the court system for the perpetrator. Just a slap on the hand with a wet flannel. Add to this a report in today's news that he gladly told one of his victims that he had won the case!
Well the reality is 'you ain't won nothing' - in fact with the assistance of the judge this person has done the rugby fraternity in Wellington a lot of damage. One wonders if the judge would have come to the same conclusion if the offender in front of him had been say, a plumber or, maybe an artist - I wonder.
There is also a rather worrying theme that has been evident in recent times where the judge at the time of sentancing has made comment to the importance of saving the country money'.
And as for the victims, once again a perpetrator can bask in the glory of his thuggery being reported through the wider media while the victims have to get on, in the back ground, with living a very different life to what they once enjoyed.
So where is the third umpire in all of this? As flippant as this may sound a reality check needs putting place, as it happens (with a re-run if necessary) not some months later. Also there appears to be a section of the legal fraternity whose decisions are based on possibilities, along with the offenders perceived position in society, not the reality of life.
Ed.
Should make for an interesting election in Upper Hutt this year . . .
Management School Techniques are camouflaged under exhibitionist Barbarity
The common sense in merging New Zealand’s dual main national security agencies, Communications and the Security Intelligence Service has been more than proved during the intervening months. The reason is that the terror problem since then has been clearly demonstrated to be more unstructured than anyone, notably security specialists, had dared to believe.
The burden of evidence now points to individuals being under the direction of a corporate style client-management process with the manager-controller issuing instructions via the messaging services, writes our European Correspondent.
The client management process in which terror perpetrators are assigned one single controller with overriding access to their ground force is straight out of management schools. This is hardly surprising bearing in mind that so many members of the terror directorate attended Western management schools.
These controllers acquire their asset, the ground force inside the country to be attacked, via another long proven consumer sales technique, that of combing through respondents to their advertising, which in their case takes an ideological form on the internet.
All this is shrouded by distorting techniques chief of which is their deliberately high profile exhibitionist barbarity. The underlying strategic purpose here is to sow fear and uncertainty among their opponents, especially their fellow Arabs.
These displays have permitted terror outfits to defeat in the field much larger and better equipped government forces whose members with the current and vividly portrayed level of barbarity in mind have simply cut and run.
Similarly their gruesome displays conveniently camouflage their business school approach which, for examples, relies on corporate-style marketing divisions that include music studios for the formulation of jihadi-jingles, and on line publishing operations. This vertical integration and divisional control remains slickly disguised under the barbarian camouflage which Westerners interpret as an exhibition of ignorance.
The terror outfits know that for so many in the West ignorance is bliss. That accordingly awareness is low if it exists at all of these advertising and marketing support operations in the form of media centres, which in turn are supported by language units, and video distribution logistics nodes .
Faith in profiling was another Western security misconception that the terror controllers took every advantage of.
Operationally, the ground asset, the individual would be instructed to purge themselves of their profile model. The assassin-to -be would be instructed to embark upon, for example, a serious and visible round of clubbing and boozing to wash away their pious aura. This consistently threw security agencies off their track.
Similarly with the most pervasive of all which is the all young male stereotype. Females up to middle age are now demonstrably proven to become lethally fanaticised.
The poverty criterion is the hardest Western stereotype to wash away. It remains a component. But only a component. This remains the most indelible of profile-type stereotypes. It survived 9/11 in which all the operatives came from rich backgrounds of the type that enabled them in the first place to live and travel and in some luxury in the United States.
In the management school approach of the terror movement has been the perception and understanding of these levels of vulnerability.
Notably here is the great applied philosophical drift over the last 50 years in the West broadly known as multiculturalism in which those of differing ways of life and beliefs and from other countries have been encouraged in their manifest diversity, even if it became threatening.
It was this doctrinal belief that for example fatally stalled the reaction of the socialist French government mired down as it was, and to some extent still is, by its immense leftward wing which gave and still gives the appearance of giving more priority to doctrine than to national security.
It is this constant and unseen probing of the West’s weak points in the form of its stereotypes, misconceptions and pre-conceptions that poses the greatest threat to a country such as New Zealand.
New Zealand’s “it can’t happen here” attitude will have been carefully noted. By someone. Somewhere.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - Tuesday 27 September 2016
The early ramifications of the insolvency of Hanjin Shipping, which entered Korean administration on 31 August, have been startling, but in some ways unsurprising given Hanjin’s position as the world’s seventh largest container line operator.
