WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A defense contractor better known for building jet fighters and lethal missiles says it has found a way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater, potentially making it vastly cheaper to produce clean water at a time when scarcity has become a global security issue.
The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin ? just one atom in thickness ? it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.
The development could spare underdeveloped countries from having to build exotic, expensive pumping stations needed in plants that use a desalination process called reverse osmosis.
"It's 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger," said John Stetson, the engineer who has been working on the idea. "The energy that's required and the pressure that's required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less."
Access to clean drinking water is increasingly seen as a major global security issue. Competition for water is likely to lead to instability and potential state failure in countries important to the United States, according to a U.S. intelligence community report last year.
"Between now and 2040, fresh water availability will not keep up with demand absent more effective management of water resources," the report said. "Water problems will hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate electricity."
About 780 million people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water, the United Nations reported last year.
"One of the areas that we're very concerned about in terms of global security is the access to clean and affordable drinking water," said Tom Notaro, Lockheed business manager for advanced materials. "As more and more countries become more developed ... access to that water for their daily lives is becoming more and more critical."
Production challenge Lockheed still faces a number of challenges in moving to production of filters made of graphene, a substance similar to the lead in pencils. Working with the thin material without tearing it is difficult, as is ramping up production to the size and scale needed. Engineers are still refining the process for making the holes.
It is not known whether Lockheed faces commercial competition in this area. But it is not the only one working on the technology.
Jeffrey Grossman, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has done research on graphene membranes for filtration, said he was not familiar with details of Lockheed's work. But he said finding a way to produce graphene sheets with nanometer-sized holes could produce a major advancement in desalination efficiency.
"If you can design a membrane that's completely different than what we use today, then there's a chance for more than two orders of magnitude (100 times) increase in the permeability of the membrane," Grossman said.
Stetson, who began working on the issue in 2007, said if the new filter material, known as Perforene, was compared to the thickness of a piece of paper, the nearest comparable filter for extracting salt from seawater would be the thickness of three reams of paper ? more than half a foot (15 cm) thick.
"It looks like chicken wire under a microscope, if you could get an electron microscope picture of it," he said. "It's all little carbon atoms tied together in a diaphanous, smooth film that's beautiful and continuous. But it's one atom thick and it's a thousand time stronger than steel."
Thickness is one of the main factors that determines how much energy has to be used to force saltwater through a filter in the reverse osmosis process used for desalination today.
"The amount of work it takes to squeeze that water through the torturous path of today's best membranes is gone for Perforene," Stetson said. "It just literally pops right through because the membrane is thinner than the atoms it's filtering."
Notaro said Lockheed expects to have a prototype by the end of the year for a filter that could be used as a drop-in replacement for filters now used in reverse osmosis plants.
The company is looking for partners in the filter manufacturing arena to help it commercialize Perforene as a filter in the 2014-2015 time frame, he said.
Lockheed officials see other applications for Perforene as well, from dialysis in healthcare to cleaning chemicals from the water used in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," of oil and gas wells.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will sit down on Wednesday with corporate leaders to discuss efforts to improve cyber security in private industries amid rising concern about hacking attacks emanating from China.
The White House said that in the meeting, to take place in the Situation Room, Obama would discuss efforts to address the cyber threat and solicit the CEOs' input on how the government and private sector can best work together to improve the country's cyber security.
Cyber security has become a growing challenge to the economic relationship between China and the United States. In a speech in New York on Monday, White House national security adviser Tom Donilon said Beijing needs to recognize the scope of the problem.
U.S. businesses have been increasingly concerned about the targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber intrusions emanating from China, Donilon said in a speech to The Asia Society.
"The international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country," he said.
Obama signed an executive order a month ago seeking better protection of the country's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks. The order, which does not have the same force as law, directs federal authorities to improve information sharing on cyber threats.
Even the president's family has not escaped cyber problems. The president confirmed on Tuesday in an interview on ABC News that U.S. authorities are investigating whether hackers had posted online financial and personal information about his wife, Michelle Obama, as well as a variety of celebrities like Beyonce and Jay-Z.
Obama's executive order is designed to make it easier for the government to warn private companies of cyber threats and to set up a system of voluntary cyber security standards.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been discussing legislation that would focus on better sharing of information among companies and the government.
