Founded by Max Farndale 1947 - 2018
Amid the uncertainty over U.S. immigration policy, one fact is sending a chill through U.S. higher education: Some U.S. graduate programs in engineering, Science has learned, are seeing a sharp drop this year in the number of applications from international students.
University administrators worry that the declines, as much as 30% from 2016 levels in some programs, reflect heightened fears among foreign-born students that the United States is tightening its borders. A continued downturn, officials say, could threaten U.S. global leadership in science and engineering by shrinking the pool of talent available to carry out academic research. It could also hinder innovation in industry, given that most foreign-born engineering students take jobs with U.S. companies after graduation.
“It’s a precipitous drop,” says Philippe Fauchet, dean of engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, of the 18% decline his department has seen in international graduate applications as last month’s deadlines passed. “Your first thought is, ‘Is it just us?’” adds Tim Anderson, engineering dean at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where international applications for the electrical and computer engineering departments fell 30% this year. But after speaking with other deans, Anderson believes “it’s a pattern.”
> > > Read full article here
Ross runs SWF Distributors who distribute Solar Gard products in New Zealand. Included in the Solar Gard range is a product that can be installed on vehicle glass; the Ceramic CX Series which boasts n exceptional durability providing all environments (including coastal environments) with a superior window treatment solution.
The treatment can be applied in a variety of situations which Ross can explain and get further information to you.
Meanwhile you can link through below to access more information.
Download the Data CardsWeb Page
Location: 3D/89 Ellice Road, Glenfield, Auckland
Contact email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Emitters are now on their way to paying the full cost of their carbon emissions in New Zealand, says Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett.
“As part of our ongoing work programme to reduce domestic emissions we have started the three-year phase out of the one-for-two emissions trading scheme subsidy,” says Mrs Bennett.
“This subsidy allowed some businesses to pay one emissions unit for every two tonnes of pollution they emit. Last year the Government announced we are phasing the measure out over three years to give businesses time to plan and adjust.”
The initial 50 per cent unit cost increased to 67 per cent from 1 January, and will rise to 83 per cent from 1 January 2018. All sectors in the ETS will pay the full market price from 1 January 2019.
“It is vital for businesses that we have certainty in our long-term response to climate change. Following the second stage of the ETS review this year we will set a clear long-term direction on how the ETS will help meet our ambitious emissions reduction targets,” says Mrs Bennett.
“Meeting our Paris Agreement targets will require more than business as usual. Alongside the ETS review, we have established three expert groups to help get more trees into the ground, reduce agricultural emissions, and adapt to the environmental impact of climate change.
“We’re also investing $2 billion on public transport, setting targets to increase the number of electric vehicles year on year until 2021, investing $20 million a year in agricultural greenhouse gas research and providing $200 million for international climate-related support.”
Recommendations from the second stage of the ETS review are expected in mid-2017 when the review is scheduled to conclude.
| A beehive release | February 14, 207 ||
Dreamt of having a lunch meeting in Paris and getting back to New York City in time to tuck the kids into bed? That’s what Joshua Krall of Boom Technology says his supersonic commercial jet will be able to do for you. Krall is revealing this dream at the first-ever Rescale Night in the United States.
It was a sad day in 2003 when the Concorde was grounded, cancelling the chance of supersonic flight for all civilians. The Concorde, with its sleek shape and massive jets, was easily the sexiest commercial jet ever. It made every other passenger jet look slow and dumpy. But its fuel guzzling proved to be too much for the airlines that flew it. Tickets higher than $10,000 (that was 40 years ago) were not enough to turn a profit.
The Boom SST, currently available only as a 3D CAD model, is a smaller, lighter and more modern Concorde. It will probably have Wi-Fi.
The entire company is smaller than a single division of Boeing or Airbus. “We have 25 people,” said Krall. “But almost all of them are engineers ... and we are growing.” Boom has landed a $2.1 million round of funding. A letter of intent by Virgin to buy 10 SSTs should lead to more funding. The company is now able to add to its Denver-based staff and expand facilities. We see the Boom’s servers next to a toilet. “It was the only room we had,” laughed Krall.I am reminded of how, from humble beginnings, William Boeing started his airplane company with only one engineer, the legendary Wong Tsu of China.
The Boom SST will fly at Mach 2.2, a bit faster than the Concorde. At a top speed of 1,450 mph, you will get from New York City to Paris in 3 hours and 15 minutes. And it will be cheaper. Boom projects you can get onboard with a $2,500 business class ticket.
