Re: Ant: [ppiindia] 100 universitas terbaik di Asia-Pasifik [Top 100 Asia Pacific Universities]
Mari kita perhatikan 2 negara kecil yang berpenduduk 3.5 juta jiwa, yaitu Singapura dan Israel, ya Israel. Dalam 100 universitas terbaik kawasan Aspas, Singapura punya 2 ditempat terhormat yaitu Nanyang Technical University dan National University of Singapore. Sedang Israel lebih edan lagi, mereka punya 7 ditempat terhormat, yaitu Hebrew University, Technion Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, Weismann Istitute of Technology, Bar Ilan University, Ben Gurion University, dan University of Haifa. Barangkali karena itu kita harus berpikir sepuluh kali sebelum kita meremehkan negara yang kecil. Salam, RM --- Danardono HADINOTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ambon [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_TopAsia.htm Top 100 Asia Pacific Universities Regional Rank Institution* World Rank Country National Rank 1 Tokyo Univ 20 Japan 1 2 Kyoto Univ 22 Japan 2 3 Australian Natl Univ 56 Australia 1 4 Osaka Univ 62 Japan 3 5 Tohoku Univ 73 Japan 4 6 Hebrew Univ Jerusalem 78 Israel 1 7 Univ Melbourne 82 Australia 2 8 Tokyo Inst Tech 93 Japan 5 9-19 Hokkaido Univ 101-152 Japan 6-9 9-19 Kyushu Univ 101-152 Japan 6-9 9-19 Nagoya Univ 101-152 Japan 6-9 9-19 Natl Univ Singapore 101-152 Singapore 1 9-19 Seoul Natl Univ 101-152 South Korea 1 9-19 Technion Israel Inst Tech 101-152 Israel 2-4 9-19 Tel Aviv Univ 101-152 Israel 2-4 9-19 Tsukuba Univ 101-152 Japan 6-9 9-19 Univ Queensland 101-152 Australia 3-4 9-19 Univ Sydney 101-152 Australia 3-4 9-19 Weizmann Inst Sci 101-152 Israel 2-4 20-23 Natl Taiwan Univ 153-202 China-tw 1 20-23 Tsing Hua Univ 153-202 China 1 20-23 Univ New South Wales 153-202 Australia 5-6 20-23 Univ Western Australia 153-202 Australia 5-6 24-36 Chinese Univ Hong Kong 203-300 China-hk 1-3 24-36 Hiroshima Univ 203-300 Japan 10-13 24-36 Hong Kong Univ Sci Tech 203-300 China-hk 1-3 24-36 Keio Univ 203-300 Japan 10-13 24-36 Kobe Univ 203-300 Japan 10-13 24-36 Macquarie Univ 203-300 Australia 7-9 24-36 Monash Univ 203-300 Australia 7-9 24-36 Okayama Univ 203-300 Japan 10-13 24-36 Peking Univ 203-300 China 2 24-36 Univ Adelaide 203-300 Australia 7-9 24-36 Univ Auckland 203-300 New Zealand 1 24-36 Univ Hong Kong 203-300 China-hk 1-3 24-36 Yonsei Univ 203-300 South Korea 2 37-65 Bar Ilan Univ 301-400 Israel 5-6 37-65 Ben Gurion Univ 301-400 Israel 5-6 37-65 Chiba Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 City Univ Hong Kong 301-400 China-hk 4-5 37-65 Fudan Univ 301-400 China 3-7 37-65 Gunma Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ 301-400 China-hk 4-5 37-65 Indian Inst Sci 301-400 India 1 37-65 Kanazawa Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Korea Advanced Inst Sci Tech 301-400 South Korea 3-5 37-65 Nagasaki Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Nanjing Univ 301-400 China 3-7 37-65 Nanyang Tech Univ 301-400 Singapore 2 37-65 Natl Cheng Kung Univ 301-400 China-tw 2-3 37-65 Natl Tsing Hua Univ 301-400 China-tw 2-3 37-65 Nihon Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Niigata Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Pohang Univ Sci Tech 301-400 South Korea 3-5 37-65 Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ 301-400 China 3-7 37-65 Sungkyunkwan Univ 301-400 South Korea 3-5 37-65 Tokyo Med Dent Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Tokyo Univ Agr Tech 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Univ Newcastle 301-400 Australia 10 37-65 Univ Otago 301-400 New Zealand 2 37-65 Univ Sci Tech China 301-400 China 3-7 37-65 Univ Tokushima 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Waseda Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Yamaguchi Univ 301-400 Japan 14-24 37-65 Zhejiang Univ 301-400 China 3-7 66-93 Ehime Univ 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Flinders Univ South Australia 401-500 Australia 11-14 66-93 Gifu Univ 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Graduate Univ for Advanced Studies 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Hacettepe Univ 401-500 Turkey 1-2 66-93 Hanyang Univ 401-500 South Korea 6-8 66-93 Indian Inst Tech - Kharagpur 401-500 India 2-3 66-93 Jilin Univ 401-500 China 8 66-93 Juntendo Univ 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Kagoshima Univ 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Korea Univ 401-500 South Korea 6-8 66-93 Kumamoto Univ 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Kyungpook Natl Univ 401-500 South Korea 6-8 66-93 La Trobe Univ 401-500 Australia 11-14 66-93 Massey Univ 401-500 New Zealand 3-5 66-93 Murdoch Univ 401-500 Australia 11-14 66-93 Nara Inst Sci Tech 401-500 Japan 25-34 66-93 Natl Chiao Tung Univ 401-500 China-tw 4-5 66-93
[ppiindia] Pejuang wanita itu telah meninggalkan kita
Kemarin, Minggu tanggal 14 Agustus 2005, Ny. Suwarni Salyo, S.H. telah meninggal dunia dalam usia 84 tahun. Terakhir dia masih aktif dalam kepengurusan Ikatan Sarjana Wanita Indonesia dan sekalipun usianya sudah uzur, dia aktif dalam kegiatan kesetaraan jender bersama Ny. Saparinah Sadli. Jenazahnya dimakamkan di Blitar, sesuai dengan amanat beliau kepada sanak keluarga. Semasa gadis belia yang cantik, dia bergerilya bersama TP (tentara pelajar atau TRIP). Sejak muda dia memang cantas (tepat bicara) dan menggunakan kemampuan Bahasa Belanda yang prima kalau ditangkap Belanda : kalau yang menangkap dia kopral Knil, yang biasanya kulit sawo matang atau hitam, dia berkacak pinggang minta dipertemukan dengan opsirnya (pasti Belanda totok) dan selalu setelah berbicara rileks dia dilepaskan. Dia kemudian bersuamikan juru terbang Kapten Muljono. Perkawinan pertama ini berlangsung tidak begitu lama, karena penerbang legendaris ini, yang mampu menerbangkan pesawat cureng Jepang hanya dengan membaca manual saja, jatuh nyungsep ke rumah Pak Haji di Surabaya dalam upaya yang gagal untuk memecahkan rekor terbang vertikal setelah menukik 50 meter dari atas tanah dengan pesawat Mustang P-51. Adalah adiknya, Suwardi (lulusan Delft yang kemudian menjadi satu diantara dua orang Indonesia pertama yang menjadi sarjana ahli teknik nuklir), yang meyakinkan Suwarni untuk tidak tenggelam dalam kesedihan ditinggalkan suami tercinta. Lalu dia menyelesaikan studi di Fakultas Hukum Universitas Airlangga dan menjadi Pemimpin Umum koran Surabaya Pos. Tidak pernah absen dari perjuangan, di Jakarta dia memimpin KASI (Kesatuan Aksi Sarjana Indonesia) dan menikah dengan Ir. R.M. Salyo. Sayang wanita yang yakin bahwa orang Indonesia seharusnya mengidentifikasikan diri sebagai orang Indonesia dulu baru identifikasi sebagai penganut agama tertentu kemudian, ini belum sempat melihat semaraknya peringatan HUT ke-60 proklamasi. Salam, RM Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- font face=arial size=-1a href=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hgg048p/M=320369.6903865.7846595.3022212/D=groups/S=1705329729:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124085322/A=2896110/R=0/SIG=1107idj9u/*http://www.thanksandgiving.com Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children¿s Research Hospital/a./font ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [ppiindia] Sikap menolak Muslim Bolaang-Mongondow dan Manado terhadap fatwa MUI
Pakalayan pakalawiran (betul ??), Pengikut Pangeran Diponegoro betah dan diterima baik oleh masyarakat Minahasa yang beragama Nasrani, mereka beranak pinak dengan damai disana. Salah satu dari mereka adalah Hidayat Atjeh, kawan baik saya. Sampai beberapa tahun lalu ada tradisi dimana masyarakat ikut menyumbang keringat mendirikan masjid, begitu pula sebaliknya muslim Minahasa membantu mendirikan gereja. Tetapi Nyonya Rembet, kawanua tetangga saya, bilang bahwa tradisi itu sekarang luntur gara-gara ulah fanatik muslim dari luar daerah. Tak heran membaca berita dibawah bahwa wakil PAN dan pimpinan PMII (bagi yang belum tahu ini kumpulan mahasiswa NU) tegas menolak fatwa MUI yang mengharamkan Presiden dan ummat Islam menghadiri pesta Natal. Salam, RM --- Danardono HADINOTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bupati Bolmong Tolak Fatwa MUI Wilayah Bolmong yang luasnya 54 persen dari luas wilayah Sulut kerap disebut Indonesia Mini. Pasalnya, 400 ribu penduduknya memiliki beragam agama, suku dan budaya, bahkan boleh dibilang semua suku dan agama di republik ini dapat ditemukan di Bumi Totabuan. Karena itu, sosok pemimpin pun harus bisa diterima oleh semua umat. Nah, terkait fatwa MUI tentang pengharaman doa bersama, di mana umat Muslim diharamkan mengikuti acara natalan atau kegiatan keagamaan lainnya dari non-Muslim, Bupati Bolmong Dra Hj Marlina Moha Siahaan (MMS) tentu saja menolak, apalagi bila fatwa dipaksakan untuk diberlakukan di Bolmong. Adapun alasan utama MMS, bahwa dirinya adalah pemimpin seluruh rakyat Bolmong, bukan hanya memimpin satu agama atau golongan tertentu. Di mana dia selalu dituntut untuk bisa berkomunikasi langsung dengan rakyat yang dipimpinnya, bukan melulu diwakilkan saja. Bupati adalah milik semua rakyat Bolmong tanpa pandang bulu, agama, golongan maupun suku mana pun. Sehubungan dengan fatwa MUI tersebut, sepertinya belum tepat untuk diterapkan di Bolmong. Intinya, bupati tetap sah kalau menghadiri dan turut mengikuti acara-acara keagamaan dari non-Muslim, kata MMS sebagaimana dikutip juru bicaranya Ir Yudha Rantung,kemarin siang (09/08). Lagi pula, MMS memang selalu diundang oleh rakyatnya dari non-Muslim untuk menghadiri seremoni-seremoni keagamaan, di mana pada kesempatan itu MMS selalu pula didaulat untuk menyampaikan kata-kata sambutan. Sehingga bisa dibayangkan betapa besar kekecewaan rakyat, ketika menyadari kalau kata-kata sambutan MMS selaku bupati hanya diwakilkan saja kepada bawahan. Selama ini ibu bupati selalu menghadiri dan mengikuti acara-acara seremonial keagamaan dari non-Muslim, misalnya natalan. Beliau diberikan kesempatan untuk menyampaikan kata-kata sambutan. Kalau pun pada saat acara itu dilangsungkan ibadah, bukannya bupati kita langsung beranjak dari kursinya, melainkan tetap di tempat namun bersikap pasif selama ibadah berlangsung. Itu kan sikap positif MMS untuk menghormati umat dari agama lain, tambah Rantung lagi. Di sisi lain, gaung penolakan terhadap fatwa MUI yang mengharamkan umat Islam menghadiri natalan atau kegiatan keagamaan dari non-Muslim, disampaikan beramai-ramai oleh sejumlah tokoh Bol-mong. Mereka menilai, pada hakikatnya negara ini bukan negara agama, bukan milik satu agama saja, melainkan milik dari seluruh rakyat yang diketahui memiliki keanekaragaman agama, suku dan budaya. Ketua Fraksi PAN, Drs Jemmy Lantong bersama anggotanya Rusli Tungkagi, berikut Ketua F-PDIP Christofel Popo Buhang bersama rekannya Herman Kembuan, serta Ketua F-PG Mansyur Sugeha menyampaikan hal itu dalam perbincangan serius di kantor dewan kemarin siang, usai membaca headline yang terpampang di etalase harian ini, edisi Selasa kemarin. Presiden kan bukan pemimpin satu agama saja, tapi memimpin semua rakyatIndonesia yang memiliki agama, suku maupun budaya yang berbeda. Jadi kalau MUI mengeluarkan fatwa haram bagi presiden maupun seluruh umat Islam untuk menghadiri acara keagaman umat lain, itu sama saja dengan pemasungan terhadap umat Muslim sendiri dalam bersosialisasi dengan masyarakat sekitar. Jadi saya sendiri sebagai orang Islam tidak bisa menerima fatwa itu, sembur Herman Kembuan, langsung diaminkan teman-temannya. Kita harus menyadari bahwa negara masih memegang asas Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, atau berbeda-beda tapi tetap satu. Jadi kami sarankan sebaiknya MUI tidak terburu-buru me-ngeluarkan fatwa haram tersebut, sambung Popo. Senada dikatakan juga oleh Hi Mansyur Sugeha BSc, yang lebih memfokuskan penilaiannya pada kerukunan antarumat beragama dan kerukunan antarumat yang berbeda agama. Ketika datang lebaran, kata Ketua F-PG ini yang juga dikenal sebagai sesepuh rakyat Bolmong, umat non-Muslim baik dari Kristen, Hindu dan Budha berkenan turun merayakan dan mengucapkan selamat atas hari kemenangan umat Islam itu, bahkan mereka juga tidak segan-segan datang bertamu ke rumah kita. Sebaliknya, kalau mereka juga merayakan hari besar, seperti natal, lalu
[ppiindia] The college library of tomorrow
Terus terang, banyak dari orang Indonesia masih menyepelekan perpustakaan dan buku. Pergilah kerumah orang, akan kita temui pajangan mahal yang tertata apik tetapi tidak ada buku. Jangan heran, tuan rumah adalah jebolan universitas. Keadaan yang sama menyedihkan juga kita jumpai di banyak universitas. Kalaupun ada buku mengenai topik yang kita inginkan, bukunya keluaran tahun 1950an. Beruntung kita punya Google. Dengan memilih kata kunci yang tepat, kita akan menemukan bahan informasi yang kita cari -- bahkan yang sebelumnya tidak kita perkirakan. Sekarang Google lebih maju lagi, bersama dengan Stanford dan MIT sedang mendigitalkan perpustakaan mereka. Sebentar lagi Anda dapat menyusun paper, thesis atau disertasi cukup dari rumah saja, gratis pula. Salam, RM http://www.news.com/ The college library of tomorrow By Stefanie Olsen http://news.com.com/The+college+library+of+tomorrow/2100-1025_3-5817291.html Story last modified Wed Aug 03 12:30:00 PDT 2005 Last December, Google started on a wildly ambitious and somewhat controversial plan to digitize the collections of some of the world's largest university and public libraries in an effort to make hard-to-find books accessible by the click of a mouse. But out of the spotlight, a number of universities are already working on bookless, digital libraries that reflect a growing understanding of how today's tech-savvy students access information. The notion of a library as a physical collection has long ago been altered, said Michael Keller, university librarian and director of academic information resources at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. It's now physical and virtual. A number of universities are creating bookless, digital libraries that reflect a growing understanding of how today's tech-savvy students access information. Bottom line: As college collections morph into libraries of the future, the challenge will be maintaining the integrity of vast old libraries while embracing a new medium. Stanford librarians aren't the only academics working on the libraries of tomorrow. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California school system, the University of Michigan and University of Virginia, among others, have also been digitizing their collections, developing new technologies and creating a lasting archive of electronic material. We're really in a period of challenging transition, where we sort of know how to provide digital access to information, but we're very concerned about how to build a scholarly record over the long term, said MacKenzie Smith, associate director for technology in MIT's libraries. Within five years at Stanford--where Google's founders hatched the idea for their company in a graduate student dormitory--officials hope to build a bookless engineering library, Keller said. Most of the plans for the engineering library are still being hashed out. But an engineering library, unlike a traditional library, particularly lends itself to going bookless because students are more concerned about finding information than about the presentation of that information. Shakespeare? Hemingway? Those books need to stay on a shelf. A treatise on Unix kernel development? Not so much. Instead of physical books, the engineering library will house group study rooms, a communal workspace and computer terminals with access to millions of industry journals, scholarly papers, academic research and books in digital form, as well as the Web. Specialized librarians will teach students heuristics, or scientific methods to seek information. Stanford is one of the universities working with Google, and it will eventually digitize the university's entire 8.7 million-volume collection. It's also working with the search technology company Grokis (or Grokker), which makes software that graphically depicts data and its relevant relationships. The university is testing Groxis software plug-ins for access to 350 different data sources, and it hopes to one day have hundreds of plug-ins available for students. Stanford is also developing search technologies that evaluate results on a statistical or taxonomic basis, as opposed to a keyword basis. A project called TopicMap at Highwire Press, Stanford's search site for scholarly papers, lets people search for concepts in thousands of journals and displays those relationships in a graphical interface. Making room for computers The university even has storage space in the nearby city of Livermore so it can sock away books it no longer needs on the shelves. On the East Coast, MIT has for nearly five years run D Space, a repository to capture all types of digital material, including books, articles, theses, technical reports, images and simulations. The Cambridge, Mass., university is also working with publishers of print and online materials to obtain long-term access to digital copies that may be under subscription and that will eventually be pulled from the
Re: [ppiindia] Info Nutrisi : Kubis, Kandungan Kimia dan Khasiatnya
Informasi cukup baik. Dengan catatan: 1. Beta karoten saja tidak cukup. Karena beta karoten tidak dapat berfungsi sendirian, harus dibantu karoten2 lainnya dari A (alfa) sampai G (giga). Jadi yang baik adalah multi karoten. 2. Hati-hati dengan sembarang daun kubis. Hanya kubis yang bebas pupuk anorganik dan bebas pestisida saja yang bermanfaat bagi tubuh. Mengapa ? Karena pupuk anorganik dan pestisida akan lekat di daun kubis, dan memperbanyak radikal bebas, yaitu pemicu berbagai penyakit degeneratif (kanker, penyumbatan saluran darah ke jantung dan otak, dan lain-lain). 3. Hati-hati dengan kubis yang terpolusi. Yakinkah Anda bahwa kubis yang Anda konsumsi berasal dari Sukabumi dan bukan dari Jakarta ? Sulit kan mengetahuinya ? Perlu kita ketahui, bahwa Jakarta adalah kota terpolusi kedua didunia (nomor satu adalah Mexico City) ? Salah satu yang paling bahaya adalah logam berat (a.l. senyawa Hg) yang akan mengikat oksigen dari sel darah merah (Hb), dan logam berat ini akan selamanya menetap dalam tubuh, tidak dapat dibuang bersama air seni. 4. Untung kita masih punya hati (lever) yang membersihkan semua racun itu, kecuali logam berat yang saya sebut diatas. Tapi kemampuan lever kan ada batasnya, kan ?? Salam, RM --- Johan Wahyudi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Member , Kubis (Brassica oleracea var. Capitata) Daun kubis segar rasanya renyah dan garing sehingga dapat dimakan sebagai lalap mentah dan matang, campuran salad, disayur atau dibuat urap. Sifat Khasiat Melindungi tubuh dari bahaya radiasi, menghambat pertumbuhan tumor dan pencahar. Kandungan Kimia Kubis segar mengandung air, protein, lemak, karbohidrat, serat, kalsium, fsfor, besi, natrium, kalium, vitamin A, C, E, tiamin, riblovavin, nicotinamide, kalsium dan beta karoten. Selain itu, juga mengandung senyawa sianohidroksibutena (CHB), sulforafan dan iberin yang merangsang pembentukan glutation, suatu enzim yang bekerja dengan cara menguraikan dan membuang zat-zat beracun yang beredar di dalam tubuh. Tingginya kandungan vitamin C dalam kubis dapat mencegah timbulnya skorbut (scury). Adanya zat anthocyanin menyebabkan warna kubis dapat berubah menjadi merah. Kandungan zat aktifnya, sulforafan dan histidine dapat menghambat pertumbuhan tumor, mencegah kanker kolon dan rektun, detoksikasi senyawa kimia berbahaya, seperti kobalt, nikel dan tembaga yang berlebihan di dalam tubuh, serta meningkatkan daya tahan tubuh untuk melawan kanker. Kandungan asam amino dalam sulfurnya juga berkhasiat menurunkan kadar kolesterol yang tinggi, penenang saraf dan membangkitkan semangat. Bagian yang Digunakan Bagian yang digunakan adalah daun. Indikasi Kubis digunakan untuk pengobatan: Gatal akibat jamur candida (candidiasis), Jamur dikulit kepala, tanagn dan kaki, Kadar kolesterol darah tinggi, Radang sendi (artritis), Melindungi tubuh dari sinar radiasi, seperti sinar x-ray, komputer, microwave dan televisi berwarna, Antidote pada mabuk alkohol (hangover), racun di hati, Menghilangkan keluhan prahaid (premenstrual sindrom), Meningkatkan produksi ASI, Mencegah tumor membesar, Mencegah kanker kolon dan rektum, Borok (ulcus) pada saluran cerna, dan Sulit buang air besar (sembelit) Cara Pemakaian Sediakan 25-30g kubis, lalu makan mentah-mentah, sebagai lalap atau juga dapat direbus. Contoh Pemakaian Sembelit : makan lalap kubis setiap hari, baik yang mentah atau yang matang. Sumber: Atlas Tumbuhan Obat Ind./Dr. Setiawan Dalimartha/Hd. Sumber: PdPersi Regards, Johan PT. Ayam Goreng Fatmawati Indonesia (Franchise Provider) Hotel Salak The Heritage Lt. 2 Jl. Ir. H. Juanda No. 8, Bogor 16121 Telp. 0251-347620 | Fax. 0251-347608 e-mail. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.fatmawati.com Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- font face=arial size=-1a href=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hmfctg7/M=362329.6886307.7839373.3022212/D=groups/S=1705329729:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122972745/A=2894324/R=0/SIG=11hia266k/*http://www.youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1998;1.2 million kids a year are victims of human trafficking. Stop slavery/a./font ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu
[ppiindia] A brain trust in Bangalore (Steve Hamm)
JULY 29, 2005 NEWS ANALYSIS :TECH By Steve Hamm A Brain Trust in Bangalore Sarnoff and other big tech names are setting up research operations in India -- and not just because of the cheap labor They call it the monkey incident. A couple of months ago, a handful of engineers at Sarnoff Corp.'s lab in Bangalore, India, were conference-calling with colleagues at the research-for-hire outfit's headquarters in Princeton, N.J. They were sitting around a table in a meeting room when they heard loud banging from behind an air conditioner cover on the wall. One of them lifted the cover, and a baby monkey leaped into the room and raced around underfoot. Two of the engineers were so surprised that they jumped up on the table. Then, We all fled the room and closed the door, says Kiran Nayak, one of the participants, who recalls the incident with a huge smile. It all turned out well in the end. In due time, the monkey returned to its mother, out on the building's ledge, and the engineers reclaimed their conference room and resumed talking about data-compression algorithms. Such are the oddities of global research collaboration. HIGHEST EXPECTATIONS. Sarnoff is one of many Western tech research outfits that have turned to India for its combination of low labor costs, big brains, and English speakers the likes of which are available nowhere else in the world. Notables including Microsoft (MSFT ), Google (GOOG ), and IBM (IBM ) face plenty of challenges, but they're convinced that their investments in Indian research will pay off handsomely in the end. We have the highest expectations for Indian innovation. There's no question the raw talent exists, says Krishna Bharat, principal scientist at Google, who's starting up the company's new lab in Bangalore. Sarnoff, a descendant of RCA's original TV-research lab, opened its doors in Bangalore a little more than a year ago and already has 70 employees in two offices. Now it's in the process of consolidating in a larger space to make room for another 80 engineers it plans on hiring within the next 12 months. THIRD WAVE. It's all part of Sarnoff CEO Satyam Cherukuri's master plan for creating a new model for tech research. We're pioneering global networked RD on behalf of our customers, says Cherukuri, who came to the U.S. 20 years ago from India for graduate school and has run Sarnoff since 1998. Cherukuri calls this the third wave of tech research. The first wave was in-house RD in large corporations. The second came with venture capitalists funding innovative startups that eventually grew to maturity or were bought by the big players. This wave is about harvesting innovations anywhere in the world, with companies using their own employees or third-party researchers like us. Sarnoff's India operations add to its small army of researchers, who are distributed worldwide. It has 400 engineers and scientists scattered in Princeton, Silicon Valley, Belgium, Japan, and, now, India. The company went through an extensive review of where it should expand next. While it considered 13 countries, it didn't take long to fix on India. TEST BED. Google, Microsoft, and IBM have similar strategies for distributing their research operations around the globe. IBM has long had a research outpost in Delhi, but added a software lab in Bangalore in 2001. Google and Microsoft have opened research labs in Bangalore within the past 18 months. They can pick up an engineer just out of school for $5,000 to $10,000 a year in salary. But it's not just about the money. It's about the talent, says P. Anandan, managing director of Microsoft Research, India. Also, he says, India's a test bed for developing technology for emerging economies and rural communities. Doing research in India isn't without its challenges, however. Tim Mitchell, an Aussie who is Sarnoff's managing director in Bangalore, says it's tough to locate seasoned managers and engineers with the skills in analog-chip design that the company needs. PERSONAL PROJECTS. Google finds recruiting difficult as well. It announced early last year that it hoped to hire 100 researchers before the end of the year, but so far has landed just a couple of dozen. For the first year, the company concentrated on hiring and building a nucleus of senior researchers and managers. The skill sets we're looking for are hard to come by in senior people, says Bharat, the chief scientist. As a come-on to the top Indian technologists, the search giant promises them equal status to Google programmers and scientists in the U.S. and at other company outposts. Like all Google researchers and programmers, they're told they can spend 30% of their time on their own projects, in addition to working on assignments from supervisors. So far, all of the projects the India team is working on are self-contained -- meaning they don't have to do much coordinating with other Google researchers in the Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Zurich.
[ppiindia] Itukah penyebab banjir besar di Mumbai ?
http://www.atimes.com Mumbai counts the cost of deluge By Sandhya Srinivasan MUMBAI - After authorities counted 420 dead in rain-triggered floods and an estimated billions of dollars worth of losses in damaged property and stalled rail, air and road traffic over the week, Mumbai's citizenry has begun questioning frenetic construction in India's main commercial hub and port city. Stagnating for more than half a century under a state-controlled economy, Mumbai is a city that is in a hurry to catch up with other world metropolises - Shanghai for example. Shanghai is a benchmark, explained Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of western Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital. Last week, unchecked construction in a city that came up on a cluster of islands in the Arabian Sea combined with an apparently failed Disaster Management Plan have revealed the vulnerabilities of this city of 14 million people that critics say has been truly Shanghaied by its leaders. By Sunday, battered citizenry had recovered sufficiently to organize demonstrations in the still driving rain and rail against civic authorities for complete inaction in issuing warnings or mounting timely rescue operations that could have saved people from drowning in their own cars. Vir Sanghvi, editor of the widely circulated Hindustan Times, summed up the mood in a stinging editorial in the Sunday edition of the daily saying: Let's forget all the Manhattan crap. Let's bury all this Shanghai hype. In neither of those cities would Tuesday's downpour have led to so many deaths and so much suffering. More importantly, Sanghvi said it was time to tell our greedy builders and our rapacious developers where to get off and also make our politicians and bureaucrats accountable for the rape of our city. What is the point of spending crores [tens of millions] on developing an office complex when you can't spend a fraction of the money to ensure good drainage and an infrastructure that does not collapse so completely? The anger was understandable. Mumbai's hardy citizens have learned to live with annual floods during the heavy rains of the monsoon season, but no one could remember a time when major road arteries turned into waterways, leaving tens of thousands of commuters stranded in their offices. Mumbai's famed suburban rail system, which carries an average of 8 million passengers a day, ground to a halt with entire networks of track disappearing under swirling water and its fleet of 3,500 buses turned into islands on which people clambered for safety. Thousands of commuters, school children among them, trudged home in pitch darkness and did not complain of a failed electricity supply after learning that many of the deaths had occurred from electricity leaking into the flood waters. I left the suburban commercial center at Bandra-Kurla on Tuesday afternoon and consider myself lucky to have reached my apartment in the northern suburb of Borivili 24 hours later - with help from local people, says B Hema, a chartered accountant who had to be rescued from a bus roof. She and six other women spent the night in the loft of a warehouse with filthy neck-high water and carcasses of dead animals swirling around them. There was no support from any government person, not even a traffic policeman, Hema said, shivering as she recounted the horror. Telephone lines went down and also cellphone systems as a result of massive water logging around the transmission towers or because of network congestion. Through that chaos and confusion, civic authorities - in the news this year for ruthlessly bulldozing slums and rendering some 400,000 people homeless so skyscrapers could grow on the land - were conspicuous for their absence. Where is the municipal commissioner? Where is the health officer? If they are in their offices, their presence is not making any difference on the ground, said Leena Joshi of Apnalaya, a voluntary agency that works on health issues among slum-dwellers close to city's center. True, the floods were caused by Mumbai receiving a record 94 centimeters of rainfall within 24 hours starting Tuesday afternoon, but the city's waterways and creeks are capable of handling worse, except for the spate of construction activity and the even-greater amount of rubbish that is now being chucked into them daily. If the government finally issued orders to stop construction it was only so that the trucks carrying bricks, cement and steel could be diverted to ferry away tons of debris and bloated animal carcasses. We need the extra trucks, civic official Satish Shinde said. Living conditions in Mumbai's northern suburbs were already squalid because shanty towns and congested residential apartments compete for space with thousands of buffaloes, goats and other livestock that were drowned by the floods. Disposing off the rotting carcasses became a priority because of the danger of epidemics they posed. We estimate the damages to
[ppiindia] Sedikit tambahan mengenai Amartya Sen
Terus terang saya belum pernah membaca karya Amartya Sen yang membawa dia menerima Hadiah Nobel untuk ilmu ekonomi. Tapi dari sekelumit cerita The Telegraph ini, kita jadi tahu bahwa obsesi dia bukan melulu mengangkat si kecil, tetapi dia tahu betapa salahnya anggapan barat bahwa India inferior otaknya mengenai soal iptek. Salam, RM Amartyas argument - On eve of talk, Nobel laureate challenges a few notions A STAFF REPORTER (The Telegraph) Sen in Calcutta on Saturday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya Calcutta, July 30: India is more spiritual but the West thinks better. Right? Wrong, says Amartya Sen. In his latest book, The Argumentative Indian, the Nobel laureate has challenged notions that the West has an exclusive access to values at the foundation of rationality and reasoning while religion, faith and spirituality are the comparative advantages of Indian tradition. When imperialism occurred and Britain took charge of India, there was a general notion that they were superior in science and technology and spirituality was picked up as our weapon, Sen said while speaking to The Telegraph about his book this evening. This comparative advantage did somehow de-appreciate Indias scientific, mathematical, technical and rationalist tradition. The economist has highlighted Indias achievements in mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, medicine and political economy and traced the history of arguments in Indian tradition. The former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and now Lamont University Professor at Harvard is in town for a talk on Ancient Argument and Modern Democracy tomorrow at Nandan. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will formally release the book woven around essays and lectures on topics like secularism, gender inequality, class and caste relations, the Indian diaspora and western views of India on Monday in Delhi. According to Sen, the diversity of views and faiths and competing ideas that have always coexisted in India and survived over the years has led to a tolerant argumentative tradition. It is important to recognise that we come from a loquacious and argumentative culture where we regard argument to be good thing to participate in, Sen said, referring to the arguments between Krishna and Arjun in the Bhagwad Gita. In his book, he narrates how as a high-school student he had asked his Sanskrit teacher whether it was permissible to say that Krishna got away with an incomplete and unconvincing argument. My Sanskrit teacher told me that maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect, Sen recalled. A critic of religion in politics he condemns events like the Babri Masjid demolition and the mayhem in Gujarat Sen gives the examples of emperors Ashoka and Akbar, who epitomised tolerance and put reasoning over religion. A self-confessed democrat, the economist stressed on the importance of political activism and linked Keralas achievements in education and healthcare to these factors. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- font face=arial size=-1a href=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12htddde1/M=323294.6903899.7846637.3022212/D=groups/S=1705329729:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122977712/A=2896125/R=0/SIG=11llkm9tk/*http://www.donorschoose.org/index.php?lc=yahooemail;Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education/a!/font ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Peluncuran Discovery apa maknanya bagi kita ?
