Nov 23, 2017 - The Packaging Council of New Zealand is launching a new annual Scholarship program, in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), that will enable one packaging technologist, designer or engineer in New Zealand the opportunity to complete a Diploma in Packaging Technology to the value of $9,000.
“The association is extremely proud to be able to offer the scholarship to a New Zealand packaging professional each year,” commented Harry Burkhardt, President of the Packaging Council of New Zealand.
“The packaging industry is dynamic and diverse, offering career opportunities across a wide scope of disciplines. PAC.NZ has been representing businesses in the packaging industry in New Zealand since 1992 and recognises that investment in the packaging industry starts with investment in its people. We strongly encourage everyone in the industry to apply for this scholarship.
“The Diploma in Packaging Technology is a Level 5 qualification which is internationally recognised for those wishing to pursue a career in the packaging industry or for those who are already in the industry and who wish to extend their knowledge and expertise. The Diploma in Packaging Technology prepares students to take responsibility for packaging operations at any level through the supply chain. The qualification is comprehensive, and provides an opportunity to study the principles of packaging, packaging materials and packaging processes.”
Diploma in Packaging Technology students come from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines, and are typically experienced practitioners or managers in technical, sales/marketing, QA, purchasing, engineering or design.
Completion of the Diploma in Packaging Technology demonstrates a commitment to your career and to the industry. Delegates who successfully complete the Diploma are equipping themselves for senior positions within the packaging industry.
Entries are now open with submissions closing on the 23rd of February 2018. The winner of the inaugural Packaging Council of New Zealand Scholarship will be announced at the 2018 Packaging & Processing Innovation & Design Awards; which will be held alongside of the prestigious international WorldStar Packaging Awards on 2 May.
| A NZ Packaging Council release || November 23, 2017 |||
Nov 23, 2017 - Ara Institute of Canterbury Certificate in Creativity students are turning their art into environmental action. Tomorrow on Friday 24 November, they will wheel their concerns about plastics affecting our environment to the Christchurch City Council, and to Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalzell.
For the past six weeks the students have been working on a group project, incorporating donated shopping trolleys, recycled plastic and plastic bags into three magnificent sculptures that represent their concerns for the planet’s future. Tutor, Henry Sunderland has overseen the creative process. “The students have done research on plastics around the world and how it’s clogging up the ocean. They’re really concerned, and they want to do something.”
At 11.15am tomorrow, they will present their creations to the Mayor, the Christchurch Wizard, and other community leaders, at the CCC building on Hereford Street.
Henry said there has been an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the sculptures on social media. “Is it a protest? I don’t know. I think it’s more about awareness, and the recognition that we’re dealing with a real situation. It’s about communication, and how do we get that message out there. That’s what we’re teaching within this Certificate- creative communication.”
The New Zealand Certificate in Creativity is a new qualification offered at Ara this year. The course focuses on creating change, adding value and communicating ideas.| An ARA release || November 23, 2017 |||
Nov 23, 2017 - Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Revenue Minister Stuart Nash today announced the Terms of Reference for the Tax Working Group and that the Group will be chaired by Sir Michael Cullen.
“Our 100 Day Plan includes the establishment of a Tax Working Group. The Working Group will consider changes that would improve the structure, fairness and balance of the tax system,” says Grant Robertson.
“This Government is committed to a fair and progressive tax system. It is important that New Zealanders have confidence in their tax system and know that everyone is paying their fair share.”
“At the moment the tax system appears unfair – for example, it doesn’t treat income from speculation in housing as it does income from work. We want to consider how we can create a better balanced system and can encourage a shift to investment in the productive economy.
“Individual wage-earners, businesses, asset owners and speculators should pay their fair share of tax. Right now we don’t think that is happening. This working group is not about increasing income tax or the rate of GST, but rather introducing more fairness across all taxpayers.
“The Working Group will also consider how the tax system can contribute to positive environmental outcomes and the impact of likely changes to the economic environment, demographics, technology and employment practices over the next decade.
“As former Minister of Finance from 1999 to 2008, Sir Michael’s credentials are impeccable and he will be a huge asset to the Working Group.”
“The other members of the Working Group will be announced before Christmas. They will include a diverse range of tax and finance experts and representatives of the business and wider community. The Working Group will be supported by a secretariat of officials from Treasury and Inland Revenue and have an independent advisor to analyse the various sources of advice received,” says Stuart Nash.
“Final recommendations to Ministers are expected by February 2019. As promised before the election, any significant changes legislated for from the Group’s final report will not come into force until the 2021 tax year.