How Now?Boom cites three reasons why its plane will be the new success of supersonic commercial flight:
Boom is joined in the quest for a supersonic civilian flight by Spike, whose S-512 will fly at Mach 1.6.
NASA has also been flying an SST demonstrator, the QueSST, which flies at Mach 1.4.
RescaleDoing hundreds of CFD analyses a day doesn’t come cheap. Unlike NASA, a small company like Boom cannot be expected to own supercomputers. (There may not be enough space in the men's room.) Instead, Boom makes use of computers via Rescale, another startup, which lets Boom run CFD on hundreds of cores on high performance computers, just like the big boys. Being able to rent hardware this way alleviates small companies from large capital expenditures and allows them to use their funding to get the brains on the job. Boom brags about its dream team, all of them industry vets, engineers and builders.
Rescale lists hundreds of software titles, including engineering software like ANSYS Fluent, CD-adapco’s STAR-CCM+ and COMSOL for CFD. All are based on pay per use, so there are no upfront license costs.
Having access to supercomputing is a concept that seems to be catching on, if only judging by the amount of investment that software as a service (SaaS) is receiving. Rescale has received over $20 million in funding, with $14 million of it in May 2016.
Rescale competes with SIMSCALE, which also offers engineering software on a SaaS model.
| An engineering.com release | February 14, 2017 ||
Ξ Feisty, Protectionist Populism? New Zealand Tried That
Fulton Hogan's award winning innovation
Rubicon, private investors agree to buy Tenon's Clearwood for $US55m
While you were sleeping: Stocks rise on Yellen
RBNZ to continue engagement on Dashboard proposal
NZOG sells 27.5% stake in Tui oil field for US$750,000
Time for exporters to share their success stories
Like many in the logistics industry, Cantabrian Tony Marriott started work as a storeman, working at Meadows Freight at Christchurch Airport in the early 1980s. Today, he’s the general manager of one of New Zealand’s leading providers of moving services within the country and around the world. This is his story.
I left high school at the age of 16 with every intention of going back to uni after I had figured out what I wanted to do. I landed my first job in freight forwarding because, as my first manager put it, I had the best geography scores! Some 30-plus years later, I’m still in logistics and still loving it.
The old days of freight forwarding were the wild frontier of learning. There were no manuals, and most of what we learned was by observation or the old process of ‘drop ‘em in the deep end’, with the possible exception of the IATA/FIATA dangerous goods courses where anything less than 90% was a fail. University graduates were non-existent, and there were no formal qualifications other than airline courses, which I had completed within the first 18 months.
> > > Continue to read the full article here
Emirates Team New Zealand have splashed their new AC50 in Auckland this morning and revealed another break-though.
In the 2013 America's Cup the team designed the first foiling catamaran even though that concept was not contemplated in the rules. It was widely reckoned that they revealed their secret too early and other teams were able to copy in the time available.
Instead of conventional grinding pedestals the AC50 features cycle grinding pedestals ('pedalstals') which allow the crew to use their more powerful leg muscles to grind and provide the power for the AC50 systems.
All other teams have used conventional arm driven grinding pedestals which are a lot less effective, cannot be driven for extended periods at a high heart rate, and use a much weaker muscle group. The bonus for Emirates Team New Zealand is that they have four grinding positions per side, while the other teams have two - but with two grinders on each.
The use of cycle pedestals where the crews pedal to provide the power are not new; they were tried in the 12 Metre Class in 1977 by the Swedish Challenger, Sverige. In that use, the crews were mostly below decks, which also reduced windage.
> > > Read complatete article with images on Sailworld | February 15, 2017 ||
Dreamt of having a lunch meeting in Paris and getting back to New York City in time to tuck the kids into bed? That’s what Joshua Krall of Boom Technology says his supersonic commercial jet will be able to do for you. Krall is revealing this dream at the first-ever Rescale Night in the United States.
It was a sad day in 2003 when the Concorde was grounded, cancelling the chance of supersonic flight for all civilians. The Concorde, with its sleek shape and massive jets, was easily the sexiest commercial jet ever. It made every other passenger jet look slow and dumpy. But its fuel guzzling proved to be too much for the airlines that flew it. Tickets higher than $10,000 (that was 40 years ago) were not enough to turn a profit.
The Boom SST, currently available only as a 3D CAD model, is a smaller, lighter and more modern Concorde. It will probably have Wi-Fi.