Hari Selasa kemarin pesawat ulang alik Discovery hampir mulus mengangkasa, dua setengah tahun setelah bencana Columbia. Orang mengharap mudah-mudahan serpihan yang terlihat jatuh di launching pad tidak menimbulkan bencana 11 hari lagi ketika Discovery kembali memasuki atmosfir. Mungkin kita jadi bertanya, mengapa tidak saja para astronaut tetapi juga orang di pusat kendali NASA, keluarga astronaut dan hadirin lain tampak ceria seakan tiada khawatir. Jawabnya mungkin terletak pada dream (cita-cita) yang bisa macam-macam, mungkin kemashuran (fame) atau apalah. Dream itu jadi penggerak (motivasi) luar biasa untuk berbuat dan bekerja. Mustahil kalau saya dan Anda tidak punya dream. Sayangnya, sering kali orang tidak mau menyatakan deam itu secara jelas. Mungkin itu berupa punya waktu cukup bersama anak isteri, menyekolahkan anak ke sekolah terbaik, jalan-jalan ke luar negeri bersama keluarga atau apalah yang tidak bisa terjadi kini pada kebanyakan orang. Itu memotivasi Anda untuk punya active income dan passive income yang cukup besar -- secara halal tentunya, otherwise kita masuk bui atau kalau pejabat ya berurusan dengan KPK, bukan ? Syukurlah saya dan Anda masih ada peluang untuk punya dream, buktinya kita masih punya waktu untuk membaca cerita ini. Tapi ketahuilah bahwa banyak orang yang tidak sempat punya dream. Penggali selokan dan petani kecil yang diresahkan Pak Mubyarto dari pagi buta sampai matahaari terbenam bekerja keras dengan hasil yang teramat kecil untuk hidup -- mereka tidak punya dream karena terbelenggu oleh siklus kemiskinan yang tak kunjung putus -- anak-anak merekapun tak bisa lepas dari siklus itu. Teman saya mengatakan dan saya mengiyakan, bahwa Anda harus kaya dulu sebelum Anda membantu si miskin. Dan saya tertarik pada peraturan keamanan di pesawat yang mengatakan bahwa kalau terjadi oxygen drop pakailah masker oksigen Anda terlebih dahulu sebelum Anda membantu mengenakan masker oksigen anak Anda. Ya, itu adalah kiasan yang pas dalam konteks ini. Geldof sudah punya banyak uang jadi penyanyi rock yang ternama, karena itu dia getol membantu orang lapar di Afrika. Sekian dulu, saya mau makan siang bersama isteri. Salam, RM Shuttle Discovery launched successfully Indo-Asian News Service Cape Canavarel (US), July 26 (IANS) The US space shuttle Discovery was launched Tuesday, two and a half years after the Columbia disintegration grounded NASA's shuttle fleet, Xinhua reports. Amid heavy white smoke, glaring red flames and huge roars, the shuttle lifted off from the launch pad at 10:39 a.m. EDT (1439 GMT) as planned, leaving a straight column of smoke behind. The first launch attempt was called off July 13 because one of the shuttle's four fuel sensors malfunctioned during pre-launch testing. After exhaustive efforts, NASA last weekend decided it had eliminated all possible causes of the sensor problem and would have a second try. It also hoped tests during the fuelling of the shuttle's external tank would help find out what exactly caused the launch glitch July 13. All the sensors turned out to be good during pre-launch testing Tuesday, licensing a green light to the shuttle lift-off. The weather too was favourable. --Indo-Asian News Service *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] MLM dan MLM
Kemarin saya mengundang Yudho Sudiro, seorang IBO (independent business owner) untuk berbicara tentang bisnis yang digelutinya dirumah saya. Dengan gamblang dia menjelaskan tentang Amway dan Network-21. Seorang prospek yang saya undang, Pranowo, pada kesempatan diskusi menyatakan bahwa baginya multilevel marketing (MLM) tak asing lagi karena dia bergerak disatu yayasan yang terkait dengan Jemaah Tabligh yang berpusat di Pakistan, cuma bedanya disana tujuannya bukan uang melainkan pahala untuk akherat. Tadi pagi Pranowo menelpon yang terima isteri saya dan mengatakan bahwa dia tidak berminat masuk N-21 serta menyarankan agar saya mengikuti kegiatannya. Saya bilang ke isteri, bahwa saya tetap pada tekad saya sebelum balik bayan untuk tidak berdebat tentang agama dan politik. Bagi saya percuma upaya mengubah mindset orang dewasa apalagi yang merasa diri sudah pintar. Kejadian di rumah itu menggambarkan tarik menarik di Jakarta antara MLM yang menjanjikan kebebasan (untuk hidup, bekerja, berprestasi dan bertumbuh), keluarga, cita-cita dan imbalan dengan MLM yang disodorkan oleh mereka yang mengiming-imingi enaknya menjadi penghuni sorga. Bukan tak mungkin orang muda warga Inggris asal Pakistan yang mengebom tube dan double-decker bus adalah anggota MLM jenis kedua itu. Salam, RM *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Bobby
Bukannya karena kepolisian Inggris tidak punya cukup uang kalau nyatanya polisi kemana-mana hanya membawa pentungan kecil (baton). Secara tradisional polisi disana mengandalkan wibawa diri dan korps, bukan mengandalkan senjata. Menangkap penjahat bersenjata polisi Inggris juga tanpa menggunakan pistol atau senapan. Polisi juga dicintai warga London, karena itu menjelang Tahun Baru, mereka secara spontan memberi bunga atau coklat kepada pak polisi. Mereka menjuluki Pak Polisi si Bobby. Kemanisan polisi itu hilang begitu saja karena ulah tak tahu diri dari tetamu tanggal 7 Juli baru-baru ini yang membom kereta bawah tanah dan sebuah bus bertingkat -- banyak korban berjatuhan. Kini mereka lebih siaga dan membawa senjata. Kerja profesional mereka membuahkan hasil, dengan menggagalkan usaha pemboman lagi hari Jum'at kemarin. Empat orang operator tertangkap oleh closed circuit TV dekat sebelum terjadinya usaha yang gagal itu -- wajah an warna kulit mereka mirip orang Asia Selatan. Hari ini seorang tersangka yang memakai mantel tebal (padahal suhu London saat ini tinggi) dan lari melompati pagar pembatas akhirnya terpojok dan ditembak dari depan setelah menolak menyerah (polisi di negara beradab haram menembak dari belakang). Undang-undang sering ada setelah ada kejadian atau ipso facto. Baru setelah terror 7 Juli, ada upaya agar tidak saja terror yang dikriminalkan, tetapi juga khotbah atau anjuran yang menyebabkan perbuatan terror. Nah, hati-hati saja para netter. Saat mengumbar bacot mengacau akan usai. Sudah ada indikasi kearah itu. Kemarin saya baca di milisnya Pak John, bahwa di Ohio University ada tertulis bahwa barang siapa yang tertarik untuk mengetahui siapa yang pro- siapa yang kontra- Laskar Jihad silahkan untuk mengklik Joshua, Molluccas dan Indopubs. Bukannya saya menakut-nakuti, tapi kalau ada yang bilang oh ogut tidak takut, nanti orang homeland saya bilangi gini (dengan bahasa linggis tentunya) pasti mereka mlongo cep klakep -- ya sudah. Salam, RM Salam, *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Why the world is flat (Daniel H. Pink)
Tentu saja ungkapan 'bumi datar' hanya figure of speech saja. Artinya, tidak ada hambatan apapun bagi seseorang untuk menjadi pemain golf handal seperti Chichi Rodriguez, misalnya. Dulu, sebelum 'bumi datar', sekalipun tidak ada peraturan tertulis, hanya mereka yang masuk WASP (white-anglo saxon, protestant) yang dapat jadi anggota country clubs. Tak ada larangan bagi yang bukan WASP memang, tapi siapa yang akan memberi reference ? Dunia berubah kearah persamaan kesempatan bagi semua, dan kini orang dapat melihat seorang Tiger Woods menduduki ranking teratas PGA. Tennis semula juga olah raganya WASP, sekarang African-Americans banyak yang menjadi kampiun seperti dua bersaudasa Venus dan Serena Williams. Baru tahu bahwa Tom Friedman bekas caddynya Chichi Rodriguez. Mungkin berawal dari melayani Chichi Rodriguez inilah Tom Friedman (peraih Pulitzer Prize 3 kali) terobsesi bahwa 'the playing field is really flat' dan menjadi penganjur globalisasi. Salam, RM Why the World Is Flat The playing field is being leveled, says globalization guru Thomas Friedman - from Shanghai to Silicon Valley, from al Qaeda to Wal-Mart. By Daniel H. Pink Thirty-five years ago this summer, the golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was competing in his seventh US Open, played that year at Hazeltine Country Club outside Minneapolis. Tied for second place after the opening round, Rodriguez eventually finished 27th, a few strokes ahead of such golf legends as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player. His caddy for the tournament was a 17-year-old local named Tommy Friedman. Rodriguez retired from golf several years later. But his caddy - now known as Thomas L. Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times and author of the new book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century - has spent his career deploying the skills he used on the golf course: describing the terrain, shouting warnings and encouragement, and whispering in the ears of big players. After 10 years of writing his twice-weekly foreign affairs column, Friedman has become the most influential American newspaper columnist since Walter Lippmann. One reason for Friedman's influence is that, in the mid-'90s, he staked out the territory at the intersection of technology, financial markets, and world trade, which the foreign policy establishment, still focused on cruise missiles and throw weights, had largely ignored. This thing called globalization, he says, can explain more things in more ways than anything else. Friedman's 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, provided much of the intellectual framework for the debate. The first big book on globalization that anybody actually read, as Friedman describes it, helped make him a fixture on the Davos-Allen Conference-Renaissance Weekend circuit. But it also made him a lightning rod. He's been accused of rhetorical hyperventilation and dismissed as an apologist for global capital. The columnist Molly Ivins even dubbed top-tier society's lack of concern for the downsides of globalization the Tom Friedman Problem. After 9/11, Friedman says, he paid less attention to globalization. He spent the next three years traveling to the Arab and Muslim world trying to get at the roots of the attack on the US. His columns on the subject earned him his third Pulitzer Prize. But Friedman realized that while he was writing about terrorism, he missed an even bigger story: Globalization had gone into overdrive. So in a three-month burst last year, he wrote The World Is Flat to explain his updated thinking on the subject. Friedman enlisted some impressive editorial assistance. Bill Gates spent a day with him to critique the theory. Friedman presented sections of the book to the strategic planning unit at IBM and to Michael Dell. But his most important tutors were two Indians: Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, and Vivek Paul, a top executive at Wipro. They were the guys who really cracked the code for me. Wired sat down with Friedman in his office at the Times' Washington bureau to discuss the flattening of the world. WIRED: What do you mean the world is flat? FRIEDMAN: I was in India interviewing Nandan Nilekani at Infosys. And he said to me, Tom, the playing field is being leveled. Indians and Chinese were going to compete for work like never before, and Americans weren't ready. I kept chewing over that phrase - the playing field is being leveled - and then it hit me: Holy mackerel, the world is becoming flat. Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance - or soon, even language. So, we're talking about globalization enhanced by things like the rise of open source? This is Globalization 3.0. In Globalization 1.0, which began around 1492, the world went from size large to size medium. In Globalization 2.0, the
[ppiindia] A poverty of dignity and a wealth of rage (Thomas L. Friedman)
Defisit harga diri, surplus main ngamuk. Sekali lagi Thomas Friedman menurunkan tulisan yang tepat sasaran. Itulah gambaran besar Islam sunni akhir-akhir ini, baik itu OBL maupun Zarkawi dan grayak-grayaknya. Bagaimana Indonesia yang mayoritas sunni? Merasa minder dan tidak bisa bersaing, lahirlah SKB 2 menteri yang amat sangat berat sebelah tahun 1970an --biang keladi pembakaran gereja. Sama-sama agama samawi, agama Yahudi tidak masuk 5 agama yang diakui Indonesia -- aneh -- padahal Iran yang Syiah mengakuinya. Pengrusakan terhadap orang dan milik Ahmadiah akhir-akhir ini juga terjadi, anehnya NU (kecuali Ulil) dan Muhamadiah (kecuali Uda Darwin) kok diam seribu bahasa. Salam, RM July 15, 2005 A Poverty of Dignity and a Wealth of Rage By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN A few years ago I was visiting Bahrain and sitting with friends in a fish restaurant when news appeared on an overhead TV about Muslim terrorists, men and women, who had taken hostages in Russia. What struck me, though, was the instinctive reaction of the Bahraini businessman sitting next to me, who muttered under his breath, Why are we in every story? The we in question was Muslims. The answer to that question is one of the most important issues in geopolitics today: Why are young Sunni Muslim males, from London to Riyadh and Bali to Baghdad, so willing to blow up themselves and others in the name of their religion? Of course, not all Muslims are suicide bombers; it would be ludicrous to suggest that. But virtually all suicide bombers, of late, have been Sunni Muslims. There are a lot of angry people in the world. Angry Mexicans. Angry Africans. Angry Norwegians. But the only ones who seem to feel entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent people, including other Muslims, over their anger are young Sunni radicals. What is going on? Neither we nor the Muslim world can run away from this question any longer. This is especially true when it comes to people like Muhammad Bouyeri - a Dutch citizen of Moroccan origin who last year tracked down the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a critic of Islamic intolerance, on an Amsterdam street, shot him 15 times and slit his throat with a butcher knife. He told a Dutch court on the final day of his trial on Tuesday: I take complete responsibility for my actions. I acted purely in the name of my religion. Clearly, several things are at work. One is that Europe is not a melting pot and has never adequately integrated its Muslim minorities, who, as The Financial Times put it, often find themselves cut off from their country, language and culture of origin without being assimilated into Europe, making them easy prey for peddlers of a new jihadist identity. Also at work is Sunni Islam's struggle with modernity. Islam has a long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam. Islam's self-identity is that it is the authentic and ideal expression of monotheism. Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0, Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0. Part of what seems to be going on with these young Muslim males is that they are, on the one hand, tempted by Western society, and ashamed of being tempted. On the other hand, they are humiliated by Western society because while Sunni Islamic civilization is supposed to be superior, its decision to ban the reform and reinterpretation of Islam since the 12th century has choked the spirit of innovation out of Muslim lands, and left the Islamic world less powerful, less economically developed, less technically advanced than God 2.0, 1.0 and 0.0. Some of these young Muslim men are tempted by a civilization they consider morally inferior, and they are humiliated by the fact that, while having been taught their faith is supreme, other civilizations seem to be doing much better, said Raymond Stock, the Cairo-based biographer and translator of Naguib Mahfouz. When the inner conflict becomes too great, some are turned by recruiters to seek the sick prestige of 'martyrdom' by fighting the allegedly unjust occupation of Muslim lands and the 'decadence' in our own. This is not about the poverty of money. This is about the poverty of dignity and the rage it can trigger. One of the London bombers was married, with a young child and another on the way. I can understand, but never accept, suicide bombing in Iraq or Israel as part of a nationalist struggle. But when a British Muslim citizen, nurtured by that society, just indiscriminately blows up his neighbors and leaves behind a baby and pregnant wife, to me he has to be in the grip of a dangerous cult or preacher - dangerous to his faith community and to the world. How does that happen? Britain's Independent newspaper described one of the bombers, Hasib Hussain, as having recently undergone a sudden conversion from a
[ppiindia] Ada yang tidak kuatir penduduknya besar
Pameo banyak anak banyak rejeki belum tentu salah. Alangkah sayangnya jika kedua orang tua makan sekolahan dan masih ada rejeki tapi anaknya hanya satu seperti yours truly ini, coba bayangkan, padahal kami tidak ikut KB. Karena itu dibawah LKY, negara pulau Singapura malah memberi insentif bagi wanita graduate untuk nikah dan punya anak kalau bisa yang banyak. Soalnya LKY melihat betapa malangnya Perancis dan Jerman yang angka pertambahan kelahirannya kecil sekali mendekati nol sekalipun tidak ada kebijakan KB oleh negara -- mereka terpaksa mendatangkan tenaga kerja dari luar negara. Bagi LKY, penduduk yang berkwalitas adalah kata kunci kejayaan ekonomi Singapura. Dibawah Indira Gandhi, India pernah melaksanakan KB secara ketat dan tidak manusiawi, tapi angka kelahiran tetap tinggi terutama dikalangan orang yang tidak berpunya. Disini jumlah orang buta huruf dan miskin besar sekali. Tapi jumlah orang yang makan sekolahan dan punya duit juga besar, 300 juta, atau lebih besar dari penduduk Indonesia seluruhnya. Seperti dimana-mana, di India sekolah merupakan kawah condrodimuka untuk vertical mobility. Dan vertical mobility disini tidak dilalui melalui jalur sospol tetapi melalui jalur IPA (dan commerce). Begitu kuatnya animo masyarakat, maka sebagai contoh ada 230 technological colleges di Madras (Chennai), 40 di Mumbai dan 40 di Pune belum terhitung di Calcutta, New Delhi, Ahmedabad serta kota-kota lain. Tak heran kalau tiap tahun India melahirkan 2.5 juta S-1 jurusan IPA (IT, engineering, kedokteran, dan ilmu murni) ditambah 650,000 post graduates (S-2 dan S-3). Melihat ada 2 juta orang India bermukim di Amerika dan mereka itu rata-rata $ 51,900 per jiwa pertahun (sedikit diatas orang Jepang disana), seorang anak SD pernah bertanya pada Kalam apakah sang presiden tidak takut dengan brain-drain, dia menjawab bahwa brain yang tersedia cukup banyak bagi dunia, jadi jangan kuatir katanya. Bagaimana soal demografi di Indonesia ? Sungguh sayang KB hanya dimengerti dan dijalankan oleh middle class. Apa jadinya secara agregat kalau orang seperti Anda punya anak satu dua sedangkan orang buta huruf anaknya selusin ? Mungkin yang benar adalah LKY. Salam, RM (Silicon India) India's population an asset not liability: Experts Monday, July 11, 2005 NEW DELHI: For long Indian population was considered a curse to the nation. But no longer. Experts say that the Indian population which is supposed to overtake China very soon, is asset rather than a liability. Government is stepping towards thinking India's population to be used to illustrate the country's huge potential, both economic and political, experts say. With just 2.4 percent of the global landmass housing 16 percent of the global population, successive Indian governments have been faced with the problem of how to reduce ever-increasing pressure on ever-dwindling resources. Now its massive workforce is being seen as the country's greatest resource. This change has been aided by the revolution in India?s information technology sector, says demographer A.R. Nanda, who helped formulate the National Population Policy five years ago. The corporates and some economists have been highlighting how India's working population can make up for deficient or sometimes expensive labor elsewhere for the past five to seven years. This has fuelled the rethink, he says. India has in the past decade emerged as a major back office to the world with global firms outsourcing work ranging from credit card processing to air ticketing to take advantage of the country's less expensive, educated, English-speaking workforce. India produces 2.5 million IT, engineering and life sciences graduates a year, besides about 650,000 post graduates in science and IT related subjects. The IT sector alone employs about 850,000 graduates and professionals while the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors are snapping up others. The government says 402 million Indians are aged between 15 and 59 - the working age - and that this number will grow to 820 million by 2020. N.R. Narayana Murthy, head of premier software export company Infosys, said that by 2020 the United States would be short of 17 million people of working age, China of 10 million, Japan of nine million and Russia of six million. Demographer Nanda agrees more investment is needed, pointing to the example of China, which he says, ploughed resources into the health, education and social sectors between 1950 and 1980. In terms of its impact on the general masses, the number of births came down in the 1970s before the one child norm was introduced, Nanda says. We should emulate China and invest in our social sector. GDP on social infrastructure - up from the 0.9 percent at present, says one health ministry officer. India will also need to improve the lot of the 20 or 30 percent of its population which is currently
[ppiindia] This society's etiquette criminals are legion
Apakah setelah 2 tahun tinggal di Amerika, Armando Siahaan tega mencemong orang Indonesia ? Saya rasa tidak, karena kesannya bahwa banyak orang berduit di Jakarta tidak kenal etiket juga diakui banyak orang termasuk yours truly. Tapi perbaikan juga saya lihat terjadi seiring dengan perjalanan waktu. Dulu sering ada orang nrombol antrean makan dipesta, sekarang jarang. Dulu boleh dikata tidak ada pengendara yang memberi jalan pada pengendara lain padahal lalu lintas didepan macet total, sekarang sudah ada yang tahu etiket dan kepada mereka saya lambaikan tangan tanda terima kasih. Dulu dijalan toll banyak pengendara berdasi menggunakan bahu jalan untuk menyalib, itu sudah amat jarang sekarang. Mengapa hanya disoroti orang berdasi? karena mereka adalah middle class yang seharusnya membawa perubahan kearah positif. Salam, RM Print July 11, 2005 (The Jakarta Post) This society's etiquette criminals are legion After spending two years in the United States, I have come to realize that Jakarta suffers from an intriguing societal depravity, one that pertains to basic etiquette. About two days after I arrived back in Jakarta for a summer break, I went to Plaza Senayan to hang out with my long-time-no-see friends. As I knew it would be crowded in the front of the mall, I parked my car near the elevator at the rear side of the mall. So I took the elevator to the fourth floor. When the elevator opened, before I even had a chance to move my feet, this group of five people stampeded into me, acting as if they were Darth Vader with his shock troops. They completely ignored the existence of a person who was actually trying to get out. Being a mellow guy, I decided to stay calm and pushed my way out of the elevator with a smile. That was the first incident that made me start thinking about this whole issue of manners. I had promised to meet my friends at the food court, and there is no other way to get there but through the cinema lobby. As I walked out of the cinema lobby, I had to pass through the entrance door of the mall. Accustomed to what I thought was internationally understood etiquette when opening doors, I was expecting the person walking in front of me to hold the door so it does not swing back and hit the person behind. Suddenly, this person dressed in hip-hop clothing passed me in a hurry. Not only did he refuse to look back or hold the door, he actually slammed the door while I was walking through. Luckily, the door did not slam into my face. My hands were fast enough to mitigate the imbecile's act. I convinced myself that he was just another restless student in a big rush to get somewhere. On my way to the food court, an older Army-type guy, probably in his 50s, was walking as slow as a turtle in front of me. Being a bit impatient, I took the polite way and said 'excuse me', hoping that he would move a bit to the left so that I could pass by. I reiterated 'excuse me' three times, but he ignored me. I decided to pass him as best I could, but my shoulder accidentally touched his shoulder. I said: Sorry, but he reacted in an overly harsh manner and yelled: Watch where you're going, stupid! Not only did he ignore my polite request to pass, he reacted as if I had just started World War III. Appalled by such an irrational reaction, I apologized and went straight to my friends' table. After a bit of chit-chat, I decided to go to KFC, my favorite place to eat. As it was around lunch time, the line was pretty long. But I took my place in line and waited patiently. When there were only three customers in front of me, two domestic helpers, or pembantu, cut in front of me and said nothing. That was it. I wished I could have immediately changed into Batman. After identifying all the enemies, these etiquette criminals, I would use all my gadgets to arrest them and detain them in the Bat Cave. Unfortunately, turning into Batman was not a realistic option. In fact, I am probably seen as the bad guy here because the majority of the people in our society are diseased with the same epidemic, 'mannerphobia'. These incidents show how our society is having a problem with proper manners. It seems like proper behavior is not even a part of our culture. It seems like having good manners is not necessary in our society. What is interesting is that a lot of Indonesians accuse foreigners of being arrogant and lacking manners. Foreigners usually come from nations that greatly embrace freedom and liberty, Americans in particular. Indonesians, who embrace traditional values and religiosity, tend to associate freedom and liberty with etiquette depravity. Conversely, Indonesia is known to be a society with proper manners, a perception that a plethora of foreigners would concur with. Ironically, during my two years in America, I have realized that it is us Indonesians who need to improve our manners. Initially while in the U.S., I was not aware, but gradually I became etiquette
[ppiindia] IPA atau IPS ?
Dalam dialog interaktif di Metro TV tadi pagi, seorang panelist menyarankan kepada seorang bapak yang ragu-ragu agar anaknya masuk IPS saja karena IPS sedang ngetrend di masyarakat. Sayang saya tidak mengikuti acara ini dari awal. Untuk sementara, saya anggap saran ini tidak pada tempatnya karena menganjurkan pemirsa untuk anut grubyuk (ikut arus massa). Padahal jelas bahwa Indonesia sedang bergerak menjadi negara yang banyak industrinya, dan ini memerlukan banyak pemuda berlatar belakang IPA. Salam, RM LATEST NEWS MERA BHARAT MAHAAN India beats US in science! REUTERS Posted online: Saturday, July 09, 2005 at 1050 hours IST Updated: Monday, July 11, 2005 at 0324 hours IST WASHINGTON, JULY 9 : More than half a century of US dominance in science and engineering may be slipping as America's share of graduates in these fields falls relative to Europe and developing nations such as India, a study released on Friday says. The study, written by Richard Freeman at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Washington, warned that changes in the global science and engineering job market may require a long period of adjustment for US workers. Moves by international companies to move jobs in information technology, high-tech manufacturing and research and development to low-income developing countries were just harbingers of that longer-term adjustment, Freeman said. Urgent action was needed to ensure that slippage in science and engineering education and research, a bulwark of the US productivity boom and resurgence during the 1990s, did not undermine America's global economic leadership, he added. The United States has had a substantial lead in science and technology since World War Two. With just 5 per cent of the world's population, it employs almost a third of science and engineering researchers, accounts for 40 per cent of research and development spending and publishes 35 per cent of science and engineering research papers. Many of the world's top high-tech firms are American, and government spending on defense-related technology ensures the US military's technological dominance on battlefields. But the roots of this lead may be eroding, Freeman said. Numbers of science and engineering graduates from European and Asian universities are soaring while new degrees in the United States have stagnated -- cutting its overall share. In 2000, the paper said, 17 per cent of university bachelor degrees in the US were in science and engineering compared with a world average of 27 per cent and 52 per cent in China. The picture among doctorates -- key to advanced scientific research -- was more striking. In 2001, universities in the European Union granted 40 per cent more science and engineering doctorates than the United States, with that figure expected to reach nearly 100 per cent by about 2010, the study showed. The study said deteriorating opportunities and comparative wages for young science and engineering graduates has discouraged US students from entering these fields, but not those born in other countries. These trends are challenging the so-called North-South global economic divide, the paper said, by undermining a perceived rich-country advantage in high technology. Research and technological activity and production are moving where the people are, even when they are located in the low-wage South, Freeman wrote, citing a study saying some 10-15 per cent of all US jobs were off-shorable. *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Posisi Belanda tentang 17 Agustus 1945 (Aboeprijadi Santoso)
Tepat saatnya Mas Tossi menurunkan tulisan yang menyinggung isi buku Bussemaker -- baru saja Roeslan Abdul Gani meninggal dan 4 bulan lagi kita peringati peristiwa 10 November. Dan baru saja pemerintah Belanda mengakui bahwa Indonesia merdeka pada tanggal 17 Agustus 1945, bukan 27 Desember 1949. Persepsi bahwa Bung Karno sosok boneka Jepang (antara lain karena dia bersama Bung Hatta dan M. Jamin mau-maunya pergi ke Saigon menemui panglima tentara Jepang padahal bom atom sudah jatuh di Hiroshima dan Nagasaki) biarlah tinggal persepsi saja dan itu salah besar -- begitu menurut Bussemaker. Menteri Jan Pronk juga berpendapat begitu, sosok yang pernah kita musuhi waktu jaman Pak Harto hanya karena gigihnya dia ingin membela si miskin yang tertinggal oleh pembangunan -- dan kita keluar dari IGGI -- berbuntut mahasiswa yang belajar di Belanda atas beasiswa dari sana harus pulang kampung begitu pula R.S St. Carolus harus mengelus dada karena bantuan Belanda tiba-tiba distop -- begitu dahsyatnya nasionalisme kita. Lain dengan Bussemaker, Roeslan Abdul Gani bukan Indo tapi keluarga naib (pemuka agama Islam) yang secara hukum dipersamakan dengan Eropa atau gelijkgestelt (nulisnya benar atau tidak), dan karena itu boleh masuk sekolah HIS, Mulo, HBS dan AMS sama dengan Pakde Nawawi. Nasib Indo (Joop Ave kecuali) sama dengan gelijkgestelt -- dianggap antek Belanda apalagi kalau co (artinya tetap jadi pegawai dijaman peralihan -- dalam jajaran pegawai negeri dijamin tidak bakal jadi direktur. Tepat sekali penggambaran pemuda Surabaya dijaman pergolakan itu sebagai badan dan ekor ular sedangkan elit di Jakarta sebagai kepala ular. Arek Suroboyo menghadapi dilema: membiarkan tentara Sekutu yang berisi opsir Belanda atau menolaknya padahal misi mereka adalah membebaskan interniran dari tahanan Jepang. Dua kali pemuda Surabaya mengirim utusan ke Jakarta untuk mohon petunjuk dari Presiden Bung Karno dan pulang dengan tangan hampa. Ditengah kekalutan itu, Brigadir Mansergh yang berkeliling kota duduk diatas kap mesin mobil dibunuh oleh seseorang -- dari persepektif ini cobalah kita memahami sikap Sekutu untuk memberi bukti pada ultimatumnya. Salam, RM P.S. Bravo Tossi 2003 Print July 08, 2005 (Jakarta Post) The Dutch stance on Indonesia's independence Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam Roeslan Abdulgani, an Indonesian freedom fighter who passed away last week, was both a player and astute observer of a key episode that was seen as most heroic by Indonesia, and most painful for the Dutch. His death coincided with a changing mood in the Netherlands about their perception of Indonesia's independence struggle -- of which the most recent example is H. Th. Bussemaker's new book, Bersiap! Opstand in het paradijs (Be prepared! Rebellion in paradise), 2005. Of all wars, civil wars may be the worst. For the Indo's -- those of mixed Dutch-Indonesian blood -- the civil war of August 1945-1946 came as a great shock because it painfully destroyed their dream of a homeland. Treated as (pro) Dutch, they were victimized, turning this violent episode, called the Bersiap period, into a most traumatic one. Half a century on, it has shaped a distinct community here. Bersiap is Indonesian for be ready; but to the Indo's, it evokes a memory of a hell in a country that they considered home, yet a country that ultimately forced them to leave for another they regarded as foreign. Once in the Netherlands, they were neither welcomed nor honored as Netherlands' World War II victims. Only last week, after six decades, the Dutch government offered a mea culpa (formal acknowledgement of error or fault). Too little, too late for loyal groups that have already integrated into Dutch society. So, they keep their collective memory and cultivate their own identity -- one which they celebrate annually with a Pasar Malam Besar (great night market or festival). Stripped of their original habitat, they have become people without history. It was to a crucial part of this history that both the late Roeslan Abdulgani and H. Th. Bussemaker were keen witnesses. Unlike then Dutch policymakers and many war-veterans, Bussenmaker, an ex-Dutch marine in Central Java, who never met Roeslan, considers him not a terrorist or collaborator with Japan, but as a freedom fighter and an intellectual among the pemuda's (young revolutionaries). In a Radio Netherlands documentary of 1997, Roeslan likened the pemuda revolution to a huge serpent. Surabaya, where he was born into a pious Muslim family (1914) and educated at a Dutch high school, was a trading and industrial city-port with a small feudal layer and a large working class. A excellent narrator, Roeslan vividly described the spirit of the time. Jakarta, where the revolutionary leaders and intellectuals resided, was the head of the serpent, which could not fully control its tail, i.e. the passionate responses of the awakened masses throughout Java that were ready to support and defend the country's
[ppiindia] How quantum physics can teach biologists about evolution (NYT)
July 5, 2005 How Quantum Physics Can Teach Biologists About Evolution By CORNELIA DEAN In the fall of 1900, a young German physicist, Max Planck, began making calculations about the glow emitted by objects heated to high temperature. In retrospect, it seems like a small-bore problem, just the task to give a young scientist at the beginning of his career. But if the question sounds minor, Planck's answer was not. His work led him to discover a new world, the bizarre realm of quantum mechanics, where matter is both a particle and a wave and where the predictable stability of Newton gives way to probabilistic uncertainty. As Dennis Overbye of The New York Times once put it in these pages, Planck had grasped a loose thread that when tugged would eventually unravel the entire fabric of what had passed for reality. Physicists reeled. But physics survived. And once they got over their shock, scientists began testing Planck's ideas with observation and experiment, work that eventually produced computer chips, lasers, CAT scans and a host of other useful technologies - all made possible through our new understanding of the way the world works. Biologists might do well to keep Planck in mind as they confront creationism and intelligent design and battle to preserve the teaching of evolution in public schools. Usually, when confronting the opponents of evolution, biologists make the case that evolution should be taught because it is true. They cite radiocarbon dating to show that Earth is billions of years old, not a few thousand years old, as some creationists would have it. Biologists cite research on microbes, or the eye, or the biology of the cell to shoot down arguments that life is so irreducibly complex that only a supernatural force or agent could have called it into being, as intelligent designers would have it. And when scientists named Steve (hundreds of them by now) decided to advance the cause of evolution in the classroom and honor the evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould by forming Project Steve, the T-shirts they printed said in part, Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. The battling biologists are right. But someone uneducated in the scientific method who listens to the arguments over evolution could be forgiven for thinking that they boil down to my theory is better than your theory, with both sides preaching with theological fervor. Scientists don't talk often enough or loud enough about the real strength of evolution - not that it is correct, but that it meets the definition of science. It's not that they ignore the idea - the National Center for Science Education, sponsor of Project Steve, makes the point on its Web site, and organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science do, too. But biologists do not emphasize it as they might. Science looks to explain nature through nature (the works of God rather than the words of God, as Darwin himself is said to have put it), and its predictions can be tested by observation and experimentation. Scientists form hypotheses, devise ways to test them, analyze the data that they collect and then decide whether the results support or undermine their hypotheses. This process has produced centuries of useful knowledge and fascinating discovery. But it is messy, a mixed-up dance of two steps forward, one step back; dud ideas; blind alleys; and things that turn out to be not exactly what they seemed. So it is hardly surprising that in the decades since Darwin developed the ideas he outlined in The Origin of Species, other biologists have suggested modifications or new ideas about this or that aspect of his great idea. Still other researchers, making their own observations or conducting other experiments, have refuted them or tried to. For example, biologists argue about the degree to which evolution moves smoothly or progresses in fits and starts, a Gould-ian theory called punctuated equilibrium. This intellectual turmoil is not evidence of the weakness of the evolutionary thinking, as some critics have said. It is proof of the robustness of the scientific method. And if this messy process were to produce an alternative to evolution that better explains nature and better meets the tests of experiment and observation, biologists would have to revise their ideas or even scrap them. That would be a stunning shock, comparable to the shock that swept physics in the post-Planck decades of the 20th century. But biology would deal with it. And whoever initiated this shock would be at least as big a figure in biology as Planck is in physics. The supposed 'data contradicting evolution' do not exist, a Steve, Dr. Steve Rissing, a biologist at Ohio State University, said in an
[ppiindia] Akhirnya Indonesia punya kebijakan industri
Dirintis oleh Luhut Panjaitan kemudian dilanjutkan Rini Suwandi akhirnya dituntaskan oleh Andung Nitimihardja, kita sekarang punya blue print industri untuk 10 dan 20 tahun kedepan. Meskipun belum sempat membaca dokumen itu (mungkin ada di website Departemen Perindustrian), orang kecil ini lega. Penting, karena orang punya acuan mana yang core dan supporting industry, dan mana yang industri masa depan. Penting, karena daerah akan punya acuan pada zoning kalau mau mengembangkan industri ditempatnya. Membaca dokumen ini, orang Departemen Pendidikan Nasional (dan Tenaga Kerja) akan menyadari besarnya kepincangan disisi penyediaan tenaga kerja. Mereka akan tergerak untuk memperkuat pendidikan tersier bidang teknik dan teknologi baik tingkatan S-1 maupun D-1, D-2 dan D-3 -- ingat kita perlu teknisi lebih banyak daripada insinyur. Dan lebih banyak lagi kita perlu tukang ahli -- tukang kayu, tukang batu, juru las, juru bubut, dan banyak lagi termasuk juru selam (divers -- yang ini dibayar puluhan dollar per jam, RDP tahu itu). Kebutuhan kita yang jauh lebih besar adalah memperkuat STM kalau isinya sudah diperbaiki otomatis tidak jadi sekolah tawuran saja. Salam, RM Print July 05, 2005 Indonesia finally has industrial policy Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta After more than a decade without clear direction, Indonesia's manufacturing sector finally has a comprehensive detailed plan to develop the country's manufacturing industries for the next 20 years. The Ministry of Industry revealed its National Manufacturing Sector Development Policy, which prioritizes 32 sectors of some 365 existing industries in the country. The 32 sectors -- chosen through a thorough quantitative measurement of its international and domestic competitiveness -- have been contributing 78 percent of the national output and 83 percent of the country's total non-oil and gas exports. The Ministry's secretary general Agus Tjahajana explained that the priority sectors were grouped in two main categories: the basic (core and supporting) and future industries. The core and supporting sectors are existing industries, which survived the monetary crisis in 1997. Agus said the government would continue to support the core sectors to return to their precrisis level of competitiveness in the next five years and further strengthen them to be world class industries in the long term. Should any of them fail due to natural competition over time, we have no choice but to shift to others. Nevertheless, we are determined to do our best to assist all of them (basic sectors), Agus said on Friday during a workshop on Industrial Policy for Journalists. The basic manufacturing is expected to support the development of future industries and all the agro-based industries upgraded from the basic manufacturing sector. The National Policy document includes a detailed target of what products each sector should be able to produce in 10 years from now and a matrix of who would be responsible for each activity, as well as industrial zoning maps. Agus elaborated that 20 industries would be developed using a cluster approach, while the remaining 12 would have non-cluster or development according to individual characteristics. The industrial cluster approach would enable the government to develop a certain manufacturing sector from downstream to upstream, through facilitating networking and synergy between core, related and supporting industries of all sizes, and then future sectors. It is like a conglomerate, but it involves numerous different firms -- small, medium and large -- instead of, for example, all under one holding company, Agus said. The ministry chose to adopt the industrial cluster approach, which tends to push the priority sectors evenly, mainly because it was the best option for the government's limited budget. If we have the money, we might consider selecting a limited number of leading sectors and use the budget to push them in order to pull all other industries, he said. However, Agus stressed that looking at other countries' experiences -- such as England, France, the U.S., Thailand and Malaysia -- it would take years or even decades to develop a single fully-integrated cluster. Now we have somewhere to start. If this could not serve as a road map or blueprint, I don't know what could. He said further that the 32 priority sectors would enjoy preferential treatment from the government, including fiscal, monetary and administrative incentives. The government would expand the market of products from the 32 industries, prioritize foreign direct investment for them, push capacity building of their human resources, direct and organize university research for their benefit, and build the infrastructure for the sectors. To put it simply, if we have to choose where to disburse our limited budget or facilities, we would
[ppiindia] India akan menyalib China?