“It is important to ensure that all sectors of the New Zealand economy can feed into the Working Group’s processes and that all relevant perspectives are considered.”
“As we promised during the election campaign, certain areas will be outside the scope of the review, including increasing any income tax rate, the rate of GST, inheritance tax and changes that would apply to the family home or land beneath it,” Grant Robertson says.
“We also want to thank our government partners, the New Zealand First and Green parties, for their input and support of the Terms of Reference for this important piece of work on the future of our tax system.
"This review is a core part of the government’s programme and I’m confident it will deliver recommendations that will enable us to put in place a tax system that is fair for all New Zealanders,” says Grant Robertson.
| A Beehive release || November 23, 2017 |||
Nov 23, 2017 - An Auckland waste removal company and its director have been sentenced today after one of the firm’s employees was killed in a workplace accident.
Jamey Lee Bowring, an employee of Salter’s Cartage, was killed in September 2015 after the fuel tank he was welding on exploded.
A subsequent investigation by police and WorkSafe found that the 100,000 litre tank had been labelled as a diesel tank when in fact it held a combination of fuels and gas.
The investigation also found "widespread non-compliance" across the worksite, which also had “high hazards" and the ability to cause "catastrophic harm".
Today, Judge Richard John McIlraith sentenced company director and business owner Ronald Thomas Salter to four and a half months’ home detention.
Salter was also ordered to pay a $25,000 fine while the company was penalised a total of $258,750 for the death of the 24-year-old. The fine includes $110,000 in emotional harm reparation to Bowring’s family and more than $15,000 to a neighbouring business.
Judge McIlraith also noted that it was hard to find a case with a more catastrophic safety breach, and that punitive punishment for Salter was necessary.
Since the explosion, Salter's Cartage has spent $1.5 million to repair the site and bring it up to a higher level of safety compliance. Director Ronald Thomas Salter also established a welding scholarship in Bowring’s name.
| A HRD New Zealand release || November 23, 2017 |||
Earlier reading: Salter's Cartage sets up scholarship after workplace tragedy - NZHerald Oct 18, 2017
Nov 23, 2017 - Four in ten business leaders believe there will be an increase in casual and contractor employment over the next ten years, according to the newly-released Future of Talent report.
“It is about how businesses are looking to find different ways to utilise workers across their lifetime,” said Geraldine Magarey, leader of policy and thought leadership at CA ANZ – the organisation which conducted the recent report.
“It’s a great sign for older workers who would prefer part-time retirement, students with study commitments and new parents who don’t yet want to go back to a full-time job.”
The challenge, she added, is to strike the right balance with employment regulation, to allow the widest variety of working patterns, including casual, contracting, part-time and project-based or seasonal work.
The report also highlighted the need to ensure that vulnerable workers are protected from unscrupulous employers.
“Flexibility must still provide decent work and remuneration.”
The paper launched Tuesday night in New Zealand also surveyed what attributes business leaders felt to be very important for the future: There was an overwhelming response for communication skills (90 per cent).
Other qualities deemed important are problem solving, adaptability and agility, collaboration, quick building of relationships, resilience, creativity and innovation, the making of good designs even with incomplete information, leadership and empathy.
“These are difficult to replicate with technology,” Magarey said, pointing out that business leaders still feel a human touch remain crucial at work even as technological advancements influence the workplace.
And while agility and adaptability are crucial for workers, “it’s crucial for workplaces too,” Magarey said.
“Businesses need to be flexible in relation to hours, locations and where employees can work. These initiatives help to increase the talent pool and the employees they can attract.”
The paper surveyed 400 leaders from all sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, hospitality, logistics, IT, professional services, accounting, finance and healthcare.
| A HRD New Zeal;and release || November 23, 2017 |||
Counter-intuitive labels date to Irish Famine & Repeal of Corn Laws
Nov 23, 2017 - New Zealand commentators remain confused by the terms neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism which they often confuse in relation to free trade and customs unions such as the Trans Pacific scheme.
It was the conservatives, in this case the New Zealand National Government, which pushed for the original TPP scheme.
