text:
When I first saw Katharine McPhee's dress I thought it might be midnight navy instead of black and I was infinitely more interested, but even in black the Theyskens Theory dress is very smart, certainly the best of the boob slings. It's not all the way overwhelming, but maybe she and her costar Debra Messing thought it was best to ease us back into the idea that Smash is going to loudly and unfortunately invade our lives in just a few weeks. Maybe what we can extrapolate from these dresses is that they're going to have the Karen character grow a backbone and Messing's Julia is going to rein herself in and be kind of reasonable?
I don't think either of these are remotely feasible, but you know, I can hope.


text:
The company Arval Service Lease ("Arval") is committed to delivering the best possible service to you and we wish to maintain the confidence that you place in us. We would like to provide you with clear information about how we use and store cookies from our website "www.arval.com" on your device.
What is a cookie?
Cookies are small text, image or software files that are placed and stored on your computer, your smartphone or all other devices used for accessing the internet when you visit a website. Cookies are very useful and enable an internet site to recognise you, log when you visit a particular page, provide a secure connection to a website and enhance your user experience by improving your experience of a website, securing your connexion and/or adapting the content of a page to your areas of interest.
The information stored by the cookies on your computer, during a limited period of validity, may relate to the particular webpages you have visited on that computer; advertisements you have clicked on; the type of browser you use; your IP address; and the information you have provided to a website (the use of the cookie meaning that you avoid having to provide the information again).
Types of cookies installed by the Site "www.arval.com":
Cookies intended to collect website statistics ("Google Analytics"): in order to customise our website "www.arval.com"to the requirements of our visitors, we measure the number of visits, the number of pages viewed, the activity of the visitors on the website and how often visitors return. These cookies enable traffic analysis statistics to be compiled. From this analysis, the contents of the website can be developed and improved to enhance user experience.
The period of validity for these cookies is less than 13 months.
Use of social networks by the website users
Our Website contains elements provided by third parties (social networks buttons) which enable Internet users to share, through social networks, contents of our website or their opinions. This is particularly the case for "Share", "Like", "g+1", "Tweeter", from social network such as "Facebook", "Google+", "Twitter", etc. If you communicate through media provided by third parties, for example by clicking on the "Like" button or by writing a comment, this information will be transmitted to the social network and published on your profile. If you do not want the social network to link information collected from our website to your user account, you should first log out of the social network.
We invite you to familiarise yourself with the social privacy policy of these social networks to become aware of the purposes for which your data may be used, in particular for a commercial purpose, internet browser information that can be collected with these buttons.
Your choice about cookies
Many of the cookies we use will improve your browsing experience of our website, others are vital for you to access secure areas. As a default, most browsers are set to accept cookies. However, if you do not wish to consent to cookies being stored on your computer, you will be able to block all cookies by changing your browser settings. If you decide to block all of the cookies using your internet browser, you will only continue to be able to visit the public areas of our website. By pursuing your navigation on our website, you allow us to set cookies on your device. You will always be able to change your mind by opposing the storage of cookies on your device.
Right to access data and rights to oppose:
Under the law, you have a right to request a copy of the personal information BNP Paribas holds about you, including that collected by cookies.
You also have the right to oppose the storage of cookies on your computer. Please address your requests and questions about it to Nathalie Hebert, Digital Communications Manager (firstname.lastname@example.com) or Christelle Paillès, Arval, Communications Manager (email@example.com) and join a copy of the cookie set on your device.
You can oppose to the installation of statistical cookies by changing your cookie settings, activating the incognito mode (browse in private) or the "Do Not Track" browser setting. With respect to "Google Analytics" cookies, you can oppose this kind of cookies by using the tool provided by Google and available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB.
You may also, depending on the type of browser you have, configure your settings to block on certain types of cookies, or cookies from certain sources, or to notify you each time a new cookie is about to be stored on your computer, so you can then accept or reject it.
For details on what your browser offers and how to configure your browser according to your choices, please go to the "Help" menu or other dedicated section of your internet browser. By way of example:
For mobile devices, you can check the following links:
Windows Phone
More information about cookies, not just those our website, and how cookies can be controlled can be found at Youronlinechoices, published by Interactive Advertising Bureau France (IAB).

subset: commoncrawl


text:
At first glance, Chris Johanson's "Windows" felt something like a show of grade-school art projects. The 19 works of various sizes, some acrylics on paper, many large-scale wall-based sculptures of found wood, employ a bright Crayola color palette; they are crudely made, featuring simple geometric shapes and imperfect lines with clumpy layers of paint. But the amateurishness of their rendering belies a deep sophistication. Dealing, almost intangibly, with subjects like failure, loneliness, contentment and joy, Johanson's works are microcosms of the universe seen through the eyes of an adult struggling to express impossibly complex ideas in simple forms.
In past exhibitions, Johanson used installation schemes—for instance, a ramp and a circle of paintings facing inward in his 2008 show "Totalities" at Deitch Projects in New York—to bring viewers into the center of his work. In this exhibition, the works simply hung on the walls, a rhythm established between them by their shifts in density. See It, Energy (2011), a word painting on wrinkled 18-by-24-inch paper, was weightless compared to its neighbor, Window Painting #4 (with self ), 2012, a construction of acrylic and latex paint on found wood. In the latter work, a tiny house and a midnight blue sky are painted against a background of circles arranged somewhat in the shape of a flower, which immediately recalls Was- sily Kandinsky's color studies (in fact, the Russian master's theories on hue and shape were evoked throughout the exhibition). Through a picture window, a loosely rendered man and woman can be seen sitting at a table, captured in an achingly intimate moment. The house itself stands on a promontory—a three-dimensional shelflike piece jutting out from the composition.
Many of the works incorporate such sculptural elements. In Are (my) Brain Within Universal Consciousness (2012), a multicolored two-panel construction featuring a painted octagonal shape (presumably a head) is thrust an arm's length away from the wall by wooden supports. The effect is like confronting a comet head-on in deep space. In Window Painting #2 (2012), a scaffoldlike structure, also in many colors, is affixed several inches in front of a 94-by-66-inch blue rectangle painted directly on the wall. In an untitled work from 2012, a slight ledge separates the bottom of the composition from the top. Below is a churning, deep sea. Above, a patchwork of rectan- gular vignettes, showing solitary figures sitting in empty space; organic forms erupting like supernovas; and abstract patterns, some reminiscent of Stella's rectangles, others of Matisse's paper cutouts, rendered in wavering, hand-drawn lines.
Johanson, who is associated with San Francisco's Mission School of the 1990s, has spent many years carving out his own space in the art world. With the works in this astonishingly moving exhibition, he has found a point of equilibrium in the main struggle of his career, reconciling his early figuration with his later abstraction.
Photo: Chris Johanson: Window Painting #4 (with self ), 2012, acrylic and latex paint on found wood, 42 1⁄2 by 42 1⁄2 by 6 3⁄4 inches;at Mitchell-Innes & Nash.


text:
Image: Associated Press
Celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien will be auctioning off Michael Jackson memorabilia in December following an exhibition that will take the items through South America, Europe and Asia.
The exhibit and auction will include some of the former King of Pop's most iconic items, such as a glittery glove, spangled jackets, stage-worn costumes and personal fashion effects. The exhibit opens on May 18 at the Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile and will feature items such as the black sandex outfit from his "Scream" video and his Captain EO shirt.
All of the items will subsequently be sold by Julien's Auction on December 2 and a part of the proceeds will benefit Guide Dogs of America and Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas.
Source: Huffington Post
Like Haute Living Los Angeles? Join our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter @HauteLivingLA. Want Haute Living Los Angeles delivered to your inbox once a week? Sign up for our newsletter.