Rasanya tak mungkin India menyalib China, itulah yang saya dengar dari setiap pertemuan atau seminar di Mumbai. Tapi tidak demikian menurut Prof. Yasheng Huang (MIT) dan Tarun Khana (Harvard), dan mereka punya argumen yang sahih. Salam, RM Tuesday, July 05, 2005 India will overtake China' PTI Washington: In the long run, India will overtake China in economic growth owing to home-grown entrepreneurship, stronger infrastructure to support private enterprise and companies which compete internationally with global firms, a media report has claimed. The report, written by Yasheng Huang, Associate Professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tarun Khanna, a professor at Harvard Business School, said India was 'superior' in utilising its resources, thus contributing to economic performance. The real issue is not where China and India are today but where they will be tomorrow. The answer will be determined in large measure by how well both countries utilize their resources, and on this score, India is doing a superior job, the duo said in the report published in FP - a magazine published by the Carnegie Endowment. Differentiating between 'routes' to economic prosperity, they said that India's home-grown entrepreneurship gave it an advantage over China, where growth is largely fuelled by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). What is the fastest route to economic development? Welcome FDI, says China, and most policy experts agree. But a comparison with long-time laggard India suggests that FDI is not the only path to prosperity. Indeed, India's home-grown entrepreneurs may give it a long-term advantage over a China hamstrung by inefficient banks and capital markets, they argued. They said the ubiquitous Made in China label on everything in a major department store from shoes to garments to toys and electronics obscured an important point: few of these products are made by indigenous Chinese companies. You would be hard-pressed to find a single homegrown Chinese firm that operates on a global scale and markets its own products abroad. That is because China's export-led manufacturing boom is largely a creation of FDI, which effectively serves as a substitute for domestic entrepreneurship, they said. The duo stressed that India provided a more nurturing environment for domestic business, thus spawning a number of companies that now compete internationally with the best that Europe and the us have to offer. Many of these firms are in the most cutting-edge, knowledge-based industries -- software giants Infosys and Wipro and pharmaceutical and biotechnology powerhouses Ranbaxy and Dr. Reddy's Labs, to name just a few, Khanna and Huang said. India has also developed much stronger infrastructure to support private enterprise. Its capital markets operate with greater efficiency and transparency than do China's. Its legal system, while not without substantial flaws, is considerably more advanced, the two argued. Huang and Khanna also contrasted India's increasingly building from the ground up to China's pursuit of a top-down approach for economic growth, saying it reflected the political systems of both the countries. India is a democracy and China is not. China and India have pursued radically different development strategies. India is not outperforming China overall, but it is doing better in certain key areas. That success may enable it to catch up with and perhaps even overtake China, the two experts felt. It would not only demonstrate the importance of homegrown entrepreneurship to long-term economic development; it will also show the limits of the FDI-dependent approach China is, the duo said. URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=95123 *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] ISRO berpusat di Bangalore akan meluncurkan satelit Galileo punya Uni Eropa
(Financial Express) ISRO to launch Galileo satellites CHANDRA SHEKHAR Posted online: Monday, June 27, 2005 at 0107 hours IST BRUSSELS: India is close to signing an agreement with the the European Commission for participating in the ambitious Euro 3 billion-Galileo satellite communications project. The agreement is likely to be inked in the next two to three months, said Nils Weller, director general, Energy and Transport, European Commission, while talking to a group of visiting Indian journalists. Although the Galileo is a joint initiative by the European Commission and and European Space Agency, countries like USA, China and Israel have already signed the agreement with the Commission committing to participate in the communication scheme. Apart from India, the EC is talking to Canada, Russia, Ukrain, Argentina, South Korea and Morocco for participating in the project. Exploratory talks are also in progress with the countries like Brazil, Malaysia, Australia, Chile and Mexico, said Mr Weller. As far as India is concerned, the EC is holding talks with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in the areas of cooperation. The negotiations are likely to conclude shortly. India is likely to invest about Euro 300 million in the project. The country also hopes to get the contract for launching of satellites. As many as 30 satellites will have to be put in space to fully operationalise the Galileo project. Mr Weller said that launching of only four satellites have been tied up so far. It is possible to launch a few satellites from India, he said adding certain modalities will have to be worked out before such a decision could be taken. Talking about the schedule of the project, he said, first two satellites will be launched in December or January. The project is likely to become operational by 2008. The project, which after completion will be a constellation of 30 satellites orbiting at an altitude of 24,000 km, Mr Weller said, will allow the possessor of a small receiver to determine his position very precisely in the longitude, latitude and altitude at any given moment by picking up signals emitted by orbiting satellites. Explaining the operating principle, he said, the satellites in the constellation will be fitted with atomic clock which will measure the time very accurately. These satellites will emit personalised signals indicating the precise time the signal leaves the satellite. The ground receiver, incorporated for example into a mobile phone, will have in its memory the precise details of the orbits of all the satellites in the constellation. By reading the incoming signal, it can thus recognise the particular satellite, determine the time taken by the signal to arrive and calculate the distance from the satellite. Once the ground receiver receives the signals from at least four satellites simultaneously, it can calculate the exact position. The new system, he added, would have far reaching impact on air traffic control, ship and lorry fleet management, road and rail traffic monitoring, mobilisation of emergency services and tracking of goods throughout the world. The Galileo programme, he added, was the first global satellite and positioning and navigation system designed for civilian use worldwide. The project will feature full interoperability with the American GSP and Russian Glonass systems, both of which were designed for military purposes. The project, Mr Weller said, will provide wider range of services to users over the entire surface of the earth. *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] The end of the rainbow
Apa perlunya pujian Thomas Friedman kepada Irlandia ini bagi kita atau Indonesia ? Tentu ada, bukankah hal yang positif perlu kita simak mana tahu akan menjadi cermin bagi kita ? Dalam waktu tak terlalu lama, Irlandia maju dari keadaan 'the sick man in Europe' menjadi negara yang lebih tinggi daripada Jerman, Perancis dan Inggris dalam hal GDP per capita dan hanya dibawah Luxemburg saja. Sejarah dan penyebab kemajuan itu diuraikan disana, tapi saya tertarik pada pendidikan gratis bagi rakyat -- sejak tahun 1960an pendidikan dasar dan menengah (sampai SMA) digratiskan dan ini mendongkrak jumlah tenaga trampil/kejuruan. Sejak pertengahan tahun 1990an, praktis tingkat college/univ jadi setengah gratis (sehingga mahasiswa Malaysia banyak beralih kesana). Yang barangkali juga perlu menjadi cermin bagi kita adalah ternyata serikat buruh dan masyarakat Irlandia kompak dengan pemerintah mendukung program mengencangkan ikat pinggang alias penghematan APBN -- dan memperbaiki iklim penanaman modal dengan menekan pajak perseroan sampai 12.5% saja atau terendah di Eropa. Memang kemajuan itu tergantung dari manusianya, selain kebijakan makro yang baik. Salam, RM The End of the Rainbow (The New York Times) By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: June 29, 2005 Dublin Here's something you probably didn't know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg. Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita G.D.P. higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went from the sick man of Europe to the rich man in less than a generation is an amazing story. It tells you a lot about Europe today: all the innovation is happening on the periphery by those countries embracing globalization in their own ways - Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe - while those following the French-German social model are suffering high unemployment and low growth. Ireland's turnaround began in the late 1960's when the government made secondary education free, enabling a lot more working-class kids to get a high school or technical degree. As a result, when Ireland joined the E.U. in 1973, it was able to draw on a much more educated work force. By the mid-1980's, though, Ireland had reaped the initial benefits of E.U. membership - subsidies to build better infrastructure and a big market to sell into. But it still did not have enough competitive products to sell, because of years of protectionism and fiscal mismanagement. The country was going broke, and most college grads were emigrating. We went on a borrowing, spending and taxing spree, and that nearly drove us under, said Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney. It was because we nearly went under that we got the courage to change. And change Ireland did. In a quite unusual development, the government, the main trade unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 percent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages and prices, and aggressively courting foreign investment. In 1996, Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated work force. The results have been phenomenal. Today, 9 out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations here, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and 7 out of the top 10 software designers. Last year, Ireland got more foreign direct investment from America than from China. And overall government tax receipts are way up. We set up in Ireland in 1990, Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer, explained to me via e-mail. What attracted us? [A] well-educated work force - and good universities close by. [Also,] Ireland has an industrial and tax policy which is consistently very supportive of businesses, independent of which political party is in power. I believe this is because there are enough people who remember the very bad times to de-politicize economic development. [Ireland also has] very good transportation and logistics and a good location - easy to move products to major markets in Europe quickly. Finally, added Mr. Dell, they're competitive, want to succeed, hungry and know how to win. ... Our factory is in Limerick, but we also have several thousand sales and technical people outside of Dublin. The talent in Ireland has proven to be a wonderful resource for us. ... Fun fact: We are Ireland's largest exporter. Intel opened its first chip factory in Ireland in 1993. James Jarrett, an Intel vice president, said Intel was attracted by Ireland's large pool of young educated men and women, low corporate taxes and other incentives that saved Intel roughly a billion dollars over 10 years. National health care didn't hurt, either. We have 4,700 employees there now in four factories, and we are even doing some high-end chip designing in Shannon with Irish
[ppiindia] Pidato wisuda oleh Steve Job (Stanford)
Keputusan luar biasa dari Stanford bahwa commencement speech tahun ini disampaikan oleh seorang yang tidak pernah tamat college. Dilahirkan diluar nikah, dia dipungut oleh orang yang kurang mampu, tapi berjanji untuk menyekolahkan dia ke college tapi lalu si Steve Job dropped out karena merasa tuition terlalu memberatkan orang tua angkatnya. Nah, bagaimana kesialan itu membawa hikmah, itu dia ceritakan dalam pidato itu. Dalam umur yang sangat muda dia jadi co-founder dari Apple. Aneh, tapi nyata pada umur 30 tahun, dia dipecat dari perusahaan yang dia dirikan -- tapi itu juga ada hikmahnya bagi Steve Job. Kalau dia masih di Apple, kemungkinan besar dia tidak menekuni animasi -- dan dia mendirikan Pixar. Apple akhirnya menggaet Pixar dan perusahaan yang memecatnya ini mengangkat dia jadi CEO. Mungkin karena Steve Job ini sudah berkenalan dengan falsafat timur, dia berujar janganlah engkau mengikuti dogma apapun karena dengan demikian engkau akan mengkuti pikiran orang lain -- ikutilah bisikan murni dari nuranimu. Salam, RM Steve Jobs' Convocation Speech (Stanford) Monday, June 20, 2005 17:53 This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him? They said: Of course. My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5? deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and
[ppiindia] RIP: Penemu microchips, Jack Kilby
Jack Kilby telah meninggalkan sebuah benda yang membuat hidup ini lebih baik: microchip. Kita dapat ber-e-mail ria karena ada microchip di komputer kita. Kehadiran microchips boleh dikata tak terhitung; mereka hadir di CAT scan, di kamera, di ponsel, di mesin mobil, pendeknya dimana-mana. Seperti banyak penemuan lain (komputer dan kendaraan jeep), mulanya digunakan sebagai alat perang; pertama kali microchip digunakan di rudal Minuteman. Jack Kilby meninggal pada umur 81 tahun di Dallas. Salam, RM --- washingtonpost.com Engineer's Tiny Chip Changed the World By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 22, 2005; A01 Jack St. Clair Kilby, 81, died of cancer Monday at his home in Dallas, almost 50 years after his idea for what is commonly known as the microchip revolutionized the way that the world computes, calculates and communicates, ushering in the Information Age. Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics for his 1958 invention of the integrated electronic circuit, which made personal computers, satellite navigation systems, cell phones and the $200 billion field of microelectronics possible. He invented the hand-held calculator, which commercialized the microchip, and held more than 60 other patents. In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have truly transformed the world and the way we live in it -- Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Jack Kilby, Tom Engibous, chairman of Texas Instruments, where Kilby worked for years, said in a statement. If there was ever a seminal invention that transformed not only our industry but our world, it was Jack's invention of the first integrated circuit. Kilby, who failed the college entrance exam for MIT, had not worked at Texas Instruments long enough to merit vacation during the company's annual summer shutdown. So he was alone in the labs, working on borrowed equipment on July 24, 1958, when he struck upon the idea that he jotted down in his notebook: The following circuit elements could be made on a single slice: resistors, capacitor, distributed capacitor, transistor. Engineers call that the Monolithic Idea. It cracked a nagging engineering problem. The transistor had been invented 10 years earlier, replacing the vacuum tubes used in the earliest computers. But transistors were built of components strung together with wires. A single bad connection would ruin the circuit, and circuits could only get so small before it was impossible for humans to solder them together. Kilby's idea was to eliminate the wires and use a single block of silicon, or germanium, containing an entire electronic circuit. When he built the first circuit, it was half the size of a paper clip. In the same space, engineers can now squeeze about 100 million transistors. The chip first went to work in a computer for the Air Force in 1961 and in the Minuteman missile in 1962. A list of what it's used for today is almost endless: CAT scans, vehicle emission controls, sports broadcasting replays, iPods, military night-vision goggles, microwave ovens and pet-locator devices, among others. Kilby's invention came just six months before Robert Noyce, who later co-founded Intel Corp., came up with the same idea. Noyce, who died in 1990, was usually credited with making the idea practical, while Mr. Kilby was acknowledged as the first to conceive of the idea of putting components on a single piece of material. After a 10-year patent battle, the men called themselves co-inventors of the microchip, and Kilby publicly credited Noyce in his Nobel Prize speech. A quiet, self-effacing man, the 6-foot-6 Kilby seemed almost embarrassed by the attention of the Nobel Prize, said Washington Post writer T.R. Reid, who wrote a book about the invention. I never imagined how much human ingenuity could do to turn that one idea into useful applications, Kilby told Reid. The accolades that came with the Nobel reminded Kilby of the story told by a previous Nobel recipient, Charles Townes, of a beaver gnawing on a branch just below the Hoover Dam. Somebody came along and looked at the massive structure and said, 'Did you build that thing?' And the beaver answered, 'Well, it's kind of based on an idea of mine,' Kilby said. Kilby was born in Jefferson City, Mo., and grew up in Great Bend, Kan. During World War II, he was in the Army and was sent to India, where his job was to repair radios, although there were no spare parts. The resourcefulness that the assignment taught him proved useful later in his life. After the war, he took the MIT entrance exam but fell three points short of the required grade. He enrolled in the University of Illinois and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, then received a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1950. He worked for Globe Union, a Milwaukee firm, for 10 years before taking a job at Texas Instruments in Dallas. He became an independent
[ppiindia] Memetakan otak robot
Chennai engineer mapping brain of home robot Print this article (Siliconindia.com) Monday, June 20, 2005 LAUSANNE: Chennai-born engineer Shrihari Vasudevan's claim to fame may not be a long walk when he completes the brain mapping of a home companion robot, a prestigious project of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, expected to be accomplished by 2008. Yes, it will be a dream come true for me. I am giving it my best shot, says Vasudevan, who is pursuing doctorate in robot technology at the institute here, 80 kms from Geneva. After graduating from the Madras University, Vasudevan went to the U.S. to complete his masters in engineering before landing in this institute for his PhD. Vasudevan, who is in his late twenties, is working on the mapping of the brain for the home robot, the most essential part of the project. Well, we are working as a team. It is not that I am doing the most essential part. Everyone's role is important, Vasudevan said in humility. The project named Cogniniron is a joint effort of a consortium of companies from Switzerland, France, Germany and the United Kingdom besides a German-based firm GPS, which will have the marketing rights. agencies *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Rehat: Biji kurma umur 2000 tahun dapat tumbuh
Umumnya orang mengasosiasikan kurma dengan tanah Arab, sekalipun kurma dari Tunisia dan Maroko rasanya enak. Bahkan ada kurma dari Australia dan California yang tak kalah enaknya. Alkisah, dulunya tanah Judea banyak pohon kurmanya sampai-sampai dalam Mazmur 92 diibaratkan orang yang diberkati sampai usia tua masih produktif sebagai pohon kurma. Sekitar 2000 tahun yang lalu bangsa Romawi yang menduduki Palestina (ingat film Ben Hur) membasmi pohon-pohon kurma Sekarang Israel ikut menghasilkan buah kurma, dan itu dulu bijinya didatangkan dari California. Begitu pentingnya kurma, sehingga gambarnya dicetak dalam uang logam recehan shekel. Secara kebetulan, para ahli yang bergabung dalam penggalian arkeologi di Masada (dimana 930 orang memilih harakiri pada tahun 93 Masehi daripada menyerah kepada tentara Romawi) menemukan biji kurma jauh dibawah permukaan tanah. Irisan buah kurma dikirim ke Switzerland yang melalui prosedur radiocarbon dating menemukan biji itu berumur 1,900 tahun (plus minus 50 tahun) atau antara 35 SM sampai tahun 65 Masehi atau menjelang tentara Romawi mengepung Masada. Iseng-iseng, biji kurma ditanam di pot dengan peredur khusus. Ternyata biji itu mengeluarkan akar dan tumbuh. Pada saat artikel ini ditulis, tinggi pohon kurma sudah 75 cm dan ada 7 daun salah satunya diambil untuk pengujian DNA. Salam, RM --(Dari The New York Times) June 12, 2005 After 2,000 Years, a Seed From Ancient Judea Sprouts By STEVEN ERLANGER Correction Appended JERUSALEM, June 11 - Israeli doctors and scientists have succeeded in germinating a date seed nearly 2,000 years old. The seed, nicknamed Methuselah, was taken from an excavation at Masada, the cliff fortress where, in A.D. 73, 960 Jewish zealots died by their own hand, rather than surrender to a Roman assault. The point is to find out what was so exceptional about the original date palm of Judea, much praised in the Bible and the Koran for its shade, food, beauty and medicinal qualities, but long ago destroyed by the crusaders. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, says Psalm 92. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing. Well, we'll see. Dr. Sarah Sallon, who runs a project on medicinal plants of the Middle East, notes that the date palm in ancient times symbolized the tree of life. But Dr. Elaine Solowey, who germinated the seed and is growing it in quarantine, says plants grown from ancient seeds usually keel over and die soon, having used most of their nutrients in remaining alive. The plant is now 11.8 inches tall and has produced seven leaves, one of which was removed for DNA testing. Radiocarbon dating in Switzerland on a snip of the seed showed it to be 1,990 years old, plus or minus 50 years. So the date seed dates from 35 B.C. to A.D. 65, just before the famed Roman siege. Three date seeds were taken from Level 34 of the Masada dig. They were found in a storeroom, and are presumably from dates eaten by the defenders, Dr. Sallon says. Mordechai Kislef, director of botanical archeology at Bar-Ilan University, had some date seeds from Ehud Netzer, who excavated Masada in the 1970's. They were sitting in a drawer, and when I asked for one, he said, 'You're mad,' but finally gave me three, Dr. Sallon said. Then I gave them to Elaine, who's an expert on arid agriculture and dates. Dr. Solowey said: Well, I didn't have much hope that any would come up, but you know how Sarah is. Dr. Sallon, who is a pediatric gastroenterologist trained at University College, London, came to Israel 20 years ago. She is the director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah Medical Organization, which she set up 10 years ago to study natural products and therapies, from Tibetan and Chinese medicine to the indigenous medicinal plants of the Middle East. The idea is to preserve these plants and their oral histories in a modernizing region, but also to domesticate them, evaluate them scientifically and then try to integrate them into conventional medicine. Dr. Solowey, who teaches agriculture and sustainable farming at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, based at Kibbutz Ketura in the southern Negev, works on finding new crops for arid and saline areas like Jordan, Gaza and Morocco. She also works with Dr. Sallon to domesticate indigenous plants that appear to have medicinal uses. Dr. Solowey grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in California and studied horticulture, then turned away from commercial agriculture in disgust, coming here in 1971. I don't come to organic agriculture from the hippie side, but as a frustrated agricultural scientist, she said. We've bred for yield and taste, but not hardiness, so we have a lot of plants as hardy as French poodles, so we have to spray to protect them, and then we pay the price, she said. There isn't a cubic centimeter of water in the San Joaquin Valley that
[ppiindia] In high demand, vocational schools suffer funding constraints
Menggembirakan, bahwa saat ini orang tua dan anak sekolah melirik sekolah kejuruan STM dan SMEA. Memang seharusnya hanya sebagian saja siswa yang mengarah ke perguruan tinggi melalui SMA. Dan seharusnya hanya sebagian saja lulusan SMA yang masuk strata S-1, karena bukti menunjukkan bahwa lulusan D-3 lebih cepat dapat kerja. Kesempatan baik, mumpung terjadi kelangkaan mencari tukang dan teknisi yang baik. Barang yang langka mahal harganya bukan? Tukang adalah lulusan STM dan SMEA. Teknisi adalah lulusan D-1, D-2 dan D-3. Begitu langkanya teknisi, sampai-sampai industri mengijon siswa politeknik. Murahkah sekolah kejuruan ? Seharusnya tidak. STM, misalnya, tidak hanya mengandalkan papan tulis dan buku tulis saja. Tapi harus ada bengkel untuk kerja praktek, dan ini membutuhkan alat-alat yang harganya tidak murah. Akan aneh, jika lulusan STM bangunan atau STM mesin tidak mampu menggambar teknik. Salam, RM -- Print June 07, 2005 Dari The Jakarta Post Now in high demand, vocational schools suffer funding constraints Vocational schools, high in demand but suffering funding constraints At a time when skilled workers are most needed, vocational schools, aiming to supply the professional market, find themselves favored by both students and businesses. I always aspired to continue my studies at a vocational school because it corresponds with my interests and will prepare me for work, said Erwan Rusdiana, a graduate from a public vocational school (SMK) in Makassar, South Sulawesi. With around 800,000 students from 5,070 public and private vocational schools graduating per year, some 50 percent already have jobs waiting for them in related industries, a senior government official said on Monday. According to the Central Statistics Agency, in 2003, the number of vocational school graduates working as professional workers (667,852) outnumbered that of regular high school graduates (342,387). The ones with jobs lined up are from schools that meet the high standards set by industry associations, Ministry of National Education's director of vocational education Gatot Hari Priowirjanto said, adding that ensuring that such standards were met required adequate training facilities. Currently, technical schools (1,721), business and management schools (2,569) as well as tourism schools (110) represent the three most favored study subjects with an average of 700,000 new enrollments annually. But, there has been declining interest in handicraft and agricultural studies, Gatot said, which he suggested could be overcome by opening more market-oriented programs such as on agricultural business and graphic design. Despite the reduced enrollment figures in some programs, in general there has been a steady enrollment increase at vocational schools. The 667,000 new enrollments in 1997 jumped to 760,000 in 2003. Such schools are no longer eyed only by those from the middle and lower classes, Gatot said. Since graduates are skilled, companies appreciate them more than those from college. He also pointed out that SMK 1 Mundu in Cirebon annually sends 120 to 150 of its graduates to Japan for work experience. After taking part in an international competency contest in Helsinki, Finland, last week, it became clear that Indonesian schools lack attention and funding for the upgrading of equipment. We are as competent as those from Europe, but our tools are not as good as theirs, said Erwan, a delegate representing Indonesia in the bricklaying competition. The ministry's head of competency standardization and certification Susilowati explained that training equipment at most schools was bought in the 1980s and was therefore old. We also have problems with precision since the tools are rarely calibrated, she said. The classic argument of insufficient funding rang true when the government only channeled 30 percent of this year's proposed Rp 695 billion (US$73.93 million) for the rehabilitation and procurement of more than 5,000 schools. Gatot explained that a thorough revamp of equipment in schools nationwide would require some Rp 3 trillion. And that only covers some 60 percent of schools. Local administrations pay very little attention to them and allocate a similar amount of funds as that for regular high schools, Gatot said, adding that a vocational school, especially one specializing in technology, required a lot more as it needed expensive heavy duty equipment and used an extensive amount of electricity. However, a head of a vocational school should also be more proactive in finding industries to become the school's partner. Industries can help with the equipment and benefit from the supply of skilled workers, he said.(003) *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in
[ppiindia] Pengadilan Negeri Jakpus menggugurkan keputusan/rekomendasi KPPU soal penjualan VLCC
Untuk ke n-th kalinya, pengadilan negeri memberi putusan yang menggelikan dalam perkara yang high profile. Kalaupun hakim dan jaksa integritasnya tinggi dan tahan suap, ada satu soal yang baku: mereka apakah paham bisnis dan business laws? Saya ragukan; mengingat mudahnya lulusan SMA masuk fakultas hukum. Di banyak negara lain, law school begitu terhormat sehingga banyak S-1 (bachelors) dari berbagai disiplin yang masuk law school. Kata kuncinya adalah pendidikan hukum kita; agar seorang Mulya Lubis bukan suatu perkecualian. Salam, RM - Print May 26, 2005 Court overturns KPPU tanker sale ruling Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta The Central Jakarta District Court overturned a ruling of the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) over state oil firm PT Pertamina's tanker sale, saying it found no elements of unhealthy competition in the deal. Responding to the verdict favoring the plaintiffs -- Pertamina, the deal's financial advisor Goldman Sachs Pte., tender winner Frontline Shipping Ltd. and its local agent PT Equinox -- KPPU's lawyers said that they would appeal to the Supreme Court within 14 days. The panel of judges said on Wednesday that Frontline, which offered US$178 million for the two Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), scored higher than its competitor Essar Shipping Ltd., despite the latter's $183 million bid. Essar could not provide a 20 percent down payment on time, as was shown by a letter from its guarantor the State Bank of India, said the judge. Bermuda-based Frontline later raised its bid through Equinox to $183.5 million and was announced as tender winner. The court opined that due to the limited time -- Pertamina was concerned that the assets could be seized at any time as a result of its dispute with Karaha Bodas Company (KBC) -- Goldman Sachs did not have to ask for a third bid from the other shortlisted candidates, Essar and Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG). Essar could not fulfill the requirements and OSG had always bid lower than the others in the earlier biddings, the court said. It further said that the state did not suffer losses from the sale as Pertamina built the two tankers for $130.8 million, despite reports that the tankers were worth well over $200 million. KPPU's lawyer David Tobing stuck to the view that the deal was riddled with irregularities. The tender winner was announced on June 10 (last year), he said. Pertamina meanwhile obtained an approval for the VLCC sale from the State Minister of State Enterprises, which represented the government as the shareholder, only on June 11, he added. Pertamina sent a letter to the Minister of Finance in July requesting an approval for the tanker plan, said Tobing, showing a copy of the letter. The deal was closed a month before (the letter), but the procedures for approval were conducted afterwards. Amir Syamsuddin, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, said that the case reflected KPPU's lack of understanding of business competition. The court's decision annulled the financial and legal consequences of KPPU's ruling, which was issued in early March. At the time, KPPU ordered Pertamina's board of directors and commissioners to explain the case to its shareholders. Goldman Sachs, Frontline and Equinox were required to pay Rp 19.7 billion ($2.08 million), Rp 25 billion and Rp 16.6 billion in fines, respectively. Goldman and Frontline were also ordered to pay Rp 60 billion and Rp 120 billion, respectively, to recoup lost potential revenue. The district court also ordered the KPPU to pay court costs amounting to Rp 14.5 million. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Ever feel sad or cry for no reason at all? Depression. Narrated by Kate Hudson. http://us.click.yahoo.com/LLQ_sC/esnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] CNR Rao mendapat hadiah dari Dan David Foundation untuk penelitian dalam material science
Seperti kita punya Johanes Surya, CNR Rao dan isteri giat mempopulerkan sains dikalangan anak-anak. Sebagai penghargaan atas hasil penelitiannya dalam bidang nano yang berdampak pada kehidupan manusia, Dan David Foundation baru-baru ini menyampaikan hadiah kepadanya sebesar $ 1 juta yang harus dibagi bersama dengan Robert Langer (MIT) dan George Whitesides (Harvard). Dikalangan ilmuwan, CNR Rao (71) yang pernah pinjam uang pembeli stelan jas untuk upacara menerima gelar Ph.D dari Purdue University, sudah tidak asing lagi. Sudah 1,200 karya ilmiah dimuat dijurnal-jurnal dan dia sudah menulis 37 buku. Bersama 20 mahasiswanya, CNR Rao bergelut mencari terobosan di bidang nano (ukurannya 1 per 80,000 rambut manusia) dan mendapat kegunaannya bagi kedokteran dan teknologi. Kini sedang ditekuni aplikasi nano pada superconductivity untuk menghasilkan bahan tanpa friction (gesekan) dalam suhu kamar. Dan David Foundation menandai bahwa innovasi itu akan merupakan revolusi bagi transmisi listrik, elektronika, dan transportasi. Salam, RM --- Wednesday, May 25, 2005 Four annas from father to highest honour since Ramans Nobel C N R Rao shares prestigious Israel Dan David Foundation material science award with MIT, Harvard scientists RESHMA PATIL MUMBAI, MAY 24 Every morning, a 71-year-old scientist is the first to enter his futuristic materials science laboratories in Bangalore where experiments are of a precision thinner than a strand of human hair. C N R Rao, the grand old man of Indian science with 50 years of research behind him, received the 2005 Dan David Prize for materials science in the Future Time Dimension last night. And the man who once pocketed a four-anna reward from his father for securing first-class in an exam when he was 10, now shares a million-dollar award. The Dan David Foundation headquartered at Tel Aviv University annually recognises achievements that impact the world. This is the highest prize an Indian scientist has received at least in the last 70 years, since C V Ramans Nobel, Rao told The Indian Express from Tel Aviv, Israel. Its an honour for Indian science and my students, says Rao, who is also chairman of the science advisory council for the Prime Minister. The prize winners are called laureates and Rao shares the million-dollar prize for materials science with Robert Langer of MIT and George Whitesides of Harvard University, USA. There are no week-ends, no holidays for Rao, says colleague and chemistry professor V Krishnan, at Bangalores Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research where Rao is the Linus Pauling Research Professor. Hes the first to enter his lab at 8.15 am, when some students are still sleeping, says Krishnan, who also gives a thumbs-up to Raos gourmet cooking. Hes never idle, chasing one idea after another. In fact, Raos biography by Mohan Sundara Rajan recounts the early days when he borrowed money to buy a new suit for his PhD interview at Purdue University. Today, Raos books are studied by students worldwide, says R V Hosur, chairman of the chemical sciences department at Mumbais Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Ill continue to work as long as I can. No retirement, says Rao, with 1,200 research publications, 37 books, fellowship of 23 science academies worldwide behind him. Raos group of 20 students work on futuristic applications in medicine and technology with atomic precision at nano size1/80,000th the width of human hair. Theres also research in superconductivity, to make materials lose resistance to current at room temperature, that could revolutionise the power transmission, electronics and transport industries. The Dan David Prizeits laureates donate 10 per cent prize money to graduate students in their fieldscites Rao as among the worlds foremost solid state and materials chemists. His work on transition metal oxides has led to basic understanding of novel phenomena. Rao was among the first to see potential in solid state chemistry, an unrecognised, non-existent subject in India until the 1960s. But Rao is currently sharing an experiment larger than nano. He and wife Indumati are busy writing a four-part book, Learning Science, to open the world of science to students. It will be released in three months in CDs also, says Rao. The book will describe the universe and the world of physics, chemistry and biology. URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=70984 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/OCfFmA/UOnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun
[ppiindia] India races into space
http://www.atimes.com India races into space By Siddharth Srivastava NEW DELHI - India recently successfully placed its 11th remote-sensing satellite Cartosat-1 into orbit - blasted into space by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - stretching further its record to 12 launches, including broadcast satellites, without any failure, though there have been glitches. The stage is now set for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), run by the government, to carry out a fully fledged commercial launch, with a little help from the US, by the removal of sanctions on dual-use technologies. India considers its missile, space and nuclear programs as closely inter-linked, with nuclear deterrence against Pakistan and China and benefits to the people through satellite technology and nuclear energy being critical factors. But first, the significance of the satellite launch. The latest launch, carried out from a newly built second launch pad with an estimated cost of US$100 million, will provide the flexibility that exists with the Space Shuttle of the US and Europe's Ariane rockets. Indian launchers can now be assembled on a mobile platform in a separate work area and then transferred to the pad just days before launch. With this arrangement, one rocket can be at the pad while another is being commissioned. This was also the first time that the ISRO had launched two satellites in a single flight from Sriharikota (near the city of Chennai, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu), the other on this occasion being the much smaller Hamsat for amateur radio broadcasts. The launch reaffirms the emergence of India as a major space power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told parliament in New Delhi. India has committed to sending a probe to the moon in two or three years, but its space program has been mainly aimed at harnessing high technology for the masses. While India's space program, largely developed by indigenous scientists with help from European partners and the US earlier, deserves kudos, similar technology is being used to build synergies into another arena - India has also announced that it will test-fire its longest range (3,000 kilometers) surface-to-surface missile, Agni III, capable of delivering nuclear payloads, by the end of the year. This range effectively covers China and Pakistan, unlike the earlier two versions. The development of India's missile program is a contravention of missile control and test-ban treaties, which India opposes as being biased toward major powers. India's Agni project, which was launched in the late 1980s, has been under the US microscope, with the country using every persuasive power, including sanctions, to delay it. Indeed, progress in missile technology has happened concomitantly with the strides in space research as the motors used in the launch vehicles of satellites have been incorporated into missiles. ISRO is developing two categories of rocket - the PSLVs are designed for earth observation and scientific missions, such as Cartosat-1, and the forthcoming Chandrayaan moon mission. The larger Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) carry communications satellites into geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the earth, at which height they can hover over the same place. The GSLV motors form the critical stages of operations of the long-range Agni. Keeping India's interest in overcoming hurdles in procuring dual-use technologies, by getting US export control procedures simplified, the Indian parliament recently passed the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) bill, which the government has emphasized does not in any manner constrict India's nuclear program, either strategic or civilian. The nuclear bill is important in light of India's emergence as a nuclear state, and meets the country's commitments under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 passed in April 2004. For us, nuclear energy is an important means to address this challenge [energy security]. As such, we intend to maintain and expand our indigenous nuclear power program. This would also ease the strain on conventional energy supplies globally. Since India's record in non-proliferation is impeccable and acknowledged to be so internationally, the current restrictions on cooperation in nuclear power production with India have become anachronistic and counter-productive, Manmohan said in parliament recently. The US, too, has had a change in strategy and has agreed to cooperate with India on nuclear energy, given India's record as a responsible nuclear power nation after successfully testing nuclear weapons in May 1998, unlike Pakistan, which has been accused of systematically peddling nuclear technology. India has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as it feels that the agreement is biased toward the possessors of nuclear weapons. Indeed, in the arena of space, too, many feel that the time is