Nov 23, 2017 - Air New Zealand is exploring the use of blockchain-based systems within its business, reinforcing its global reputation for innovation and embracing new and emerging technology. Blockchain is being used globally to build encrypted, shared platforms, providing a secure and efficient way to track the exchange of goods or information. Air New Zealand is looking at a number of potential use cases for the distributed ledger technology including cargo and baggage tracking, retail, distribution and loyalty programme opportunities. Air New Zealand Chief Digital Officer Avi Golan says applications of blockchain are developing rapidly, and the airline is excited by the possibilities. “With its built-in efficiency and security, blockchain has the potential to trigger huge innovation in travel, paving the way for new business models and collaboration.” Air New Zealand is partnering with Swiss travel platform Winding Tree, which is developing the world’s first travel marketplace on blockchain to connect suppliers such as airlines and hotels directly to sellers. “While we are still exploring its benefits, blockchain may offer a streamlined way to retail airfares and ancillary products alongside our current channels. In removing complexity from the sales chain, customers benefit from reduced transactional costs, and airlines benefit from swift and secure sharing of information,” says Mr Golan. Winding Tree Founder and Chief Executive Officer Maksim Izmaylov says Winding Tree is a decentralised alternative to the current travel distribution landscape. “With a business-to-business marketplace system powering blockchain-based travel booking transactions, startups and companies will be able to gain direct access to travel service providers’ offerings.
“We are very excited to be partnering with Air New Zealand, as it’s an important step in bringing blockchain technology to the travel industry and creating opportunity for innovation,” says Mr Izmaylov.
Air New Zealand has worked with a range of leading technology partners to introduce innovations to enhance the customer experience. These include its artificial intelligence backed chatbot Oscar, who helps customers with queries online and through the Air New Zealand mobile app, and its experiment with the social robot Chip, who assisted customers with check in at Sydney Airport earlier this year. German carrier Lufthansa has also recently announced a partnership with Winding Tree.
| An Air New Zealand release || November 23, 2017 |||
Nov 23, 2017 - Auckland based network monitoring technology provider Endace has appointed StarLink as its value-added distributor across Europe, Middle East and Africa to promote its network recording and packet capture tools writes Stuart Corner for Computerworld New Zealand. The move to boost is European presence follows Endace announcing in October 2016 a new feature dubbed Provenance, that it said would be needed to enable traders to comply with European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) upcoming Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II.
The directive requires traders to record all trade data and ensure trade events are accurately time-stamped to within microseconds of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) along with information about the reliability of the timing source.
StarLink, headquartered in Dubai, is growing rapidly in Europe through its UK based regional headquarters, according to Endace.
“The partnership will see Endace’s technology distributed by StarLink to help businesses mitigate risks from cyber-attacks and better manage the security of their critical network assets,” Endace said.
Endace CEO Stuart Wilson said network packet capture was essential to enable companies to quickly and accurately analyse security events.
“Network security is paramount in today’s connected world, especially given recent high-profile examples of costly hacks and breaches,” he said.
"Partnering with StarLink, with its deep channel relationships in this market, will enable us to extend our reach and continue to accelerate our growth in EMEA.”
Wilson said interest in Endace network recording solutions had increased dramatically as organisations grappled with how to handle breaches, highlighted by the recent Equifax breach, and in light of growing mandatory breach disclosure requirements.
Interest in Endace’s network recording solutions also increased dramatically last year when Wikileaks outed the company for its role in helping several national governments snoop on citizens' data.
Endace in July this year launched EndaceFabric, billed as a centrally managed, network-wide packet capture and recording fabric that, it said “gives network security and network operations teams the definitive, packet-level evidence they need to rapidly investigate, and respond with certainty, to cybersecurity threats and network or application performance issues.”
A year earlier, in July 2016, the company joined the Cisco Solution Partner Program, saying the move would enable it to quickly create and deploy solutions to enhance the capabilities, performance and management of the network to capture value in the ‘Internet of Everything’ (Cisco’s then preferred name for IoT).
| A ComputerWorld release || November 23, 2017 |||
Nov 23, 2017 - New composite material made of carbon nanotubes. Due to their unique properties, carbon nanotubes would be ideal for numerous applications, but to date they cannot be combined adequately with other materials, or they lose their beneficial properties. Scientists have developed an alternative method of combining, so they retain their characteristic properties. As such, they 'felt' the thread-like tubes into a stable 3-D network.