text:
By Barbara Starr
Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with the battlefield adage: "An Army moves on its stomach." That, of course, means there's nothing like good chow.
For the thousands of U.S. troops who will fight in Afghanistan for another 17 months, it is not just the quality of the food they have to consider. Now there will be a bit less of it.
U.S. troops in Afghanistan for years have been fed four hot meals a day, including what is fondly known as "mid-rats" or midnight rations.
That is a meal for troops headed back and forth from the field or pulling a midnight shift on base.
Those meals are served in cafeteria-style dining halls - sometimes little more than a tent - where troops can select items from a buffet.
But as the United States winds down its combat operations in Afghanistan, so, too, will it wind down its food operations.
The Defense Department is cutting back to two hot meals a day, most likely just lunch and dinner.
The reason: the Pentagon is trying to scale down the number of contractors needed to cook and serve meals and run dining areas.
Its all about getting ready to pull troops, equipment and everything else that supports the war.
"We will significantly reduce contractor and supply chain requirements," said David Lakin, a spokesman for U.S. Force in Afghanistan, in an e-mail exchange with CNN.
Commanders insist, however, that the troops will not go hungry.
Packaged foods will be available. But breakfast and the midnight meal will now be mainly "meals ready to eat." Those are the bagged rations known as "MRE's."
Large-quantity rations packages, which feed multiple troops at one time, also will be available.
The military believes "most soldiers don't consume the midnight meal and breakfast is also a low attendance event.
Putting the two hot meals together through lunch and dinner also allows for removal of an entire dining facility shift, Lakin said.
This will put troops in the position of eating rations for at least 17 months until the United States ends its combat presence.
Individual commanders will have the flexibility to make some changes in the meal plan. But in the meantime, what are the very top senior military officials eating, especially those from NATO, which does not fall under Pentagon rules?
Well a letter is being drafted to NATO headquarters asking them to go along with the same plan, and that means Gen. Joseph Dunford, the four-star Marine who runs Afghanistan operations, may soon find himself ripping open a ration bag just like everyone else.
turkish pharmacy online vipps canadian pharmacy Zebeta
I absolutely love your blog.. Pleasant colors & theme. Did you make this amazing site yourself? Please reply back as I'm wanting to create my own personal blog and want to know where you got this from or what the theme is called. Appreciate it!
This is the perfect site for everyone who really wants to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I personally will need to…HaHa). You definitely put a fresh spin on a subject which has been discussed for years. Excellent stuff, just excellent!
empower rx pharmacy northwest pharmacy canada prescription drugs prices comparison
Pretty! This was an incredibly wonderful article. Thanks for supplying these details.
May I simply just say what a relief to discover a person that genuinely knows what they are discussing on the internet. You certainly know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I was surprised that you aren't more popular since you most certainly possess the gift.
https://cttadalafil.com/ what is tadalafil https://tadagatadalafil.com/ – tadalafil dosage cheapest tadalafil cost
Your style is unique in comparison to other folks I have read stuff from. Thank you for posting when you've got the opportunity, Guess I'll just book mark this web site.
Hello there! This post couldn't be written much better! Going through this post reminds me of my previous roommate! He continually kept preaching about this. I'll send this information to him. Fairly certain he'll have a great read. I appreciate you for sharing!
Hi, I do believe this is an excellent site. I stumbledupon it 😉 I'm going to revisit once again since i have book-marked it. Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people.
Good information. Lucky me I came across your blog by chance (stumbleupon). I have book-marked it for later!
side effects for tadalafil https://tadacipetadalafil.com/ – generic cialis online fast shipping what is tadalafil tadalafil side effects https://apcalisetadalafil.com/
Best view i have ever seen !
I was able to find good info from your blog articles.
tadalafil liquid generic cialis online fast shipping generic cialis tadalafil cheap generic cialis for sale https://tadagatadalafil.com/ – lowest price cialis
There's definately a great deal to know about this topic. I love all the points you've made.
I couldn't resist commenting. Very well written!
no prescription generic cialis https://krocialis.com/ – how quickly does cialis start working viagra cialis
This is a topic that is close to my heart... Cheers! Exactly where are your contact details though?
Hello there! I could have sworn I've been to this site before but after looking at many of the articles I realized it's new to me. Nonetheless, I'm definitely pleased I stumbled upon it and I'll be book-marking it and checking back often!
Oh my goodness! Impressive article dude! Many thanks, However I am encountering problems with your RSS. I don't know the reason why I cannot join it. Is there anyone else getting the same RSS problems? Anybody who knows the answer will you kindly respond? Thanks!!
Good post! We are linking to this great post on our site. Keep up the good writing.
Spot on with this write-up, I truly feel this site needs a great deal more attention. I'll probably be returning to read more, thanks for the info!
Saved as a favorite, I really like your website!
https://apcalisetadalafil.com/ tadalafil price walmart buy cialis tadalafil online with out prescription tadalafil liquid
I blog quite often and I genuinely thank you for your content. This article has truly peaked my interest. I will bookmark your blog and keep checking for new details about once a week. I opted in for your RSS feed as well.
Good article. I'm facing some of these issues as well..
Hello, I think your blog could be having web browser compatibility issues. Whenever I take a look at your blog in Safari, it looks fine however, when opening in Internet Explorer, it's got some overlapping issues. I merely wanted to give you a quick heads up! Aside from that, fantastic website!
Spot on with this write-up, I absolutely believe that this amazing site needs a great deal more attention. I'll probably be back again to see more, thanks for the info!
Pretty! This has been an extremely wonderful post. Many thanks for providing this information.
Everyone loves it when folks get together and share views. Great website, stick with it!
I really like reading an article that can make men and women think. Also, many thanks for permitting me to comment!
Howdy! This article could not be written much better! Going through this article reminds me of my previous roommate! He constantly kept talking about this. I am going to send this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a very good read. I appreciate you for sharing!
Good post. I learn something totally new and challenging on blogs I stumbleupon every day. It will always be useful to read through content from other writers and practice a little something from their websites.
Having read this I believed it was rather enlightening. I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together. I once again find myself personally spending way too much time both reading and commenting. But so what, it was still worthwhile!
tadalafil brands https://tadalafilol.com/ – tadalafil daily online buy generic cialis online with mastercard lowest price cialis tadalafil generic
I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this site. I am hoping to view the same high-grade blog posts from you later on as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my own, personal blog now 😉
buy brimonidine online buy combigan online
indian online pharmacy https://pharmacyken.com/ – york pharmacy canada canadian pharmacy pet meds
avanafil 100 avana tablet
where to get tadalafil tadalafil online cheap generic cialis for sale best price usa tadalafil https://tadagatadalafil.com/ – tadalafil daily online
cialis without prescription cialis tadalafil cheap generic cialis for sale https://tadacipetadalafil.com/
Good web site you've got here.. It's hard to find good quality writing like yours these days. I seriously appreciate people like you! Take care!!
Excellent web site you have here.. It's hard to find excellent writing like yours these days. I seriously appreciate people like you! Take care!!
Very good article. I definitely love this site. Continue the good work!
Very good information. Lucky me I found your site by chance (stumbleupon). I've saved as a favorite for later!
https://tadagatadalafil.com/ tadalafil cialis https://apcalisetadalafil.com/ – lowest price cialis prescription tadalafil online
Everything is very open with a clear clarification of the issues. It was really informative. Your site is extremely helpful. Thank you for sharing!
I seriously love your blog.. Great colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself? Please reply back as I'm hoping to create my own personal blog and would love to find out where you got this from or just what the theme is called. Thanks!
You are so cool! I do not believe I've read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with a few unique thoughts on this subject. Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This web site is something that is needed on the web, someone with a little originality!
Good article. I absolutely love this website. Thanks!
I could not resist commenting. Exceptionally well written!
I used to be able to find good advice from your blog posts.