[ppiindia] Nuclear battery keeps going and going
Teknologi untuk memanfaatkan tritium (gas hidrogin radioaktif) yang sudah tidak terpakai lagi untuk jadi baterai atau accu tahan lama sampai puluhan tahun, atau keperluan praktis lainnya, sudah dikembangkan oleh Rochester University serta sudah dipatenkan oleh BetaBatt. Salam, RM --- Nuclear battery keeps going, and going ... New devices could put out power for decade or more University of Rochester / BetaBatt A researcher shows off the wafer test fixture that was used to test the new porous-silicon diode and its interactions with tritium gas. The diode is the dark wafer in the center of the top plate. By Robert Roy Britt Senior writer Updated: 1:41 p.m. ET May 13, 2005A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week. The longevity would make the battery ideal for use in pacemakers or other surgically implanted devices, developers say, or it might power spacecraft or deep-sea probes. You might also find these nuclear batteries running sensors and other small devices in your home in a few years. Such devices don't consume much power, said University of Rochester electrical engineer Philippe Fauchet, and yet having to replace the battery every so often is a real pain in the neck. Fauchet told LiveScience the batteries could last a dozen years. They're being developed at Rochester, and the technology has been licensed by BetaBatt Inc. How it works The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel. Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost. For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low, Fauchet explained. We've found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years. Fauchet's team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits. Each pit is about 1 micron wide. That's four ten-thousandths of an inch. They're more than 40 microns deep. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Mixed with chemicals that emit light, it is used to illuminate exit signs without electricity the sort commonly found in schools and other public buildings. It is safe and can be implanted in the body, Fauchet said. The energetic particles emitted by tritium do not penetrate inside the skin. Tritium emits only low-energy particles that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper, said Gadeken of BetaBatt. The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape. The device is detailed in Friday's issue of Advanced Materials. Click for related story Putting new life in battery technology The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market. Still, don't expect anything on the store shelves for at least two years, Fauchet said. His team is now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today. If we are as successful as we think we may be, it will take less than five years before this technology is adopted, he said. Graduate student Wei Sun of the University of Toronto was lead author on the paper describing the work, which was supported by the National Science Foundation. © 2005 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/OCfFmA/UOnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari:
[ppiindia] Nuclear battery keeps going and going
Teknologi untuk memanfaatkan tritium (gas hidrogin radioaktif) yang sudah tidak terpakai lagi untuk jadi baterai atau accu tahan lama sampai puluhan tahun, atau keperluan praktis lainnya, sudah dikembangkan oleh Rochester University serta sudah dipatenkan oleh BetaBatt. Salam, RM --- Nuclear battery keeps going, and going ... New devices could put out power for decade or more University of Rochester / BetaBatt A researcher shows off the wafer test fixture that was used to test the new porous-silicon diode and its interactions with tritium gas. The diode is the dark wafer in the center of the top plate. By Robert Roy Britt Senior writer Updated: 1:41 p.m. ET May 13, 2005A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week. The longevity would make the battery ideal for use in pacemakers or other surgically implanted devices, developers say, or it might power spacecraft or deep-sea probes. You might also find these nuclear batteries running sensors and other small devices in your home in a few years. Such devices don't consume much power, said University of Rochester electrical engineer Philippe Fauchet, and yet having to replace the battery every so often is a real pain in the neck. Fauchet told LiveScience the batteries could last a dozen years. They're being developed at Rochester, and the technology has been licensed by BetaBatt Inc. How it works The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel. Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost. For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low, Fauchet explained. We've found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years. Fauchet's team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits. Each pit is about 1 micron wide. That's four ten-thousandths of an inch. They're more than 40 microns deep. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Mixed with chemicals that emit light, it is used to illuminate exit signs without electricity the sort commonly found in schools and other public buildings. It is safe and can be implanted in the body, Fauchet said. The energetic particles emitted by tritium do not penetrate inside the skin. Tritium emits only low-energy particles that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper, said Gadeken of BetaBatt. The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape. The device is detailed in Friday's issue of Advanced Materials. Click for related story Putting new life in battery technology The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market. Still, don't expect anything on the store shelves for at least two years, Fauchet said. His team is now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today. If we are as successful as we think we may be, it will take less than five years before this technology is adopted, he said. Graduate student Wei Sun of the University of Toronto was lead author on the paper describing the work, which was supported by the National Science Foundation. © 2005 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Does he tell you he loves you when he's hitting you? Abuse. Narrated by Halle Berry. http://us.click.yahoo.com/aFQ_rC/isnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only:
[ppiindia] Percaya atau tidak ? Air yang MreT-ed air penyehat
Dari pergaulan dengan seorang teman, saya menghadiri promosi air penyehat OXY dan saya beli 2 kardus OXY masing-masing berisi 24 botol air murni dari sumber yang sudah diproses alat MreT (Molecular resonance effect Technology) teknologi Jerman plant-nya PMDN dekat Jogja. Tiap pagi sebelum sholat subuh dan jalan pagi, saya minum sebotol dalam keadaan perut kosong. Dari pergaulan dengan seorang teman lagi (Ibu Devi), saya diperkenalkan dengan seorang isteri dari seorang dokter bedah jantung. Ceritanya, sang dokter ini hanya percaya pada penyembuhan medis dan sakit ada penyempitan di pembuluh aortanya. Diam-diam sang isteri menyajikan air minum Aqua yang di treat dengan alat MRET (yang ini patent Amerika, singkatannya sama demgan MreT). Setelah beberapa minggu dokter di Indonesia dan Australia terheran-heran kok penyumbatan di aorta hilang lenyap. Sang dokter bersikukuh bahwa itu adalah berkat obat paten yang diminumnya, sang isteri diam saja dan dia tidak mengatakan bahwa itu adalah berkat air MRET yang tiap hari dia sajikan. Konon tubuh kita membutuhkan air murni pegunungan yang activated. Air ini dapat leluasa masuk celah antara sel-sel tubuh, sehingga zat makanan dan oksigen dapat sampai ke seluruh tubuh. Konon yang membedakan air penyembuh Lourdes dan zam-zam serta air pegunungan Kaukasus dan Tibet, adalah struktur atom dalam molekul H2O. Tidak seperti air murni biasa, kovalen H dari dua atom H yang diikat oleh satu atom O membentuk sudut 104.5 drajat, sama dengan air dalam cairan tubuh manusia. Adalah Lubert Stryer, setelah meneliti di St. Petersburg University di Rusia dia membawa hasilnya ke Amerika, dan memperoleh hak patent pada tahun 2000 atas alat MERT yang dirancangnya. Alat MERT ini sudah dijual di Jakarta secara MLM, kabarnya harganya Rp. 3 juta keatas tergantung besar kecilnya. Harap jangan bertanya lebih lanjut kepada saya, karena saya sendiri belum membelinya. Salam, RM Activated Water Molecular Resonance Effect Technology This particular article relates to subtle electrical effects, and provides some evidence of a fundamental nature on how electromagnetic fields might be utilized to modify the molecular arrangements and activity of water. I have focused my efforts on the water molecule to show that it can be activated both for physical processes and for influences on cellular life structures. Activated Water is produced with the help of patented, non-chemical Molecular Resonance Effect Technology. The process of water activation induces the formation of water molecular clusters similar to water molecular structures found in living cells. The basic idea of Molecular Resonance Effect Technology is the direct transmission of prerecorded molecular activity signals to biological systems with the help of Activated Water. These messages are imprinted in water during the process of activation. The effect of Activated Water on molecular complexes, such as bacteria, viruses, and abnormal cells, can be explained by the fundamental physical phenomenon of electromagnetism, such as resonance, constructive and destructive interference. The molecular structure of water is the essence of all life. Albert Szent Gyorgyi, recipient of Nobel Prize for discovery of vitamin C. Water profoundly influences all molecular interactions in biological systems. The existence of life depends critically on the capacity of water to dissolve polar molecules that serve as information carriers. Lubert Stryer, Stanford University, Author of Biochemistry 4th Ed., 1995. Molecular Resonance Effect Technology After researching the effects of electromagnetic radiation on cellular structures at St. Petersburg University in Russia, I developed a system called Molecular Resonance Effect Technology (MRET). I also created a device for the alteration of the molecular organization state of water and other liquid substances. For this invention I was awarded a US patent in February 2000. It is US Patent # 6,022,479 Method and Device for Producing Activated Liquids and Method of Use Thereof . There are lots of types of purifiedwaters such as spring, distilled, colloidal,and nanoclustered waters. But no process has previously been knownwhich can alter the molecular structureof water without any foreign substancesbeing introduced into the water. Myinvention relies on the idea that electromagneticradiation can effect the atomicand molecular structures of substances. This fact was proved by specific class of experiments involving Rydberg atomsatoms with an electron in a highly extended orbital (Rydberg AtomsGiants of the Atomic World by F. Barry Dunning in Science Spectra issue 3, pp. 34-38, 1995). The effect an electromagnetic force has on an atom depends on the atoms electronic structure during the interaction. One could imagine that the application of the appropriate time-dependent force to an atom could alter its electronic structure in a specific way, thereby controlling its
[ppiindia] Amdal PLTN Gunung Muria sudah kadaluwarsa
Tunggu punya tunggu debat soal pembangunan PLTN (pembangkit listrik tenaga nuklir) di Gunung Muria kok belum ada. Apa pemilis tidak melihatnya, bisa juga. Yang jelas, rencana ini menyangkut kepentingan banyak orang dari banyak segi. Pihak yang mendukung (Menristek kala itu dan BATAN) beralasan bahwa kebutuhan listrik di pulau Jawa adalah begitu besar, sehingga PLTN harus dilihat sebagai salah satu solusinya. Mereka siap, katanya, menjawab pertanyaan seputar segi ekonomi, lingkungan dan keamanan. Pihak penentang tentu saja siap mematahkan semua argumen. Soal murahnya, belum tentu; uranium 235 memang murah karena pemakainnya sedikit -- tapi biaya mendirikan reaktor mahal, dan semakin aman (untuk tidak mengulang Three Mile Island dan Chernobil) semakin mahal pula biayanya. Belum lagi kita harus membayar teknologi (dan ahli asing untuk itu). Karena soal lingkungan hidup, PLTN di negara-negara maju (Perancis, Jerman, Amerika, Jepang) menunjukkan trend yang menurun secara progresif. Belum lagi soal limbah nuklir, belum jelas dari Gunung Muria mau dibuang kemana. Padahal waktu paruh (half time) uranium 235 adalah 704 juta tahun (sumber: USGS). Keberatan yang lebih khas lagi adalah budaya birokrasi dan masyarakat Indonesia belum siap dengan sebuah PLTN. Bayangkan, komponen kritis yang harus diganti terganjal aturan baku prosedural harus sudah dianggarkan misalnya. Selain itu kebiasaan bagi rejeki, bisa berakibat pekerjaan yang substandard. Kalau terjadi krisis, apakah para petugas dan penanggung jawab tidak menyibukkan diri dengan saling tuding atau saling melindungi (cover up) ? Tapi ah, kok kita tidak memikirkan rekan-rekan di BATAN yang sudah menggeluti proyek ini sejak puluhan tahun, sejak BATAN dipimpin Djali Ahimsa. Bagaimana perjalanan karir mereka, yang memang khusus itu ? Salam, RM - Amdal PLTN Gunung Muria Sudah Kadaluarsa 21 Januari 2004 TEMPO Interaktif, Jakarta: Analisis mengenai dampak lingkungan (Amdal) Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Nuklir Gunung Muria sudah kadaluarsa. Karena itu PT Gunung Muria harus merinci kembali jika mereka ingin mengajukan uji Amdal yang baru ke Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup (KLH). Hal tersebut disampaikan pelaksana tugas Kepala Bidang Penyelenggaraan Amdal dan UKL/UTL KLH, Tri Bangun Laksono, yang ditemui Rabu (21/1) ini di Jakarta. Tri Bangun Laksono atau yang akrab dipanggil Soni mengatakan, berdasarkan PP nomor 27 tahun 1999 tentang Amdal, PT Gunung Muria harus mengajukan kembali dokumen uji Amdal ke Komisi Penilaian Amdal Pusat KLH. Menurut Soni, pengajuan kembali atau review harus dilakukan karena PT Gunung Muria lebih dari tiga tahun melakukan kegiatan konstruksi. Berdasarkan aturan KLH, waktu selama tiga tahun ini dianggap sebagai waktu yang cukup lama dan dalam waktu itu telah terjadi perubahan atau rona lingkungan. Soni juga menegaskan bahwa sampai saat ini, KLH belum menerima dokumen uji Amdal dari PT Gunung Muria. Ia sangat menghargai, jika PT Gunung Muria mengkaji kembali dokumen uji amdalnya. Masih menurut Soni, sebagai PLTN, PT Gunung Muria sebagai perusahaan yang bergerak di bidang nuklir, PT Gunung Muria wajib memiliki Amdal. Hal ini karena nuklir dapat menimbulkan resiko tinggi. Resikonya bisa berupa dampak sosial dan munculny radiasi baik pada tahap sebelum maupun pasca operasi (decomisioning). Soni juga menjelaskan jika PT Gunung Muria berkeinginan melakukan uji Amdal, terlebih dahulu mereka mengumumkan ke publik. Ini perlu dilakukan untuk mengetahui opini publik. Soni mengatakan, jika pada pengumuman nanti masyarakat menolak pengoperasian PLTN tersebut, hal ini akan menjadi penilaian KLH untuk menerima atau menolak uji amdal dari PT Gunung Muria. (SunariahTNR) Kirim Komentar | Baca Komentar Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/OCfFmA/UOnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of
[ppiindia] Meet the 47-year-old French intern at Infosys
Ada semacam connection antara Infosys dengan Perancis. Pada tahun 1960an Narayana Murthy belajar di Perancis. Sepulang dari sana, dengan hanya bermodal $470 dia berkongsi dengan 4 temannya membeli sebuah perusahaan yang bangkrut di Bangalore. Melalui proses jatuh bangun, singkat cerita jadilah Infosys, usaha software yang dikenal dunia, dan sahamnya diperdagangkaan di Nasdaq. Sekarang Narayana Murthy jadi orang nomor 4 terkaya di India. Salam, RM The Economic Times Online Printed from economictimes.indiatimes.com News By Industry Infotech Software Meet the 47-year-old French intern at Infosys NOEMIE BISSERBE TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, MAY 01, 2005 10:50:13 AM] Sign into earnIndiatimes points Say intern and you conjure up images of a 20-something MBA student, earnestly working through the summer months at a blue-chip, hoping that the internship would translate into a permanent offer at the end of course. So, it comes as a pleasant suprise to meet some like Pascal Yrissou, who at 47, isnt exactly an intern material. But he is indeed interning at Infosys Technologies as part of the final step to complete his MBA programme at Columbia University. But then Yrissou isnt a typical MBA grad either. This is in fact his second MBA. The first one was from London Business School. Yrissou, after holding key positions at Rhodia (a huge chemical group in France), Chase Manhattan Bank and Barclays Bank, chose to come to India, to follow an internship at Infosys with a definite purpose in mind. French companies could surely learn a lot from Indian IT firms business model. I came here not only because I wanted to immerse myself into Indias history and society, but because I wanted to see the IT industrys processes in India, understand their business model, and Infosys is at the core of this industry, he explained, before adding, it is one thing to know, and another to see. Yrissou will spend one month in Bangalore, before moving to the Paris office, where he will complete the rest of his internship. As of today, very few French companies are working with IT firms in Bangalore, and very rare are those who have set up a facility in Bangalore during the last years. Yrissou, who currently works as an independant Business Adviser foresees a tremendous opportunity in this void. Working with Indian IT companies is a very efficent way to cut cost and be more competitive on the global market and my plan is to help Infosys, and other IT companies in India, to work with French companies. My experience at Infosys Paris office will thus be particularly enriching, he said. After completing his management programme at Columbia, Yrissou intends to continue with his career as a consultant. He sees his Infosys internship adding value to his work of trying to get French to work with Indian firms. There are two options for these (French) companies. Either they can collaborate with an Indian company, or they can set up their own company in India, he explained. For many global companies, outsourcing tasks to Indian firms, was just a first step before setting up their own facility in India. Yet, argues Yrissou, a French company willing to set up today its own facility will face the same issues as an Indian firm. Not only is there a fierce competition for the best talents but it is also very complicated to retain employees. Not that setting up facilities in India is not an option which can be considered, but only after a significant period of time, he concluded. ©Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/4F6XtA/_WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL
[ppiindia] Pengalaman dengan e-mail fraud
Saya hampir kena tipu. Begini, minggu lalu saya dapat pemberitahuan dari siapa yang menamakan diri Microsoft Promotion, bahwa saya memenangi hadiah 1,000,000 euro setelah nama saya muncul sebagai pemenang category A dari antara 2.5 juta e-mail addresses sedunia. Setengah tidak percaya, saya minta Microsoft Promotion untuk mentransfer uang itu ke nomor rekening saya di Jakarta. Lalu saya diminta menghubungi Prudent Trust bla, bla, bla alamat Boeing Avenue nomor sekian, Amsterdam dengan menyebut reference number sekian batch number sekian, nomor lotre sekian dan winning number sekian. Setelah itu saya diminta mengisi blanko dan itu saya lakukan. Maklum, seperti Anda, saya juga butuh uang. Hari ini saya mendapat balasan lagi, bahwa untuk memproses lebih lanjut, saya diminta untuk membayar notarial fee sejumlah 540 euro yang harus saya transfer melalui Western Union. Saya jawab, beres boss meskipun saya menjadi curiga. Untuk menjawab kecurigaan saya, saya tanya pada kacung gugel (saya pilih yang coro londo karena alamat yang saya curigai di negara Belanda. Saya ketik : Prudent Trust Amsterdam. Alamak, disitu disebut fraud. Untung saya belum sampai pinjam uang isteri. Pelajaran yang saya petik adalah kalau tidak beli lotre mana mungkin saya menang lotre. Untuk bisa mendapat uang ekstra, ya saya harus kerja dulu. Terima kasih Tuhan, hari ini saya dibangunkan dari mimpi yang terlalu indah. Salam, RM Setengah tidak percaya Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Offshoring jasa medis
Offshoring jasa keuangan, perbankan dan asuransi adalah hal biasa. Tapi offshoring jasa medis menyangkut hal lebih banyak. Apakah dokter di Cebu (Filipina) atau Bangalore (India) sudah diakui sertifikasinya di Pennsylvania untuk untuk membaca imaji CT scan dan MRI ? Kalau ada aduan malpraktek, apakah ada jaminan mereka dapat dihadirkan di pengadilan Amerika ? Ya, di belakang tetek bengek itu adalah upaya lawyers Amerika. Salam, RM washingtonpost.com Hospital Services Performed Overseas Training, Licensing Questions Raised By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page A01 When patients needed urgent CT scans, MRIs and ultrasounds late at night at St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, Conn., emergency room workers used to rouse a bleary-eyed staff radiologist from his bed to read the images. Not anymore. The work now goes to Arjun Kalyanpur -- 8,000 miles away in Bangalore, India. When it is the middle of the night in Connecticut, Kalyanpur is in the middle of his day, handling calls from St. Mary's and dozens of other American hospitals that transmit pictures to him electronically so he can quickly assess them and advise their doctors. Kalyanpur runs one of an increasing number of nighthawk companies operating in the United States and overseas to take advantage of time-zone differences and the latest technology by having radiologists read images from such far-flung places as Hawaii, India, Australia, Switzerland, Israel and Brazil. The companies, and the doctors and hospitals using them, say the trend is improving care by guaranteeing that well-rested radiologists are always available, even in the middle of the night, even for the smallest hospitals and in the most rural areas. Skeptics, however, say the practice raises a host of concerns. Are the radiologists qualified? Is communication as good when the radiologists are so far away? Can an overseas doctor be held accountable when something goes wrong? Is anyone ensuring that properly trained and licensed radiologists are actually doing the work? Is patient privacy being protected? Both sides see the trend as the leading edge of a movement toward greater use of telemedicine, which is widening the spectrum of care doctors can provide from afar and enabling more outsourcing of medical services overseas. What we're seeing with teleradiology is really just the beginning, said Jonathan D. Linkous, executive director of the American Telemedicine Association. Similar things are already starting to happen in other areas, such as pathology. The trend has sparked a flurry of regulatory initiatives, including proposed state and federal legislation designed to ensure that doctors performing the work are properly trained and licensed, and that patients are notified whenever information about them is transmitted elsewhere, especially overseas. Patients have the right to know, and the right to say no, before their X-rays or other private health information is offshored to countries that lack strong privacy safeguards, said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) recently introduced legislation that would require patient consent in advance. The advent of remote radiology services was prompted by various factors, including a shortage of radiologists and rapid advances in imaging technology, which has caused a sharp increase in the number of tests. As a result, many hospital radiologists have a hard time keeping up with the demand, especially at night. We don't have the staff to have some guy up all night and then come back in the next day, said Robert Lehman, who heads the St. Mary's radiology department. It's just too dangerous. In response, St. Mary's and hundreds of other hospitals and radiology practices have begun outsourcing, allowing their staff radiologists to come to work fresh each morning. I'm convinced patient care is improved, said Paul Berger of NightHawk Radiology Services. The company, based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has about 40 radiologists in Zurich and Sydney serving about 600 U.S. hospitals and other facilities, including 16 in Virginia. But skeptics worry that remote radiology operations may be staffed with one or two U.S.-certified radiologists who approve reports prepared by less-qualified technicians, a practice known as ghosting. The nightmare scenario is you have one or two people with licenses and a room with 25 or 30 computer terminals staffed by people who may or may not be radiologists, said John Haaga, chairman of the radiology department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Wipro Infotech, a large company in India that provides a variety of services to U.S. companies, began using non-U.S. licensed radiologists to provide preliminary interpretations of images for U.S. hospitals in 2003. Wipro halted the service because of intense criticism but remains interested because the market has only increased, officials said. The demand is
[ppiindia] Opo tumon? SDM di China langka
Tenaga eksekutif di China bergaji amat tinggi. Eksekutif menengah bergaji $ 2,000 - 3,000 sebulan, eksekutif yang lebih tinggi $ 4,000 - 5,000 dan eksekutif puncak $ 8,000 - 9,000. Itu belum termasuk perks, seperti mobil dan rumah. Mengapa begitu ? Yah, karena tenaga kerja di posisi-posisi itu susah didapat, dan kalau didapatpun mereka dalam waktu singkat pindah kerja dengan gaji yang lebih besar. Seperti di India, di Chinapun tidak sulit memperoleh tenaga teknis. Tapi untuk job marketing dengan budaya persaingan, bukan main susahnya. Ini karena mereka yang sekarang di usia kerja, tidak punya role model untuk itu -- karena diatas angkatan mereka adalah pegawai negeri atau orang partai. Kita masih ingat, bahwa revolusi kebudayaan (1966-1976) menghapus sama sekali kelas manajemen. Andaikata China-manusia, dan bukan China-negara, tidak ciamik, jangan diharapkan dalam waktu singkat China dapat menjadi kekuatan ekonomi dunia seperti sekarang. Salam, RM - China's people problem Apr 14th 2005 | HONG KONG AND SHANGHAI From The Economist print edition Problems recruiting and retaining workers, particularly skilled ones, are raising the cost of doing business in China CAN Chinapopulation 1.3 billionreally be running short of people? In many of the most important parts of its booming economy, the answer, increasingly, is yes. Though China has a vast pool of unskilled labour, firms in the south now complain that they cannot recruit enough cheap factory and manual workers. The market is even tighter for skilled labour. As the economy grows and moves into higher value-added work, the challenge of attracting and retaining staff is rising with the skill level, as demand outstrips supply. The result is escalating costs for firms operating in China. If you think that China is a cheap place for labour, think again, says Vincent Gauthier of Hewitt Associates, a human-resources consultancy. The particular shortages mentioned most often are of creativity, of an aptitude for risk-taking and, above all, of an ability to managein everything from human resources and accounting to sales, distribution, branding and project-management. Though developing economies often encounter talent shortages as they start to grow, China's history has left it with some peculiar deficits. Its Confucian heritage, which emphasises rote learning and hierarchy, may partly explain why many graduates, despite good paper qualifications and English language skills, are often cautious about taking the initiative. Some firms complain that China's one-child policy has made it harder for them to find natural team-players. That there are few MBA programmes in China may not help either. Large parts of China's economy remain in thrall to the state, where loyalty to the Communist party more than business acumen drives career success. Jeff Barnes, chief learning officer at General Electric (GE) in China, says that the issue we have is finding mid-level and top-level leadership. The Chinese talent is first-generation. They don't have role models. Their parents worked for state-owned companies. The wrong sort of chairman Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1966-76 wiped out a generation of management potential, as millions of Chinese learned that capitalism was evil. After a lifetime under socialism, many lack the mindset to adopt western working practices. In China, says Jack Perkowski, boss of Asimco Technologies, a supplier of vehicle parts, the talent pool consists either of managers from state firms who are too bureaucratic or entrepreneurs who have come up through the private sector and are unconstrained by capital or the law. Foreign firms now invest some $1 billion a week in China. As they expand, they increasingly need workers able to handle the complexities of multi-site operations. Staff shortages threaten these plans. In a recent speech, Arics Poon, managing director of Oracle for South China and Hong Kong, said that we need a group of strong, professional managers or we may fail to support our growth in China. Anthony Wu, head of accounting firm Ernst Young (EY) in Hong Kong and China, admits that we have decided not to tender for some major clients because we feel we don't have the staff to service them. Business plans for China rarely reflect the cost and time involved in recruiting and retaining local staff. Firms are finding that they cannot replace expensive expatriate staff with cheaper local hires (localise in the jargon) as quickly as they hoped. Many underestimate the cost of local staff. Chinese graduates often have an inflated view of their own worth, complain some foreign managers. Multinationals are also competing for talent with China's domestic companies, which need to improve the quality of their people as their markets open to foreign rivals. Chinese people returning from overseas (lyrically named hai-gui or sea turtles) are plugging some of the shortages,
[ppiindia] Breaking news: Sedang diuji computer chip tercepat didunia
World's fastest computer chip tested CHICAGO, April 12 (UPI) -- An electrical engineer at the University of Illinois is testing a superfast computer chip that cycles 600 billion times a second and could get a lot faster. The new chip developed by researchers led by Milton Feng eclipsed the previous record of 560 billion cycles set by Japanese engineers. Feng told the journal applied Physics Letters the chip may reach speeds of 1 trillion cycles a second, the Chicago Sun-Times said. The chip promises to make applications like Internet connections 100 times faster than current broadband. The indium phosphide and indium gallium arsenide semiconductor is super efficient. It runs cooler than current silicon chips and would greatly extend battery life of portable electronic equipment like cellular telephones and laptop computers. The new chips initially would cost 100 times more to manufacture, but those costs would drop quickly making the chip more affordable, Feng said. Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Sistem GPS untuk memonitor truk tangki Pertamina
Dalam acara dengar pendapatnya dengan DPR, Dirut Pertamina pernah mengatakan bahwa ada baiknya untuk menghindari penyalahgunaan bahan bakar diesel bersubsidi, truk-truk tanki Pertamina itu dimonitor dengan menggunakan GPS. Tapi belum apa-apa dia sudah mengkhawatirkan berapa ongkosnya. Nah, bagaimana kalau Metro TV mengambil inisiatif untuk meniru apa yang dilakukan oleh NDTV (New Delhi TV) ini ? Salam, RM - PDS theft: GPS systems to monitor FCI trucks Sidharth Pandey Friday, April 15, 2005 (New Delhi): Eight months back an NDTV sting operation exposed trucks carrying food grains from the Food Corporation of India godowns ending up at private warehouses, instead of the ration shops in the capital. Non-government organisations estimate that over 60 percent of food grain marked for sale through fair price shops end up being diverted by transporters. The Delhi government has now decided to install GPS or global positioning systems in all the 5000 trucks which carry grain to ration shops. Nipping the theft The system will be in place in a month, it will tell us which route the truck is travelling on and where it is stopping, said Nita Bali, State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation. The problem is clearly widespread. One of the trucks that NDTV had followed from an FCI godown was tracked to the Modi Mill in the capital. The factory staff was clear about where the truck had come from. The senior officials know what is happening and they have to be made accountable, said Arvind Kejriwal, of Delhi-based NGO Parivartan. It is now being hoped that the GPS gadgets will not only check pilferage, but also ensure the grain gets to those who need it the most. For the latest in news visit http://www.ndtv.com © 2004 NDTV. All rights reserved. Print page Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Ikut kebugaran otak dan telinga, yuk
Ini mungkin khusus untuk mereka yang manula (kepala enam keatas) apalagi yang pernah mengalami kecelakaan sehingga cranium retak seperti ogut 3 tahun yang lalu. Ah, ogut mungkin perkecualian -- karena masih bisa sing-along dengan music of the 1980s dan masih baca inbox yang berjibun tiap hari, etc, sekalipun peristiwa kecelakaan itu terhapus sama sekali dari memori, terima kasih Gusti Allah. Memang ogut tidak yakin apakah TOEFL ogut bisa diatas 600 seperti dulu, tapi rasanya ogut tidak perlu ikut kebugaran otak seperti diuraikan dibawah (alasan sebenarnya mana mungkin ogut kuat membayarnya). Salam, RM www.sfgate.comReturn to regular view Calisthenics for aging brains S.F. firm develops software to improve mental agility - Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, April 4, 2005 Katherine Moskwin, 71, a retired medical transcriptionist, started noticing that her short-term memory was shot awhile ago. I'd go into a room and forget what I was coming for, she said. I'd be dialing the phone and stop and say 'Who am I dialing?' That's one reason Moskwin is trying out a new software program from San Francisco's Posit Science Corp. that promises to help stave off and reverse some symptoms of aging, such as memory loss, declining vision and hearing, and reduced motor control. Moskwin, along with other residents of the BridgePoint retirement community in San Francisco, has spent an hour a day for the past three weeks playing computer games designed to sharpen and stimulate her listening and memory. She is about a third of the way through the complete Brain Health Training Program, which runs about 40 hours, usually done over eight weeks. She already can sense a difference. I'm very interested in learning Spanish, said Moskwin, who grew up speaking both Russian and English. I notice when I asked the Spanish-speaking caregivers here for words, I retain them better. Most people know that use it or lose it applies to mental agility as much as to physical fitness. Magazines are filled with tips about keeping the mind alert by studying Japanese or taking up ballroom dancing. But Posit Science says its brain-training program takes a more rigorous approach, backed by scientific research. Posit co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Michael Merzenich, a professor of neuroscience at UCSF, has spent more than 30 years researching brain plasticity. The brain is just as deserving of a workout as the body, he said in a presentation to a national conference on aging last month. The brain needs progressively challenging learning that is intensive, effortful and repetitive. That premise underlies Posit's approach to cognitive calisthenics. Posit scientists created exercises to stimulate specific brain functions. Then its video game designers turned them into computer games, complete with a couple of animated coaches to give tips and rewards like amusing pictures when players complete tasks. The company says one key to brain rejuvenation is that the exercises become more difficult as players progress so they're always working at a threshold of intensity. As we age, things get 'noisier.' Information from our senses is less reliable and processed less well, said Posit co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Zimman. The systems in the brain get sluggish. We're trying to improve the ability to accurately process signals (such as incoming verbal information), increase speed and stimulate the machinery to produce key brain chemicals. Patently superior Posit started just 18 months ago but already has 53 issued patents, almost all for Merzenich's inventions. (He's a member of the National Academy of Sciences whose credits also include being on the team that invented the cochlear implant in the late 1980s.) Posit licensed many of them from Scientific Learning, an Oakland company Merzenich founded in 1996 that makes software to teach language and reading skills to K-12 students. Posit has raised $7.2 million in venture capital and is seeking more funding. The software isn't quite ready for prime time. Posit hopes to release the first module, which is focused on hearing, by the end of the year. Future modules will address eyesight, problem solving and multitasking, motor control, and balance and mobility. Pricing will vary from less than $50 to $1,000 depending on intensity levels and other factors. Zimman said he envisions senior residences and other facilities buying site licenses to set up cognitive fitness centers, or brain gyms. The company is not making any medical claims for its software. Instead, it is promoting it as a tool for healthy aging, saying its studies on test participants have shown their memory improving as if they were 10 years younger. Bob Zorich, 75, president of the BridgePoint resident council, got involved in testing Posit's software because he wanted to help
[ppiindia] Bumi jadi kecil dan datar
Pihak luar sering menyampaikan keluhan bahwa pengusaha Indonesia tidak membalas fax dan e-mail yang mereka kirim. Meng-acknowledge receipt saja tidak. Padahal pengusaha itu sudah pergi kemana-mana, dan kepada rekan usahanya tidak lupa menyodorkan business card. Rupanya banyak diantara kita belum menyadari bahwa jarak tidak menjadi penghalang dua insan saling berhalo-halo dan menawarkan apa yang mereka punya atau butuhkan. Rekan bisnis tadi merasa bahwa dia ketemu dengan rekannya dalam lift dan menyapa, tapi rekan Indonesia tadi diam saja -- begitu perumpamaannya. Thomas Friedman, kolumnis New York Times, adalah salah seorang penganjur globalisasi, yang dia bagi menjadi globalization 1.0, globalization 2.0 dan pada milennium ini dunia sudah sampai pada globalization 3.0. China dan India sudah menyadari dan bermain dalam globalization 3.0. Salam, RM April 3, 2005 It's a Flat World, After All By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.'' And therein lies a tale of technology and geoeconomics that is fundamentally reshaping our lives -- much, much more quickly than many people realize. It all happened while we were sleeping, or rather while we were focused on 9/11, the dot-com bust and Enron -- which even prompted some to wonder whether globalization was over. Actually, just the opposite was true, which is why it's time to wake up and prepare ourselves for this flat world, because others already are, and there is no time to waste. I wish I could say I saw it all coming. Alas, I encountered the flattening of the world quite by accident. It was in late February of last year, and I was visiting the Indian high-tech capital, Bangalore, working on a documentary for the Discovery Times channel about outsourcing. In short order, I interviewed Indian entrepreneurs who wanted to prepare my taxes from Bangalore, read my X-rays from Bangalore, trace my lost luggage from Bangalore and write my new software from Bangalore. The longer I was there, the more upset I became -- upset at the realization that while I had been off covering the 9/11 wars, globalization had entered a whole new phase, and I had missed it. I guess the eureka moment came on a visit to the campus of Infosys Technologies, one of the crown jewels of the Indian outsourcing and software industry. Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys C.E.O., was showing me his global video-conference room, pointing with pride to a wall-size flat-screen TV, which he said was the biggest in Asia. Infosys, he explained, could hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So its American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. That's what globalization is all about today, Nilekani said. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the Infosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled U.S. West, U.S. East, G.M.T., India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia. ''Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world,'' Nilekani explained. ''What happened over the last years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things.'' At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of e-mail software, search engines like Google and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, Nilekani said, they ''created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again -- and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature. And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together.'' At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, ''Tom, the playing field is being leveled.'' He meant that countries like India were now
Re: [ppiindia] Gaya hidup pejabat RI di luar negeri pasca Tsunami? Wow!!!