| FULL STORYIn this simple procedure, water is mixed with the carbon nano tubes and dripped into a white ceramic material which is highly porous. Like a sponge, it sucks up the black liquid. If the ceramic scaffolding is chemically etched out, only the fine felted coat remains. The felt made of tiny tubes has thereby interconnected to form a network of larger tubes. The hollow spaces can be filled with polymers, to create a conductive and tear-resistant composite material.Credit: Fabian Schuett
Extremely lightweight, electrically highly conductive, and more stable than steel: due to their unique properties, carbon nanotubes would be ideal for numerous applications, from ultra-lightweight batteries to high-performance plastics, right through to medical implants. However, to date it has been difficult for science and industry to transfer the extraordinary characteristics at the nano-scale into a functional industrial application. The carbon nanotubes either cannot be combined adequately with other materials, or if they can be combined, they then lose their beneficial properties. Scientists from the Functional Nanomaterials working group at Kiel University (CAU) and the University of Trento have now developed an alternative method, with which the tiny tubes can be combined with other materials, so that they retain their characteristic properties. As such, they "felt" the thread-like tubes into a stable 3D network that is able to withstand extreme forces. The research results have now been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Industry and science have been intensively researching the significantly less than one hundred nanometre wide carbon tubes (carbon nanotubes, CNTs), in order to make use of the extraordinary properties of rolled graphene. Yet much still remains just theory. "Although carbon nanotubes are flexible like fibre strands, they are also very sensitive to changes," explained Professor Rainer Adelung, head of the Functional Nanomaterials working group at the CAU. "With previous attempts to chemically connect them with other materials, their molecular structure also changed. This, however, made their properties deteriorate -- mostly drastically."
In contrast, the approach of the research team from Kiel and Trento is based on a simple wet chemical infiltration process. The CNTs are mixed with water and dripped into an extremely porous ceramic material made of zinc oxide, which absorbs the liquid like a sponge. The dripped thread-like CNTs attach themselves to the ceramic scaffolding, and automatically form a stable layer together, similar to a felt. The ceramic scaffolding is coated with nanotubes, so to speak. This has fascinating effects, both for the scaffolding as well as for the coating of nanotubes.
On the one hand, the stability of the ceramic scaffold increases so massively that it can bear 100,000 times its own weight. "With the CNT coating, the ceramic material can hold around 7.5kg, and without it just 50g -- as if we had fitted it with a close-fitting pullover made of carbon nanotubes, which provide mechanical support," summarised first author Fabian Schütt. "The pressure on the material is absorbed by the tensile strength of the CNT felt. Compressive forces are transformed into tensile forces."
The principle behind this is comparable with bamboo buildings, such as those widespread in Asia. Here, bamboo stems are bound so tightly with a simple rope that the lightweight material can form extremely stable scaffolding, and even entire buildings. "We do the same at the nano-scale with the CNT threads, which wrap themselves around the ceramic material -- only much, much smaller," said Helge Krüger, co-author of the publication.
The materials scientists were able to demonstrate another major advantage of their process. In a second step, they dissolved the ceramic scaffolding by using a chemical etching process. All that remains is a fine 3D network of tubes, each of which consists of a layer of tiny CNT tubes. In this way, the researchers were able to greatly increase the felt surface, and thus create more opportunities for reactions. "We basically pack the surface of an entire beach volleyball field into a one centimetre cube," explained Schütt. The huge hollow spaces inside the three-dimensional structure can then be filled with a polymer. As such, CNTs can be connected mechanically with plastics, without their molecular structure -- and thus their properties -- being modified. "We can specifically arrange the CNTs and manufacture an electrically conductive composite material. To do so only requires a fraction of the usual quantity of CNTs, in order to achieve the same conductivity," said Schütt.
Applications for use range from battery and filter technology as a filling material for conductive plastics, implants for regenerative medicine, right through to sensors and electronic components at the nano-scale. The good electrical conductivity of the tear-resistant material could in future also be interesting for flexible electronics applications, in functional clothing or in the field of medical technology, for example. "Creating a plastic which, for example, stimulates bone or heart cells to grow is conceivable," said Adelung. Due to its simplicity, the scientists agree that the process could also be transferred to network structures made of other nanomaterials -- which will further expand the range of possible applications.
| Story Source:
Materials provided by Kiel University. || November 23, 2017 |||
Nov 23, 2017 - Legendary hedge fund manager and multi-billionaire Julian Roberston put together one of the most luxurious golfing vacations in his beloved New Zealand – and we got the inside look writes Elena Holodny for Business Insider US. On the Tiger Tour, vacationers can see both New Zealand’s North and South Islands over the course of nine nights on Roberston’s three properties: The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers, and Matakauri Lodge.
Roberston, 85, a pioneer of the modern hedge fund industry, is best known for founding the investment firm Tiger Management Corp, one of the earliest funds, in 1980. After closing his fund in 2000, many of Robertson’s proteges went on to start some of the world’s largest hedge funds, such as Lone Pine and Viking Global. His net worth is estimated at $4.1 billion, according to Forbes.
The Tiger Tour is currently going on from November 17-26, 2017, but there’s another tour coming up March 1-10, 2018. The tour is limited to four couples at $28,500 per person, plus taxes, and not including international airfare and other expenses. The first stop is at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs.
| Continue here to take your own photographic journey of the Tiger Tour || November 23, 2017 |||
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