text:
A New Form of Matter: II
NASA-supported researchers have discovered a weird new phase of matter called fermionic condensates.
February 12, 2004: We learned it in grade school. There are three forms of matter: solids, liquids and gases.
But that's not even half right. There are at least six: solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, Bose-Einstein condensates, and a new form of matter called "fermionic condensates" just discovered by NASA-supported researchers.
News of their landmark achievement appeared in the Jan. 24-30 online edition of Physical Review Letters.
Right: False-color snapshots of a growing fermionic condensate. Copyright Markus Greiner. [More]
Most second graders can recite the properties of ordinary solids, liquids, and gases. Solids resist deformation. They're stiff and they can crumble. Liquids flow, they're hard to compress, and they assume the shape of their container. Gases are less dense, they're easy to compress, and they not only assume the shape of their container ... they expand to completely fill it.
The fourth form of matter, the plasma, is gas-like, made of atoms that have been ripped apart into ions and electrons. The sun is made of plasma, as is most of the matter in the universe. Plasmas are usually very hot, and you can keep them in magnetic bottles.
Now we have fermionic condensates--so new that most of their basic properties are unknown. Certainly they're cold. Jin created the substance by cooling a cloud of 500,000 potassium-40 atoms to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. And they probably flow without viscosity. Beyond that...? Researchers are still learning.
"When you find a new form of matter," notes Jin, "it takes a while to understand it."
Fermionic condensates are related to BECs. Both are made of atoms that coalesce at low temperatures to form a single object. In a BEC, the atoms are bosons. In a fermionic condensate the atoms are fermions.
What's the difference?
Left: Bosons are social; fermions are antisocial. [More]
Fermions, on the other hand, are antisocial. They are forbidden (by the "Pauli Exclusion Principle" of quantum mechanics) to gather together in the same quantum state. Any atom with an odd number of electrons + protons + neutrons, like potassium-40, is a fermion.
Jin's group found a way around the antisocial behavior of fermions. They used a carefully applied magnetic field to act like a fine-tunable "Cupid." The field causes loner atoms to pair up, and the strength of that pairing can be controlled by adjusting the magnetic field. Weakly paired potassium atoms retain some of their fermionic character, but they also behave a bit like bosons. A pair of fermions can merge with another pair--and another and another--eventually forming a fermionic condensate.
Jin suspects that the subtle pairing of atoms in a fermionic condensate is the same pairing phenomenon seen in liquefied helium-3, a superfluid. Superfluids flow without viscosity, so fermionic condensates should do the same.
A closely related phenomenon is superconductivity. In a superconductor, paired electrons (electrons are fermions) can flow with zero resistance. There is intense commercial interest in superconductors because they could be used to produce cheaper, cleaner electricity, and to build high-tech marvels like levitating trains and ultra-fast computers. Unfortunately, superconductors are difficult to handle and study.
Fermionic condensates might help.
The biggest problem with today's superconductors is that -135°C is the warmest temperature at which any of them can operate. The liquid nitrogen or other cryogenics needed to cool the wires down make any apparatus using superconductors expensive and bulky. Engineers would rather work with superconductors at room temperatures.
"The strength of pairing in our fermionic condensate, adjusted for mass and density, would correspond to a room-temperature superconductor," notes Jin. "This makes me optimistic that the fundamental physics we learn through fermionic condensates will help others design more practical superconducting materials."
NASA has many uses for superconductors. For instance, gyros that keep satellites oriented could use frictionless bearings made from superconducting magnets, improving their precision. Also, because superconductors can carry the same amount of current as copper in a much smaller wire, the superconducting electric motors aboard spacecraft could be 4 to 6 times smaller than ordinary motors, saving precious volume and weight.
Others speculate that superconductors could play a role in a permanent Moon base, such as the one in President Bush's recently announced vision for future human exploration of space. Superconductors would be a natural choice for ultra-efficient power generation and transmission, because ambient temperatures plummet to -173 °C during the long lunar night. And during the months-long journey to Mars, a "table top" MRI machine made possible by superconducting wire would be a powerful diagnosis tool to help ensure the health of the crew.
The Moon. Mars. There's no telling where fermionic condensates might take us. Definitely beyond grade school....
Editor's note: This story mentions six phases of matter: solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, BECs and fermionic condensates. Physicists debate the total. You could add to the list many other forms such as liquid crystals, glasses, ferromagnets, paramagnets and so on. Do fermionic condensates rightly belong among the major categories, like liquids and solids, or with less fundamental subdivisions such as liquid crystals? This question will be answered in the months and years ahead as researchers learn more about the properties of coalescing fermions.
more information
NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research (OBPR) supports studies of fundamental physics for the benefit of people on Earth and in space. Jin has received funding for her work from the OBPR, the National Science Foundation, NIST, and the Hertz Foundation.
Prof. Deborah Jin -- home page
NIST/University of Colorado Scientists Create a New Form of Matter -- press release
Living up to the Hype: Superconductors -- (Science@NASA) NASA research is unlocking the amazing potential of high-temperature superconductors.
Why potassium? But of all the fermionic atoms (viz., those made from an odd number of particles), what's so special about potassium? The choice isn't as arbitrary as it may seem: it comes as a consequence of the cooling methods used by Jin's group.
The first step in cooling a vapor to such extremely low temperatures is a technique called "laser cooling", which brings the gas to within a few tenths of a degree above absolute zero (~0.1 Kelvin). Then the atoms are placed in a magnetic trap, and the highest-energy atoms are allow to escape -- like sweat evaporating from your skin -- thus cooling the remaining atoms to within 100 billionths of a degree (100 nK). The final step, which is a new addition since Jin's landmark work in 1999, is to transfer the atoms to an optical trap and continue the evaporative cooling, eventually reaching the critical temperature where the vapor should condense into a superfluid, about 50 nK.
The laser-cooling step works best on elements from the first column of the periodic table. Of those seven elements, only lithium-6 and potassium-40 are stable, long-lived fermions. All of the research groups working in this area are using one of these two elements, Jin says. (The stable bosons from this column -- sodium and rubidium -- are used for making BEC's.)
Join our growing list of subscribers - sign up for our express news delivery and you will receive a mail message every time we post a new story!!!


text:
This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?
1st Gear: So, About Mark Fields
Whether or not Alan Mulally really bolts for Microsoft, I think it's a fair guess that Ford's No. 2 Mark Fields is going to take over as CEO.
This is a good thing. Fields is smart, passionate, and usually described as a "car guy" who helped start Mazda's transformation into the company we love (back when Ford owned them) and championed the blue oval products we respect.
Of course, the guy used to have what could best be described as a mullet and we made a few jokes about this. Do a Google search and you'll find like 500 results.
I bring this up because of this Wall Street Journal profile that there's no confusion, as with GM, over who is taking over. Fields is on a global tour of the company and is being groomed for the top job.
So, we're left with two problems:
- 1. We've made fun of him a decent amount. Of course, that was Ray Wert, so blame him for the Mullet meme. And we've had no obvious backlash from Ford so either he has a sense of humor or doesn't care.
- 2. He dropped the mullet, so we need to find something hilarious about him. Mulally gave us ugly sweater vests making out with cars.
2nd Gear: Dealers Sort Of Admit They Were Wrong About Dealership Cuts
Pre-Carpocalypse, it felt like there was a GM or Chrysler dealer for everyone five people in America. Unfortunately, dealership laws are made on a state-by-state basis and all of them work against the companies who want to reform for cut them. They suck. Just ask Elon Musk.
GM and Chrysler, with help from the auto task force set up by President Obama, used the bankruptcy to circumvent those laws and trim the number of dealers.
Now, as we learn in this smart piece from Craig Trudell, the dealers are now making triple what they were per-store in 2008.
Or as one Chrysler dealer told Bloomberg:
"The terminations, albeit evil, gave us the opportunity to correct ourselves," said Kelleher, who opposed the forced dealer closings that occurred through Chrysler and GM's government-financed bankruptcies. "It accomplished what they set out to do."
3rd Gear: Is Ford Going To Sell 300K Fusions?
Apparently, the only thing stopping Ford from hitting 300,000 Fusions sold in the U.S. this year is Ford's ability to produce 300,000 Fusions. From Karl Henkel we've got the data.
Ford's sold about 225,000 through September, which should put it above the 248,067 sold last year.
But who cares about the total number? That's just for bragging rights. Toyota has slashed the price of the Camry while Ford can still charge $26,338 per vehicle, as opposed to $23,970 per Toyota.
4th Gear: Speaking Of People We've Made Fun Of
We usually only make fun of people we like, and this Automotive News profile of Lapo Elkann gives some insight into the Fiat heir you may not have gotten from these headlines:
- Drag queen-loving Fiat heir robbed of $4.6 million in jewelry calls Berlusconi for help
- Playboy Fiat heir interferes with NBA game, helps lakers win
- Playboy Fiat heir causes transit shutdown with camo Jeep
- Draq queen-loving Fiat Heir gets a denim Ferrari
The basis of the joke is the time that Elkann almost died from a drug overdose but was saved by a transvestite prostitute and his outrageous taste. But there's a reason behind all of it:
"For me customization is an area that's key to differentiate yourself in a world that's dull and everyone looks alike," says Elkann, who was honored in July by the Automotive Hall of Fame in Detroit with a Young Leader & Excellence Award. "From the cleaning lady to the CEO, from the owner of the company to the worker for a company, everybody wants to distinguish themselves."
Crazy as his life may be, that's not a bad insight.
5th Gear: The Jeep Cherokee Isn't Just For You, America
As we've pointed out in the past, the new 2014 Jeep Cherokee is a global car meant to introduce Jeep in to non-American markets where the only Jeeps people see were used to deliver men clad in olive drab and machine guns.
Chrysler and Fiat are working to boost Jeep's global sales by expanding its global production footprint. In China, Jeep is getting close to completing a final agreement with Guangzhou Auto.
Reverse: That Little Bastard
At 5:45 PM on this day in 1955, 24-year-old actor James Dean is killed in Cholame, California, when the Porsche he is driving hits a Ford Tudor sedan at an intersection. The driver of the other car, 23-year-old California Polytechnic State University student Donald Turnupseed, was dazed but mostly uninjured; Dean's passenger, German Porsche mechanic Rolf Wütherich was badly injured but survived. Only one of Dean's movies, "East of Eden," had been released at the time of his death ("Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant" opened shortly afterward), but he was already on his way to superstardom—and the crash made him a legend.
Neutral: Any Thoughts On Fields? Any good stories? The hair thing is getting old.
Photo Credit: AP Images


text:
LogoSportswear offers one-stop shopping for the largest selection of custom garment dyed caps and custom garment washed caps on the web, without minimums or set-ups. Start designing now!
LogoSportswear offers one-stop shopping for the largest selection of garment washed caps and garment dyed caps on the web-without minimums or setups. Our in-house graphics design and on demand embroidery allows us to offer quick response for garment washed caps.
You can choose from the widest assortment of garment dyed caps fabrics (microfiber, garment dyed, organic, etc.) Your digital logo needs to be "stitch-ready," for embroidery machines to sew onto garment washed hats. We will convert your custom logo into a rich, three-dimensional, embroidery format absolutely FREE--you need only purchase (6) embroidered custom caps of any one style.
For our garment washed caps we offer embroidery decoration only. Prices on our web site includes a front, one location embroidery. Additional locations will add to price. Maximum embroidery size for garment dyed hats is 4.2" w x 2.1" h. Maximum embroidery size for visors is 4.2" w x 1.1" h. The smallest letters that can be embroidered is .25" high.