The White House has sought a comprehensive piece of legislation that would also set minimum security standards for critical companies, such as utilities, and provide better protection for private information that may be turned over to the government.
Mar. 10, 2013 ? The risk of cardiovascular sudden death was very small and only about 30% of the incidence were due to diseases that could be reliably detected by pre-participation screening, even with 12-lead ECGs, according to research in a U.S. high school athlete population presented March 10 at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Sessions.
Sudden death in young competitive athletes due to cardiovascular disease is an important community issue, which could impact the design of population-based screening initiatives. The frequency with which these tragic events occur impacts considerations for selecting the most appropriate screening strategy. Currently, athletes are assessed through a healthcare professional performing a physical exam and reviewing the individual's clinical history.
"Screening initiatives for high school-aged athletes has the potential to impact 10-15 million young adults in the U.S.," says the study's lead author, Barry J. Maron, MD, director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation in Minneapolis. "This is a controversial issue because some are suggesting that all young competitive athletes should be screened with a 12-lead ECG screening, which would be a massive and costly undertaking. Also, we do not have any evidence to show whether this is clinically necessary."
To assess this need, Maron and his colleagues interrogated the forensic case records of the U.S. National Registry of Sudden Death in Athletes over a 26-year period (1986-2011) to identify those events judged to be cardiovascular in origin occurring in organized competitive interscholastic sports participants in Minnesota. There were more than 4.44 million sports participations, including 1,930,504 individual participants among 24 sports.
There were 13 incidence of sudden deaths in high school student-athletes related to physical exertion during competition (7) or at practice (6). The ages were 12 to18 and each was a white male. Most common sports involved were basketball, wrestling or cross-country running. Sudden deaths occurred in 1 out of 150,000 participants.
Autopsy examination documented cardiac causes in 7 of the 13 deaths. In only 4 athletes (31%) could the responsible cardiovascular diseases be reliably detected by history, physical exam or 12-lead ECG, which is equivalent to 1 in 1 million participants.
"This very low event rate does not warrant changing the current national screening strategy, especially because only one-third of the deaths would have been detectable through additional screening," says Maron. "These findings demonstrate that these tragic events are rare. In addition to these data, no evidence in the medical literature has shown that ECGs reduce mortality in a broad-based screening effort."
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is poised to select Justice Department official Thomas Perez to be the next labor secretary, according to two people familiar with the deliberation process.
Perez' nomination to the Labor Department could come as early as Monday, the people familiar with the process said Saturday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the official announcement has not yet been made. White House spokesman Matt Lehrich declined to comment.
Perez, 51, has led the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division since 2009 and previously served as Maryland's labor secretary. He is expected to have solid support from organized labor and the Hispanic community, which is eager to have Hispanic representation in Obama's cabinet.
Perez was the first Latino elected to the Montgomery County Council in Maryland, where he served from 2002 to 2006. If confirmed, he would replace Hilda Solis, who resigned in January to return to her native California.
Perez would come to the Labor Department as Obama pushes a major immigration overhaul, which could include changes in how employers hire guest workers. Labor Department officials have also taken a prominent role in supporting Obama's effort to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour.
At the Justice Department, Perez has played a leading role in the agency's decision to challenge voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina that could restrict minority voting rights. A federal court later struck down the Texas law and delayed implementation of the law in South Carolina until after the 2012 election.
Perez was easily confirmed by the Senate for his Justice Department post, but since then, some GOP lawmakers have criticized his role in persuading the city of St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a lending discrimination lawsuit from the Supreme Court. In exchange, the Justice Department declined to join two whistle-blower lawsuits against St. Paul that could have returned millions in damages to the federal government.
The St. Paul case had challenged the use of statistics to prove race discrimination under the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and Justice Department officials were concerned the court could strike down the practice.
A letter last year from four Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, criticized Perez for a "quid pro quo arrangement" that potentially cost taxpayers more than $180 million.
LA MOTTE, Que. - A Canadian cardinal seen as a papal front-runner is also known for fancying family moose-steak dinners, eating dessert off a sibling's plate, and gunning his uncle's tractor until it broke.
If he becomes pope, however, Cardinal Marc Ouellet's family fears such intimate moments will be lost forever.
"We know that it would be over," his younger brother, Roch, said in an interview in their hometown of La Motte, in Quebec's northwest.