Against the uncertainty is the consequence that goods are now being seriously delayed in getting to market, a “double whammy” result of ships having to stand off ports for fear of arrest (or ports refusing entry), and port operators detaining boxes as security for Hanjin debts. Accordingly the cargo supply chain has had to consider exposures and remedies opposite other parties in the logistics chain, or via insurance.
Detention of containers by ports
Unpaid port and container dues has led to some port terminals refusing to release Hanjin boxes. The right or otherwise of ports to refuse release of . . .
Encouraging suppliers to buy into “Heathrow as a way forward” keeps them engaged and primed while waiting for a decision on the third runway, the airport’s head of procurement has said.
“We get the supply chain on board and they become part of the team to get this over the line. And as a result of this being successful, it then unlocks their contracts for their real work to begin.” said Ian Ballentine.
He said his message to suppliers was: “You can either sit on the fence and wait for it... or you can work with us as a collaborative partner and help us achieve it.”
The government is expected to make the long delayed decision on airport expansion this autumn.
Ballentine, who is speaking at this year’s CIPS Annual Conference, said he achieves buy-in by involving suppliers early on in the “optioneering” process. Suppliers “bring skills we don’t have today that help . . .
Professor Neil Quigley has been elected Chair of the Reserve Bank's Board of Directors, replacing Dr Rod Carr. Ms Kerrin Vautier has been appointed as Deputy Chair.
Reserve Bank Directors are appointed by the Minister of Finance for five-year renewable terms, and they elect their Chair from among their numbers for one-year terms. The Chair appoints a Deputy Chair for a one-year term.
Dr Carr said that he had advised the Board some months ago that he would not be seeking a further term as a Director of the Reserve Bank when his present term ends in July 2017. In light of that decision he had decided to step down as Chair.
Professor Quigley’s term as Chair is effective from 23 September 2016. Professor Quigley is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waikato, and has previously held roles as a Professor of Economics and senior manager at Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Western Ontario in Canada. He was first appointed to the Reserve Bank Board in 2010. He is also a Director of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA).
Ms Vautier’s term is effective from 26 September 2016. Ms Vautier is a consulting research economist and a Lay Member of the High Court (under the Commerce Act). She was first appointed to the Reserve Bank Board in 2010.
When Dr Carr’s term ends as a Director, this will end a 10-year relationship with the Bank. Between July 1998 and July 2003, he was Deputy Governor and then Acting Governor of the Bank. In these positions he also served as a Director of the Bank until September 2002, since when Deputy Governors have no longer been Directors of the Bank. Dr Carr was appointed to the Board in 2012, and was first appointed Chair in September 2013.
Governor Graeme Wheeler paid tribute to Dr Carr’s contribution. “Rod has provided over a decade of invaluable service to the Bank, spanning key management and governance roles. He has been an outstanding Chairman and the Bank has benefited greatly from his intellectual rigour and sound advice and judgment.”
The Board's primary function is to monitor the performance of the Governor and the Bank on behalf of the Minister of Finance. It has the responsibility of assessing whether the quarterly Monetary Policy Statements are consistent with the Policy Targets Agreement between the Minister and the Bank, and it monitors the Bank's six-monthly Financial Stability Reports.
In a world first experiment using non-invasive technology, researchers out of the University of Washington have set up a working brain-to-brain interface that allows one participant to identify what is in the mind of another.
Using a game of question and answer, participants are able to transmit signals over the Internet using only their minds.
Lead author, Assistant Professor Andrea Stocco, said “This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I think, that’s been done to date in humans. It uses conscious experiences through signals that are experienced visually, and it requires two people to collaborate.”
The experiment uses caps connected to electroencephalography (EEG) machines, allowing for the detection of electrical activity in the brain. Participant A, the ‘respondent’, looks at an object on their computer screen while the ‘inquirer’, participant B’s, screen lists potential . . .
The majority of manufacturers have yet to implement an IoT strategy in their operations—here’s a guide to help in that quest.Sep 23, 2016 Beth Parkinson, Rockwell Automation | Machine Design
Numerous initiatives have been put into motion around the world to fundamentally transform manufacturing as we know it. Though the initiatives go by different names—from the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition and Industrie 4.0 in the West, to Made in China 2025 and Manufacturing Innovation 3.0 in the East—they share a common pursuit: smart manufacturing.