text:
I often feel that one of the potential pitfalls of my parenting approach, and something that I constantly need to guard against, is that of too much permissiveness.
Sceptics and critics of punishment-free parenting, positive parenting or whatever we want to call it will often accuse us of too much permissveness, whilst advocates of this parenting style will assert that it does not mean permissive parenting, and I agree with this – it doesn't.
But I do feel there's a danger that it can.
Whilst I do believe passionately that a parenting style that seeks to empathise with children, understand their feelings, allow for their capabilities, respect their wishes as much as possible, and move away from behaviour focussed, controlling and punitive methods is absolutely correct, I also think this can leave us treading a very delicate line between authoritative and permissive. Maybe it's because we immerse ourselves with advice on how not to be too controlling, how to move away from an old parenting style of power and submission, that we're left in danger of becoming too hung up on avoiding this aspect, and don't spend enough time thinking about how to avoid being too permissive. Or maybe it's just me.
Following studies in the 60s, psychologist Diana Baumrind came up with 3 basic parenting styles; Authoritarian, Authoritative, and Permissive. You can read more about these here, but the conclusions Baumrind's studies came to were basically that authoritative parenting leads to happy children growing into happy adults. Authoritarian is too strict, and permissive too soft.
Now, having read these descriptions of parenting styles, I placed myself as somewhere between authoritative and permissive, (although aspiring to be authoritative) and being slightly alarmed by this overlap into the 'too soft' category, I also read plenty of material on the negative effects of too much permissiveness, which alarmed me even more. This excellent article by Dr Laura Markham is a good example.
Now, if I'm not careful, all this could lead to a constant paranoia in my every parenting decision that I am being too permissive.
So what is too permissive? It can all get very confusing.
For example, Naomi Aldort writes in her book 'Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves';
"A child cannot experience the parent's love while being controlled by him/her….Even what some parents call 'natural' consequences is mostly parent-imposed and therefore causes the same harm and mistrust as punishment. If is is natural, it occurs on its own. For example, a father told me that the 'natural' consequence of his son not finishing his chores is that he will not go to his friend's house, as he now must stay home and do his chores. However, if a child was expected to wash dishes and didn't, the only natural consequence is that the dishes are dirty. Cancelling his play date is a punishment imposed by the parent against the child's will…..the child who neglected the dishes may choose, after you express your feelings, to wash the dishes before going over to his friend's; however, such choices must come from respectful communication of the people involved and based on their authentic preferences. You can kindly offer to wash the dishes or find some other considerate solution. You can also find out why the chore wasn't done, and you may discover some need for change in the work loads or expectations….When you offer to help, the child learns to offer help unconditionally."
OK, I can see what she's saying here, but what does this all mean to us as parents in practical terms? Does this mean that any means we employ to get our child to do what we want, and what we think they should do, means we are not being 'authentic' and that our child's compliance is not 'authentic'? Or, on the other hand, by offering to help with the dishes and not enforcing any consequence are we failing to enforce our limits and to be sufficiently demanding and assertive as a parent, failing to set boundaries and limits with consistency, denying our child the ability to learn self discipline, self regulation, etc etc? Aargh!
Aldort's suggestion of finding some other 'considerate solution' or finding out 'why the chore wasn't done' brought to mind Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish's book "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk", in which they give lots of practical advice on problem solving and finding solutions that work for both parent and child. However, they do allow that natural consequences and letting a child 'experience the consequences of his misbehaviour' is sometimes necessary, where all else has failed. Examples include refusing to continue to allow a child to borrow things if they fail to take proper care of them, and getting a child who is late home for supper to make his own.
Meanwhile, Alfie Kohn's principles of Unconditional Parenting include, amongst other things, "Reconsider your requests", "Put the relationship first", "Be authentic" (that word again!), and "Don't be rigid".
In the end I think it all comes down to the usual answer; that there is no easy answer. Parenting is not an exact science. All this advice is open to how you interpret it. And every parenting decision we make has to be treated individually, within its own context. So I guess I'll just have to carry on being paranoid, sorry, mindful, about being too permissive.
In my attempts to be mindful I try to keep these two basic points in mind:
If I feel I'm allowing my child to do something against my better judgement then I'm probably being too permissive. I think this is a good rule of thumb, for example for things like too much TV, too much junk food, or allowing my child to stay longer at the playground when I know he's tired and hungry and a meltdown is imminent!
I make sure I have a good reason to say no. This is useful not only in challenging my own motives, but in providing an explanation for my child.
What about you? Which of Baumrind's categories would you place yourself in and how do you guard against too much permissiveness?


text:
Man Convicted In Death Of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry Gets 30-Year Sentence
TUCSCON (AP) – A man convicted in the shooting death of a federal Border Patrol agent during a firefight that revealed the government's botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison.
Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, who is from El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, is the only person to be convicted in the Dec. 14, 2010, shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near the Arizona-Mexico border.
U.S. District Court judge David C. Bury handed down the sentence, 360 months with credit for time served.
The shootout erupted just north of the Arizona border city of Nogales as Osorio-Arellanes and four other men who are accused of sneaking into the country to rob marijuana smugglers approached Terry and three other agents who were targeting such rip-off crews.
Osorio-Arellanes was wounded in the shootout and was the only person arrested at the scene. Four other alleged rip-off crew members fled to Mexico. Two of the four are now in Mexican custody, while two others remain fugitives.
Osorio-Arellanes maintains he was not the shooter who killed Terry, and prosecutors agree that evidence supports his claim. Still, they say he is liable because he was a voluntary participant in the rip-off crew.
Two rifles bought by a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation were found at the scene of the firefight, though authorities have declined to say whether the murder weapon in Terry's death was linked to a purchase from the investigation.
Federal authorities who conducted Fast and Furious have faced criticism for allowing suspected straw gun buyers for a smuggling ring to walk away from gun shops in Arizona with weapons, rather than arrest them and seize the guns. Agents allowed the purchase of 2,000 guns, but they then lost track of more than 1,400 of them. Some of the guns purchased illegally with the government's knowledge were later found at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.
The guilty plea by Osorio-Arellanes in October 2012 marked the biggest conviction to date in a case that embarrassed the federal government and prompted a series of congressional investigations. Members of the gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation have pleaded guilty to federal charges.
Prosecutors had recommended a 30-year sentence for Osorio-Arellanes.
Follow us on twitter.com/foxnewslatino
Like us at facebook.com/foxnewslatino


text:
A major focus of one of my School Media Studies classes this semester has been how the implementation of the Common Core State Standards will affect the role of the school librarian. As one of my classmates aptly pointed out, the Common Core State Standards are a way for school librarians to demonstrate their indispensable work in a school and to take on a leadership role in implementing these new standards. In other words, in a time when fewer and fewer school library positions exist, leading the charge when it comes the Common Core State Standards proves to our schools how important and necessary we are.
The Common Core State Standards are a movement to create the same set of standards for schools in every state across the United States. Previously, the standards that were taught in each school were dictated by the state where a student lived, with what students were being taught varying greatly from state to state. Ideally, having country-wide standards ensures that more students are held to high standards and graduate from school "college and career" ready. The Common Core State Standards also update how information literacy is taught in schools.
One of the biggest pushes of the Common Core State Standards is to use more non-fiction in classrooms. Teachers are expected to teach students how to analyze non-fiction books, make connections between different types of non-fiction information and understand how to locate and use non-fiction text features. This, of course, correlates strongly with what the school librarian's role already is- to teach students how to search for information and use resources. Because these standards connect so strongly to what a school librarian already does, school librarians can be a great resource for teachers in recommending non-fiction resources and sharing best practices. With librarians often at the forefront of using new technology, we are also instrumental in helping roll out the technology literacy aspects of the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards are more inquiry based than many previous standards, meaning learning is more student guided than teacher guided. (Less of what we think of as old school teaching with the teacher standing at the front of the room and lecturing to the class.) This reflects what is usually a librarian's belief in leading a user based approach to information discovery.
Most excitingly, some school librarians have taken on leadership roles by leading in-service or professional development seminars for teachers about information literacy and technology literacy in the Common Core State Standards. Sharing the knowledge that school librarians have about these topics puts a public face to the often anonymous work of what school librarians do and is a concrete example to administrators and teachers about how important we are, all in the framework of increasing rigor and expectations for students. Doing this is a great way to get the word out about what we do and what we've always done and why this is so important. I look forward to seeing all the amazing things school librarians are able to do in the huge task of implementing the new standards.
Here are some links ( found thanks to my professor and classmates) about the Common Core State Standards and school librarians:
Some school librarians have also put together book lists of books that connect with specific Common Core Standards on NoveList, that can be accessed if your graduate program has a subscription.
There are many others too. Please feel free to share!
Categories: Specializations


text:
Sign up for e-mail alerts from the Taking Measure blog by entering your e-mail address in the box below.
Taking Measure is the official blog of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
It provides a behind-the-scenes look at NIST's research and programs, covering a broad range of science and technology areas. Through this blog, NIST's researchers and staff will share why they do what they do and how today's research will lead to tomorrow's innovations.
The views presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of NIST.
If you have any questions about our blog, please contact us at takingmeasure [at] nist.gov.


text:
Paul McCartney tweets, then holds impromptu concert in Times Square
NEW YORK – Paul McCartney is on a roll this week.
A day after performing at a New York City high school, the ex-Beatle surprised fans Thursday with an impromptu concert in Times Square.
McCartney announced the concert on Twitter and then arrived by taxi at the "Crossroads of the World" an hour later.
Despite the short notice, thousands of fans flocked to the busy midtown-Manhattan intersection for the lunchtime concert.
The 71-year-old rocker sang four songs from his latest album "New" from a trailer parked on West 46th Street and Broadway.
He joked: "Let's do this the same time tomorrow."
On Wednesday, McCartney performed and took questions from students at the Frank Sinatra High School in Queens. He was celebrating his second wedding anniversary with Nancy Shevell.