The entire company is smaller than a single division of Boeing or Airbus. “We have 25 people,” said Krall. “But almost all of them are engineers ... and we are growing.” Boom has landed a $2.1 million round of funding. A letter of intent by Virgin to buy 10 SSTs should lead to more funding. The company is now able to add to its Denver-based staff and expand facilities. We see the Boom’s servers next to a toilet. “It was the only room we had,” laughed Krall.I am reminded of how, from humble beginnings, William Boeing started his airplane company with only one engineer, the legendary Wong Tsu of China.
The Boom SST will fly at Mach 2.2, a bit faster than the Concorde. At a top speed of 1,450 mph, you will get from New York City to Paris in 3 hours and 15 minutes. And it will be cheaper. Boom projects you can get onboard with a $2,500 business class ticket.
How Now?Boom cites three reasons why its plane will be the new success of supersonic commercial flight:
Boom is joined in the quest for a supersonic civilian flight by Spike, whose S-512 will fly at Mach 1.6.
NASA has also been flying an SST demonstrator, the QueSST, which flies at Mach 1.4.
RescaleDoing hundreds of CFD analyses a day doesn’t come cheap. Unlike NASA, a small company like Boom cannot be expected to own supercomputers. (There may not be enough space in the men's room.) Instead, Boom makes use of computers via Rescale, another startup, which lets Boom run CFD on hundreds of cores on high performance computers, just like the big boys. Being able to rent hardware this way alleviates small companies from large capital expenditures and allows them to use their funding to get the brains on the job. Boom brags about its dream team, all of them industry vets, engineers and builders.
Rescale lists hundreds of software titles, including engineering software like ANSYS Fluent, CD-adapco’s STAR-CCM+ and COMSOL for CFD. All are based on pay per use, so there are no upfront license costs.
Having access to supercomputing is a concept that seems to be catching on, if only judging by the amount of investment that software as a service (SaaS) is receiving. Rescale has received over $20 million in funding, with $14 million of it in May 2016.
Rescale competes with SIMSCALE, which also offers engineering software on a SaaS model.
| An engineering.com release | February 14, 2017 ||
The Reserve Bank will continue to engage with stakeholders about its proposed ‘Dashboard’ approach to quarterly disclosure for locally incorporated banks.
The dashboard aims to enhance market discipline by making key information on locally incorporated banks available on the Reserve Bank website in a timely manner and in an accessible format which can facilitate comparisons across banks.
The Reserve Bank ran a consultation on the dashboard concept last year, and has today published a summary of submissions.
Deputy Governor Grant Spencer said all 18 submitters were supportive of the Reserve Bank’s objective to improve the effectiveness of public disclosures by banks, but some raised issues about publication timing, control of the data published, data comparability and the proposed inclusion of short term liquidity metrics.
“After carefully reviewing all feedback, the Reserve Bank considers that the concerns raised about the Dashboard proposal should be able to be addressed, and the Dashboard remains the Bank’s preferred option to enhance market discipline by increasing the effectiveness of the bank disclosure regime.
“The Bank will further engage with submitters and stakeholders in the coming months, to discuss possible refinements to the dashboard concept and the issues raised during consultation.”
Submissions received as part of the dashboard consultation are available on the Reserve Bank’s website. This consultation was subject to the Bank’s new policy to publish submissions by default unless submitters request otherwise.
More information:Summary of submissions (PDF 163KB)Submissions receivedConsultation document – released September 2016 (PDF 1MB)
Bloomberg View columnist Terry Cowen writes
What would you think of a Western democratic leader who was populist, obsessed with the balance of trade, especially effective on television, feisty and combative with the press, and able to take over his country’s right-wing party and swing it in a more interventionist direction?
Meet Robert Muldoon, prime minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984. For all the comparisons of President Donald Trump to Mussolini or various unsavory Latin American leaders, Muldoon is a clearer parallel case.
Some of the similarities are striking. Muldoon often made rude or unusually frank comments about foreign leaders (including U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Australian prime minister), and his diplomats worked hard to undo them. When Muldoon spoke, he so often made the issue about him. His slogan was “New Zealand -- The Way You Want It.”
His most significant initiative was called “Think Big,” and, yes, it was designed to make New Zealand great again. It was based on a lot of infrastructure and fossil fuels investment, including natural gas, and it was intended to stimulate the country’s exports and remedy the trade deficit. Because New Zealand’s parliamentary system of government has fewer checks and balances than the American system, Muldoon got more done than Trump likely will.
> > > Continue to read the full article | February 13, 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
|
|