"We're quite frank about it as a family ? we would prefer to have a brother."
It's been decades since the cardinal has lived in this rural region, some 600 kilometres northwest of Montreal. But he has made regular visits to the area, usually twice a year, to see his siblings and their 90-year-old mother, Graziella.
The 68-year-old cardinal, third-eldest in a family of six boys and two girls, now holds one of the most powerful jobs in the Roman Catholic Church. He's in charge of the international process to name bishops and consults regularly the pope.
Since the cardinal's name was floated in 2005 as a long-shot contender for the papacy, his family has long understood he could be asked to don the silk, red slippers.
"This is one of the risks ? that maybe one day he will be called upon to lead this church," said Roch, 63, as he sat in La Motte's old church, which was built with the help of their father and grandfathers.
"But his path... belongs to him. We totally respect it."
That road to Rome began at the family farm in La Motte.
Roch remembers his older brother in a number of ways: as an excellent student, a gifted angler, and a partridge hunter who never turned down moose meat from those who bagged the big catches.
He also had a great appetite, says Roch, adding that his brother would eat dessert off others' plates when they didn't get to it quickly enough.
When it came to work, Marc was known for being impatient at times, a teen who tried to do more than he was asked to do ? and faster. Roch says his brother frequently broke things on Uncle Wilfrid's tractor while pushing the machine to its limit on the hay field.
Marc's also the sibling who almost burned the barn to the ground.
The building ignited while a young Marc was playing with matches nearby, Roch says. The fire was extinguished, and the barn saved, thanks to a quick response from an alert neighbour.
"That was a bit of an innocent gesture by a young person who didn't think about the consequences," says Roch.
"He wasn't an angel."
Marc, however, was something of a guardian angel at times to his younger brother, Roch recalls.
He remembers fishing with Marc at nearby Lac La Motte when a violent thunderstorm rolled in over their heads. Roch was around seven years old at the time and Marc was about 13.
After one particularly loud clap of thunder, the terrified boys dropped a fishing rod and fell to the ground. Roch remembers that Marc quickly rose back to his feet and led them home.
"He stayed in control," Roch says.
"He was probably as scared as I was, but I felt like I had a protector."
In recent weeks, from thousands of kilometres away in Rome, Marc has become the protector of another loved one: their mother.
He sent a message home to his family in La Motte last month shortly after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation.
Marc instructed them to think of their elderly mother's well-being before anything else during what he predicted would be an inevitable media storm.
"He told us: 'Be polite, be vigilant and the most essential thing is to protect our mother. Don't open up the house to everyone,' " Roch said of Marc, who has become misty-eyed and emotional in the past when talking to journalists about his mother.
The cardinal's love for his family has also been put to the test in recent years.
His brother Paul Ouellet was convicted a few years ago of sexual assault involving two minors, stemming from incidents in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Marc, who was archbishop of Quebec City at the time, had refused to comment on the case of his younger brother, who took out newspaper ads to explain the assaults.
Roch says Marc and Paul still speak regularly.
"These are two brothers who speak a lot. They have always talked, they have never lost touch," he says, adding the family has the same amount of affection toward every member.
"Their brotherly love was quite a bit stronger than all the stories swirling around, more than people know."
You and your new spouse hope that your blended family will provide the kind of loving and nurturing environment you all want and deserve. You want it to supply the missing pieces in all your lives and your hearts caused by the losses of divorce or parental death. The problem is, even though you are all together now, you feel surprisingly isolated and alone.
Your biological kids are acting out in ways you have not seen for years, unhappy sharing you and their space with a step parent and step siblings. Your step kids act like you are invisible, or like you are the enemy. They speak to you rudely and treat you like a piece of furniture. They roll their eyes when you speak, ignore what you have just said, and dare you to do something about it!
Parenting by guilt or by fear This certainly is not what you had in mind when you formed your blended family! When you try to tell your partner how rude or defiant his or her kids are being, you are reminded that they are just kids. You feel angry and misunderstood. Later on, your partner explains that being strict is hard when the kids only come over on weekends and holidays, and if it is not fun for them, they may not want to come.
This argument against discipline might be filed under the category of Parenting by Guilt, cross-referenced with Parenting by Fear. Neither method does anyone any good, either in the long run, or for the short term.