text:
These days, 3D printers are laying down plastics, metals, resins, and other materials in whatever configurations creative people can dream up. But when the next 3D printing revolution comes, you'll be able to eat it.
Engineers and gourmands alike are dabbling with edible substances as raw materials for 3D printing. Among their hoped-for results: previously unachievable food shapes and textures, personalized grub, and varied menus on future long-term voyages to Mars. "There is some very cool stuff going on," says Jeffrey Lipton, CTO of Seraph Robotics and a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University.
Edible 3D printing emerged several years ago with Cornell's Fab@Home printer, which won a 2007 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award. The syringe-based machine works like an inkjet printer, depositing layers of viscous liquids to build up an object according to a user's uploaded design. Cornell researchers posted the Fab@Home blueprints online, much to the delight of tinkerers the world over. "People started experimenting, putting in different things like epoxies and silicones," Lipton says. "Then we started seeing what other people did when they went into their kitchens, things like Cheese Whiz, Nutella and frosting . . . You can extrude anything through it." Lipton says wild new shapes and textures for artisanal purposes might serve as some of 3D food printing's first, albeit limited, commercial successes. "You could see food tchotchkes find a little niche. We've pretty much exhausted every known process for inventing new foods."
In fact, foods created by printers have already hit shelves. "A lot of people don't know this, but all the microwave pancakes available in supermarkets in the Netherlands are printed," says Kjeld van Bommel, a researcher at the Dutch Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO in Dutch). Van Bommel calls the pancakes "two-and-a-half-D-printing," because they are formed through a single deposition of batter. Other products out there meet the definition of 3D printing, or additive manufacturing. The U.K.'s Choc Edge, for example, sells printers that melt chocolate and pile it up in layers to create custom shapes. This past Valentine's Day, FabCafe in Japan crafted 3D-printed chocolate faces of customers' significant others. Last summer, Google introduced 3D-printed pasta in its employee cafeteria.
More From Popular Mechanics
These early examples have all used simple, processed, single-ingredient pastes, powders or purees. No one is yet able to manufacture anything as diverse as, say, a burger with all the fixings. Cobbling together all the different ingredients and structures, given varying temperature requirements and sterility needs, is truly daunting. "Making one grain of wheat is a hell of a lot more complex than doing anything with wheat flour," van Bommel says. And in many cases, it doesn't yet make economic sense to try. "If a complex structure already exists in nature, like a lettuce leaf, why would you want to print it?" says van Bommel.
So rather than reinventing an organic object, van Bommel says one of the promises of 3D food printing is to create novel consumables with personalized nutritional content. "You can add extra calcium or omega-3 fatty acids, and all done in a patient-specific way," he says. To this end, his group is researching 3D food printing to help nursing home residents who suffer from dysphagia and have trouble chewing and swallowing food. These elderly people typically get their meals in the form of an unappealing milkshake of pureed chicken and broccoli, for example, leading to loss of appetite and malnourishment. Van Bommel has a grant from the European Union to develop 3D-printable soft replacement foods loaded with nutrients.
Printed foods could also use smarter, more sustainable caloric sources, such as algae protein in place of resource-intensive animal meat. "I'd rather that instead of printing a steak from cow protein, you could make it from algae or insects," van Bommel says. In one example, his group added milled mealworm to a shortbread 3D cookie recipe. "The look [of the worms] put me off, but in the shape of a cookie I'll eat it," van Bommel says. "You eat with your eyes."
But what about the dream of a universal 3D food printer—something like a Star Trek replicator that could fabricate whatever you request? This prospect, while theoretically possible, poses immense challenges, van Bommel notes. "Obviously if you're going for universal 3D food printer, you can't have 50 million cartridges lying around for the moment you want to print a tomato," he says. "It sounds simple to say 'we'll have a fat cartridge,' but there are hundreds of kinds of fats." Instead, he envisions a machine with a limited range of inputs. "Maybe three types of proteins, three types of carbs . . . It could happen, but we would need to know a lot about how to make different types of foods from those building blocks."
A major obstacle for all 3D printing, and especially for that of food, is that the printing process is slow, requiring cooling or curing periods, for example, before more material is deposited. "If I can start a steak and it takes three months to print, no one is going to eat it—it needs to work in minutes or hours," Lipton says.
Some researchers are trying to speed up the process to make 3D-printed food more realistic. Van Bommel's TNO has a process that uses a laser-based technique to locally cook the food (the company used it to cook an egg white into the world's smallest fried egg, less than an inch across). TNO recently demonstrated a machine called PrintValley that aims to accelerate the process. PrintValley runs 100 platforms under deposition nozzles consecutively, assembly-line-style, building up 100 objects about a square inch in size in less than 10 minutes, or about 6 seconds per widget. "We developed this to show it doesn't need to take so long to print a 3D object," van Bommel says.
Printing food in 3D isn't quite practical in most places, at least not yet. But there's one place where it could make a major meal-making difference: in space. Michelle Terfansky recently explored this concept in a master's degree project at the University of Southern California. Terfansky heard how astronauts on the International Space Station get bored with the regular weekly meal rotations; travelers on a future journey of many months to Mars will deal with similar cabin fever. Three-dimensional printers could let friends and family on Earth transmit recipes to break the tedium. Storage-space-wise, 3D printers could allow for a wide variety of dishes without having to stockpile pieces of animal carcasses and heaps of vegetables. "It's a very basic way of making people happy and feel at home, whether on the Moon or Mars or an asteroid," Terfansky says. "It's a morale booster."
But there's one more important area—perhaps the most important area—where 3D food printing will need to improve to be a factor in the future of food, and that is taste. Lipton notes that some of the lab-grown, 3D printed meat stand-ins have been dubbed "shmeat," in a crudely obvious portmanteau. To address this issue, TNO is teaming up with a culinary school to devise more gastronomically advanced and delicious offerings. "As long as it looks okay and it's not toxic, we call it 3D printed food," jokes van Bommel. "But the recipes could be optimized a lot further. We're technicians, not cooks."


text:
Search Buddhist Channel
Mass Myanmar monk rally backs anti-Rohingya plan
AFP, Sep 3, 2012
YANGON, Myanmar -- Hundreds of Buddhist monks marched in Myanmar Sunday to support President Thein Sein's suggestion that Muslim Rohingya be deported or held in camps, in the biggest rally since the end of junta rule.
<< Myanmar Buddhist monks rally on the streets of Mandalay (AFP)
Lines of clerics wearing their traditional deep red robes passed through the streets of Mandalay flanked by crowds of supporters in scenes not witnessed since a monk-led protest in 2007, which was brutally crushed by the country's then military leaders.
"Protect Mother Myanmar by supporting the President," read one banner, while others criticised United Nations human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana, who has faced accusations that he is biased in favour of the Rohingya, following deadly unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in western Rakhine state.
He told AFP the protest was to "let the world know that Rohingya are not among Myanmar's ethnic groups at all".
The monk, who goes by one name, said the aim was also to condemn "terrorism of Rohingya Bengalis who cruelly killed ethnic Rakhines".
Speaking a dialect similar to one in neighbouring Bangladesh, the estimated 800,000 Rohingya in Myanmar are seen by the government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants and the violence has stoked a wave of anger across the Buddhist-majority country.
Fighting in Rakhine state has left almost 90 people from both sides dead since June, according to an official estimate, although rights groups fear the real toll is much higher.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused Myanmar forces of opening fire on Rohingya Muslims during the violence, prompting concern across the Islamic world over the treatment of the stateless group, described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted people.
Myanmar has denied a crackdown on Muslims and launched an inquiry into the violence, while Thein Sein has accused Buddhist monks, politicians and other ethnic Rakhine figures of kindling hatred towards the Rohingya in a report sent to parliament last month.
But in comments to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, published on his official website in July, he suggested it was "impossible to accept the illegally entered Rohingya, who are not our ethnicity" and mooted sending the group to a third country or UN administered camps.
Wirathu said Thein Sein, a former general who has launched a series of reforms after taking power last year, had "stood firmly" in his comments to the UN. Although he added that the Rohingya could become citizens, "if they stay peacefully".
Rallies are expected to continue for two more days, including one in Pakokku town in the Magway region, which was the birthplace of the 2007 mass pro-democracy protests that became known as the Saffron Revolution because of the colour of the monks' robes.