Pernyataan bahwa rumah dinas itu sudah diajukan anggarannya jauh sebelum tsunami adalah khas pernyataan seorang pejabat Indonesia (termasuk ogut, hehe). Mbok yao pejabat itu, dalam soal tahu malu, ada yang semacam Dubes David Napitupulu (sudah almarhum) yang milih mobil dinasnya Chrysler New Yorker karena Dubes Jepang di Mexico City mobil dinasnya hanya Toyota Crown. Atau Konjen RI di Mumbai (sekarang pensiunan) yang konsekwen dengan pendiriannya bahwa selama masa tugasnya konsulat tidak mengganti mobil dinas Mercedes 1996 yang adalah mobil bekas peninggalan Athan RI di New Delhi. Sang Konjen juga selalu tidak menggunakan hak-nya untuk duduk dikursi bisnis dan cukup bangga duduk dikelas ekonomi dalam perjalanan dinasnya. Memang taraf kita mengenai ukuran benar-salah masih seperti itu, benar kalau sudah sesuai dengan prosedur dan sudah dianggarkan. Kita belum sampai pada ukuran kepantasan: pantaskah kita hidup sesuai dengan standard diplomat atas biaya negara sementara negara kita masih tretekan cari utangan sana sini ? Salam, RM --- Satrio Arismunandar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lavish villa for Indonesian ambassador following tsunami GENEVA, April 3 (AFP) - While millions of people around the world have sent donations large and small to assist Indonesias recovery following the December 26 tsunami, the Jakarta government is spending a fortune to house its ambassador to the UN here in palatial style, the daily Le Matin said Sunday. The newspaper said the purchase of the 9.6-million-franc (6.3-million-euro, 8.1-million-dollar) villa in the swish Collonge-Bellerive district overlooking Lake Geneva falls badly at a time when the rest of the world is still helping Indonesia, where about 220,000 people were believed dead after the tsunami. Ambassador Makarim Zibisono, 58, who is also current president of the UN Human Rights Commission, was scheduled to move into the Provence-style villa with his wife and three children in the coming weeks. They will enjoy a large veranda overlooking a swimming pool, an immense park including a house for the domestic servants, hot-houses, and a volley-ball court. Deputy ambassador Eddi Hariyadhi said the house was bought long before the tsunami after several months searching. He said the price was normal in terms of housing for diplomats and senior officials. __ Yahoo! Messenger Show us what our next emoticon should look like. Join the fun. http://www.advision.webevents.yahoo.com/emoticontest Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Menyimak particle super collider
Seharian mengikuti liputan CNN dan BBC seputar wafatnya Sri Paus Johanus Paulus II, saya jadi ingat fiksi Angels and Demons karangan Dan Brown. Digambarkan, ada orang yang mau menghancurkan Vatican berikut isinya dengan senjata anti-matter yang dicuri dari lab CERN di Geneva. Kelebihan novelis Amerika adalah, sebelum menulis sebuah fiksi mereka membuat riset yang njlimet terlebih dahulu. Tak mengherankan, kalau cerita Dan Brown mengenai detail Sistine Chapel dan banyak museum di Roma persis dengan hasil liputan National Geographic Channel. Dan, penggambaran anti-matter a la Dan Brown meskipun khayalan tetapi bisa dilacak dengan fakta dibawah ini. Salam, RM - March 31, 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] lab | current article | lab a-z index | lab home The International Linear Collider Part 2: Bright Beams of Electrons and Positrons Contact: Paul Preuss, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Second in a series on the role Berkeley Lab researchers are playing in planning for the proposed International Linear Collider. Berkeley Lab physicists are collaborating with dozens of other groups from around the world in designing the International Linear Collider (ILC), a 30-kilometer-long accelerator that will collide electrons with their antiparticles, positrons, to study new kinds of fundamental particles with more accuracy than any other existing or planned accelerator. Andy Wolski of Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division is one of the leaders in design studies of damping rings for the International Linear Collider. Damping rings are similar, in principle, to the storage ring of the Advanced Light Source (background). (Photo Roy Kaltschmidt) Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD) is a leading contributor to studies of the ILC's damping rings, structures which are essential to preparing bunches of electrons and positrons with the right characteristics to feed the ILC's twin, head-to-head linear accelerators, or linacs. Designing damping rings for the ILC is a task with its own special challenges. In the only previous linear collider ever built, the Stanford Linear Collider, the damping rings earned a reputation as the source of all evil, says AFRD's Andy Wolski. Even small problems with beam stability got amplified all the way down the rest of the machine. And the ILC will be far more sensitive to stability problems than the SLC. Electrons and positrons are ideal for precision measurements of high-energy events because, unlike protons, they are fundamental particles, not made of anything else; when they collide the energy of the collision can be known exactly. By contrast, a collision between protons is a set of collisions of their constituent quarks, having slightly different and uncertain energies. But while a pointlike electron or positron has the same electrical charge as a proton (opposite in sign, in the case of the negatively charged electron), it has less than one 1,800th of a proton's mass. One consequence of this is that when a lightweight electron or positron is forced to round a curve, it loses a much higher proportion of its total mass-energy than a lumbering proton. This lost synchrotron energy is routinely put to good use in research facilities like Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), but if the goal is simple acceleration, synchrotron energy is a waste. The only practical way to achieve very high energies with electrons and positrons is not to make them turn corners at all, but rather to accelerate them over long distances in a straight line. Squeezing the beams When particles and their antiparticles collide they mutually annihilate; from the resulting fireball of pure energy other particles appear. The expected fruits of the ILC include Higgs bosons, supersymmetric particles, and others. To achieve enough collisions that is, to achieve sufficiently high luminosity the ILC's opposed beams of energetic electrons and positrons must be composed of many tightly confined, closely spaced bunches of particles of nearly identical energy. In August 2004 the technology panel of the International Committee for Future Accelerators recommended using cold, superconducting technology for the ILC's linacs, a decision that directly affects the necessary characteristics of the electron and positron beams. In the TESLA design (TESLA stands for Trillion-electron-volt-Energy Superconducting Linear Accelerator), whose development has been led by DESY, the German Electron Synchrotron laboratory near Hamburg, each of the superconducting linacs would accelerate bunches of 20 billion electrons or positrons, the bunches following one another at intervals of 337 nanoseconds (billionths of a second). ILC linacs will use superconducting radiofrequency cavities to accelerate bunches of electrons and positrons, like those designed for TESLA. (Images DESY) Conditioning these bunches is the job of the damping
[ppiindia] Menyimak rahasia fotosintesa
Ketemu tulisan yang njlegur bagi mereka yang mengerti. Sayang yours truly sendiri tidak punya kompetensi untuk membahasnya. Salam, RM lab a-z index | phone book search: March 31, 2005 news releases | receive our news releases by email | science beat Follow the Energy: New Technique Enables Scientists to Track Molecular Energy Transfer in Photosynthesis Contact: Lynn Yarris (510 )486-5375, [EMAIL PROTECTED] BERKELEY, CA Scientists have been able to follow the flow of excitation energy in both time and space in a molecular complex using a new technique called two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy. While holding great promise for a broad range of applications, this technique has already been used to make a surprise finding about the process of photosynthesis. The technique was developed by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley. Graham Fleming, Deputy Director of Berkeley Lab, led the development of new technique, called two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, that enables scientists to map the flow of excitation energy through space with nanometer spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution. I think this will prove to be a revolutionary method for studying energy flow in complex systems where multiple molecules interact strongly, said Graham Fleming, Deputy Director of Berkeley Lab, and an internationally acclaimed leader in spectroscopic studies of the photosynthetic process. Using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, we can map the flow of excitation energy through space with nanometer spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution. Fleming, also a professor of chemistry with UC Berkeley, is the principal investigator of this research, and co-author of a paper which appears in the March 31, 2005 issue of the journal Nature, entitled Two-Dimensional Spectroscopy of Electronic Couplings in Photosynthesis. Co-authoring the paper with Fleming were Tobias Brixner, Jens Stenger, Harsha Vaswani, Minhaeng Cho and Robert Blankenship. Two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy involves sequentially flashing a sample with light from three laser beams, delivered in pulses only 50 femtoseconds (50 millionths of a billionth of a second) in length, while a a fourth beam is used as a local oscillator to amplify and phase-match the resulting spectroscopic signals. Fleming likens the technique to that of the early super-heterodyne radios, in which an incoming high frequency radio signal was converted by an oscillator to a lower frequency for more controllable amplification and better reception. In the case of 2-D electronic spectroscopy, scientists can track the transfer of energy between molecules that are coupled (connected) through their electronic and vibrational states in any photoactive system, macromolecular assembly or nanostructure. This technique should also be useful in studies aimed at improving the efficiency of molecular solar cells, Fleming said. In the Nature paper, he and his colleagues describe how they successfully used 2-D electronic spectroscopy to record the first direct measurement of electronic couplings in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) photosynthetic light-harvesting protein, a molecular complex in green sulphur bacteria that absorbs photons and directs the excitation energy to a reaction center where it can be converted to chemical energy. FMO is a model system for studying energy transfer in the photosynthetic process because it is relatively simple (consisting of only seven pigment molecules) and its chemistry has been well characterized, Fleming said. As in all photosynthetic systems, the conversion of light into chemical energy is driven by electronic couplings between molecules and we monitored the process as a function of time and frequency. Through photosynthesis, green plants are able to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into chemical energy. By exploiting quantum mechanical effects, the plants transfer energy from sunlight and initiate its conversion into chemical energy with an efficiency of nearly 100-percent. Fleming and his colleagues expected to find that the excitation energy from harvested photons in the light-capturing pigment molecules was transported to the FMO reaction center molecules step-by-step down the energy ladder. Instead, they discovered distinct energy pathways, based on the spatial arrangements of the molecules, whereby some of the intermediate steps in the energy ladder are skipped. Excitation energy moved through the FMO complex in a smaller number of steps but larger energy increments than was previously supposed, said Fleming. What were seeing is that Nature exploits quantum mechanical effects by de-localizing excitation energy over two or more molecules in a system. Photosynthesis should make any short-list of Natures
[ppiindia] Dua orang Indonesia jadi pemenang pertama dan kedua lomba Google
Ardian Poernomo (mewakili Singapura) dan Pascal Alfadian (Indonesia) menduduki dua tempat teratas dalam lomba Google. Bravo. Salam, RM -- (NRI News) Three Indians crack Google code jam Bangalore, Mar 26: Three Indians, including one based in Singapore, are among the top five winners of a contest organised by Google, the world`s largest search engine. This was the third contest held worldwide by Google, and the first in India. The second contest was held in the US last year. Ardian K Poernomo of Singapore and Pascal Alfadian of Indonesia bagged the first two places at the Google Code Jam contest, while the Indians Rajsekar Manokaran of Chennai, Nishant Redkar of Mumbai and Sreeram Ramachandran of Singapore won the third, fourth and fifth places. We hope the contest will provide opportunities to attract strong computer scientists to our research and development centre here, Krishna Bharat, head of Google India`s centre, said on Saturday. Bureau Report Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/4F6XtA/_WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Hukum Mendel ada kemungkinan keliru
Mendel's Law May Be Flawed Associated Press Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66995,00.html 11:22 AM Mar. 23, 2005 PT Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when their predecessors carried genetic flaws. The conclusion by Purdue University molecular biologists contradicts at least some basic rules of plant evolution that were believed to be absolute since the mid-1800s, when Austrian monk Gregor Mendel experimented with peas and saw that traits are passed on from one generation to the next. Mendelian genetics has been the foundation of both crop hybridization and the understanding of basic cell mutations and trait inheritance. In the Purdue experiment, researchers found that a watercress plant sometimes corrects the genetic code it inherited from its flawed parents and grows normally like its grandparents and other ancestors. Scientists said the discovery raises questions of whether humans also have the potential for avoiding genetic flaws or even repairing them, although they said the actual proteins responsible for making these fixes probably would be different in plants. Details of the experiments appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. This means that inheritance can happen more flexibly than we thought, said Robert Pruitt, the paper's senior author. In the experiment, the Purdue researchers found that 10 percent of watercress plants with two copies of a mutant gene called hothead didn't always blossom with deformed flowers like their parents, which carried the mutant genes. Instead, those plants had normal white flowers like their grandparents, which didn't carry the hothead gene and the deformity appeared only for a single generation. The normal watercress plants with hothead genes appear to have kept a copy of the genetic coding from the grandparent plants and used it as a template to grow normally. However, Pruitt's team didn't find the template in the plants' DNA or chromosomes where genetic information is stored and they did not determine whether a particular gene is encoded to carry out the recovery of the normal DNA. Where the normal genetic template is stored and how it is triggered will take additional research and probably involve more genes, Pruitt said. Humans and other animals do not carry the hothead gene, so if this process occurs in higher organisms it must use a different trigger, he said. Other scientists described the results as spectacular. Detlef Weigel and Gerds Jurgen of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany wrote in an accompanying commentary in Nature that the mechanism for recovering the normal DNA in the watercress plants might be lurking in the plant's RNA, which carries out genetic orders in cells. End of story Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] NASA akan memberikan hadiah uang untuk inovasi
Di milis ini apa ada orang BPPT ? Salam, RM - The New York Times March 27, 2005 NASA Will Offer Cash Prizes for Technological Innovations By WARREN E. LEARY WASHINGTON, March 26 - In an effort to stimulate fresh thinking, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced that it will offer cash prizes for innovative technology that can be applied to space exploration. The competitions, open to large and small companies, colleges, technology groups and individuals, are seen as ways to promote innovation by letting contestants pose any solution that works to solve a problem, an agency official said Friday. The prizes are a new approach for NASA in its effort to find new space technology. We want to find innovation wherever it exists, said the official, Brant Sponberg, manager of the Centennial Challenges Program at the space agency, in a telephone news conference. The program, part of President Bush's new vision of exploration for the space agency, was inspired in part by last year's Ansari X Prize of $10 million for the first private piloted suborbital flights, and in part by the incentive programs that have long been sponsored by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The first two competitions will focus on the development of strong lightweight materials for making ropelike tethers and on ways to transmit power wirelessly from one point to another. After face-to-face demonstrations by candidates later this year, the winners of the Tether Challenge and the Beam Power Challenge will each receive a $50,000 prize. The second year, NASA will repeat the challenges but raise the technical standards. Winners in each category will receive awards of $100,000, $40,000 and $10,000 for first, second and third place. In one competition, the tether materials will be stretched in matched contests. In the other, wireless power transmission and receiving systems, like those using laser beams or microwaves to transmit energy, will power robotic devices that carry weights up a cable. Mr. Sponberg said monetary inducements, like the $25,000 Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh for the first nonstop flight between Paris and New York, were a proven way to advance innovation and technology. NASA will provide the $400,000 for prizes in the first contests, but the competition will be managed and run by the Spaceward Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Mountain View, Calif., that supports space technology and the concept of building an elevator between Earth and a station in space. NASA will loosely oversee the competition and the selection of unbiased judges to assess the contests, Mr. Sponberg said. With Congressional approval, NASA hopes to direct about $80 million toward such technology prizes over the next five years, he said. Planned are several annual Keystone Challenges, costing up to $3 million each, for things like explorer robots, lunar vehicles or autonomous mining equipment. With enough support, Mr. Sponberg said, NASA also hopes to sponsor one or two so-called Flagship Challenges a year, which could offer a prize of up to $25 million for a low-cost space mission, like a Moon landing robot or a human orbital flight. Ideas for future challenges have come in from NASA professionals, universities, private industry, those attending workshops on space technology, hobbyists and people sending in e-mail messages, he said. We are drowning in good prize ideas, Mr. Sponberg said. The New York Times Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Janji SBY
Apakah Anda sudah membaca buku Janji-janji dan komitmen SBY-JK oleh Rudy Pontoh ? Kalau sudah, salut untuk Anda. Kalau belum, Anda tidak sendirian, karena yours truly juga belum membaca buku penting itu. Tapi hasil browsing dialam maya, ketemu tulisan Rudy Pontoh mengenai sulitnya menemukan penerbit yang mau menampung, padahal buku itu ternyata laris manis (katanya). Yours truly secara garis besar ingat bahwa Sby berjanji untuk membuat perubahan, tapi tidak hafal apa-apa persisnya. Kepada yang hafal, mohon pencerahan apakah Sby pernah berjanji akan mempertahankan harga BBM, atau menurunkannya (dengan demikian sesuai dengan janji perubahan versi mahasiswa dan politisi) atau bahkan membuatnya gratis supaya rakyat lebih senang lagi. Semoga berkenan dan salam, RM [bumi-serpong] Kisah Biru Buku Heboh Janji SBY-JK lasahidoman Mon, 24 Jan 2005 00:41:57 -0800 Belakangan ini penerbit kita banyak disoroti. Benarkah mereka bersikap alergi terhadap buku2 tertentu? Ini perlu kita diskusikan. Berikut saya kutipkan kisah 'perjuangan' yang dialami buku Janji-janji dan Komitmen SBY-JK, Menabur Kata Menanti Bukti sebelum berhasil diterbitkan dan meledak di pasaran. Kisah ini saya kutip dengan izin dari: http://www.geocities.com/janjisbyjk/kisah.html Surat Dari Penulis KISAH BIRU: ADA APA, SIH? KOK, SEMUA PADA NOLAK? Waktu ditawarkan ke penerbit, banyak penerbit yang menolak. Saat menulis surat pembaca ke media cetak untuk mencari mitra penerbit, banyak media cetak bahkan takut memuat surat pembacanya. Setelah mengalami berbagai penolakan, buku itu akhirnya berhasil diterbitkan dan meledak di pasaran. Sekarang ia mencari mitra untuk mengadakan acara dialog buku tersebut dengan tema Setelah 100 Hari Pemerintahan SBY-JK. Ada yang berani jadi penyelenggara? Lalu mengapa kisah ini disebutnya kisah biru? Berikut kisahnya: Duhai, Best Seller! Buku saya Janji-janji dan Komitmen SBY-JK, Menabur Kata Menanti Bukti ternyata amat laris (dari laporan yang saya terima, buku tersebut menduduki peringkat pertama penjualan di hampir semua toko buku terkemuka di Indonesia. ceillehh...!). Padahal, keberadaan buku tersebut belum pernah diiklankan secara terbuka di media cetak, televisi, atau radio manapun. Juga belum pernah diadakan acara promosi semacam peluncuran buku atau sejenisnya sebagaimana buku-buku lainnya. Karena penasaran, saya pun turun langsung ke lapangan untuk melakukan survei kecil-kecilan. Beberapa toko buku di Jakarta yang sempat saya kunjungi liburan kemarin (tentu saja saya nggak sempat mengunjungi semua toko buku) menempatkan buku tersebut di tempat yang paling diidam-idamkan oleh semua penulis buku Best Seller. Bahkan di Gramedia Matraman Jakarta, toko buku terbesar di Indonesia, buku tesebut dengan gagahnya menduduki singgasana itu. Saya bilang singgasana, karena buku lokal yang bisa mendapat predikat itu di toko buku tersebut jumlahnya amatlah minim. Selain buku saya, ada juga buku fiksi berjudul Supernova, juga buku tentang tumbuhan yang bisa mengobati HIV (saya lupa judulnya), dan satu buku lokal lainnya (nggak ingat judulnya dan nggak sempat baca dalamnya). Yang banyak adalah buku-buku terjemahan (sekitar 10 judul). Kok, Alergi? Buat saya, predikat best seller amatlah luar biasa mengingat buku tersebut belum cukup dua minggu beredar. Saya jadi teringat saat-saat sebelum buku itu diterbitkan. Sebenarnya, sebelum selesai ditulis, sudah ada penerbit terkemuka yang bersedia menerbitkannya (buku saya lainnya diterbitkan oleh penerbit ini). Tapi begitu buku selesai ditulis dan melihat isinya, mereka jadi kehilangan nyali. Mereka tak menyangka saya bisa merekam semua janji SBY-JK dan fakta nyata dengan begitu lengkapnya. Lagipula selama ini kan belum pernah ada di Indonesia (bahkan di dunia) buku yang merekam dengan jelas janji-janji seorang politikus, apalagi seorang calon Presiden dan Wakil Presiden yang kemudian terpilih. Penerbit lain yang juga saya tawarkan (juga penerbit yang akan menerbitkan buku saya lainnya) tiba-tiba tampak seperti kehilangan nafsu. Mereka mengatakan Oke tapi dengan suara rendah dan ludah tertahan di tenggorokan. Bagi saya, ini artinya mereka setuju tapi dengan terpaksa dan tidak pasti kapan akan menerbitkannya. Saya malah jadi kasihan pada mereka. Saya sendiri tak tahu mengapa orang-orang jadi pada alergi menerbitkan buku itu. Padahal berulang-ulang saya katakan, buku ini tak punya pretensi politik apapun. Saya bukanlah orang politik dan bukan orang partai apapun dan manapun. Apalagi sekarang kan kita hidup di alam demokrasi. Malah SBY-JK sendiri dalam berbagai forum berulang-ulang meminta agar mereka dikritik. Mengapa? Ya, supaya mereka tahu sudah sejauh mana mereka melangkah dan sudah sejauh mana mereka belum melangkah. Kok, kita semua jadi pada takut, jadi pada banci sih? Buku ini bukanlah buku kritikan, tapi punya tujuan yang sama. Isinya adalah janji dilengkapi fakta dan data di Indonesia saat mereka mengucapkan janji. SBY-JK jika sempat membacanya pun saya
[ppiindia] Carnegie dari Calcutta
Orang-orang tua asal Gujarat ingat waktu muda ada ucapan terkenal, yaitu 'pergilah ke tanah Jawa (baca: Indonesia), dan pulangnya kelak jadi maharaja'. Harapan itu banyak menjadi kenyataan. Contoh terbaik adalah Laxmi (laki-laki) Mittal. Ketika masih berumur 20 tahunan, dia dari Calcutta merantau ke Surabaya dan membuka pabrik besi/baja di Sidoardjo. Bahan bakunya adalah besi tua yang dipasok oleh saudara-saudara kita asal Madura. Usaha itu berkembang terus, sampai mendunia. Jadilah dia industrialis baja yang mendunia. Singkat cerita, Laxmi Mittal kini jadi maharaja betulan, orang terkaya nomor 3 di dunia. Untuk menjadi pemenang seperti itu, salah satu resepnya adalah: jangan cengeng. Salam, RM On top, the 'Carnegie from Calcutta' By Anand Giridharadas International Herald Tribune Tuesday, March 15, 2005 Steel tycoon is Asia's richest man, a magazine survey has found MUMBAI, India Lakshmi Mittal, the scion of a desert-dwelling Rajasthani merchant clan who bet his life on reviving the world's sick, forgotten, rust-coated steel plants, has become Asia's richest man, according to an annual magazine survey. Mittal, 53, an Indian citizen who lives in London, leaped 59 berths on the Forbes registry of billionaires last year, adding $18.8 billion to his reservoir. Rising steel prices and mushrooming consumption, particularly by China, account for the growth of Mittal's fortunes by $36,000 a second last year. Mittal's $25 billion makes him the world's third-richest man, behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. His company is on the verge of an even loftier distinction. Mittal Steel, an $18.5 billion behemoth with operations from Kazakhstan to Trinidad, will become the world's largest steelmaker, eclipsing Luxembourg's Arcelor, if its bid to buy U.S.-based International Steel Group succeeds. On Monday, both firms announced an April 12 meeting to seek shareholders' blessing for the $4.5 billion merger. The rise of the Carnegie from Calcutta, as Mittal is affectionately known in Mumbai, means different things to different people in India and overseas. Some detect in it the leading edge of a new wave of Indian and Asian mega-entrepreneurs. Others point to proof of the power of global consolidation in the white-hot steel industry. Still others see the narrative of the Indian entrepreneur who fled a once-constrained economy, and whose relationship to his homeland has that curious exile's blend of triumphalism and nostalgia. Mittal lives well. A £70 million, or $134 million, 12-bedroom mansion on Bishop's Avenue (popularly dubbed Millionaire's Row, inappropriately for Mittal's much larger sums) in Hampstead, North London, has made him a neighbor to sheiks and entertainment stars. He recently made waves as host of a £30 million, six-day Parisian wedding for his daughter, Vanisha, that included an engagement party at Versailles. And there was a half-hour concert by Kylie Minogue, a sing-along at the Jardin de Tuileries; a dinner of vegetarian fare made by a chef flown in from Calcutta; and a skit by Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood's leading man. Mittal is known as both a family man and a jet-setting workaholic. He has said that he clocks 563,000 kilometers, or 350,000 miles, on his private jet every year - the equivalent of perpetual motion at 64 kilometers an hour - managing what has become a huge global steel company. Two pillars have brought Mittal his vast holdings: opportunism and alchemy. His opportunism lay in an uncanny talent for spotting business opportunities where others saw bloated, rusty, remote steel plants, and in keeping his finger on the pulse of shifting regional dynamics that would relocate the center of gravity for steel. He is perhaps the most celebrated champion of detecting potential in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and Asia. Mittal has now perfected a habit of buying ailing steel plants in remote locations that have vast but unseen turnaround potential and that are close to emerging consumption centers. In 1995, for example, he bought a dilapidated steel plant in Kazakhstan that European firms had written off as being too cumbersome to transform. He is said to have seen enormous fat to cut through to leaner operations and an emerging opportunity to sell to China, at a time when the dragon's rise was still in infancy. Today, in addition to operations in North America and Europe, Mittal Steel operates in a list of countries that reads more like a UN Development Program report than a corporate roster: Trinidad, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Romania and Indonesia. Mittal's pouncing on such places has run him into the occasional reputational scuffle. A £125,000 check he wrote in support of Tony Blair's re-election campaign returned to haunt the British prime minister, after it was learned that Blair had subsequently written to the Romanian government to press Mittal's case to acquire Sidex, a local producer. The second secret to Mittal's success is alchemy. After
[ppiindia] Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin
Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin. Luka biasa jadi serius dan bisa berakibat pada kematian. Beribu macam infeksi jadi tidak terobati. Jutaan orang akan mati setelah menjalani operasi. Pernah jutaan orang tewas akibat sipilis yang melanda dunia. Semua penderitaan manusia itu sirna setelah Sir Alexander Fleming menemukan penicillin. Tapi sekarang dunia dihadapkan pada soal overuse penicillin atau tepatnya penggunaan penicillin tanpa resep dokter. Awas, jangan mengobati diri sendiri. Obat harus digunakan terus sampai habis sesuai dengan resep. Jangan berhenti, karena merasa sudah sembuh. Pemakaian obat dibawah dosis akan menyebabkan sumber penyakit kebal terhadap penicillin. Lebih baik kelebihan sedikit daripada kurang dosis. Salam, RM The legacy of Fleming - 50 years on By Nick Triggle BBC News health reporter Concern about hospital infections such as MRSA is one of the most controversial issues in today's NHS. About 5,000 people die from such infections out of the many millions who go into hospitals each year. But 70 years ago, the situation was much worse. People could often die from a sore throat if the infection spread to the lungs. And pneumonia and post-operative infections killed one in three of those who got them. Within a decade that figure had dropped to just a few per cent. The reason - penicillin. It was the world's first antibiotic when it was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming, who died 50 years ago on Friday. The scientist, who was working at London's St Mary's Hospital at the time, stumbled upon the antibiotic partly by accident in 1928. Attention During some routine research, he noticed a mould had developed on a dish on which he had been growing a bacteria but had forgotten about while he was away on holiday. What grabbed his attention was that the mould seemed to have destroyed most of the bacteria. Sir Alexander extracted the antibacterial substance from the mould and penicillin was officially found. Penicillin uses Bacterial infections - effective against the likes of meningitis, pneumonia and blood poisoning. STIs - Just like the contraceptive pill, penicillin had an impact on the sexual revolution, helping to treat syphilis and gonorrhoea. War - mass produced by the US to stop soldiers dying form infection wounds towards the end of World War II. It was another 12 years before the antibiotic was ready for commercial use following tenacious, but often overlooked, work by Oxford University scientists Howard Florey, Norman Heatley and Ernst Chain. By the end of World War II, the US was mass producing the antibiotic and using it to treat soldiers' war wounds. And once peace was restored, the public began demanding to be given the so-called wonder drug. At the end of the 1940s more than 250,000 patients a month were being prescribed penicillin to treat a variety of diseases from blood poisoning and pneumonia to syphilis and gonorrhoea. The drug also allowed doctors to carry out increasingly more invasive treatments, which would have been impossible before because of infections. Kevin Brown, curator of the Alexander Fleming Museum and author of a biography of the scientist, Penicillin Man, said it was one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Discovery Before Fleming's discovery there really was not treatment for infectious disease. It was a killer, he said. It seems strange now, but that was the way it was. When it came onto the market it revolutionised medicine. Mr Brown said it also brought fame to the scientist, who was born in 1881 in a remote area of Ayrshire in Scotland. If we are careful I think the use of penicillin will continue Dr Robert Bud, Science Museum The public really took Fleming to their hearts. He was unassuming and quiet. It was a case of the little man who had become a real success. Dr Anne Hardy, from London's Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, said Sir Alexander's discovery, for which he was later knighted and won the Nobel Prize, also benefited the whole of medical profession. In particular, it transformed public perception of what medicine could do. For the first time people became aware of what doctors could really achieve. But Dr Hardy said the antibiotic became a victim of its own success as it was soon over-prescribed and resistance started building up. Resistance All antibiotics are used badly and penicillin was no different. Patients were literally demanding it from their doctors and they got it, she said. By the mid to late 1940s other antibiotics started coming onto the market to challenge penicillin. The major two were streptomycin - effective against TB, something beyond even the wonder drug's powers - and cepholosporin. But in 1959, four years after Sir Alexander's death, scientists made a breakthrough in their fight against antibiotic resistance with the first generation semi-synthetic
[ppiindia] Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin
Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin. Luka biasa jadi serius dan bisa berakibat pada kematian. Beribu macam infeksi jadi tidak terobati. Jutaan orang akan mati setelah menjalani operasi. Pernah jutaan orang tewas akibat sipilis yang melanda dunia. Semua penderitaan manusia itu sirna setelah Sir Alexander Fleming menemukan penicillin. Tapi sekarang dunia dihadapkan pada soal overuse penicillin atau tepatnya penggunaan penicillin tanpa resep dokter. Awas, jangan mengobati diri sendiri. Obat harus digunakan terus sampai habis sesuai dengan resep. Jangan berhenti, karena merasa sudah sembuh. Pemakaian obat dibawah dosis akan menyebabkan sumber penyakit kebal terhadap penicillin. Lebih baik kelebihan sedikit daripada kurang dosis. Salam, RM The legacy of Fleming - 50 years on By Nick Triggle BBC News health reporter Concern about hospital infections such as MRSA is one of the most controversial issues in today's NHS. About 5,000 people die from such infections out of the many millions who go into hospitals each year. But 70 years ago, the situation was much worse. People could often die from a sore throat if the infection spread to the lungs. And pneumonia and post-operative infections killed one in three of those who got them. Within a decade that figure had dropped to just a few per cent. The reason - penicillin. It was the world's first antibiotic when it was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming, who died 50 years ago on Friday. The scientist, who was working at London's St Mary's Hospital at the time, stumbled upon the antibiotic partly by accident in 1928. Attention During some routine research, he noticed a mould had developed on a dish on which he had been growing a bacteria but had forgotten about while he was away on holiday. What grabbed his attention was that the mould seemed to have destroyed most of the bacteria. Sir Alexander extracted the antibacterial substance from the mould and penicillin was officially found. Penicillin uses Bacterial infections - effective against the likes of meningitis, pneumonia and blood poisoning. STIs - Just like the contraceptive pill, penicillin had an impact on the sexual revolution, helping to treat syphilis and gonorrhoea. War - mass produced by the US to stop soldiers dying form infection wounds towards the end of World War II. It was another 12 years before the antibiotic was ready for commercial use following tenacious, but often overlooked, work by Oxford University scientists Howard Florey, Norman Heatley and Ernst Chain. By the end of World War II, the US was mass producing the antibiotic and using it to treat soldiers' war wounds. And once peace was restored, the public began demanding to be given the so-called wonder drug. At the end of the 1940s more than 250,000 patients a month were being prescribed penicillin to treat a variety of diseases from blood poisoning and pneumonia to syphilis and gonorrhoea. The drug also allowed doctors to carry out increasingly more invasive treatments, which would have been impossible before because of infections. Kevin Brown, curator of the Alexander Fleming Museum and author of a biography of the scientist, Penicillin Man, said it was one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Discovery Before Fleming's discovery there really was not treatment for infectious disease. It was a killer, he said. It seems strange now, but that was the way it was. When it came onto the market it revolutionised medicine. Mr Brown said it also brought fame to the scientist, who was born in 1881 in a remote area of Ayrshire in Scotland. If we are careful I think the use of penicillin will continue Dr Robert Bud, Science Museum The public really took Fleming to their hearts. He was unassuming and quiet. It was a case of the little man who had become a real success. Dr Anne Hardy, from London's Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, said Sir Alexander's discovery, for which he was later knighted and won the Nobel Prize, also benefited the whole of medical profession. In particular, it transformed public perception of what medicine could do. For the first time people became aware of what doctors could really achieve. But Dr Hardy said the antibiotic became a victim of its own success as it was soon over-prescribed and resistance started building up. Resistance All antibiotics are used badly and penicillin was no different. Patients were literally demanding it from their doctors and they got it, she said. By the mid to late 1940s other antibiotics started coming onto the market to challenge penicillin. The major two were streptomycin - effective against TB, something beyond even the wonder drug's powers - and cepholosporin. But in 1959, four years after Sir Alexander's death, scientists made a breakthrough in their fight against antibiotic resistance with the first generation semi-synthetic
[ppiindia] Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin
Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin. Luka biasa jadi serius dan bisa berakibat pada kematian. Beribu macam infeksi jadi tidak terobati. Jutaan orang akan mati setelah menjalani operasi. Pernah jutaan orang tewas akibat sipilis yang melanda dunia. Semua penderitaan manusia itu sirna setelah Sir Alexander Fleming menemukan penicillin. Tapi sekarang dunia dihadapkan pada soal overuse penicillin atau tepatnya penggunaan penicillin tanpa resep dokter. Awas, jangan mengobati diri sendiri. Obat harus digunakan terus sampai habis sesuai dengan resep. Jangan berhenti, karena merasa sudah sembuh. Pemakaian obat dibawah dosis akan menyebabkan sumber penyakit kebal terhadap penicillin. Lebih baik kelebihan sedikit daripada kurang dosis. Salam, RM The legacy of Fleming - 50 years on By Nick Triggle BBC News health reporter Concern about hospital infections such as MRSA is one of the most controversial issues in today's NHS. About 5,000 people die from such infections out of the many millions who go into hospitals each year. But 70 years ago, the situation was much worse. People could often die from a sore throat if the infection spread to the lungs. And pneumonia and post-operative infections killed one in three of those who got them. Within a decade that figure had dropped to just a few per cent. The reason - penicillin. It was the world's first antibiotic when it was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming, who died 50 years ago on Friday. The scientist, who was working at London's St Mary's Hospital at the time, stumbled upon the antibiotic partly by accident in 1928. Attention During some routine research, he noticed a mould had developed on a dish on which he had been growing a bacteria but had forgotten about while he was away on holiday. What grabbed his attention was that the mould seemed to have destroyed most of the bacteria. Sir Alexander extracted the antibacterial substance from the mould and penicillin was officially found. Penicillin uses Bacterial infections - effective against the likes of meningitis, pneumonia and blood poisoning. STIs - Just like the contraceptive pill, penicillin had an impact on the sexual revolution, helping to treat syphilis and gonorrhoea. War - mass produced by the US to stop soldiers dying form infection wounds towards the end of World War II. It was another 12 years before the antibiotic was ready for commercial use following tenacious, but often overlooked, work by Oxford University scientists Howard Florey, Norman Heatley and Ernst Chain. By the end of World War II, the US was mass producing the antibiotic and using it to treat soldiers' war wounds. And once peace was restored, the public began demanding to be given the so-called wonder drug. At the end of the 1940s more than 250,000 patients a month were being prescribed penicillin to treat a variety of diseases from blood poisoning and pneumonia to syphilis and gonorrhoea. The drug also allowed doctors to carry out increasingly more invasive treatments, which would have been impossible before because of infections. Kevin Brown, curator of the Alexander Fleming Museum and author of a biography of the scientist, Penicillin Man, said it was one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Discovery Before Fleming's discovery there really was not treatment for infectious disease. It was a killer, he said. It seems strange now, but that was the way it was. When it came onto the market it revolutionised medicine. Mr Brown said it also brought fame to the scientist, who was born in 1881 in a remote area of Ayrshire in Scotland. If we are careful I think the use of penicillin will continue Dr Robert Bud, Science Museum The public really took Fleming to their hearts. He was unassuming and quiet. It was a case of the little man who had become a real success. Dr Anne Hardy, from London's Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, said Sir Alexander's discovery, for which he was later knighted and won the Nobel Prize, also benefited the whole of medical profession. In particular, it transformed public perception of what medicine could do. For the first time people became aware of what doctors could really achieve. But Dr Hardy said the antibiotic became a victim of its own success as it was soon over-prescribed and resistance started building up. Resistance All antibiotics are used badly and penicillin was no different. Patients were literally demanding it from their doctors and they got it, she said. By the mid to late 1940s other antibiotics started coming onto the market to challenge penicillin. The major two were streptomycin - effective against TB, something beyond even the wonder drug's powers - and cepholosporin. But in 1959, four years after Sir Alexander's death, scientists made a breakthrough in their fight against antibiotic resistance with the first generation semi-synthetic
[ppiindia] Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin
Bayangkan seandainya tidak ada penicillin. Luka biasa jadi serius dan bisa berakibat pada kematian. Beribu macam infeksi jadi tidak terobati. Jutaan orang akan mati setelah menjalani operasi. Pernah jutaan orang tewas akibat sipilis yang melanda dunia. Semua penderitaan manusia itu sirna setelah Sir Alexander Fleming menemukan penicillin. Tapi sekarang dunia dihadapkan pada soal overuse penicillin atau tepatnya penggunaan penicillin tanpa resep dokter. Awas, jangan mengobati diri sendiri. Obat harus digunakan terus sampai habis sesuai dengan resep. Jangan berhenti, karena merasa sudah sembuh. Pemakaian obat dibawah dosis akan menyebabkan sumber penyakit kebal terhadap penicillin. Lebih baik kelebihan sedikit daripada kurang dosis. Salam, RM The legacy of Fleming - 50 years on By Nick Triggle BBC News health reporter Concern about hospital infections such as MRSA is one of the most controversial issues in today's NHS. About 5,000 people die from such infections out of the many millions who go into hospitals each year. But 70 years ago, the situation was much worse. People could often die from a sore throat if the infection spread to the lungs. And pneumonia and post-operative infections killed one in three of those who got them. Within a decade that figure had dropped to just a few per cent. The reason - penicillin. It was the world's first antibiotic when it was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming, who died 50 years ago on Friday. The scientist, who was working at London's St Mary's Hospital at the time, stumbled upon the antibiotic partly by accident in 1928. Attention During some routine research, he noticed a mould had developed on a dish on which he had been growing a bacteria but had forgotten about while he was away on holiday. What grabbed his attention was that the mould seemed to have destroyed most of the bacteria. Sir Alexander extracted the antibacterial substance from the mould and penicillin was officially found. Penicillin uses Bacterial infections - effective against the likes of meningitis, pneumonia and blood poisoning. STIs - Just like the contraceptive pill, penicillin had an impact on the sexual revolution, helping to treat syphilis and gonorrhoea. War - mass produced by the US to stop soldiers dying form infection wounds towards the end of World War II. It was another 12 years before the antibiotic was ready for commercial use following tenacious, but often overlooked, work by Oxford University scientists Howard Florey, Norman Heatley and Ernst Chain. By the end of World War II, the US was mass producing the antibiotic and using it to treat soldiers' war wounds. And once peace was restored, the public began demanding to be given the so-called wonder drug. At the end of the 1940s more than 250,000 patients a month were being prescribed penicillin to treat a variety of diseases from blood poisoning and pneumonia to syphilis and gonorrhoea. The drug also allowed doctors to carry out increasingly more invasive treatments, which would have been impossible before because of infections. Kevin Brown, curator of the Alexander Fleming Museum and author of a biography of the scientist, Penicillin Man, said it was one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Discovery Before Fleming's discovery there really was not treatment for infectious disease. It was a killer, he said. It seems strange now, but that was the way it was. When it came onto the market it revolutionised medicine. Mr Brown said it also brought fame to the scientist, who was born in 1881 in a remote area of Ayrshire in Scotland. If we are careful I think the use of penicillin will continue Dr Robert Bud, Science Museum The public really took Fleming to their hearts. He was unassuming and quiet. It was a case of the little man who had become a real success. Dr Anne Hardy, from London's Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, said Sir Alexander's discovery, for which he was later knighted and won the Nobel Prize, also benefited the whole of medical profession. In particular, it transformed public perception of what medicine could do. For the first time people became aware of what doctors could really achieve. But Dr Hardy said the antibiotic became a victim of its own success as it was soon over-prescribed and resistance started building up. Resistance All antibiotics are used badly and penicillin was no different. Patients were literally demanding it from their doctors and they got it, she said. By the mid to late 1940s other antibiotics started coming onto the market to challenge penicillin. The major two were streptomycin - effective against TB, something beyond even the wonder drug's powers - and cepholosporin. But in 1959, four years after Sir Alexander's death, scientists made a breakthrough in their fight against antibiotic resistance with the first generation semi-synthetic
[ppiindia] In memoriam: Hans Bethe (98), bapak astrofisika
Cerita cukup panjang, harap Anda baca sampai habis. Yours truly semula menyangka bahwa orang ternama yang terlibat dalam proyek Manhattan cuma Teller, Julius Robert Oppenheimer dan Claus Fuchs saja, Ternyata ada Hans Bethe, yang juga penemu energi luar biasa pada benda langit berukuran besar seperti matahari kita. Seperti Oppenheimer, belakangan dia menjadi pendekar perdamaian anti senjata nuklir. Tapi berlainan dengan Oppenheimer, dia tidak menyesali perannya dalam membuat bom atom karena dia yakin perlunya mendahului Nazi Jerman. Salam, RM March 7, 2005 Hans Bethe, Father of Nuclear Astrophysics, Dies at 98 By WILLIAM J. BROAD Hans Bethe, who discovered the violent force behind sunlight, helped devise the atom bomb and eventually cried out against the military excesses of the cold war, died late Sunday. He was 98, among the last of the giants who inaugurated the nuclear age. His death was announced by Cornell University, where he worked and taught for 70 years. A spokesman said he died quietly at home. Except for the war years at Los Alamos, N.M., Dr. Bethe lived in Ithaca, N.Y., an unpretentious man of uncommon gifts. His students called him Hans and admired his muddy shoes as much as his explaining how certain kinds of stars shine. For number crunching, in lieu of calculators, he relied on a slide rule, its case battered. For the things I do, he remarked a few years ago, it's accurate enough. For nearly eight decades, Dr. Bethe (pronounced BAY-tah) pioneered some of the most esoteric realms of physics and astrophysics, politics and armaments, long advising the federal government and in time emerging as the science community's liberal conscience. During the war, he led the theoreticians who devised the atom bomb and for decades afterwards fought against many new arms proposals. His wife, Rose, often discussed moral questions with him and, by all accounts, helped him decide what was right and wrong. Dr. Bethe fled Europe for the United States in the 1930's and quickly became a star of science. As a physicist, he made discoveries in the world of tiny particles described by quantum mechanics and the whorls of time and space envisioned by relativity theory. He did so into his mid-90's, astonishing colleagues with his continuing vigor and insight. In a 1938 paper, Dr. Bethe explained how stars like the Sun fuse hydrogen into helium, releasing energy and ultimately light. That work helped establish his reputation as the father of nuclear astrophysics, and nearly 30 years later, in 1967, earned him the Nobel Prize in physics. In all, he published more than 300 scientific and technical papers, many of them originally classified secret. Politically, Dr. Bethe was the liberal counterpoint (and proud of it) to Edward Teller, the physicist and conservative who played a dominant role in developing the hydrogen bomb. That weapon brought to earth a more furious kind of solar fusion, and Dr. Bethe opposed its development as immoral. For more than half a century, he championed many forms of arms control and nuclear disarmament, becoming a hero of the liberal intelligentsia. His wife called him a dove, Dr. Bethe once told an interviewer, adding his own qualifier: A tough dove. His gentle manner hid an iron will and mind that had few hesitations about identifying what he saw as error, hypocrisy or danger. His sense of duty toward society is so deeply ingrained that he isn't even aware of its being a sacrifice, a close colleague, Dr. Victor F. Weisskopf, once remarked. In a 1997 interview in his Cornell office, at age 90, Dr. Bethe said he had no regrets about his role in inventing the atom bomb, done amid worries about the Nazis' getting it first and conquering the world. But as the most senior of the living scientists who initiated the atomic age, he urged the United States to renounce all research on nuclear arms and called on scientists everywhere to do likewise. His ultimate dream, he said, his blue eyes calm, was for nations to cut their nuclear arsenals to a few hundred weapons or less. Then, added the survivor of Hitler and Mussolini, even if statesmen go crazy again, as they used to be, the use of these weapons will not destroy civilization. Throughout life, he remained a staunch advocate of nuclear power, defending it as an answer to inevitable fossil-fuel shortages. Dr. Bethe was the last of the scientific greats who initiated the nuclear era, outliving not only Teller but Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific head of wartime Los Alamos. He was one of Oppenheimer's first recruits, noted Robert S. Norris, author of Racing for The Bomb (Steerforth Press, 2002), and was among the last survivors of that extraordinary story. Mr. Norris added that Dr. Bethe was the almost perfect expression of the scientist-activist, driven by a sense of responsibility for his own atomic breakthroughs and those
[ppiindia] Ada orang menemukan bilangan primer terpanjang
Dokter Martin Nowak, seorang spesialis mata di Jerman, menemukan bilangan primer lebih panjang daripada bilangan primer panjang yang diketemukan orang sebelumnya. Panjang bilangan itu adalah 7.8 juta angka. Tentu saja dia menggunakan program khusus di computernya. Salam, RM -- German discovers longest prime number Luke Harding in Berlin Wednesday March 2, 2005 Guardian A German eye specialist with a keen amateur interest in mathematics has discovered the world's largest prime number after a 50-day search using his personal computer. Dr Martin Nowak, who has his own practice in the south German town of Michelfeld, stumbled upon the number last week, breaking the previous record for a prime number by half a million digits. Prime numbers are divisible only by themselves and 1. While the first prime numbers 2, 3, 5, and 7, are easy to identify, Dr Nowak's monster prime number is more than 7.8m digits long and is written as 2 to the 25,964,951st power minus 1. The number belongs to a special class of rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes, named after a 17th century French monk who first studied them 350 years ago. So far only 42 have been found. Yesterday Dr Nowak was reluctant to talk about his discovery, made using a special programme on his 2.4GHz Pentium 4 computer. He's busy. He has a full afternoon seeing patients. He's doesn't want to comment, a spokeswoman at Dr Nowak's clinic said. The eye surgeon is one of thousands of volunteers using software provided by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (Gimps), a project to discover the holy grail of prime number research - a 10m-digit prime number. It took experts five days to work out that Dr Nowak's new number was indeed bigger than the previous biggest prime, discovered last May by an American. His number has 7,816,230 digits. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Susilo warns traders and transportation operators against price hikes
Rekan-rekan yang tinggal atau belajar di India pasti tahu sekali bahwa harga transportasi, obat, pakaian dan bahan pakaian disana murah meriah. Padahal harga bensin lebih dari 3 kali lipat daripada harga di Indonesia. Sungguh lain keadaan di Indonesia. Semua pada latah, ongkos transport jadi naik, sementara pemilik armada transport tetap tenang mencekik para sopir; sudah menjadi rahasia umum bahwa dalam tempo 2 tahun taksi akan kembali modal. Seperti sudah saya bilang simpul lemahnya pada usaha transportasi. Jika ongkos transportasi tidak naik, tidak ada alasan para pedagang menaikkan harga barang jualannya. Harga bensin naik, semua pada cengeng, mahasiswa juga. Memang benar, kita ini sebetulnya belum siap untuk merdeka. Salam, RM P.S. : Swear, saya sendiri siap menerima kenyataan bahwa harga bensin tidak bisa semurah sekarang. Susah juga hidup di Jakarta tanpa mobil. Pilihan sudah saya jatuhkan pada sebuah mobil yang terbukti tangguh, ukuran mesin kecil, tapi didalam terasa lapang. Merk apa ? ini rahasia karena saya tidak ingin promosi untuk merk itu. Susilo warns traders, transportation operators against price hikes JAKARTA (Antara): President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono conducted an impromptu inspection in several towns around Jakarta on Wednesday to get a closer look at the impact of the government's decision on Monday to raise fuel prices by an average of 30 percent. The inspection was conducted as protests and strikes continued for a second day after the fuel price hikes, which came into effect on Tuesday. During the tour the President warned traders andtransportation operators against hikes of prices of basic commodities and transportation fares. Along with several government ministers, Susilo met drivers at a bus terminal in the West Java town of Karawang, before continuing on to visit the main market of another West Java town, Rengasdengklok, where traders told him prices had already begun to climb after the fuel price increase. Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in Bandung while hundreds of students occupied a state radio station and a gasoline station in Semarang, Central Java. Student protests were also reported in Jambi. Public transportation drivers were on strike demanding higher fares in several cities. Susilo ordered security forces not to clash with protesters, as National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar ordered two-thirds of his officers to remain on standby in case of violence. In Jakarta alone at least 13,000 police, soldiers and city personnel were on hand to quell potential uprisings. The President also called on governors and mayors to check price hikes in markets and public transportation vehicles. Make sure there are no uncontrolled price hikes. This is the duty of the government, he said. (**) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Winners and losers in textile shake-up
Winners and losers in textile shake-up By Kaushik Basu Professor of economics, Cornell University The end of country quotas on textile exports marks one of the most major events of the world economy - one that can cause tectonic shifts in the global business landscape. The Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), under which these quotas were organised, was put in place in 1974 to protect the textile industries in the US and Europe. The MFA expired in 1994, but the quotas were continued and managed by the World Trade Organisation with the understanding that they would be terminated at the start of 2005. That has happened now and the winds of change are palpable. The US is expected to lose a large number of jobs in this sector, which has anyway dwindled over the past decades. In 1974 there were 2.4m workers in the textile sector in the US. By 2000, 40% of these jobs were gone. What is more worrying is that there are many poor countries that could lose out. Anticipating the end of quotas, exports from El Salvador collapsed by 30% last November. It is expected that the apparel sector of the Dominican Republic will lose up to 40% of its jobs. Big gains for India Currently, global textile and apparel exports are just short of $500bn a year. Shifts in shares of the textile industry can lift entire nations out of poverty and, equally, plunge regions into joblessness To put this in perspective, India's national income is just over $500bn; Bangladesh's and China's close to $50bn and $1,300bn respectively. With the quotas gone, total global exports are expected to cross $1,200bn by 2010. Shifts in shares of this huge industry can lift entire nations out of poverty and, equally, plunge regions into joblessness. While the gains for China are certain and enormous, India is also expected to reap substantial benefits. In the first six weeks of the quota-less world, India has made big gains. Sears and Marks Spencer are setting up operations in India and Gap Inc is expected to expand its sourcing from India. It seems likely that in the first quarter of this year garment exports will get a spurt of 50%. What happens over the next few years will depend critically on government policy. Currently India exports $14bn worth of textile products. Even without doing much it should reach an export of $40bn by 2010. But, with a proper blend of policies, it is possible to reach the figure of $80bn. This, apart from the benefit of bringing in foreign exchange and boosting growth, could make a visible dent on unemployment. For Bangladesh and Pakistan, which rely on textiles for about 70% of their export earnings, it will be harder struggle but they - especially Bangladesh - could also benefit from a quota-less world. All these countries have cheap labour; the additional advantages that India has are those of size and large foreign-exchange reserves that can (and, I believe, should) be used to boost infrastructure. Last month I met Sudhir Dhingra, chairman of Orient Craft, one of the largest Indian exporters, and toured one of his factories in Gurgaon, outside Delhi. The unit had 3,800 workers, sitting in modern, assembly-line arrangements in a clean, well-lit factory. They were producing little dresses and skirts that would be sold by Orient Craft at $4 a piece and would be retailed in the US for $45. With margins like this it is not surprising that the global garment manufacture is expected to move entirely to developing countries over the next few years. Improving infrastructure Orient Craft had a turnover of $118m last year and this year is expected to cross $160m. While the Gurgaon factory I visited is one of India's largest, to take full advantage of scale factories need to be several times its size. To achieve this, government has to play an important coordinating role. It has to remove its small-scale industry size restrictions, modernise the ports and have more flexible labour markets. For a product to travel from factory in India to retail outlet in New York takes around 30 days. Most East Asian countries take half that time. This is where the ports come in. Indian ports are small and riddled with bureaucratic delays. Large liners do not come here. Most exports have to go out on feeder vessels to be transferred to a mother vessel in some other port. Moreover, goods are required to be delivered at the port seven days prior to shipment. In most East Asian ports the cut-off is one day. The modernisation of ports and transport infrastructure will need money. One possibility is to use a small fraction of India's foreign exchange reserves, say $10bn for this and other infrastructural investment. This would help not just the textile sector but all traded goods. The initial investment could be recovered in a few years in terms of not just money but jobs; and it could also help the global trade of other South Asian countries. To read
[ppiindia] Subsidi BBM harus dicabut
Presiden SBY harus berani melaksanakan kebijakan yang tidak populis: hapuskan subsidi BBM. Alasannya satu saja: tidak mungkin negara memikul beban 36 triliun rupiah terus menerus. Alasan lain (uangnya disalurkan ke pendidikan dan keperluan kesra lainnya) hanya kembangan saja, kalau kurang terbukti nanti akan memukul pemerintah sendiri. Simpul lemahnya terletak pada industri pelayanan transportasi. Organda harus melakukan gebrakan pada pemilik armada bus/truk/taksi untuk secara drastis menurunkan uang setoran yang gila-gilaan, memeras para supir. Dengan harga bensin premium yang super murah, Rp. 1,820/liter (bandingkan dengan India yang kalau dikurs rupiah, Rp. 8,500/liter), seorang supir taksi di Jakarta harus ngos-ngosan untuk mengumpulkan uang setoran yang berkisar antara Rp. 185,000 sampai Rp.3,500 sehari. Itu tidak berarti ongkos naik taksi di Bombay lantas berbanding lurus dengan di Jakarta; seorang pegawai biasa di Bombay mampu naik taksi ke tempat kerja bila perlu. Dimana faktor pembedanya, ya di uang setoran itulah. Percayakah, dengan uang setoran yang wajar ongkos angkut truk/bus/taksi tidak perlu naik dengan naiknya harga BBM. Dengan tidak berubahnya biaya angkutan, pedagang sembako tidak punya alasan untuk menaikkan harga dagangannya. Salam, RM MENGURANGI SUBSIDI BBM: HARUSKAH? Republika - 23 Desember 2004 HB Tamam Achda Anggota Komisi VII DPR RI Ketika masa kampanye pemilu presiden dan wakil presiden, tiada calon yang berani memberikan jawaban tegas ketika ditanya persoalan rencana kenaikan harga bahan bakar minyak (BBM). Ini bisa dipahami karena apabila dikemukakan jawaban jujur pasti akan mempengaruhi perolehan suara. Akhirnya, semua kandidat memberikan suara mengambang. Kini, pemerintah baru tidak bisa berkelit lagi. Dengan dalih recovery ekonomi pemerintah Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono harus menaikkan harga BBM. Dengan kata lain, subsidi BBM dikurangi. Beban subsidi sekitar Rp 63 triliun pada akhir tahun ini harus segera diakhiri dan segera dialokasikan untuk sektor-sektor lainnya. Ada beberapa titik lemah yang perlu kita soroti. Pertama, kebijakan itu secara integral akan segera menggerakkan harga barang dan jasa. Seluruh produsen yang membengkak biaya produksinya akibat kenaikan harga BBM harus menaikkan harga produksinya. Mereka dalam sejarahnya tak pernah terlihat untuk bersikap patriotik: rela berkurang keuntungannya demi cita-cita pemulihan ekonomi bersama. Prinsip bisnis di mana pun adalah bagaimana menggapai keuntungan sebesar-besarnya. Di sinilah, kenaikan harga barang menjadi faktor beban bagi konsumen, bukan penolong meski di balik logika kebijakan kenaikan harga BBM atau mengurangi subsidi akan berdampak pada pemulihan ekonomi. Di sisi lain, kenaikan harga BBM juga secara otomatis akan menggerakkan para usahawan transportasi untuk menyesuaikan tarif angkutan. Terkadang kenaikan tarif melebihi prosentase kenaikan harga BBM itu sendiri. Dengan kata lain, pengguna jasa transportasi harus merogoh kocek lebih dalam, padahal nilai tukar rupiah atau pendapatannya cenderung menurun. Dilihat dari dua sektor itu saja, kenaikan harga BBM atau mengurangi subsidinya akan berpengaruh nyata terhadap inflasi. Sekadar ilustrasi penguat, kita dapat mencermati data kenaikan inflasi yang terjadi sekitar sebulan setelah kenaikan harga BBM beberapa tahun lalu. Di mata Bank Indonesia (BI), pemandangan inflasi seperti itu dilihat sebagai persoalan serius karena mengeroposi nilai ekonomi secara nasional. Dampaknya mempengaruhi secara negatif terhadap sektor-sektor riil lain. Karenanya, dengan nada diplomatis, beberapa waktu lalu, pejabat BI menyampaikan, kenaikan harga BBM atau sama dengan mengurangi subsidi dinilai belum tepat saatnya sejalan dengan nilai tukar rupiah belum membaik dan belum stabil. Pernyataan BI ini --jika kita bicara dengan ''telanjang''-- mengarah pada kondisi obyektif ekonomi kita yang sebenarnya belum normal. Karena itu masalah time response seharusnya dijadikan pijakan penting peemerintah dalam mengeluarkan kebijakan subsidi karena instrumen yang dimainkan seharusnya tidak lagi menaikkan harga BBM. Yang harus dicermati, kenaikan itu sangat inheren dengan sektor-sektor ekonomi lainnya, di samping sektor nonekonomi. Kebijakan integratif Sudah saatnya pemerintah --dalam mengeluarkan kebijakan apapun, termasuk BBM dan atau mengurangi subsidi-- haruslah integratif dan tidak boleh hanya melihat satu sisi. Kenaikan BBM saat ini --saat ini baru premix dan akan menyusul jenis yang lainnya awal tahun ini-- tidak dikorelasikan dengan kebijakan lainnya. Ini sebenarnya juga dilakukan pemerintahan sebelumnya. Sebagai ilustrasi, di tengah upaya menaikkan harga BBM dalam kerangka mengurangi subsidi atau dalih pemulihan ekonomi, tapi di sisi lain pemerintah membiarkan perilaku perbankan yang obral kredit konsumtif dalam jumlah triliunan rupiah untuk kendaraan (mobil atau motor) yang memang direspons masyarakat secara luas. Dari sisi mikro, kebijakan bank seperti itu
[ppiindia] What's next? Robot yang lebih sederhana
Siapa bilang tidak ada hubungan antara demokrasi-teknologi-ekonomi ? Sebelum Henry Ford, mobil tidak terbeli oleh kebanyakan orang Amerika. Dia desain mobil yang lebih sederhana serta serba fungsional dan proses pembuatannya lebih ekonomis. Keluarlah sistem assembly line (ban berjalan) dan mobil sederhana itu bernama Ford Model T. Karena harganya yang rendah dan bandelnya, jadilah Ford Model T mobil paling populer (ini asal katanya dari people atau orang banyak -- demokrasi lagi). Pada jamannya, Ford Model T sempat masuk ke Indonesia; salah satu pemiliknya seorang pemilik tanah besar di Lamongan yang adalah ayah dari dokter Abdul Djalal, pensiunan dokter polisi. Kembali ke pokok tulisan tentang robot. Robotics adalah bagian dari ekonomi masa depan bersama microprocessing (chips), IT dan biotek. Sekarang kita baru mengenal industrial robots dan robot yang dipakai untuk tugas berbahaya seperti mengambil bom ditempat ramai. Diperlukan seorang Henry Ford untuk membuat robot yang lebih sederhana, dengan bantuan komputer yang minimum, lebih lincah, dan hemat energi. Gerak kearah sana sudah kelihatan. Bacalah tulisan dibawah ini. Salam, RM --- February 24, 2005 WHAT'S NEXT For Simpler Robots, a Step Forward By ANNE EISENBERG WASHINGTON THE moment of truth had come for the knee-high robot standing on its improvised runway at a hotel news conference. Reporters circled it, their microphones and cameras trained on the machine as it tried to start up. Then a curious 13-year-old boy who had joined the throng reached out, poked his fingers between the robot's metal legs and gave them an exploratory push. With that, the robot, built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lived up to its nickname, the Toddler. It rocked gently until the poking stopped, steadied itself and marched firmly across the level surface, a tabletop propped up on cinderblocks. If two-legged robots are ever going to walk among people, they may look a lot like this sturdy machine and two others, introduced Feb. 17 on the makeshift catwalk at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The robots - the others were built at Cornell and at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands - are designed in a way that differs significantly from standard creations. One of the robots moves so efficiently that in the future it may be able to amble along for a day, not the 20 or 30 minutes most robots now manage without recharging or refueling. And our robots walk far more naturally, said Andy Ruina, a professor at Cornell who took one of the robots to the meeting and whose nephew Josh Bennett, of Chevy Chase, Md., did the unscripted poking. The design may be important not only for future energy-saving robots, but also for intelligent prostheses - leg and foot replacements for amputees. Dr. Ruina's robot and its companions from Delft and M.I.T. are descendants of some early ramp-walking machines, mechanical devices that have been around for a century. These contraptions - toys like waddling penguins and later two-legged robots - were not powered in any way. Instead, they relied on gravity and the mechanics of objects in motion to walk stably down sloping surfaces. Modern versions of the machines, called passive-dynamic walkers, have been built for decades and have long been thought useful models of human locomotion, Dr. Ruina said. But in the past the machines were not able to walk on level ground. Now the researchers from the three universities have shown that the classic passive-dynamic walking machines need not depend on gravitational power. Instead, they have put small motors on their robots and shown that they can walk on level ground. The robots' workings are described in detail in the journal Science. Our machines show that there is nothing special about gravity, said Russ Tedrake, a postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T.'s department of brain and cognitive sciences, and one of the Toddler's creators. Unlike famous state-of-the-art walking robots like Honda's Asimo, which typically have complex control algorithms that demand extensive, real-time computation, the Cornell biped, as well as the Delft one, walk with simple control algorithms, Dr. Ruina said. Our sensors detect ground contacts, and our only motor commands are on-off signals issued once per step, he said. Perhaps to show how much the passive-dynamic robots depend on mechanics and not on electronic calculating power for their humanlike gait, the Delft robot has a blue bucket for a head, and the Cornell robot has an orange plastic bird attached to its head. This less-is-more approach also applies to sensory feedback. The Cornell and Delft robots don't use sophisticated, real-time calculations or a lot of feedback as do other robots that continuously sense the angles of their joints, for example. This suggests that human walking, too, might require only very simple controls, Dr. Ruina said. (The M.I.T.