You deserve respect in your blended family home The biggest challenge step parents face is lack of respect from the step kids, and negligible support from their partners. It is truly difficult to invest in a marriage and a blended family if you feel disrespected and unappreciated. It is easy to understand why many step parents consider giving up, especially if their blended family partner always defends the kids and acts like it is your fault when they misbehave.
Partners who ally themselves with children against a step parent miss the promise of a strong couple relationship that can lend stability to children thrown into a blended family. You are tired of being disrespected, and ready to lay down the law. Or worse yet, you are ready to pack your bags and leave.
Hold on there a minute Before you pack your bags and leave, remember that there is a solution. Voice your unhappiness with the situation, and your disappointment, clearly, concisely, and without attacking either your partner or their kids. Arrange a special meeting away from the kids so that you two can talk without distractions. Plan what you are going to say. Do not get angry, cry, or threaten to leave. Here are some topics you should consider:
oBoundaries. Set clear boundaries on what behaviors you will and will not accept. Explain exactly what bothers you, being sure to tell your partner why it bothers you and how the behavior makes you feel. Ask him or her for suggestions on how to deal with their kids. Children need boundaries, and have a grudging respect for parents who set and defend them.
oChoose your battles. Discuss what behaviors you are willing to allow and what is non-negotiable. Choose your battles, and make sure the consequences of rule-breaking fit the infraction.
oWritten rules. Work with your partner to create a clear and concise set of rules. As you decide on rules, be sure that you and your partner are united. Kids know a weak spot when they see it, and are experts at using your weaknesses to get their way. If you and your partner cannot agree on clear boundaries, you risk raising children who habitually push the limits to see how much they can get away with.
oBe consistent with your follow through. One of the biggest mistakes parents and step parents make is to punish a child for something one day, and let it slide the next. When you are inconsistent, you teach your children to disregard authority; not just parents, but teachers, supervisors, and police too.
Stand up for yourself. Show your partner and your kids that you respect yourself, by standing up for what is important, and by being clear and consistent about what you want. Over time, your family will come closer together, and you will begin to enjoy being together, building stronger relationships, and feeling more like a family.
Give yourself and your blended family members the respect you all deserve. Mutual respect is the most important value a blended family can support. When mutual respect is the by-word of blended family life, the kind of loving and nurturing environment we all want and deserve can be possible.
About the Author: Shirley Cress Dudley, a licensed professional counselor and nationally certified counselor, is the founder of The Blended and Step Family Resource Center and author of the book, Blended Family Advice. Shirley's passion is helping blended and step families grow strong and be successful. Sign up for our Free Newsletter and receive a Free Report.
Dita Von Teese turned 40 last fall, which is not usually a happy milestone for a stripper.
But the irrepressible burlesque star is proving that great second acts are possible in everyone?s life, especially for women, despite what F. Scott Fitzgerald might have said to the contrary.
Dita has accomplished the rare feat of turning her body into a brand. And these days that brand is everywhere, reaching into more homes and in more ways than anyone could have imagined.
Here?s what our favorite icon-in-the-making got done in the last week alone:
She announced her Von Follies lingerie collection, a modestly priced faux retro set launched in Australia a year ago, will reach American consumers next month when it debuts on the Home Shopping Network. It has already been picked up by Debenhams in the UK as well as online retailers ASOS, StyleBop and Glamuse, and a new seasonal collection is in Aussie Target stores now.
Dita just wrapped a sold-out four-night run of her Strip, Strip, Hooray! burlesque revue at New York?s Gramercy Theater, which won positively orgasmic reviews. Dita?s show ? now 21 years after she first started performing! ? is leading a major resurgence (and reappraisal) of this art form, and more touring dates for the ultra-glamorous production are promised.
She made history last Monday by debuting what is being called the world?s first 3-D dress (above). The see-through wonder was designed by Michael Schmidt and architect Francis Bitonti and was fabricated from powdered nylon adorned with 13,000 black Swarovski crystals. Is this the next giant leap in fashion technology? See for yourself when the outfit shows up at a museum near you soon.
To top things off, Dita previewed a new fragrance (her third) called ?FleurTeese? and her dress collection made its New York debut at a two-day pop-up shop on Park Avenue.