text:
MUMBAI – Little more than two years after Warren Buffett labeled India a "dream market," the economy is expanding at the slowest pace in a decade and the nation's debt ratings risk of being cut to junk.
In the last three months, ArcelorMittal and Posco scrapped plans for $12 billion of investments, while global funds pulled $12.6 billion from Indian stocks and bonds. The exodus drove the rupee to a record low and caused short-term borrowing costs to soar, sending the government's two-year bond yield to the biggest premium to the 10-year rate in Bloomberg data going back to 2001. Even Buffett packed up and left, with Berkshire Hathaway exiting an insurance distribution venture.
Investors see little prospect of India tackling budget and current-account deficits that drove the rupee down 20 percent in two years as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh boosts food subsidies to woo voters before a May 2014 election. Standard & Poor's said this month there is a one-in-three chance the nation will lose its investment-grade rating within two years, while Pacific Investment Management Co. sees a "large" chance of a cut in as little as 12 months. Last year's economic growth of 5 percent compares with an average 7.6 percent in the previous decade.
"India's image has been spoiled and I feel the country has more downside," Raj Kothari, a fixed-income trader in London at Sun Global Investments Ltd., said Sept. 13. "We are bearing the brunt of years of wrong fiscal policy. The government almost settled into inaction. I don't think global investors are willing to bet on India in this scenario."
Raghuram Rajan outlined a plan to give concessional swaps for banks' foreign-currency deposits when he took charge as the 23rd governor of the Reserve Bank of India on Sept. 4. That, along with the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision this month to continue monetary stimulus that has buoyed emerging-market assets, has helped the rupee pare some losses. Foreign funds have bought a net $1.97 billion worth of Indian shares in September and outflows from debt have slowed to $331 million.
The rupee has rallied 5.7 percent in September, after a 14 percent slide in the previous three months that was the worst performance among 24 emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The S&P BSE Sensex of local shares has climbed 6.9 percent this month as Rajan's measures and the Fed's policy boosted inflows. It fell 5.8 percent in the June-August period.
India's smallest companies are trailing its biggest corporations by the most since 2006 in the stock market. The S&P BSE Small-Cap Index, a gauge of 431 companies with a median market value of $90 million, has tumbled 26 percent this year, compared with a 2.4 percent advance in the Sensex, where the median value of 30 firms is $16.7 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Rajan unexpectedly raised the benchmark repurchase rate to 7.5 percent from 7.25 percent last week to rein in inflation and eased some of the cash curbs the central bank, under his predecessor Duvvuri Subbarao, imposed to support the currency.
Investors remain skeptical whether the RBI alone can fix the economy, which Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts will expand 4 percent in the fiscal year through March. While the rupee has rebounded 11 percent from an unprecedented 68.845 per dollar on Aug. 28, Goldman sees a decline to 72 by the first quarter of 2014. Macquarie Group Ltd. predicts a drop to 75.
"Investors, it seems, have some expectations from the new governor, but India faces long-term issues and they can't be solved in a short period of time," Kim Jin Ha, the Seoul-based head of global fixed income at Mirae Asset Global Investments Group, which managed $56.25 billion worldwide as of July 31, said in a Sept. 17 interview. "Policy action not coordinated with local government might bring another headwind."
Weakened by corruption scandals and the loss of allies, Singh's government has passed the fewest bills ever by an administration sitting a five-year term. That is allowing imbalances to build in Asia's third-largest economy.
The current-account deficit widened to a record 4.8 percent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year ended March 31, while the 4.9 percent shortfall in public finances was the highest among the four largest developing nations. The World Bank estimates more than 800 million people live on less than $2 per day in India, where consumer-price inflation has held close to 10 percent for more than a year.
Data this month showed gains in wholesale prices unexpectedly accelerated to a six-month high of 6.1 percent in August. Every 10 percent decline in the rupee adds as much as 80 basis points, or 0.80 percentage point, to wholesale-price inflation, Nomura Holdings Inc. estimates show.
The rupee's tumble prompted comparisons with the balance of payments crisis India faced in 1991, when the government airlifted gold to pledge as collateral for an International Monetary Fund loan as foreign-exchange reserves slid. India won't face a repeat of that situation as it has enough reserves for about seven months of imports, compared with 15 days back then, Singh said last month. The nation had a $247 billion currency stockpile as of Sept. 13.
"In the near term, we are more cautious on India," Roland Mieth, senior vice president of emerging markets at PIMCO Asia Pte Ltd., a unit of the company that runs the world's biggest bond fund, said in an interview in Singapore on Sept. 16. "Although an outright credit default remains unlikely, the chance of a sovereign downgrade by one of the major credit agencies is large in the next 12-18 months."
A cash crunch created by the RBI to shore up the exchange rate caused short-term interest rates to exceed long-term ones, inverting the yield curve that gauges the length of investment against returns. Three-month government debt costs jumped to as high as 12 percent at the end of August, from 7.31 percent three months earlier. Two-year bond yields exceeded 10-year rates by as much as 272 basis points on July 31. Notes due in a decade pay 8.70 percent, compared with 2.63 percent in the U.S., 0.69 percent in Japan and 3.98 percent in China.
Inverted yield curves typically reflect investors' lack of confidence in an economy and presaged bailouts in Europe in the past three years. Greece's two-year debt started paying more than 10-year securities a month before the government sought financial aid for the first time in 2010, while Portugal's curve inverted a week before it sought a rescue.
India aims to narrow the budget gap to 4.8 percent of GDP in the fiscal year ending March 2014. That goal looks difficult to achieve as government spending increases, according to UBS AG. Singh's administration has proposed a $21 billion-a-year program to provide about two-thirds of India's 1.2 billion people with low-cost grains.
"I am quite surprised that the downgrade hasn't happened," Bhanu Baweja, the global head of emerging-market cross-asset strategy at UBS in London, said in a Sept. 11 interview with Bloomberg TV India.
Standard Chartered Plc cut its forecast last month for gains in India's gross domestic product in the year through March 2014 to 4.7 percent from 5.5 percent. CLSA Asia Pacific Markets and Goldman Sachs have lowered their estimates twice this quarter with CLSA now expecting 4.2 percent. Singh's economic advisory body reined in its growth forecast this month and signaled interest rates wouldn't fall until the rupee stabilizes and inflation eases.
"With the right mix of reforms and improvements in governance, GDP growth could stabilize in years to come provided macro policy remains prudent," PIMCO's Mieth said.
India's domestic savings have helped cap increases in public debt costs and the economy's limited reliance on foreign borrowings has made it less vulnerable to currency risk, according to Moody's Investors Service.
"Because of relatively high savings, the yields paid by the government haven't shot up so dramatically that its repayment capacity is at risk," Atsi Sheth, an analyst in New York at Moody's, said in a Sept. 18 interview. "The rupee depreciation doesn't significantly and immediately affect India because foreign-currency debt is about 6 percent of its total debt."
Gross national savings as a percentage of India's GDP stood at 29.8 percent at the end of December 2012, International Monetary Fund data compiled by Bloomberg show. That compares with 13.1 percent in the U.S., 15.4 percent for Brazil, 28.5 percent for Russia and 49.5 percent for China.
Moody's, which rates India Baa3, said in a report last month that expansion of food subsidies will exacerbate the government's weak finances. The company cut its senior unsecured debt and local-currency deposit ratings on State Bank of India, the nation's largest lender, to Baa3 from Baa2 on Sept. 23. It also changed the outlook on its D+ financial-strength ranking to negative from stable, citing the worsening economy as a reason.
Credit-default swaps insuring the bonds of the government- controlled State Bank, a proxy for the sovereign, rose 106 basis points last month to 365 in the biggest jump since 2008, according to data provider CMA.
Options signal rupee swings will widen, boosting investors' risk. The currency's one-month implied volatility has jumped to 16.12 percent from this year's low of 7.53 percent in April. The gauge of expected swings in exchange rates is quoted as part of options prices.
"India is not in a good place at all," said UBS's Baweja. "Given that a downgrade hasn't happened so far and the economy is already on its knees, it's difficult to know what the incremental negative could be from here. It could be massive capital flight from all the foreigners; that would certainly do it for many of these rating agencies."
– With assistance from Santanu Chakraborty, Jeanette Rodrigues and Abhishek Shanker in Mumbai and Michael Patterson in Hong Kong.