[ppiindia] Building digital infrastructure
Building digital infrastructure Rajesh Jain / New Delhi February 23, 2005 (Business Standard) Look at what will happen in tomorrows world. This is the second of a four-part series. As I mentioned in my previous column, Future Tech celebrated its first anniversary recently. Here we take a look at some of the key ideas discussed over the past year. All columns are available online (www.emergic.org/futuretech). The central theme in most of my columns has been leveraging emerging technologies to build a digital infrastructure in India. By focusing on the needs of users in India, start-ups and established companies can build the next generation commPuting platform, which integrates computing and communications. In tomorrows world, what is inside todays desktop will move to the server and what is inside a cellphone will power the computer. Broadband networks will be internet protocol (IP)-based. Voice will become yet another service over these digital networks. It will be a world that will converge at the back-end (data stored in the network cloud) but will diverge at the front-end (multiple devices). The mobile phone will be our constant companion and will be complemented by the availability of multimedia-enabled network computers with large screens. Services will occupy centrestage. We have the opportunity to build the next technology platforms that will form the foundation of our digital lives. The communications platform needs to be built on IP and be always on. The computing platform needs to focus on affordability so that a connected computer is accessible to every family in urban and rural India, and every employee in corporate India. The information platform needs to become real time, event driven and multimedia-oriented. This technology platform will be built on the new and next internet always on, ubiquitous, high speed, on demand, personalised and not free. This new internet will make possible path-breaking applications and services. From voice-over-IP which will allow phone calls anywhere in the country for a flat fee, to video-on-demand which can provide education and entertainment to users when they want it, from software as a service for businesses to automate all their processes to multi-player gaming platforms which will transform leisure time, the new internet will create new opportunities as well as threaten conventional business models. It will force players in the computing, consumer electronics and entertainment industries to enter each others territories. As we look ahead and seek to create the next platform, it is useful to look at the rear view mirror. Every 12 years or so, the world of computing sees major breakthroughs. Think of this as the computing equivalent of the Kumbh Mela. The last major breakthrough was during 1992-1994 when the launch of Microsoft Windows 3.1, Intels Pentium processor, SAPs R/3 and the web browser Mosaic heralded an unprecedented period of all-round growth until the slowdown early this decade. The next computing Kumbh Mela should be just around the corner. What will it be? My answer: the next big thing in computing will be about building a platform which makes the two most important creations of the past the computer and the internet available to users at a fraction of todays prices. What emerging markets like India need is the equivalent of a tech utility which makes available commPuting as a utility to the masses. A centralised platform that makes available computing as a service and accessible via thin clients over a high-speed broadband infrastructure, neighbourhood computing centres that provide access on a pay-per-use basis, a community-centric content platform which makes available local information and helps small businesses connect with one another, and investments in education and healthcare to make sure they reach rural people these are the tech utilitys elements. India needs a Rs 5,000 network computer, Indian language desktop applications, industry information and process maps (for small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, to automate their business), fixed-price broadband bundles and locally relevant information and services. There are two key ideas from the telecom industry that the computer industry needs to adopt. The first is the creation of a zero-management user device. The second is a subscription-based utility-like payment model. The underlying enabler for both will be the broadband industry that is coming alive in India. India needs to leapfrog to next-generation networks that can deliver broadband over the air to users, creating a high-speed, ubiquitous and pervasive data network. We can make tomorrows world a reality. India has an opportunity once again to do things right. What is needed is a generation of entrepreneurs who think outside the box to create technology platforms and solutions for tomorrows
[ppiindia] Building digital infrastructure
Building digital infrastructure Rajesh Jain / New Delhi February 23, 2005 (Business Standard) Look at what will happen in tomorrows world. This is the second of a four-part series. As I mentioned in my previous column, Future Tech celebrated its first anniversary recently. Here we take a look at some of the key ideas discussed over the past year. All columns are available online (www.emergic.org/futuretech). The central theme in most of my columns has been leveraging emerging technologies to build a digital infrastructure in India. By focusing on the needs of users in India, start-ups and established companies can build the next generation commPuting platform, which integrates computing and communications. In tomorrows world, what is inside todays desktop will move to the server and what is inside a cellphone will power the computer. Broadband networks will be internet protocol (IP)-based. Voice will become yet another service over these digital networks. It will be a world that will converge at the back-end (data stored in the network cloud) but will diverge at the front-end (multiple devices). The mobile phone will be our constant companion and will be complemented by the availability of multimedia-enabled network computers with large screens. Services will occupy centrestage. We have the opportunity to build the next technology platforms that will form the foundation of our digital lives. The communications platform needs to be built on IP and be always on. The computing platform needs to focus on affordability so that a connected computer is accessible to every family in urban and rural India, and every employee in corporate India. The information platform needs to become real time, event driven and multimedia-oriented. This technology platform will be built on the new and next internet always on, ubiquitous, high speed, on demand, personalised and not free. This new internet will make possible path-breaking applications and services. From voice-over-IP which will allow phone calls anywhere in the country for a flat fee, to video-on-demand which can provide education and entertainment to users when they want it, from software as a service for businesses to automate all their processes to multi-player gaming platforms which will transform leisure time, the new internet will create new opportunities as well as threaten conventional business models. It will force players in the computing, consumer electronics and entertainment industries to enter each others territories. As we look ahead and seek to create the next platform, it is useful to look at the rear view mirror. Every 12 years or so, the world of computing sees major breakthroughs. Think of this as the computing equivalent of the Kumbh Mela. The last major breakthrough was during 1992-1994 when the launch of Microsoft Windows 3.1, Intels Pentium processor, SAPs R/3 and the web browser Mosaic heralded an unprecedented period of all-round growth until the slowdown early this decade. The next computing Kumbh Mela should be just around the corner. What will it be? My answer: the next big thing in computing will be about building a platform which makes the two most important creations of the past the computer and the internet available to users at a fraction of todays prices. What emerging markets like India need is the equivalent of a tech utility which makes available commPuting as a utility to the masses. A centralised platform that makes available computing as a service and accessible via thin clients over a high-speed broadband infrastructure, neighbourhood computing centres that provide access on a pay-per-use basis, a community-centric content platform which makes available local information and helps small businesses connect with one another, and investments in education and healthcare to make sure they reach rural people these are the tech utilitys elements. India needs a Rs 5,000 network computer, Indian language desktop applications, industry information and process maps (for small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, to automate their business), fixed-price broadband bundles and locally relevant information and services. There are two key ideas from the telecom industry that the computer industry needs to adopt. The first is the creation of a zero-management user device. The second is a subscription-based utility-like payment model. The underlying enabler for both will be the broadband industry that is coming alive in India. India needs to leapfrog to next-generation networks that can deliver broadband over the air to users, creating a high-speed, ubiquitous and pervasive data network. We can make tomorrows world a reality. India has an opportunity once again to do things right. What is needed is a generation of entrepreneurs who think outside the box to create technology platforms and solutions for tomorrows
[ppiindia] Ronald Noble: Awas bio-terror
Tadi pagi dalam warta berita televisi BBC ada peringatan serius dari Ronald Noble, kepala Interpol, yang memperingatkan kepada dunia, terutama Amerika dan Eropa, bahwa Al-Qaida mungkin menunggu kesempatan untuk melancarkan serangan ke negara-negara Barat dengan senjata biologis. Dikatakannya, bahwa negara-negara itu tidak memasukkan kemungkinan serangan bio-terror dalam prioritasnya. Padahal tanda-tanda beralihnya senjata biologis itu ketangan entitas non-negara sudah ada. Bayangkan kalau tabung berisi virus Ebola atau anthrax misalnya, pecah di Boston atau Manchester, sementara disana tidak ada mekanisme untuk mengatasinya, ratusan ribu sampai jutaan orang akan mati dan dunia akan panik !! Salam, RM - Interpol sounds bio-terror alarm The world is ill prepared for the looming threat of a biological terror attack, the head of Interpol has said. Ronald Noble told the BBC the danger of an al-Qaeda attack had not diminished since the 9/11 strikes on the US. The head of the global police body also denied governments had played up the risks for political gain. I don't think it is the sounding of false alarms, Mr Noble said, citing recent evidence. I think the alarm is real and it is continuing to ring. 'Millions at risk' Recent attacks around the world; indications that al-Qaeda plans to use biological and chemical weapons; and its statements claiming the right to kill up to 4 million people are enough evidence for me to be concerned, Mr Noble said. In an exclusive interview with the BBC's Ten O'Clock News, he warned that the potential cost of a biological terror attack left no room for complacency. When you talk about bio-terrorism, that's one crime we can't try to solve after it happens because the harm will be too great. How could we ever forgive ourselves if millions or hundreds... or tens of thousands of people were killed simply because our priorities did not include bio-terrorism? Intelligence sharing Around 400 police officers and health officials from around the world are going to the French city of Lyons next month to attend a bio-terrorism conference - the biggest ever organised by Interpol. Mr Noble acknowledged that governments and security agencies were better organised against the threat than ever before - but none of us can let our guards down and assume that the problem has been addressed. Were al-Qaeda to launch a spectacular biological attack which could cause contagious disease to be spread, no entity in the world is prepared for it, he said. Not the US, not Europe, not Asia, not Africa. Interpol's bio-terrorism conference, due to start on 1 March, will seek to encourage intelligence agencies and police forces to share information and co-operate more closely against the biological terrorism threat. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4289485.stm Published: 2005/02/23 01:44:34 GMT © BBC MMV Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] FEER: High Stakes in post-tsunami Aceh
(Fareastern Economic Review) High Stakes in Post-Tsunami Aceh by James Van Zorge Aceh is now officially on the worlds radar screen. During most of the decades-long separatist war between the Aceh Freedom Movement (otherwise known as GAM, or Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) and the Indonesian military, the media either took little interest in Aceh or were forbidden to enter the province. The Boxing Day tsunami changed that overnight. Hundreds of international print and electronic journalists are filing daily stories from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Then there are the foreign military: 1,300 soldiers, naval ships, aircraft and military helicopters have been deployed from the United States, France, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, assisting the Indonesian armed forces with distributing emergency food supplies, clearing debris and providing survivors with medical assistance. Finally, there are the international organizations. Under the umbrella of the United Nations alone, there are more than 1,100 relief workers representing 60 organizations in Aceh. There is no doubt that Indonesians in general and the Acehnese in particular are grateful for what will prove to be the largest relief effort in history. Public and private aid pledged for the countries hit by the tsunami now exceeds $10 billion in cash donations, debt relief and low-interest loans; a large portion of the global aid package is expected to be channeled towards Aceh, whose tsunami victims constitute more than two-thirds of the total. However, the Indonesian government and military, or TNI, have already started to send mixed signals about tolerating the presence of foreigners on Acehs soil. At first overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crisis, Indonesias President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his cabinet quickly went to work in earnest with the international community. Now, Jakarta is telling aid workers that they must register with the government and obtain permission to go outside the confines of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, in some cases with TNI escort, ostensibly to protect them from GAM. Likewise, foreign military personnel are required to report their whereabouts to government officials, or face expulsion. Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the media, in no uncertain terms, that he wants foreign troops out of Aceh as soon as possible: I think three month are enough, and the sooner they leave the better. Almost immediately, international NGOs and foreign governments started posing questions about Jakartas ulterior motive in asserting strict controls over the movements of foreign aid workers. Government officials say that such restrictions are necessary for the safety of its guests, but human rights organizations familiar with the TNIs dealings in Aceh in the past are suspicious that military hardliners are using security concerns as an excuse to keep prying eyes away from its operations in the field. Of immediate concern is that restrictions could impede the flow of aid to the more remote areas of Aceh. Relief organizations also worry that the TNI wants to resell aid on the black market. These doubters have a legitimate point. Logically, GAM as a separatist movement would have little to gain and much to lose by attacking aid workers. With worldwide media attention now on Aceh, the GAM leadership must be anxious to bolster its credibility with the foreign community; undermining relief efforts would be a disaster for the guerrillas, and only strengthen Western support for TNI to wage its war in Aceh. Hence the efforts by GAM to stitch together a cease-fire agreement. Since this is one of the worlds forgotten wars, most outsiders are not aware of the TNIs terrible reputation in Aceh. Besides numerous instances of gross human rights abuses against Acehnese civilians, TNI has also reportedly been involved in war profiteering: Car smuggling, illegal logging, marijuana trading and protection rackets aimed against foreign companies have been part of the TNI black-market business portfolio in Aceh for many years. For senior military officers, a posting in Aceh is considered to be one of the more lucrative assignments. Knowing this, fears of corrupt officers making designs on humanitarian aid are well-founded, and could partly explain why dishonest players inside TNI are anxious to reassert control. Finally, there is the radical Muslim part of the calculus. Not long after relief workers started appearing, there have been reports of extremist Islamic organizations starting to mass their cadres in Banda Aceh. Two groups in particular the Islamic Defenders Front and Laskar Mujahidinare known to have anti-Western sentiments and a track record of violence. Although there have been no clashes yet with the foreign community, this possibility cant be discounted. As much as hardliners inside the TNI would feel more comfortable with the exit of foreigners, so the Islamic extremists would like to take a leading role in filling
[ppiindia] The next knowledge superpower
India special: The next knowledge superpower 19 February 2005 From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. THE first sign that something was up came about eight years back. Stories began to appear in the international media suggesting that India was stealing jobs from wealthy nations - not industrial jobs, like those that had migrated to south-east Asia, but the white-collar jobs of well-educated people. Today we know that the trickle of jobs turned into a flood. India is now the back office of many banks, a magnet for labour-intensive, often tedious programming, and the customer services voice of everything from British Airways to Microsoft. In reality, the changes in India have been more profound than this suggests. Over the past five years alone, more than 100 IT and science-based firms have located RD labs in India. These are not drudge jobs: high-tech companies are coming to India to find innovators whose ideas will take the world by storm. Their recruits are young graduates, straight from India's universities and elite technology institutes, or expats who are streaming back because they see India as the place to be - better than Europe and the US. The knowledge revolution has begun. The impact of the IT industry on the economy has been enormous. In 1999 it contributed 1.3 per cent of India's GDP. Last year that figure had grown to 3 per cent. And what's good for one science-based industry should be good for others. India has a thriving pharmaceutical industry which is restructuring itself to take on the world. And biotech is taking off. The attitude is growing that science cannot be an exclusively intellectual pursuit, but must be relevant economically and socially. The hope among some senior scientists and officials is that India can short-cut the established path of industrial development and move straight to a knowledge economy. For the New Scientist reporters who have been in India for this special report, many features of the country stand out. First, its scale and diversity. With a population of more than a billion, the country presents some curious contrasts. It has the world's 11th largest economy, yet it is home to more than a quarter of the world's poorest people. It is the sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide, yet hundreds of millions of its people have no steady electricity supply. It has more than 250 universities which catered last year for more than 3.2 million science students, yet 39 per cent of adult Indians cannot read or write. These contrasts take tangible form on the outskirts of cities from Chennai to Delhi, Mumbai to Bangalore. Here, often next to poor areas, great gleaming towers of glass are growing in which knowledge workers do their thinking. These images of modernity are a far cry from stereotypical India - a place bedevilled alternately by drought and flood, of poor farmers and slum-dwellers. Yet both sets of images are real - and many others besides. High-tech is not the sole preserve of the rich. Fishermen have begun using mobile phones to price their catch before they make port, and autorickshaw drivers carry a phone so that customers can call for a ride. Technology companies are extending internet connections to the remotest locations. Small, renewable electricity generators are appearing in villages, and the government is using home-grown space technology to improve literacy skills and education in far-flung areas. These efforts are often piecemeal, and progress is slow. Illiteracy today is reducing only at the rate of 1.3 per cent per annum, says R. A. Mashelkar, director-general of the government's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. At this rate, India will need 20 years to attain a literacy rate of 95 per cent. He is hopeful that technology can speed up this process. Science too has its role to play. Critics of India's investment priorities ask why the country spends large sums on moon rockets and giant telescopes while it is still struggling to find food and water for millions of its citizens? The answer is that without science, poverty will never be beaten. You cannot be industrially and economically advanced unless you are technologically advanced, and you cannot be technologically advanced unless you are scientifically advanced, says C. N. R. Rao, the prime minister's science adviser. Rise of the middle class The knowledge revolution is already swelling the ranks of India's middle class - already estimated to number somewhere between 130 million and 286 million. And the gulf in spending power between the poor and the comfortably off has never been more apparent. Take cars. Sales are rising at more than 20 per cent a year. Before India opened up its economy in the early 1990s, only a few models were available, almost all home-built. Today, top-end imported cars have become real status symbols. Another consequence of the knowledge revolution is that the extreme wealth of a new breed of young, high-tech yuppies
[ppiindia] Intel promises light-speed computing
Intel promises light-speed computing Chip maker claims world's first continuous wave silicon laser Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 18 Feb 2005 Intel has promised computing at the speed of light after using standard silicon manufacturing processes to create the world's first continuous wave silicon laser. According to the chip giant, the technology could bring relatively inexpensive, high-quality lasers and optical devices to mainstream use in computing, communications and medical applications. The breakthrough centres on using the so-called Raman effect and silicon's crystalline structure to amplify light as it passes through the material. When infused with light from an external source the chip produces a continuous, high-quality laser beam. While Intel acknowledged that the process is still far from becoming a commercial product, it promised that building lasers from standard silicon could lead to inexpensive optical devices that move data inside and between computers at the speed of light, ushering in a flood of new applications for high-speed computing. Fundamentally, we have demonstrated for the first time that standard silicon can be used to build devices that amplify light, said Dr Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's Photonics Technology Lab. The use of high-quality photonic devices has been limited because they are expensive to manufacture, assemble and package. This research is a major step towards bringing the benefits of low-cost, high-bandwidth, silicon-based optical devices to the mass market. Intel explained that every computer already has a power supply to drive the chips, hard disc and peripherals, but predicted that PCs will have a supply for powering tiny lasers, amplifiers and optical interconnects that move terabytes of data around the computer and across networks. Building a Raman laser in silicon begins with etching a waveguide, a conduit for light on a chip. Silicon is transparent to infrared light so that when light is directed into a waveguide it can be contained and channelled across a chip. Like the first laser developed in 1960, Intel researchers used an external light source to 'pump' light into its chip. As light is pumped in, the natural atomic vibrations in silicon amplify the light as it passes through the chip. This amplification, known as the Raman effect, is more than 10,000 times stronger in silicon than in glass fibres. Raman lasers and amplifiers are used today in the telecoms industry and rely on miles of fibre to amplify light. By using silicon, Intel said it could achieve similar results using a silicon chip just a few centimetres in size. VNU Network Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/4F6XtA/_WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Power of tsunami heavily underestimated
Power of tsunami earthquake heavily underestimated 16:01 09 February 2005 NewScientist.com news service Maggie McKee The earthquake that created the devastating Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 was three times more powerful than first thought, say researchers analysing long-period seismic waves. The finding could upgrade the quake to the second strongest ever recorded and explain why the tsunami caused such great damage across the ocean in Sri Lanka and India. Earthquakes are classified on the Richter scale by their largest-amplitude seismic wave. These seismic waves come in a variety of periods, or wavelengths - but only the most powerful quakes pack a lot of energy into long-period waves. Seismologists initially used seismic waves with periods of about 300 seconds to set the magnitude of the Sumatran earthquake at 9.0 - making it the fifth most powerful event on record. Now, seismologists Seth Stein and Emile Okal at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, US, have scrutinised seismograms taken from 7 stations around the world in the week or so following the earthquake. They looked for the longest-period waves possible - those lasting about 3200 seconds (53 minutes). We found, to our surprise, that there was three times more energy out there than at the 300-second period, Stein told New Scientist. It was colossal. The new work reclassifies the earthquake on the logarithmic Richter scale at magnitude 9.3 - second only to the 9.5-magnitude quake recorded in Chile in 1960. Built-up pressure The Asian earthquake occurred at the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean where, over millions of years, the Indian tectonic plate has been disappearing beneath the Burma plate. This subduction zone had been locked for perhaps 200 years before the built-up pressure was finally released in the slippage of 26 December. The Burma plate rebounded upwards by about 10 metres at the quake's epicentre - setting the deadly tsunami waves in motion. And the process continued along the border between the two plates, causing the earth to rupture along the fault line - running from south to north. But seismologists are not sure exactly where the rip stopped. Some think the rupture only made it through the southern third of the 1200-kilometre-long zone that was rocked by aftershocks. But if the earthquake is three times more powerful then previously believed, that's telling you the fault area is three times bigger, says Stein. We think the entire aftershock zone ruptured. The northern two-thirds of the zone may have taken longer to slip, which is why its energy was released in longer-period waves. This could be actually be positive news for survivors living near the zone. Having released such a large amount of energy, Stein thinks it will take another few hundred years for the zone to build up the strain necessary for another huge earthquake. Localised tsunamis But he warns that smaller earthquakes could still occur, perhaps spawning localised tsunamis. Furthermore, other locked sections of the fault - further to the south, near Java, for example - could still rupture catastrophically. If the rupture did indeed occur along the whole length of the aftershock zone, it could explain why some distant regions were so devastated by the tsunami. While the lower third of the zone directed tsunami waves to the southwest, the upper portion has a different orientation and sent waves due west - straight towards hard-hit Sri Lanka and southern India. However, other factors, such as the topography of the sea floor, may also explain why the waves gathered so much force in those regions. Other seismologists have also calculated that the Asian earthquake was significantly larger than initially thought. Teh-Ru Alex Song, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, US, and colleagues used long-period waves from about 20 seismometers around the world to confirm that the earthquake was two to three times more powerful than magnitude 9.0 . But he says it is not clear yet how fast or slow the slip proceeded along the fault. The group arrived at their preliminary result on Sunday and will continue to refine their analysis. Song hopes seismologists will develop a technique to analyse and convey the magnitude of any earthquakes that could spawn tsunamis as they actually happen - information that could come from waves with periods of 200 to 500 seconds. You need that kind of index so everybody around the world knows the magnitude and you can issue a tsunami warning to local people, he told New Scientist. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/4F6XtA/_WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- ***
[ppiindia] China making great leap forward in tech
February 18, 2005 China making great leap forward in tech Richard Shim, Staff Writer, CNET News.com SANTA CLARA, Calif.--China's growth into a nation that leads in the use of broadband technology, and the changing role of its manufacturing companies from just assemblers to designers, were among the trends analysts discussed at a conference here Thursday. Research firm iSuppli hosted the event, and its analysts warned against the mistaken notion that China will remain a relatively unsophisticated country when it comes to the use of technology. The ability of Chinese companies to make computing and electronics gear has made them longtime favorites of firms looking to lower manufacturing costs. Once the guts of products are made, they're shipped back to companies who add design touches and specialized features and sell them. But in the coming years, Chinese companies will do more and more design work, said Joe Abelson, vice president of emerging markets at iSuppli, a development that could threaten companies who can't compete with China's manufacturing prowess. We disagree with the impression that China is not a player in design, Abelson said. If you're resting on the belief that design will continue to only be done in Europe or the states, you may need to reconsider that. Abelson pointed to cellular handsets as an example. Many of the major manufacturers of handsets are Chinese companies, but in 2002 only 10 percent of handsets made in China were designed in house by the companies that made them. That figure will increase to 40 percent by 2008. The change isn't limited to handsets. Chinese television makers are also designing their own sets and have even begun to sell them directly in U.S. stores. The technology transformation will also take place in the use of broadband Internet access, speeding the flow of information. Chinese telecommunications companies will increase the installation of broadband technology to spur use of their wired networks. The result will be that by 2008, China will be the leading user of broadband technology in homes. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Main internet = menjaga kebugaran otak bagi orang tua
Scientists hone program to boost mental fitness Software may soon help rejuvenate older brains By Hampton Pearson D.C. Correspondent CNBC Updated: 5:58 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2005WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Think of it as taking your brain to the gym. A cutting edge mental training program from a company bent on changing the way we age is offering new hope of a vibrant retirement for seniors and the Baby Boomers not far behind them. The Rossmoor Retirement Community in northern California is a would-be paradise for the more than 10,000 residents over 55 who are living here. They golf, they socialize, and they relax. They also make time for ambitious activities like a digital photography class. These folks are willing to do just about anything to stay stimulated and strong. Fear of mental deterioration is a real concern of older people, said Len Krauss, 75, a Rossmoor resident who runs the computer club there. So when researchers from Posit Science Corporation went searching for people to test drive technology that could help reverse aging, they approached the computer club and asked for about 150 volunteers. They got more than 600. Were they lining up for a sip from the fountain of youth? Close. Dr. Michael Merzenich, Posit's Chief Scientific Officer, describes the so-called cognitive fitness products as a set of training tools that will be designed to rejuvenate the processing machinery of an older brain to improve its functionality so that it has the functionality of a brain at a younger stage or point in life. Bringing 'neuroplasticity' to market Merzenich, who helped invent the cochlear ear implant, leads a scientific team that has more than 50 patents and the backing of many esteemed global research institutes. They're using more than $7 million in venture capital to validate science known as neuroplasticity and then commercialize it. The current software suite still a work in progress uses both a human trainer and an e-coach. Volunteers run through a series of challenging mental exercises. The program automatically adjusts pushing each individual to the limit. We start with language and the operations of language and focus/pound on this critical modality for receiving information, said Merzenich. Undivided attention and clear listening move the mind through the program's cognitive calisthenics. This boot camp for the brain takes forty sessions over a six- to eight-week period. The end game of all these mind games is improved mental function, including listening, seeing, problem solving, fine motor skills and walking and balance. Posit Science CEO Jeff Zimman says has yet to decide which markets to target. We consider anyone who is forty or over as somebody who might benefit from the program. We consider anyone who is forty or over as somebody who might benefit from the programs, he said. Down the road he believes the technology may be used to treat chronic pain, depression and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease all competitive, multi-billion-dollar medical technology markets. And to entice the younger crowd, they could as easily be on a set-top box, or on a handheld device or on a PDA or a cellphone, said Zimman. To succeed, Posit Science will need continued support from the seniors, who are the lifeblood of the research and a source of priceless feedback. We learned that some of the sound stimuli that we ask people to listen are too hard for them to hear at first, said Dr. Henry Mahncke, the company's V.P. of Research and Outcomes. We need to make them easier. Back at Rossmoor, the volunteers say the workout changed their lives. I can now remember phone numbers better, said Krauss. Ballroom dancer Diane Goldsmith can now keep up with her light-speed, Generation Y grandkids. Ive told them now I dont care how fast you speak to me, she said. Im with it. Im right on top. So I wont have to say What did you say? Because the first generation product is targeted for voluntary use by generally healthy people, the company doesn't have to go through the typical regulatory maze. And if all goes according to plan, they hope to have a complete product suite to rollout in select markets by the end of the year. (CNBC producer Steve Lewis contributed to this report.) Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon
[ppiindia] Electrical Engineering's identity crisis
(IEEE Spectrum) Electrical Engineering's Identity Crisis When does a vast and vital profession become unrecognizably diffuse? By Paul Wallich MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, electrical engineering was so much simpler. Basically, it referred to the technical end of telegraphy, trolley cars, or electric power. Nevertheless, here and there members of that fledgling profession were quietly setting the stage for an era in industrial history unparalleled for its innovation, growth, and complexity. That decades-long saga was punctuated early on by spark-gap radios, tubes, and amplifiers. With World War II came radar, sonar, and the proximity fuze, followed by electronic computation. Then came solid-state transistors and integrated circuits: originally with a few transistors, lately with hundreds of millions. Oil-filled circuit breakers the size of a cottage eventually gave way to solid-state switches the size of a fist. From programs on punch cards, computer scientists progressed to programs that write programs that write programs, all stored on magnetic disks whose capacity has doubled every 15 months for the past 20 years [see Through a Glass]. In two or three generations, engineers took us from shouting into a hand-cranked box attached to a wall to swapping video clips over a device that fits in a shirt pocket. Today, at its fringes, electrical engineering is blending with biology to establish such disciplines as biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, and even odd, nameless fields in which, for example, researchers are interfacing the human nervous system with electronic systems or striving to use bacteria to make electronic devices. On another frontierone of manyEEs are joining forces with quantum physicists and materials scientists to establish entirely new branches of electronics based on the quantum mechanical property of spin, rather than the electromagnetic property of charge. What EEs have accomplished is amazing by any standard. Electrical engineers rule the world! exclaims David Liddle, a partner in U.S. Venture Partners, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif. Who's been more important? Who's made more of a difference? But as the purview of electrical engineering expands, does the entire discipline risk a kind of effacement by diffusion, like a photograph that has been enlarged so much that its subject is no longer recognizable? For those in the profession, and those at universities who teach its future practitioners, this is not an abstract issue. It calls into question the very essence of what it means to be an EE. I REMEMBER HEARING the same sort of words 20 years ago, says Fawwaz T. Ulaby, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and vice president for research at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Indeed, two decades ago, in its 20th anniversary issue, IEEE Spectrum ran an article describing how the drive toward abstraction and computer simulation was reshaping electrical engineering [see The Engineer's Job: It Moves Toward Abstraction, Spectrum, June 1984]. Breadboards and soldering irons were out; computer simulations and other abstractions were in. If anything, the variety of things EEs do has actually increased since then. If you are an EE, you might design distribution substations for an electric utility or procure mobile communications systems for a package delivery company or plan the upgrade of sprawling computer infrastructures for a government agency. You might be a project manager who directs the work of others. You might review patents for an intellectual property firm, or analyze signal strength patterns in the coverage areas of a cellphone company. You might preside over a company as CEO, teach undergraduates at a university, or work at a venture capital or patent law firm. Maybe you work on contract software in India, green laser diodes in Japan, or inertial guidance systems in Russia. Maybe, just maybe, you design digital ormore and more improbablyanalog circuits for a living. Then there are the offshoots: field engineering, sales engineering, test engineering. Lots of folks in those fields consider themselves EEs, too. And why not? As William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), in Washington, D.C., notes, the boundaries between disciplines are a matter of human convenience, not natural law. If your aim is to define the essence of the electrical engineering profession, you might ask what all these people have in common. Perhaps what links them is the connection, however indirect, between their livelihoods and the motion of electrons (or photons). But is such a link essential to defining an EE? Not to Ulaby. Engineers tend to be adaptive machines, he says. Even though there's little resemblance between the details of what he learned in school and the work he does now, Ulaby, who is also editor of the Proceedings of the IEEE, has no doubt that he himself is an EE.