The rapid emergence of Brand Dita follows a booming 2012 in which she landed five magazine covers and ? get this! ? her 2005 wedding dress was included in an exhibition of historic bridal fashions at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
How has she been able to pull all this off? First, by resisting many of the countless and pointless media engagements that have taken up much of her time in the past decade. And second, by entering into a fruitful partnership with Aussie brand development company Lime Door Brands, which coordinates her apparel products. Dita?s recent activities have been a case study in focus, commitment and careful brand management.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in all this is Dita?s admission, in an interview with Elle this week, that she?s still just a one-woman show, in more ways than one.
?I do not run with an entourage of makeup stylists, and I don?t have someone dictating to me what is the right thing to wear,? she said. ?I don?t have anyone advising me. Every one of my products ? my lingerie, my perfume, and everything that I do beauty-related with regard to building my burlesque shows ? is just me. And I?m really into the motto: I can do it, you can do it.?
Numbers of women in engineering, physics and computer science on the decline
Delhi, March 7, 2013 - In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in many, including the United States. India's low overall ranking in the study shows slow progress despite women friendly policies which have been in place for a number of years.
The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU. It was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation. The lead research was conducted by Dr. Sophia Huyer, founding Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.
India ranks the lowest overall of the countries in this study -- Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, and the EU including low rankings in economic status, access to resources, knowledge economy, and health. Less than 15% of women have access to their own bank account, and females hold less than a third of available administrative and managerial positions. While India's enabling policy environment, which has been in place for many years, is very positive, implementation and funding needs to increase substantially before women can equally benefit from the innovation advantage. At the same time there are definite signs of progress, India has achieved universal primary education enrollment for example. Ensuring that women in the Indian population are enabled and supported to improve their health, access to resources and opportunities, and develop capacity to contribute to India's knowledge society is one obvious and immediate strategy to make up some of the gap.
Despite efforts made by the countries studied to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results, particularly in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fieldsless than 30% in most countries. Female enrollments in the bio and health sciences in India are very high, at 80%, but the numbers drop drastically in engineering and physics enrollments to 35%. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board only 12% of the S&E workforce in India was female in 2010. Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace. India does see a high representation of females in management in all sectors at 42%, but less than 5% representation of females on corporate boards.
"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."
The data show that women's parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being higher economic status, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources. Findings also show that women have greater parity in countries with government policies that support childcare, equal pay, and gender mainstreaming. One of the main findings is that few countries collect consistent and reliable sex-disaggregated data in all of these areas, which inhibits their ability to implement effective supporting policies and programs.
"We found that the absence of any one of these elements creates a situation of vulnerability for economies that want to be competitively positioned in the knowledge economy," Huyer says. "No one country or region is ticking off all the boxes, and some are falling dismally short. This is a tremendous waste of resources. We are wasting resources educating women without following through, and we are missing out on the enormous potential that women represent."
"This broad and ambitious assessment is a critical starting point for measuring the participation of women and girls in science, technology and innovation in emerging and developing worlds," said David Ruth, Executive Director of the Elsevier Foundation, "This study identifies key areas of national strength and weakness, and we hope it will help form the basis of evidence-based policy making and aid going forward."
###
The report, funded by The Elsevier Foundation, which provides grant programs targeting women scientists in the early stages of their careers, was also supported by futureInnovate.net, a non-profit that supports initiatives that strengthen innovation systems in Canada and around the world.
Notes to Editors
The project summary and Key Findings the Gender Equality and the Knowledge Society Scorecard, as well as graphical scorecards for each participating country, can be found at http://www.wisat.org. Please contact Ylann Schemm (y.schemm@elsevier.com ) for more information or to arrange an interview with researchers Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin.
About the Researchers
As founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology, Sophia Huyer has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology policy, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and social development. She is also research director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. She was a major contributor to the UNCTAD report Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) and the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender (2007).
Recently inducted into the Internet Society's Internet Hall of Fame, Nancy Hafkin played a key role in developing Africa's ICT infrastructure through her work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She also worked with the Association for Progressive Communications to provide email connectivity to more than 10 countries there. In 2006 she co-edited "Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society," with Sophia Huyer and in 2012 she authored a chapter on gender issues for "Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations," edited by George Sadowsky.
About OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international sister organization of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. OWSD is headed by eminent women scientists from the south, consisting of more than 4,000 members. Created in 1989, OWSD's overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in science and technology. The central role is to promote women's access to science and technology, enhancing their greater involvement in decision-making for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. OWSD promotes leadership, exchanges and networking for women scientists to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. http://www.owsdw.org.
About WISAT
Women in Global Science and Technology is an international non-profit which promotes innovation, science and technology strategies that enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to actively participate in technology and innovation for development. Women should be able to benefit from access to technologies and full participation in innovation systems. http://www.wisat.org
About The Elsevier Foundation
The Elsevier Foundation is a corporate charity funded by Elsevier, a global provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The Elsevier Foundation provides grants to knowledge centered institutions around the world, with a focus on developing world libraries, nurse faculty and scholars in the early stages of their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 60 grants worth millions of dollars to non-profit organizations working in these fields. Through gift-matching, the Foundation also supports the efforts of Elsevier employees to play a positive role in their local and global communities. http://www.elsevierfoundation.org
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New gender benchmarking study: India is making slow progress in advancing women in S & TPublic release date: 7-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Numbers of women in engineering, physics and computer science on the decline
Delhi, March 7, 2013 - In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in many, including the United States. India's low overall ranking in the study shows slow progress despite women friendly policies which have been in place for a number of years.
The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU. It was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation. The lead research was conducted by Dr. Sophia Huyer, founding Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.
India ranks the lowest overall of the countries in this study -- Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, and the EU including low rankings in economic status, access to resources, knowledge economy, and health. Less than 15% of women have access to their own bank account, and females hold less than a third of available administrative and managerial positions. While India's enabling policy environment, which has been in place for many years, is very positive, implementation and funding needs to increase substantially before women can equally benefit from the innovation advantage. At the same time there are definite signs of progress, India has achieved universal primary education enrollment for example. Ensuring that women in the Indian population are enabled and supported to improve their health, access to resources and opportunities, and develop capacity to contribute to India's knowledge society is one obvious and immediate strategy to make up some of the gap.
Despite efforts made by the countries studied to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results, particularly in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fieldsless than 30% in most countries. Female enrollments in the bio and health sciences in India are very high, at 80%, but the numbers drop drastically in engineering and physics enrollments to 35%. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board only 12% of the S&E workforce in India was female in 2010. Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace. India does see a high representation of females in management in all sectors at 42%, but less than 5% representation of females on corporate boards.
"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."
The data show that women's parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being higher economic status, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources. Findings also show that women have greater parity in countries with government policies that support childcare, equal pay, and gender mainstreaming. One of the main findings is that few countries collect consistent and reliable sex-disaggregated data in all of these areas, which inhibits their ability to implement effective supporting policies and programs.
"We found that the absence of any one of these elements creates a situation of vulnerability for economies that want to be competitively positioned in the knowledge economy," Huyer says. "No one country or region is ticking off all the boxes, and some are falling dismally short. This is a tremendous waste of resources. We are wasting resources educating women without following through, and we are missing out on the enormous potential that women represent."
"This broad and ambitious assessment is a critical starting point for measuring the participation of women and girls in science, technology and innovation in emerging and developing worlds," said David Ruth, Executive Director of the Elsevier Foundation, "This study identifies key areas of national strength and weakness, and we hope it will help form the basis of evidence-based policy making and aid going forward."
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The report, funded by The Elsevier Foundation, which provides grant programs targeting women scientists in the early stages of their careers, was also supported by futureInnovate.net, a non-profit that supports initiatives that strengthen innovation systems in Canada and around the world.
Notes to Editors
The project summary and Key Findings the Gender Equality and the Knowledge Society Scorecard, as well as graphical scorecards for each participating country, can be found at http://www.wisat.org. Please contact Ylann Schemm (y.schemm@elsevier.com ) for more information or to arrange an interview with researchers Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin.
About the Researchers
As founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology, Sophia Huyer has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology policy, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and social development. She is also research director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. She was a major contributor to the UNCTAD report Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) and the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender (2007).
Recently inducted into the Internet Society's Internet Hall of Fame, Nancy Hafkin played a key role in developing Africa's ICT infrastructure through her work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She also worked with the Association for Progressive Communications to provide email connectivity to more than 10 countries there. In 2006 she co-edited "Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society," with Sophia Huyer and in 2012 she authored a chapter on gender issues for "Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations," edited by George Sadowsky.
About OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international sister organization of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. OWSD is headed by eminent women scientists from the south, consisting of more than 4,000 members. Created in 1989, OWSD's overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in science and technology. The central role is to promote women's access to science and technology, enhancing their greater involvement in decision-making for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. OWSD promotes leadership, exchanges and networking for women scientists to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. http://www.owsdw.org.
About WISAT
Women in Global Science and Technology is an international non-profit which promotes innovation, science and technology strategies that enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to actively participate in technology and innovation for development. Women should be able to benefit from access to technologies and full participation in innovation systems. http://www.wisat.org
About The Elsevier Foundation
The Elsevier Foundation is a corporate charity funded by Elsevier, a global provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The Elsevier Foundation provides grants to knowledge centered institutions around the world, with a focus on developing world libraries, nurse faculty and scholars in the early stages of their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 60 grants worth millions of dollars to non-profit organizations working in these fields. Through gift-matching, the Foundation also supports the efforts of Elsevier employees to play a positive role in their local and global communities. http://www.elsevierfoundation.org
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Indoor navigation isn't a new concept, but it often requires wireless signals or custom infrastructure, neither of which are entirely reliable. Cambridge Consultants has come up with an as-yet-unnamed technology that purports to solve the issue by utilizing low-power sensors along with a custom formula that don't require an existing framework. According to the Cambridge, UK-based company, all you need are its special Bayesian algorithm and run-of-the-mill smartphone components like accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers to do the job. It has already built a concept chipset (seen above) that could be embedded in existing devices -- you can either map your location directly on it or send that info off to a remote system. The firm says the technology will be useful for firefighters and hospital workers, though we wouldn't complain if it's implemented in trade shows either. For more information on the tech, check the press release after the break.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
It?s a cacophony of sounds you hear several times a day. The unmistakable chink of the metal tag, the sound like someone dragging their fingers through the carpet, and the grunts of effort from the dog. Yep, the dog is scratching again.
You can?t put your finger on it and it?s clearly driving the dog (and everyone else in the house) up the wall. Why is the dog scratching so much? How can you stop your dog from scratching himself silly?
There are several factors that can cause itchy skin and skin irritations in dogs, including fleas, a lack of zinc, an allergy causing ingredient in dog food, and a PH imbalance of the skin.
Flea Be Gone!
A natural flea repellent is tea tree, and for some reason they really can?t stand it. While it doesn?t actually kill fleas, shampoos such as I Love Pet head Life?s An Itch Shampoo and John Paul Pet Tea Tree Treatment Shampoo can help to keep them away from your best pal.
If you?re looking for something to knock the fleas on the head completely, Frontline Spot-On, Bob Martin Spot-On or Johnson?s 4Fleas or will do the job. Our trained staff are always available to give advice on flea treatments.
Lamb = Zinc
Zinc is used to speed up the healing process of the skin, which makes it really great for doggies with skin irritations. Some brands include lamb in their feeds, and lamb is a very good source of zinc. MORE Adult Lamb and Rice, Symply Small Breed Adult Lamb and Rice, and Symply Adult Lamb and Rice contain a lot of great quality lamb.
Allergies!
A major cause of skin problems is allergies to particular ingredients, such as soy, pork, beef, dairy, wheat and wheat gluten. If your dog is scratching like there?s no tomorrow, great hypo-allergenic brands MORE, Symply and Canagan are free from all of these ingredients and are some great options to try.
Restoring Balance
A PH imbalance encourages fungal and bacterial infections in the skin. Shampoos that contain oatmeal, such as John Paul Pet Oatmeal Shampoo, help to restore this balance. Oatmeal shampoo also moisturises the skin and is very useful to owners with dogs that suffer from dandruff and sensitive skin.
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Posted in Dogs, Feeding, Medicine, More, Nutrition, Symply |Tagged 4fleas, bob martin, conditioner, Dog, Frontline, I love pet head, itch, Itching, itchy dog, john paul, john paul pet, johnson's 4fleas, Johnsons, molting, moulting, my dog is itchy, oatmeal, pet head, puppy, Scratching, shampoo, shedding, Skin, tea tree |
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