text:
Top Items:
Corey Boles / Wall Street Journal:
Verizon Wins Key FCC Auctions — Verizon Wireless was the biggest winner of communications spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission's recently concluded auction, the agency's chairman said Thursday. — The company, which is jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc …
Discussion: TechCrunch, DSLreports, Open Source, Good Morning Silicon Valley, paidContent.org and Mashable!
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch: Breaking: FCC Confirms that Big Winner in Spectrum Auction is Verizon.
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source: Apple saved us when Google would not
Tricia Duryee / paidContent.org: Wireless Spectrum Winners Are Revealed; Google Bids But Verizon Wins
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
FCC: Verizon Wireless a big 700 Mhz auction winner; Now what? — Updated: Verizon Wireless was the biggest winner in the Federal Communication Commission's 700 Mhz auction. — FCC Chairman Kevin Martin revealed Verizon Wireless as the biggest winner of spectrum.
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily, Google Watch, Tech Beat, PR Newswire, Techland, Epicenter and Silicon Alley Insider
Stephen Wildstrom / Tech Beat: Auction 73: And the Winners Are... The Federal Communication Commission …
Michal Lev-Ram / Techland: Verizon the big winner in spectrum auction
Bryan Gardiner / Epicenter: In Spectrum Auction, Winners Are AT&T, Verizon and Openness
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Verizon, AT&T Big Winners In 700 MHz Auction; Verizon Wins …
Verizon, AT&T Big Winners In 700 MHz Auction; Verizon Wins …
Discussion: GigaOM, CrunchGear and Telecompetitor
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM: Verizon and AT&T Score in 700Mhz Auction
Peter Ha / CrunchGear: Verizon Wireless claims big chunk of 700MHz spectrum, AT&T grabs a small bite
Verizon Wireless wins C block in airwave auction
Verizon Wireless wins C block in airwave auction
Discussion: The Boy Genius Report, PhoneNews.com and InformationWeek Weblog
Joshua Karp / The Boy Genius Report: Verizon triumphs in the 700mhz auction
Humberto Saabedra / PhoneNews.com: Verizon Wireless Wins 700Mhz Open Access Block
Eric Zeman / InformationWeek Weblog: Verizon Bests Google In FCC Auction
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Mike Arrington's dream team has wrong goal — Something about Mike Arrington's post yesterday has been bugging me. This morning it hit: Mike has the wrong goal. — What is his goal? To beat CNET. — But does a great business or movement EVER get built on top of a goal like that? — No.
Discussion: The Guidewire
Carlacthompson / The Guidewire: Group Hug — Many interesting results came out of our posts yesterday …
Howard Lindzon:
The REAL Problem with Mike Arrington and Robert Scoble... These two f@#tards think they invented something. — If you live in the financial world you know that Cramer invented blogging- in 1997 - at least as compared to their view of when blogging started.
Discussion: Silicon Valley Watcher
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
BoomTown Decodes TechCrunch's Dream Team Memo (So You Don't Have To)
BoomTown Decodes TechCrunch's Dream Team Memo (So You Don't Have To)
David A. Utter / WebProNews: Lord Of The Blogs - The Battle For Attention
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider: TechCrunch Raising $15 Million at $35 Million Pre-Money Valuation*
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com: Crazy Bloggers: Blogs Are Not VC Businesses
Susan Mernit / Susan Mernit's Blog: More thoughts on Mike's *blogging biz* post
Sramana Mitra / Sramana Mitra on Strategy: Deal Radar 2008: GigaOM
Ed Sutherland / Pro Blogging News: TechCrunch Raising $15M
MG Siegler / ParisLemon: On Bloggers. On Politics. On Comet. On Cupid.
Sramana Mitra / Sramana Mitra on Strategy: Deal Radar 2008: TechCrunch
Amazon Web Services Blog:
Our Most Fulfilling Web Service Yet — The Amazon Fulfillment Web Service (Amazon FWS) allows merchants to tap in to Amazon's network of fulfillment centers and our expertise in logistics. Merchants can store their own products to our fulfillment centers and then, using a simple web service interface, fulfill orders for the products.
Discussion: TechCrunch, ProgrammableWeb and Web Worker Daily
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch: Amazon Takes the Humans Out of Fulfillment With New API
John Musser / ProgrammableWeb: Amazon Launches Fulfillment Web Service
Mike Gunderloy / Web Worker Daily: Web APIs Continue to Multiply
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Amazon's Newest Web Service: Shipping Center APIs — Amazon wants to do for physical product shipping what it's done for web storage and computing power - leverage its surplus infrastructure built up by Amazon.com to offer cheap and easy infrastructure for all kinds of other activities.
Discussion: CNET News.com, Mashable! and John Cook's Venture Blog
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com: Amazon to store, ship goods for other merchants
Paul Glazowski / Mashable!: Amazon Launches Fulfillment Web Service (FWS)
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL: Many Senior Managers Were Against Bebo Buy — Many senior AOL (TWX) managers did not want to buy social-networking site Bebo, sources tell us. Among the concerns, they did not (and do not) believe Bebo will hit the revenue and profit targets used to justify the $850 million purchase price.
Discussion: The Social, The Social Web, The Social Times and Valleywag
Caroline McCarthy / The Social: AOL's Bebo buy was controversial, blog reports
Nicholas Carlson / Valleywag: AOL brass frankly embarrassed by Bebo buy
Dan Nystedt / InfoWorld:
HTC names Google phone, 'Dream' — San Francisco - The mobile phone High Tech Computer (HTC) has been developing to run on the Android software from Google will be called "Dream," have a large touchscreen and full QWERTY keypad, a person close to the situation said Thursday.
Discussion: VentureBeat, Crave, Gadget Lab, Tech Trader Daily, InformationWeek Weblog, Engadget, CrunchGear, Mobility Site, The Mobile Gadgeteer, Inquirer and InfoWorld
Kent German / Crave: The gadget blog: Dreaming of the Google phone
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily: Dell: Entering The Mobile Phone Market in 2009?
Eric Zeman / InformationWeek Weblog: HTC 'Dreams' Up Its Android Phone
Thomas Ricker / Engadget: HTC's Dream again rumored to be first Android phone
Doug Aamoth / CrunchGear: Android phone from HTC will be called 'Dream'
Jack Cook / Mobility Site: HTC names Google phone, "Dream"
Matthew Miller / The Mobile Gadgeteer: Google Android device from HTC dubbed the "Dream"
Stewart Meagher / Inquirer: HTC tight-lipped about Google phone
Addy Dugdale / Gizmodo:
HTC Calls Android Phone Dream, Feels Like One Already — More details of HTC's Google phone are emerging, it seems. The handset is to be called "Dream", will be touchscreen and have a large QWERTY keypad. So, what else do we know? And, more importantly, when is it coming out?
Discussion: TECH.BLORGE.com and Electronista
Ken Mitchell / TECH.BLORGE.com: HTC's Google phone has a name, meet the HTC Dream
Declan McCullagh / The Iconoclast:
FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects — Screen snapshot: This now-defunct site is reportedly where an FBI undercover agent posted hyperlinks purporting to be illegal videos. Clicking the links brought a raid from the Feds. — The FBI has recently adopted …
Discussion: Good Morning Silicon Valley, CNET News.com, DSLreports, Guardian Unlimited, ha.ckers.org web … and p2pnet
John Murrell / Good Morning Silicon Valley: I swear, your honor, I thought it was a site for Nabokov fans
Jack Schofield / Guardian Unlimited: FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child-porn suspects
Eric Lempel / PlayStation.Blog:
Firmware v2.20 bringing BD-Live to PS3 — Hi again everyone. Here's a quick preview of the next PLAYSTATION 3 system software update coming up in the next few days. Firmware v2.20, introduces a number of features to further enhance your PLAYSTATION 3 as the hub of your entertainment center.
Ludwig Kietzmann / Joystiq: New PS3 firmware to add Blu-ray Profile 2.0 support
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Are Apple ads hurting Microsoft's brand? — A new ranking of global brands shows Microsoft's reputation sinking in recent years. Among the possible factors: Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads. — Microsoft lands at No. 59 in the rankings for 2007, down from No. 11 in 2004, according to the survey from CoreBrand released Wednesday.
Discussion: Hardware 2.0, Epicenter, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Tech Tracks, Ars Technica and One More Thing
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0: In that case the ads aren't helping Apple either!
Bryan Gardiner / Epicenter: Microsoft's Brand Power Tarnished, Study Says
Benjamin J. Romano / Tech Tracks: Survey: Microsoft's corporate brand declining steadily since 2003
Tom Krazit / One More Thing: Study: Subliminal ads warp your brain
Nick Denton / Gawker:
Page Six Shutters Web Site After Three Months — This could be the first harbinger of the web gossip bust. Pagesix.com, Rupert Murdoch's entertainment news site, is being shuttered, effective today. The URL already redirects to the New York Post's main website.
Discussion: paidContent.org, The Social and Silicon Alley Insider
Caroline McCarthy / The Social: Report: 'New York Post' shuts down Pagesix.com gossip site
Michael Learmonth / Silicon Alley Insider: NYPost Punts On PageSix.com
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Diigo 3.0: The all-powerful personal, social bookmarking service — I was impressed by the preview I got in September of the bookmarking and Web annotation tool Diigo 3.0. It's taken the company until this morning to release this version to the public. In the interim the team has added features and tweaked the design.
Discussion: Download Squad, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, CenterNetworks, TechCrunch, CyberNet, The Social Times, Somewhat Frank and bub.blicio.us
Chris Morrison / VentureBeat: Diigo releases new version, promising that social bookmarking ain't dead yet
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb: Diigo Tackles Recommendations
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch: Diigo Revamps Social Bookmarking Service with v3.0
Ashley / CyberNet: Diigo Version 3.0 Launches!
Nick O'Neill / The Social Times: Would You Use Another Social Bookmarking Tool?
Frank Gruber / Somewhat Frank: Diigo v3: Improves Social Bookmarking
David Carnoy / CNET News.com:
Bezos: Sorry for the delays, more Kindles on the way — If you happened to have visited Amazon's Web site today, you might have noticed that a large message from Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, was plastered across the home page of the site. Basically, it was a big fat apology for Amazon's inability …
Discussion: Between the Lines, Electronista, Gearlog and Engadget
Mark Hachman / Gearlog: Amazon's Bezos Apologizes for Lack of Kindles
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget: Jeff Bezos posts Kindle apology on Amazon's front page


text:
Exodus Chapters (English Bible : Darby Version)
1 And a man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi.
2 And the woman conceived, and bore a son. And she saw him that he was fair, and hid him three months.
3 And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of reeds, and plastered it with resin and with pitch, and put the child in it, and laid [it] in the sedge on the bank of the river.
4 And his sister stood afar off to see what would happen to him.
5 And the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the river; and her maids went along by the river's side. And she saw the ark in the midst of the sedge, and sent her handmaid and fetched it.
6 And she opened [it], and saw the child, and behold, the boy wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is [one] of the Hebrews' children.
7 And his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call thee a wet-nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the damsel went and called the child's mother.
9 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give [thee] thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it.
10 And when the child was grown, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water.
11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
12 And he turned this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
13 And he went out on the second day, and behold, two Hebrew men were quarrelling; and he said to him that was in the wrong, Why art thou smiting thy neighbour?
14 And he said, Who made thee ruler and judge over us? dost thou intend to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? Then Moses feared, and said, Surely the matter is known.
15 And Pharaoh heard of this matter, and sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from before Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat by the well.
16 And the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew [water], and filled the troughs, to water their father's flock.
17 And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses rose and helped them, and watered their flock.
18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, Why are ye come so soon to-day?
19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew [water] abundantly for us, and watered the flock.
20 And he said to his daughters, And where is he? why then have ye left the man behind? Call him, that he may eat bread.
21 And Moses consented to remain with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
22 And she bore a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.
23 And it came to pass during those many days, that the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and cried; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage;
24 and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob;
25 and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged [them].