This global push for smart manufacturing is underway for good reason. By providing greater connectivity across a manufacturing enterprise and the ability to act on production intelligence, smart manufacturing offers nearly unlimited opportunities for manufacturers to improve their operations, create new value, and respond to challenges such as the skilled-labor shortage. Rockwell Automation approaches smart manufacturing via the Connected Enterprise, which is an infrastructure for Internet of Things (IoT) connected systems.
For example, manufacturers use embedded machinery intelligence to predict equipment failures and improve productivity. By using remote-access capabilities to . . .
Tetra Pak have released a new 100% juice index report which states that the market should return to growth despite global economic slowdown and the recent debate around sugar.
According to the company, the combination of emerging growth hotspots and slowing decline in established markets is stabilising 100% juice and bringing it back to growth going forward to 2018.
Insights from the report show that 100% juice remains a significant part of the average consumer diet, with more than 40% of people drinking it every day.
Furthermore, consumers say that they are willing to pay a premium for juices that they associate with healthy choices.
Tsukuba, Japan - Gas turbines are the engines that generate electricity in power plants. The operating temperatures of their combustion systems can exceed 1600 degrees Celsius. The nickel-based turbine blades used in these systems melt at temperatures 200 degrees Celsius lower and thus require air-cooling to function. Turbine blades made out of materials with higher melting temperatures would require less fuel consumption and lead to lower CO2 emissions.
Materials scientists at Japan's Kyoto University investigated the properties of various compositions of molybdenum silicides, with and without additional ternary elements.
Previous research showed that fabricating molybdenum silicide-based composites by pressing and heating their powders - known as powder metallurgy - improved their resistance to fracturing at ambient temperatures but lowered their high-temperature strength, due to the development of silicon dioxide layers within the material.
The Kyoto University team fabricated their molybdenum silicide-based materials using a method known as "directional solidification," in which molten metal progressively solidifies in a certain direction.
The team found that a homogeneous material could be formed by controlling the solidification rate of the molybdenum silicide-based composite during fabrication and by adjusting the amount of the ternary element added to the composite.
The resulting material starts deforming plastically under uniaxial compression above 1000 degrees Celsius. Also, the material's high-temperature strength increases through microstructure refinement. Adding tantalum to the composite is more effective than adding vanadium, niobium or tungsten for improving the strength of the material at temperatures around 1400 degrees Celsius. The alloys fabricated by the Kyoto University team are much stronger at high temperatures than modern nickel-based superalloys as well as recently developed ultrahigh-temperature structural materials, the researchers report in their study published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.
For further information please contact:Hirotaka Matsunoshita, Yuta Sasai, Kosuke Fujiwara, Kyosuke Kishida and Haruyuki Inui*: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan, Hirotaka Matsunoshita, Kyosuke Kishida and Haruyuki Inui are also at the Center for Elements Strategy Initiative for Structural Materials (ESISM), Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.*E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Article information:"Plastic deformation of directionally-solidified ingots of binary and some ternary MoSi2/Mo5Si3 eutectic composites", Hirotaka Matsunoshita, Yuta Sasai, Kosuke Fujiwara, Kyosuke Kishida and Haruyuki Inui: Science and Technology of Advanced Materials Vol. 17 (2016) p.1218248.Accepted author version posted online: 28 Jul 2016,http://tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14686996.2016.1218248Published online: 23 Sep 2016, http://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14686996.2016.1218248
Journal Information:Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM) is the leading open access, international journal for outstanding research articles across all aspects of materials science. Our audience is the international materials community across the disciplines of materials science, physics, chemistry, biology as well as engineering.
The journal covers a broad spectrum of materials science research including functional materials, synthesis and processing, theoretical analyses, characterization and properties of materials. Emphasis is placed on the interdisciplinary nature of materials science and issues at the forefront of the field, such as energy and environmental issues, as well as medical and bioengineering applications.http://tandfonline.com/loi/tsta20/current.
For more information about the journal:Mikiko TanifujiPublishing Director,Science and Technology of Advanced MaterialsEmail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Press release distributed by ResearchSEA for Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242