text:
Microelectronic technology's ongoing scaling according to Moore's law enables us to keep increasing microprocessor performance and complexity, thus paving the way for innovative applications that were unthinkable just a few years before. However, that same shrinking feature size poses new challenges for testing and reliability of high-performance microprocessors. The December Computing Now theme examines some of these challenges, as well as some approaches to solving them.
Challenges in a New Era
Shrinking feature size increases the likelihood of defects and parametric variations during fabrication, thus posing new challenges for testing. Traditional test techniques such as burn-in are also becoming increasingly difficult because of power and voltage constraints, and might soon become ineffective or infeasible. Burn-in's limited effectiveness in activating faults that are likely to occur in the first years of circuit operation in the field, together with the scaling of transistors' gate insulators, are making aging phenomena more likely to affect circuit operation, possibly compromising correct operation and consequently increasing reliability risks. Negative-bias temperature-instability, in particular, is becoming a major concern. NBTI is characterized by a positive shift in the absolute value of the pMOS (p-channel metal-oxide semiconductor) transistor threshold voltage, mainly due to the creation of positively charged interface traps when the transistor is biased in strong inversion. As a result, circuit performance is degraded, with possible consequent incorrect system operation in the field.
Moreover, the reduced feature size, together with reduced power supply voltages and noise margins, make integrated circuits more vulnerable to environmentally induced faults, such as transient faults due to particle hits (for example, Alpha particles and neutrons). When transient faults affect a sampling element or propagate until the input of a sampling element and get latched, an output logic error may be generated, which is generally referred to as a soft error.
In addition, increased system complexity together with decreased transistor-conduction threshold makes power consumption — and consequently, power management in the field — a critical issue. Power supply noise becomes increasingly likely, and it becomes challenging to identify the minimal power supply voltage value that will let the system operate correctly (with no reliability risks) at limited power consumption. Although several approaches have been developed in the past 50 years to guarantee the successful test and reliable operation of integrated circuits for mission-critical applications in areas such as space, military, automotive, medical, and banking, direct application of those approaches is infeasible with mainstream applications, for which cost is an important factor. Innovative, low-cost analysis, modeling, test, and design approaches are therefore needed to face the ongoing test and reliability challenges of high-performance microprocessors.
The Articles
The six articles in this month's theme provide a comprehensive reference for the theoretical and practical aspects of innovative testing approaches, reliability analysis, and improvement techniques for high-performance microprocessors.
This theme opens with "New Design for Testability Approach for Clock Fault Testing," an article I coauthored with Martin Omaña, T.M. Mak, and Simon Tam. It introduces an approach for identifying faults that can occur during fabrication, affecting clock-distribution network signals in high-performance microprocessors and potentially compromising reliable operation in the field. Other researchers have shown that conventional testing strategies can't guarantee the detection of such faults, but we found that simple modifications to conventional clock buffers in high-performance microprocessors can force clock faults to result in clock stuck-at faults (making the clock signal constantly equal to Vdd or ground), which are easy to identify with any conventional testing strategy. A further proposed clock-buffer modification could also enable calibration after fabrication to compensate for parameter variations introduced during manufacturing. The proposed approach is suitable for both global and local clock buffers, and it implies only a small increase in the area and power consumption required for clock buffers, with no additional test cost or impact on microprocessor performance or in-field operation.
In "Automated Stressmark Generation for Testing Processor Voltage Fluctuations," Youngtaek Kim and colleagues analyze the problem of power management in the field. The article addresses the problem of analyzing voltage fluctuations that occur during a microprocessor's normal operation due to variations in the current that different parts of the code consume. The authors propose an approach to automatically generate proper benchmarks to evaluate recent multicore x86-64 processors' susceptibility to such voltage fluctuations.
Next up, Charles R. Lefurgy and his colleagues propose a solution to the problem of power management in the field. "Active Guardband Management in Power7+ to Save Energy and Maintain Reliability" presents an approach for adjusting processor voltage margins to save energy during low-temperature and low-activity operation periods, thus reducing power consumption while guaranteeing reliable operation (within performance constraints) during high-activity operation periods. To track workload needs, they adjust the voltage margins, which are usually adopted to compensate primarily for temperature and voltage changes resulting from different workloads, as well as variables such as test inaccuracy and aging. The authors have verified their proposed approach on prototype systems with Power7 and Power7+ chips (proper references can be found in the paper), showing its successful adoption for energy-efficient operation.
"Statistical Reliability Estimation of Microprocessor-Based Systems" by Alessandro Savino and his colleagues analyzes the problem of estimating microprocessor-based systems' reliability against soft errors. The article proposes a probabilistic approach to evaluate a microprocessor's reliability while running a given workload. The authors begin by characterizing the microprocessor according to its probable success in executing each instruction in its instruction set architecture and then complete a fast analysis to evaluate the probability of successful execution in case of soft errors. They have evaluated this approach on the Intel 8088 and OpenRISC1200 microprocessors.
In "Analysis of Error Masking and Restoring Properties of Sequential Circuits," Jinghang Liang, Jie Han, and Fabrizio Lombardi address the problem of possible error masking in complex sequential circuits — that is, the logic-masking effect imposed on the feedback signals by specific combinations of primary inputs, thus potentially eliminating the cumulative effect of soft errors. The authors use state-transition matrices and binary decision diagrams in a finite-state machine model to extensively analyze error masking. They have validated the proposed approach via simulations performed on sequential benchmark circuits, which showed attractive features that, albeit beyond the article's scope, could be exploited to improve the reliable operation of sequential circuits.
Finally, Martin Omaña and his colleagues address the problem of monitoring NBTI and keeping it from compromising correct system operation in "Low Cost NBTI Degradation Detection & Masking Approaches." The article proposes two monitoring approaches to detect late transitions (due to NBTI) of signals of timing-critical data paths, as well as two techniques to avoid that such late transitions result in erroneous data sampled by the flip-flops at the end of those data paths. In the low area and power (LAP) approach, a monitoring circuit provides an alarm message when, due to NBTI, late transitions of signals of timing-critical data paths occur, which could result in the sampling of incorrect data by the flip-flops at the end of such data-paths. The alarm message activates a clock-frequency adaptation phase, avoiding the generation of incorrect data at the outputs of such critical timing paths. This approach features lower area overhead and lower (or comparable) power consumption than previous alternate approaches, while presenting the same impact on performance. The other proposed approach, denoted as high performance (HP), consists of a monitoring circuit that can overwrite the incorrect data produced at the critical timing path outputs. This HP approach reduces the impact on system performance compared to previous alternatives, at the cost of some increase in area and power consumption.
Further Perspective
This month's theme also includes the following videos, which provide some deep technical insight into these issues by three industrial experts (in alphabetic order):
Rob Aitken, from ARM
Erik Altman, from IBM
Bill Eklow, from Cisco
We hope that this issue of Computing Now serves as a resource to highlight the major challenges in microprocessor test and reliability and stimulates further research in the field.
C. Metra, "Microprocessor Test and Reliability Challenges," Computing Now, vol. 6, no. 12, Dec. 2013, IEEE Computer Society [online]; http://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/computing-now/microprocessor-test-and-reliability-challenges.
Cecilia Metra is editor-in-chief of Computing Now. She is a full professor in electronics at the University of Bologna, Italy, where she has worked since 1991, and where she received a PhD in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. She is a member of the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors for 2013-2015, and Vice-President for Technical & Conference Activities of the IEEE Computer Society for 2014. She was associate editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Computers. She is on the editorial boards of several professional journals and has been involved in numerous IEEE-sponsored conferences, symposia, and workshops, serving as general or program chair or co-chair 14 times, as topic or track chair 28 times, and as technical program committee member 74 times. In 2002, she was a visiting faculty consultant for Intel in the US. Her research interests are in the field of design and test of digital systems, reliable and error-resilient systems design, fault tolerance, online testing, fault modeling, diagnosis and debugging, emergent technologies and nanocomputing, secure systems, energy-harvesting systems, and photovoltaic systems. She is an IEEE Fellow (as of January 2014) and a Golden Core member of IEEE Computer Society, from which she has received two Meritorious Service awards and two Certificates of Appreciation. Please contact her by email for possible comments on the monthly theme.