[ppiindia] Anak desa masuk peringkat satu pada ujian pencari bakat oleh NASA
Mengikuti Johannes Surya, saya merasa optimistik bahwa anak-anak SMA Indonesia juga punya peluang mendapat nomor dalam ujian NASA ini, kalau saja mereka tahu adanya ujian ini. Salam, RM --- Indian village boy tops NASA talent search (Silicon India) Wednesday, 16 February , 2005, 22:41 Narhai: A 17-year-old village boy has topped NASA's International Scientist Discovery (ISD) exam, sparking a wave of jubilation across his tiny hamlet of Narhai in Uttar Pradesh. Saurabh Singh, a senior secondary student, has bettered President APJ Abdul Kalam who finished seventh when he sat for the examinations in 1960. Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist of the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle and the first Indian woman in space, had stood 21st in the 1988 exams. After achieving the rare feat, Singh said he always dreamt to explore the outer space. I had always dreamt of going on a mission on a space craft. I knew about ISD as I was preparing for IIT-JEE. If this form would not have come I would have been giving my entrance for II-TJEE, Singh said. Born to a middle-class family, Saurabh had never heard of NASA till he began preparing for entrance to the country's prestigious IIT. Today, his parents are proud of his achievements. I was confident that my son would do well in studies. He was good in studies and I was sure of his success. He made it all possible with his own efforts, said Nirmala Singh, his mother. Encouraged by his teachers, the young boy who much like President Kalam, has a fondness for little children. He took the ISD expecting to make it to the top 10, but admits to having been surprised at topping it. Saurabh is now eagerly awaiting his call letter from NASA and hopes to meet Kalam before leaving for the US a few months from now. ANI Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Five Indian-American engineers in elite list
PTI Five Indian-American engineers in elite list By Seema Hakhu Kachru in Houston Wednesday, 16 February , 2005, 09:10 Five Indian Americans have been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional honours for an American engineer, amongst 74 new members. These notable Indian Americans honoured for their major contributions to engineering theory and practice, and for unusual accomplishment in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology are, Subhash Mahajan, Arunava Majumdar, R Shankar Nair, Raja V. Ramani and Subhash C. Singhal. Editor's Choice Official site of National Academy of Engineering The National Academies: Advisers to the Nation on Science Subhash Mahajan, Chair, department of chemical and materials engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, was honoured for advancing understanding of structure-property relationships in semiconductors, magnetic materials, and materials for light-wave communication. Arunava Majumdar, Almy and Agnes Maynard Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, was honoured for his contributions to nanoscale thermal engineering and molecular nanomechanics. R. Shankar Nair, senior vice president, Teng Associates, Chicago, was bestowed the honour for his contributions to the art and science of engineering through the design of innovative bridges and building structures. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] RI and the international community in the tsunami's aftermath
Sebenarnya soal hikmah bencana Aceh ini bukan barang baru karena sudah ada dibenak banyak orang Indonesia yang waras, tetapi karena ditulis oleh seorang Jusuf Wanandi maka saya merasa pasti bahwa kedutaan asing di Jakarta mengutip atau mengklip tulisan ini dan lantas melaporkannya ke ibukota masing-masing. Hikmah nomor satu, dapat dipastikan bahwa sikap xenophobia kita akan berkurang setelah menyaksikan bahwa pihak luar yang kita benci atau curigai ternyata dengan tulus memberikan bantuan yang effektif, sementara kita sendiri mulanya masih setengah cuwek. Sangat wajar kalau kita mengucapkan terima kasih kepada pihak-pihak yang membantu itu paling tidak secara formal; saya percaya bahwa TNI sudah melayangkan surat kepada pimpinan Armada Pasifik, serta pimpinan militer Australia, Singapura, Jepang, Malaysia, Perancis dan India. Saya setuju dengan Jusuf Wanandi, untuk menghargai mereka yang membantu kita, minimal kita tunjukkan dengan bukti bukan dengan pernyataan, bahwa bantuan asing untuk Aceh tidak kita korup. Sementara ini memang belum terdengar mereka mengeluh, tapi kita harus siap-siap. Tak kalah pentingnya, kita tidak menyia-nyiakan kesempatan emas untuk mengupayakan perdamaian antara pemerintah pusat dengan GAM. Pihak GAM telah benar-benar tersudut karena basis mereka didaerah pantai porak poranda. Saya percaya, simpati (atau rasa takut) rakyat Aceh sekarang tidak pada GAM. Dalam keadaan ini, mengumumkan kematian orang GAM saya rasa bukan psy-war yang baik. Berkaitan dengan ini, saya menghargai berita bahwa Presiden menginginkan pimpinan TNI mendatang adalah seorang perwira intelektual. Salam, RM --- February 15, 2005 RI and the international community in the tsunami's aftermath Jusuf Wanandi, Jakarta One striking thing that the tsunami has shown to Indonesians is the deep and broad support, solidarity and empathy of the International Community towards Indonesia in overcoming this horrific natural disaster. There are no other ulterior motives than humanitarian solidarity and empathy. The gut reaction by xenophobic Indonesians about the motives and vested interests of the foreign community, ranging from intervention in Indonesian domestic affairs to espionage, is simply laughable. There has never been such an outpouring of empathy and solidarity before towards Indonesia and our sufferings. We should appreciate that, and also show our gratitude since we do need all the assistance and help, especially for a part of Indonesia that has suffered so much for so long. Without international help and assistance, many more Acehnese would have died in the aftermath of the tsunami, due to hunger, sickness and deprivation. Our gratitude should also be shown by how we handle all the financial aid and assistance for reconstruction. That means that we should be able to organize it well and with a minimum of waste and corruption as possible. Foreign donors are most worried about this, and understandably so. If we fail to do so, aid will no longer be forthcoming to fulfill all the needs. This will not only affect the reconstruction of Aceh, but more devastatingly will severely affect our relationship with the outside world in the future. The role and responsibility of the local government in the reconstruction of Aceh, with the assistance and supervision from Jakarta, will be a heavy one because they must work efficiently and be free from all corruption. It is fine to have outside accounting firms such as Ernst and Young to do the oversight, but this might not be adequate. As indicated in the master plan prepared by the central government in consultation with local governments and local leaders, reconstruction efforts by donors could be undertaken directly so long as they are in accordance with the plan and in cooperation with national and local partners. If the Indonesian government and the elite do not want to be scrutinized, they should do it by themselves and with their own money, as India and Thailand have decided to do. That is acceptable and honorable. But you cannot have your cake and eat it too! Another important issue is the political solution to the conflict between the Indonesian government and GAM (the Free Aceh Movement). A lot of expectations have been created by the tsunami that a political solution would be sought, since GAM is also facing a lot of challenges and has been weakened due to the military operations and the disruption in their logistics lines and support from the coastal areas, which have been hit and damaged by the tsunami. The international community has also encouraged both sides to work out a political solution, and the civil society in Jakarta and many leaders in Aceh are also expecting that. In the meantime, the reality is that GAM only seems to want a ceasefire, perhaps long enough to recuperate from the setback, while the government would like to find a final political solution based on the full implementation of the Special Autonomy
[ppiindia] Google search: Indian whiz kids
Google search: Indian whiz kids New Delhi, Feb 10 Google Inc, the worlds most-used web search engine, is offering prize money of $36,550 in a competition for software coders. The purpose behind the contest is to find staff for its research and development centre in Bangalore. Google is looking for engineers with the programming skill to rewrite the worlds information infrastructure, the Mountain View, California-based company said on its website. The Google India Code Jam 2005 is one way we hope to find them. The winner will get Rs 3 lakh ($6,852). Google and other Indian and overseas software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle are devising ways to attract software writers as competition for workers spurs wage gains in India. Indias software companies gave the countrys biggest pay increases last year, raising salaries by an average 15%, according to a survey by Hewitt Associates Inc. The competition, which will test the candidates skills in writing software and testing software codes, will be open to residents of India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand and The Maldives. Indias colleges and universities will graduate as many as 184,347 engineers in the year to March 31, according to Indias National Association of Software and Service Companies. Still, demand for talented and experienced software programmers is outstripping supply. The top 50 finishers of India Code Jam 2005 will travel to Bangalore for the final round and will receive prize money and possible offers to join Googles research centre in Bangalore. Google also has an engineering centre in Hyderabad. Bloomberg URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=8227 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Exportation of high tech jobs to India worries Bingaman
New Mexico Business Weekly - February 7, 2005 http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2005/02/07/story7.html EXCLUSIVE REPORTS From the February 4, 2005 print edition Exportation of high tech jobs to India worries Bingaman Dennis Domrzalski NMBW Staff U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, was alarmed as he stared at the computer screen in the research and development center in Bangalore, India. The scientists and technicians were typing in orders and directions to ensure that the power plant they were controlling was operating correctly, efficiently and safely. Bingaman wasn't concerned that the technicians would type incorrect orders into the computer. He knew that wouldn't happen. What concerned him was that the plant the engineers in Bangalore were operating via computer was in the state of Indiana, and that such high-tech jobs that the U.S. once thought it owned were being outsourced to India. In fact, during a recent, nine-day fact-finding trip to India, Bingaman learned what many Americans don't know and might not want to hear: That it isn't just low-tech, call center types of jobs that are being outsourced to India and other countries, and that the U.S. might be losing its high-tech competitive edge. People who think that the outsourcing of work to India involves just low-end jobs are very confused, Bingaman says. There is a lot of world-class research going on there in the areas of biotech and information technologies. It surprised me to see the investments that companies are making in India and of the cutting-edge work they are doing there. Bingaman saw the Indiana power plant being operated from General Electric's John F. Welch Technology Center in Bangalore, GE's first and largest multidisciplinary research and development center outside of the U.S. The facility employs more than 1,600 scientists who work on things like electromagnetic analytics, composite material design, molecular modeling, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and computational fluid dynamics. Later in the trip, Bingaman visited Intel Corp.'s Intel India Design Center in Bangalore, a 200,000-square-foot research and development facility that employs 900 and includes the most Intel divisions outside of the U.S. Since its inception in 1999, the Design Center has grown quickly because of India's information technology and engineering talent pool, the facility's Web site says. Bingaman doesn't begrudge India the facilities and the high-tech work; he just wishes that Americans will realize that they are now competing with the rest of the world, even for high-tech research and development jobs that were once considered America's exclusive domain, and that the nation must work harder to maintain its competitive edge. To do that, the U.S. must improve its educational system and must invest in a more coordinated way in high-tech research and development, Bingaman says. So, Bingaman says he will reintroduce in Congress a bill that will authorize the U.S. Department of Commerce to spend more than $1 billion in the next five years in loans and grants for the construction of 20 new, world-class science parks. The benefits of science parks are clear. In Albuquerque, the six-year-old Sandia Science and Technology Park is now home to 19 entities that employ a combined total of nearly 1,000, Bingaman says. These high-wage jobs wouldn't exist in our state without the science park, and I believe that this is just the beginning. The bill also would provide tax incentives for businesses looking to locate in science parks, including accelerated capital depreciation, a tax credit for employees trained at local universities and vocational institutions, and a tax credit for companies that invest in universities and laboratories performing research. Bingman says Americans have no idea how much competition there is in the world for high-tech jobs. He found out while visiting the Infosys Technologies LTD facility in Bangalore. The company had wanted to hire software engineers and other information technology specialists in 2004. The company's advertisements generated 1.2 million applications in India. It tested 300,000 of those people, interviewed 30,000 of them and wound up hiring 10,000. I think there needs to be a wakeup call as to what is going on, Bingaman says. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 348-8322 © 2005 American City Business Journal Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc
[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Clever cars taking to the road
** Mailing List Nasional Indonesia PPI India Forum ** Clever cars taking to the road Dot.life - where technology meets life, every Monday By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website You could fly to the moon in almost any modern car... in theory at least. The amount of processing power in the average saloon far outweighs that of the Apollo 11 guidance computer that helped put men on the moon. On average a modern car will have more than 20 separate processing units onboard - each one of which could leave the Apollo computer standing. Increasingly cars are setting the pace when it comes to the amount of computer power and gadgets crammed into a small space. It used to be only top of the line models that had all the extras, such as video players, that turned a car ride from a chore into a sojourn in a mobile living room. And until recently adding such extras to a standard vehicle meant a premium on the drive-away price. But back-seat entertainment consoles, navigation systems and wireless technologies are going to be offered as standard equipment by almost 75% of the 38 car makers questioned by the US Telematics Research Group (TRG). Rear-seat entertainment, which includes DVD players, games consoles and music systems, are becoming increasingly standard on high-volume vehicles in the US, says said Phil Magney, principal analyst at TRG. It's a great way for them to make a bigger margin. Driving force This search for extra cash is perhaps no surprise given that the average margin on a new car sold today could be just a couple of hundred pounds. But car makers are not just looking to rear-seat gadgets to wring a little more cash from consumers, instead they want to make more sensible use of that latent computer power. It's cheaper for the car manufacturer's to give you the full, top-of-line, deluxe engine and cut it back a bit with software, says Martin Illsley, director of Accenture's research labs. Instead of different models having different engines it would be the engine management software that determines how each vehicle performs. Certainly, says Mr Illsley, car rental firms are interested in the idea of vehicles whose performance can be tailored to how much people pay. Connect this engine management system up to a wireless communication system and with the swipe of a credit card you could turn your trundling rental into a rumbling roadster. Parents, says Mr Illsley, might be interested in a vehicle that they can set the upper speed for, especially if they have teenage sons who are eager to get behind the wheel. The combination of engine management system and wireless communications also gives governments a way to enforce speed limits that no-one can escape. Mr Illsley said all the technology to do this is available now. For instance, the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds is currently in the middle of a six-year project to evaluate an intelligent speed adaptation system that keep cars to a prescribed speed limit. Car hackers But, says Mr Illsley, once you have road signs that can control an engine and slow a car down it's no longer a technical issue, it's a social issue about how we want to apply the rules. General Motors uses a combination of engine management, wireless communications and GPS for its OnStar system that gives roadside assistance, and other services, to customers. OnStar will be standard in GM vehicles by 2007 in the US. Given that engine management systems are now ubiquitous it is no surprise that there are kits and software available that let those interested or skilled enough connect up a computer to their car and do a bit of hacking. Increasingly mechanics are as happy to use a laptop to diagnose a car's problems as they are a socket set. Derek Charters, senior consultant of advanced powertrain projects at the Motor Industry Research Association, says drivers are becoming passengers as cars take on more of the hard work. Although the person behind the steering wheel feels like they are in control, actually the car will be doing lots of things without any prompting. For instance, says Mr Charters, soon after ignition, cars manage acceleration to ensure that a dirty cloud of exhaust does not belch from the tail-pipe in breach of emission regulations. This means that if you feel a bit lead-footed in the mornings, your car will compensate. He says there are smart braking systems that watch the pattern of movements on the foot pedals and react faster if it senses a car is about to make an emergency stop. The point about all these systems is that they operate without the driver's knowing. Increasingly, says Mr Charters, it is ergonomics and the time it takes to educate drivers about innovations in cars that hold back the pace of change. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4222357.stm Published: 2005/01/31 13:07:45 GMT © BBC MMV
[nasional_list] [ppiindia] IT + cheap labour = Indian solution
** Mailing List Nasional Indonesia PPI India Forum ** Location: http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/national/stories/116451.html. IT plus cheap labour equals Indian solution What do you do when a store has run out of what you are looking for? You settle for an alternative or the store just loses your custom. American retailers lose 3.1 per cent of their sales through such 'stock out', the US commerce department has calculated. Sudhir Chowdhary, February 04, 2005 What do you do when a store has run out of what you are looking for? You settle for an alternative or the store just loses your custom. American retailers lose 3.1 per cent of their sales through such 'stock out', the US commerce department has calculated. An obvious solution to this is on-line retailing - you order on the net. A via media increasingly adopted in the west IT kiosks in stores from where you can order on-line what you may not find in the store. In India where either of the developed country options are barely used, a third one has been traditionally deployed by the typical retailer. He asks you to wait while his errand boy gets your item from a nearby competitor. Enter Witco which bills itself as the largest Indian retail chain in travel ware or plain old luggage. Its 16 stores in Chennai, Bangalore and Coimbatore are equipped with a networked online billing and inventory viewing solution which allows the chain to locate what a customer is looking for in any of its stores in a city and invoice it. This combination of IT and low Indian logistical costs enables stores in the chain to minimise loss of business through 'stock out'. The solution Retail Pro, owned by a US firm called Island Pacific, has been installed by Bangalore based Integrated Retail Management Consulting which serves retailers. Bikash Kumar, managing director of IRMC says Witco's is the first such real time solution deployed in India in brick and mortar (as opposed to on-line) retail which allows a chain visibility of stocks across stores through an IT solution and enables it to minimise sales loss owing to stock out. The solution, a part of the retail supply chain management genre, comes in two layers. First is the point of sale solution which includes billing, customer relationship management, cash till balancing, handling of promotions (the screen tells the billing clerk that a stroller will get the buyer a free tiffin box) and staff scheduling (have more staff on weekends). The next layer allows inventory viewing across stores (yes, we will get you're the 20 inch suitcase from our Cunningham Road store, the Indiranagar buyer is told). Kumar explains that for this to happen you need the solution in the first place, cheap connectivity and the customer's (chain owner) willingness to make the IT investment. The current installation cost is around Rs 1 lakh per store and Rs 2,000 per month per store for a broadband connection. The good news is that boradband costs are going down and naturally, the cost per store will go down as the number of stores goes up. Even a 1 percentage point in sales loss avoided will pay for the investment, says Kumar. IRMC, constituted as a private limited company, has been offering consultancy in the retail space for eight years now. It currently has a topline of $ 1million and has been profitable for all of its eight years of existence. It operates in India, the Philippines, Thailand and the UAE, the last two being emerging markets for it. The 28 professionals who man the business are specialists in various industry verticals with focus on retail and offer services in strategy, operations (defining standards and processes), deployment of technology (optimisation) and training. Among its customers (in the broad retailing space) are Ebony Retail, Yamini (home improvement), Liberty, THS and Wills Lifestyle. Source: Business Standard Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to:
[ppiindia] Missing the bus
Missing the bus Business Standard / New Delhi February 02, 2005 Finance Minister P Chidambaram has aired his concerns over Indias jobless growth. But when India got a 10-year notice to create enormous employment opportunities in one of its key manufacturing sectors, successive governments were found wanting in their efforts. This is tragic because if there ever was an industry which widely contributed to the economic growth in many Asian economies, it was the textile and clothing industry. It still does: the sector commands almost 25 per cent of Chinas merchandise exports, around 30 per cent of Indias exports, and about 80 per cent of Bangladeshs. It was obvious that the end of the multi-fibre arrangement from January 1 this year would offer almost limitless opportunities for developing countries like India. Since it has been known for almost a decade that that was going to happen, most developing countries have been making structural changes in their domestic industries to prepare for the open competition that would emerge. India could have been the winner in the game, but apart from some tinkering with the tax regime and de-reservation in the garment sector, India has been tardy off the blocks on all other frontslabour law reforms, power availability, and tariffs, scale of manufacturing operations, etc. The textiles ministry on its part waited till just a fortnight before the MFA was scheduled to end to announce its Vision 2010, which envisages Indias textile economy growing from the current $37 billion to $85 billion. The paper, however, had no concrete roadmap on how to get to the declared end-point. India simply cant afford to miss the bus, considering the blue-collar job opportunities that the sector can provide. Employment in the organised garment industry is estimated to be 331,000 and the number for the informal sector 4.5 million. Given the impetus that could come from the removal of quotas, the government itself has estimated the creation of another 12 million jobs in the sector by 2010. But the absence of a coordinated game plan for the industry is only too obvious. Indias textile industry (or rather its 10 or 12 leading leading companies) has invested $11 billion in the last four years in capacity expansion, against $35 billion in China. While the average turnover of Chinas top 10 textile firms is $600 million, the average turnover of the top 10 firms in India is half that. Size is turning out to be of crucial importance. Large buyers in the West have already indicated that they want to place orders with only those companies that have the capacity to execute large orders. That China is miles ahead of India becomes all the more evident when one considers that China has set up around 150 professional colleges and 120 research institutions exclusively for the apparel industry. The government should now make up for lost time by setting up a powerful steering group to oversee investment and coordinated action to realise the textile industrys potential for growth and employment. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Medical tourism in India may be worth US$2.3 billion bt 20012
Medical tourism in India may be worth US$2.3 billion by 2012 PTI February 02, 2005 With an increasing number of foreign patients flocking to India for treatment, the country could earn Rs 100 billion (US$2.3 billion) through 'Medical Tourism' by 2012, a study has indicated. According to the study conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry and McKinsey consultants, last year some 150,000 foreigners visited India for treatment, with the number rising by 15 per cent a year. With a large pool of highly trained doctors and low treatment cost, healthcare aims to replicate the Indian software sector's success. Built on acres of land the new sleek medical centres of excellence offer developed world treatment at developing world prices, a report in 'The Guardian' said Tuesday. A number of private hospitals also offer packages designed to attract wealthy foreign patients, with airport-to-hospital bed car service, in-room Internet access and private chefs. Another trend is to combine surgery in India with a yoga holiday or trip to the world famous Taj Mahal. The report said it is not just cost but competency that is India's selling point. Naresh Trehan, who worked as a heart surgeon in Manhattan but returned to start Escorts hospital group in India, was quoted as saying that his hospital in Delhi completed 4,200 heart operations last year. That is more than anyone else in the world. The death rate for coronary bypass patients at Escorts is 0.8 per cent and the infection rate is 0.3 per cent. This is well below the first-world averages of 1.2 per cent for the death rate and 1 per cent for infections, he said Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] The new gospel of chip design
The new gospel of chip design Semiconductor makers are embracing an open-source approach that could revolutionize their business. January 31, 2005 Print Issue During the last weekend of October more than 600 representatives from nearly every corner of the semiconductor industry gathered at an invitation-only meeting at a New Delhi hotel to witness the birth of what is being described as the Linux of the electronics industry or the peoples chip. The global initiative could shake the sector to its core, creating a lucrative new line of business that would help extend the lifetime of chips and allow a broader set of applications to be placed on a single chip. Manufacturers would benefit since the initiative aims to help cut costs and design times for the producers of everything from consumer electronics to networking and communications equipment. Consumers stand to win, too, because more flexibility in chip design allows functionality to be added to an existing product on the fly, meaning it would no longer be necessary to buy a hardware add-on or a whole new product to benefit from the latest feature. The idea is to pool software and hardware knowledge to solve one of the electronics industrys greatest challenges: finding an economic way to power and reconfigure consumer electronics devices like game consoles and home media players in a fast-paced market. Asians, Americans, and Europeans attending the New Delhi event shimmied to Indian music by torch light at night, donning leis of flowers over their suits and ties to celebrate. But achieving their goal will entail more than getting industry players to dance together; it will require a radical new approach to system design and implementation. Whoever does this well first will establish a true killer product and business, rivaling Intels success in the earlier microprocessor wave, says New Delhi conference speaker Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, a semiconductor consultancy. The bet is that the global movement launched in New Delhi called generalized open-source programmable logic (GOSPL) will allow more than one company to win. If it works this initiative could become the new digital DNA of the electronics industry, adding programmability to flexible logic devices called field programmable gateway arrays (FPGAs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and application-specific standard products (ASSPs), which combined represent a $100-billion market. Seeding the effort At the New Delhi conference STMicroelectronics seeded the effort by promising to releasefor freea million lines of its code for creating FPGAs, which sources say amounts to an investment of $50 million. ST declined to comment for this article, since GOSPL is still under wraps, with another conference scheduled for March 31 and April 1 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. But Geneva, Switzerland-based ST is only one of many players expected to participate in GOSPL. EE Times, a trade publication, recently polled its readers on whether they would be likely to adopt an open-source platform for programmable logic. Just over 78 percent of the 222 respondents said yes. Among those responding to the online poll was Tsugio Makimoto, a respected industry figure who acts as a corporate advisor for Sony Corporations semiconductor business. There is a possibility that a new wave will be created by GOSPL in programmable technology, once it is properly implemented, Mr. Makimoto, who spoke at the New Delhi conference, wrote in response to the online poll. Using the Linux model as a parallel, the vision is that by freely opening up the source code to industry and academia the global GOSPL movement will add to and improve the available code and eventually mirror the 15 to 20 million lines of code developed by Xilinx and Altera, the two U.S. companies with proprietary products that currently dominate the FPGA market, one of the fastest-growing areas of the semiconductor sector. Its a real gutsy play, says Robert Jelski, venture capital firm 3is London-based global sector head of electronics, semiconductors, and advanced technologies. What it does is throw a nice-sized stone into the quiet pond of the FPGA market dominated by Xilinx and Altera. Now we have to see which way the ripples go. While Xilinx is dismissive of GOSPL, the movement could create a major ripple effect, according to dozens of interviews with semiconductor executives, venture capitalists, and academics. It could commoditize the FPGA market, creating another environment for programming Xilinx and Alteras chips, forcing them to become silicon providers and putting downward pressure on prices, says Bruce Huber, London-based managing director of Broadviews European investment banking. But the overall impact is much bigger: By extending the lifetime of a chip and allowing a broader set of applications on a single chip,
[ppiindia] The mathematical marvel that was India
(India Currents) The Mathematical Marvel that was India BHAIYYA JOSHI, Feb 19, 2004 THE ORIGIN OF MATHEMATICS by V. Lakshmikantham and S. Leela. University Press of America, Inc., Lanham, MD. Hardcover. 92 pages. www.univpress.com. Long before the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Mayans, and the Sumerians began civiliz-ing their worlds, mathematics had flourished in India. Does this thesis seem incredible? No, this is not a rhetorical proclamation of some overzealous Indian chauvinists. Two India-born American university professors, V. Lakshmikantham and S. Leela, have documented extensive new data on ancient Indian mathematics and on the bankruptcy of the theory of Aryan invasion of India from the northern-central plains in Asia. Along with their own meticulous research of original Sanskrit texts and related vernacular literature, the authors draw upon the works of a few European scholars. With the publication of this amazing monograph on Indian mathematics, the cloud of ignorance and deliberate misrepresentation of the many achievements in ancient India is beginning to lift. The authors remind us that the history taught even in Indian schools, colleges, and universities, is still filled with distortions that originated with the founding of the Indian Historical Society (IHS) in the late 18th-century Calcutta, overwhelmed by the prevailing colonial mentality. These fabrications, passed on as the modern historiography for India, were officially inaugurated with the willful mix-up of Chandragupta Maurya (reigned 15341500 B.C.) and Chandragupta (327320 B.C.) of the Gupta dynasty, by making the former a coeval of Alexander the Great, and by erasing the latters reference altogether. Thanks to the inventive and resourceful William Jones of the IHS, the entire chronology of events was summarily shortened by more than 1,200 years. Consequently, the times of ancient astronomers and mathematicians had to be moved into the Christian era. Another ambitious and influential Indologist, Max Mueller, concocted the age of the Rig Veda to be 1200 B.C., with the stipulation it was written by nomadic Aryans (riding on horseback, presumably with a mobile library). Actually, the Rig Veda was compiled well before 3000 B.C. Contrary to popular belief, Gautam Buddha lived during 18871807 B.C., and the short but remarkable lifes mission of Adi Shankaracharya was accomplished between 509 and 477 B.C. The first known mathematician and astronomer from India, Aryabhatta, was born in 2765 B.C., and the Sulvasutras, heralding the discipline of geometric algebra, were completed before his birth. But in the occidental scholarship, Aryabhattas year of birth was changed to 476 C.E. with the misreading of his epoch-making Aryabhatteeum. These were not accidental errors, but were the result of a carefully planned alteration of manuscript copies. Notice that the four Vedas preceded the Sulvasutras. Note also none of the Vedangas, the Upangas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads could possibly have been written later than the second millennium B.C. So much for the objectivity claimed by and attributed to a few Western historians, which has been mindlessly emulated and replicated by a majority of Indian academicians even after the British had ceased to be the rulers of India. Lakshmikantham and Leela go beyond merely complaining about the Eurocentric historical indifference toward the Indian documented treasures. For example, we are told the Gregory-Leibniz series for p/4 was first discovered by Nilkanta and was clearly stated in his Tantra Sangraha (1500 C.E.). The so-called Pythagorass Theorem (sixth century B.C.) and its converse was known to the Indian sages of the third millennium B.C. The general principle of trigonometric functions was enunciated in the Surya Siddhanta, preceding even the Sulvasutras period. Brahmagupta (30 B.C.) solved the second order indeterminate equation Nx2 + 1 = y2, and foresaw Newtons Law of Gravitation. The authors also demonstrate that Bhaskara II (486 C.E.) had the expertise in the area that was re-invented and, of course, systematized as Differential Calculus by Newton and Leibniz in the late 17th century. The Greeks got their plane geometry from India and their language was derived from Sanskrit. Incidentally, the Greeks themselves had supposed or conjectured, that they had received their intellectual capital, especially in geometry either from China or from India. Naturally, the obvious conclusion one reaches is that the beginnings of world culture, as far as astronomy and mathematics are concerned, were not around the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, but in the Sapta Sindhu of the Indus valley. This is a fact in Sanskrit; it may be fiction in English. In modern times, its not fashionable to pay tributes to the old country while enjoying the riches of the (adopted) new country. But it should be recorded that the universities of Nagarjuna, Nalanda, Takshasila, Tamraparni,
[ppiindia] Stress causing psychological problems in IT professionals
Date:31/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/31/stories/2005013102420500.htm Karnataka Stress causing psychological problems in IT professionals By Our Staff Reporter BANGALORE, JAN. 30. Work-related concerns such as severe competition, unrealistic expectations from superiors, being achievement oriented, lack of job security, and the inability to accept failure have led to a host of psychological problems among software professionals. The enormity of the situation came to light at a session on Psychological concerns as occupational hazards among computer professionals by Brunda Amruthraj, consulting clinical psychologist at Zeidgeist, here on Saturday. The session is part of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which was inaugurated at the National Institute for Mental Health and Neurosciences on Friday. According to Dr. Amruthraj, people working in the field of information technology (IT) go through a lot of anxiety, depression and loneliness because of their work environment and often exhibit feelings of inadequacy, lowered self-esteem and dissatisfaction. This reflects itself in the form of social, marital and sexual problems. Coping methods Apart from working with the individual to treat the psychological concerns of IT professionals, it is also necessary to address the management of a company. Some of the methods that can be used to help professionals overcome stress and help them lead a balanced life are relaxation training, cognitive therapy, and assertiveness training, Dr. Amruthraj added. According to Padmini Prasad, Director of the Institute of Sexual Medicine, 40 per cent of the couples visiting infertility clinics are computer professionals. Long working hours, stress and pressure at work, night shifts, and lack of sleep can lead to various sexual problems, she said. Many of the couples who come to infertility clinics for artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilisation and for other associated reproductive techniques are IT professionals, Ms. Prasad added. © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] e-governance in India
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050131/egovernance01.shtml Feature e-governance in India The Indian government is using IT to facilitate governance. The IT industry is doing its bit to help as public-private partnerships become the order of the day, says Atanu Kumar Das The last couple of years have seen e-governance drop roots in India. IT enables the delivery of government services as it caters to a large base of people across different segments and geographical locations. The effective use of IT services in government administration can greatly enhance existing efficiencies, drive down communication costs, and increase transparency in the functioning of various departments. It also gives citizens easy access to tangible benefits, be it through simple applications such as online form filling, bill sourcing and payments, or complex applications like distance education and tele-medicine. According to Sudhir Narang, vice-president, government service provider business, Cisco Systems, India SAARC, Almost every state has an IT policy in place with the aim of evolving itself from being an IT-aware to an IT-enabled government. State governments are fast recognising the benefits of an IT-enabled working environment. As of now, e-governance projects are being run only in certain departments. This approach will gradually be extended to all departments eventually, leveraging the power of IT to streamline administrative functions and increase transparency. Shivaji Chatterjee, senior director, sales and marketing, Hughes Escorts Communications says, IT has a vital role to play in all transactions that the government undertakes. It helps the government cut red-tapism, avoid corruption, and reach citizens directly. Chatterjee points out that such initiatives will help citizens learn about the various policies, processes and help-lines that the government offers. The governments of Singapore, Canada and Switzerland have implemented such portals, and set the benchmarks in this regard. With the help of IT, the government can process citizen to government transactions such as the filing of tax returns, death and birth registration, land records, etc. Adds Rajiv Kaul, managing director, Microsoft India, A strong technology infrastructure can help central and state governments deliver a comprehensive set of services to citizens. Microsoft is working with several state governments to help evolve a long-term technology blueprint for IT infrastructure. It is working with various departments of the central government, and has undertaken several projects and initiatives with state governments as well. Manoj Kunkalienkar, executive director, ICICI Infotech says, As far as e-governance projects are concerned, the government is gradually changing its role from an 'implementer' to a 'facilitator and regulator.' It will encourage private sector participation in e-governance projects, so more projects in e-governance based upon the public private participation (PPP) model should come about in the near future. Leading by example As far as e-governance projects are concerned, the government is gradually changing its role from an implementer to a facilitator and regulator Agriculture, power and education are fields where the government makes use of IT to provide services to citizens. The revenue collection department is in the process of using information technology for applications such as income tax. Some notable examples: A Kolkata-based hospital leverages e-governance for tropical medicine. The hospital employs tele-medicine to assist doctors in rural areas as they analyse and treat panchayat residents. This method does away with patients having to travel all the way to Kolkata for treatment. Patients feel better being examined in their own village. Using tele-medicine, the hospital is able to dispense its expertise to far-flung districts. The patient goes for an examination to the local doctor in the panchayat. This doctor is in contact via a voice data connection with a doctor at the hospital for tropical medicine. Thus, the panchayat resident gets the benefit of being treated by both a local doctor and a hospital specialist. The Karnataka governments Bhoomi project has led to the computerisation of the centuries-old system of handwritten rural land records. Through it, the revenue department has done away with the corruption-ridden system that involved bribing village accountants to procure land records; records of right, tenancy and cultivation certificates (RTCs). The project is expected to benefit seventy lakh villagers in 30,000 villages. A farmer can walk into the nearest taluk office and ask for a computer printout of his land record certificate for Rs 15. He can also check details of land records on a touch-screen kiosk by inserting a two-rupee coin. These kiosks, installed at the taluk office, will provide the public with a convenient interface to the land records centre. In Gujarat
[ppiindia] China no threat to India
McKINSEYs STUDY ON IT CAPABILITY China no threat to India China may have stolen a march on India in manufacturing but it will take years before it can catch up with its neighbour in information technology (IT), says a study conducted by consultancy firm Mckinsey, reports PTI from New Delhi. It will be many years before China poses a threat to India in IT. For starters, the Chinese must consolidate their highly fragmented industry to gain the size and expertise needed to capture large international projects. Currently, there is little movement in this direction, the study said. Shortcomings in the structure of China's IT industry prevent it from taking full advantage of fast increasing number of engineering graduates, software-applications professionals and English-speaking graduates, the study said. Since 1997, annual revenues in software and IT services have risen 42 percent a year, on average, reaching $6.8 billion in 2003. Although revenues from IT services are rising, they are barely half of Indias $12.7 billion a year. Growth in China is driven by domestic demand; most customers are small and midsize Chinese enterprises that want their software customized to their own needs. Chinas nascent foreign software-outsourcing business accounts for just 10 per cent of the industrys total revenue, compared with around 70 per cent for India. Japanese customers, who seek mostly low-value application-development contracts rather than more lucrative ones for design, supply about 65 per cent of this sectors income. Despite lower costs, operating margins in Chinese software-services companies average only seven per cent, compared with 11 per cent at similar companies around the world, because many projects are below optimal scale, suppliers often compete on price and collecting payments can be problematic. To compete effectively in global outsourcing, Chinas software industry must consolidate. The top 10 IT-services companies have only about a 20 per cent share of the market, compared with 45 per cent commanded by India's top 10, McKinsey said. China has about 8,000 software services providers, and almost three-quarters of them have fewer than 50 employees. No company has emerged from this crowded pack; indeed, only five have more than 2,000 employees. India, on the other hand, has fewer than 3,000 software services companies. Of these, at least 15 have more than 2,000 workers, and some, including Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro Technologies have garnered international recognition and a global clientele, the consultancy firm said. Without adequate scale, Chinese players are unlikely to attract top international clients. The study shows that only about 12 per cent of Chinese software services providers see mergers, acquisitions, and alliances as a priority. Managers in China have little MA experience, and although the culture tends to favour organic growth, relying on it to counter new competitors is not realistic. Meanwhile, several Indian companies are considering acquisitions of Chinese firms to expand their operations. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] HAL to showcase advanced helicopter at air show
HAL to showcase advanced aircraft at Aero show Monday, January 31, 2005 BANGALORE: Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) will be showcasing its flagship product Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and the Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT) at the Aero India exposition here next month. The defence public sector behemoth will be demonstrating the capabilities of the multi-role, multi-mission helicopters christened Dhruv with static and flying display for the sales pitch at the international aero show from Feb 9-13. After many years, we have products to promote and market at the Aero India to global customers. Besides showcasing our structures and services, we will be hard-selling the ALH and IJT, which is awaiting early certification process, HAL chairman Ashok K. Baweja said. Ever since HAL commenced series production of Dhruv in 2002 for supplying its variants to the three Indian defence services and Coast Guard, it has been displaying the product at the international aero shows in Singapore, Paris, Faranborough (UK) and at the ongoing Abu Dhabi event for sales promotion. Till 2004, HAL has delivered about 40 ALHs to the defence services and Coast Guard. It has an order to supply 50 more choppers of military version to the Indian Air Force, Navy and Army at an estimated cost of Rs.250 million ($5 million) each. siliconindia Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Horticulture Dept to popularize Israeli technology
Date:31/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/31/stories/2005013107050400.htm Karnataka Horticulture Dept. to popularise Israeli technology By Our Correspondent KOLAR, JAN. 30. The Horticulture Department has decided to popularise Israeli technology among farmers to enhance the yield. Demonstrations have been planned in nine backward taluks of the State. Under the programme, demonstrations on drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting etc., will be conducted in 200 acres of land in each taluk, and if found successful it will be extended to other parts of the State. The department also plans to set up a mini biotech centre in Belgaum at an estimated cost of Rs. 2.5 crores, and the Government has already sanctioned Rs. 50 lakhs, the sources said. HOPCOMS centres are likely to be set up in all taluks and Safal marketing centres established at important places in the State to help farmers sell their produce. The department plans to set up small farmers service centres as in Maharashtra and Kerala and a proposal has been sent to the National Horticulture Mission seeking Rs. 200 crores for the project. R. Srinivas, Horticulture Minister, told The Hindu that he had sought funds from the Union Food Ministry for research and development programmes. The Minister said he had also sought the Union Government's assistance for setting up more cold storages. Vacant posts More than 1,200 of the sanctioned 4,950 posts in the 129Horticulture Department are vacant. According to the sources only 118 of the 261 Group A officers' posts have been filled and only 481 of the 635 posts in Group B have been filled. Besides, over 770 Group C and Group D posts are vacant. One hundred and thirty two posts of senior Assistant Horticulture Director are vacant which has affected research and development programmes, the sources said. © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] India to train Chinese tech professionals
The Economic Times Online Printed from economictimes.indiatimes.com News By Industry Infotech ITeS India to train Chinese tech pros ANIL K JOSEPH PTI[ THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2005 11:11:09 AM] BEIJING: A Pune-based company has inked an agreement with the Shenzhen government to train some 1,000 Chinese software project managers in India with a view to transform the booming southern Chinese city into the outsourcing capital of the Communist giant. Some 1,000 software project managers will undergo training in India in a government scheme to turn Shenzhen city into China's top software outsourcing destination, director of the administration office of Shenzhen Software Park, Zeng Guozhong said. The agreement was signed on Wednesday after several months of negotiations with Zensar Technologies, a RPG Group company, to set up the Centre of Excellence (CoE), an organisation to provide courses and work experience for China's software project managers, Zeng was quoted as saying by China Daily on Thursday. The Chinese trainees will learn etiquette, communication and negotiation skills as well as international standards for the software outsourcing industry for three months, Zeng, whose office selects candidates for the programme, said. They will then go to work for Zensar in dealing with US and European clients for their remaining time in India before their six month training period ends, he added. Zeng admitted that Chinese software companies did not have the wherewithal to win major outsourcing deals from Western countries. The companies are frustrated, not because they can't win deals, but because they're not sure how to run the projects successfully. The lack of qualified project managers is becoming a serious problem, Zeng said. More industry insiders, quoted by China Daily say they are starting to believe China will become India's strongest competitor, which currently has a 90 per cent share of the US and European software outsourcing business. A survey by AT Kearney, a leading consultancy company, suggested that China should improve management skills as well as better language proficiency and education to grab a larger stake in the outsourcing market. To take a bigger slice of the industry, the local government has also pledged to allocate more funds to improve infrastructure. The municipal government and district government will invest at least 600 million yuan ($72.5 million) this year to improve the infrastructure and working conditions of local software companies, Shenzhen vice mayor Liu Yingli said. The project is significant since the human factor is becoming more and more crucial to the development of the city's software outsourcing industry, Zeng said. Without sufficient project managers with international experience, the software companies will become less attractive to foreign clients, especially from Europe, the United States and Japan, he said. The Shenzhen government will subsidise 1,000 such trainees over three years with 15,000 yuan ($1,812) each, or about one-third of the total training fee. The rest will be paid by the companies and individuals. The scheme may be applied nationwide in three years, Zeng said. The software outsourcing business has grown rapidly in this IT-driven southern boom town riding a wave of foreign companies selecting China as an IT offshore (ITO) and business offshore destination (BPO). It's estimated that the software outsourcing business generated an output of about $100 million in 2004, doubling the figure of a 2003, said Zeng, predicting that annual growth could be maintained at about 50 per cent. According to Gartner Group, China's ITO business is expected to grow at 44 per cent annually, potentially becoming a $2.5 billion industry by 2008. ©Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/4F6XtA/_WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL
[ppiindia] Why not a hundred IITs?
Date:31/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/edu/2005/01/31/stories/2005013100190500.htm Why not a hundred IITs? Online testing is the ultimate solution wherein a student can take the test at any time of his choice. Testing times for students A PRIME reason often put forth for the sorry state of technical education and entrance tests for professional courses is the scarcity of seats. For nearly 2,000 IIT seats, two lakh students take the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination). Only one out of 100 is selected. Thus, JEE is a rejection process and not a selection process. The 18 NITs (National Institutes of Technology) put together may have about 7000 seats. Thus, seats in premier technical institutes total around 10,000 for which nearly four lakh students aspire. Among the two lakh taking the JEE, at least the top 10 per cent (20,000) deserve to be in IIT-like institutes. This scarcity has created cut-throat competition. The lure of the IIT is such that a large number of students take the JEE more than once and recent data shows that more than 30 per cent of selected candidates succeed in the second attempt. Thus, the average age of first year students has gone up. As per AICTE (All-India Council for Technical Education) statistics, nearly three lakh engineering seats are available in the country in about 1,200 colleges. In many colleges, there are unfilled branches. Students naturally prefer well-established institutions where seats are limited; hence this mad rush! Remedy A remedy is to increase quality seats and reduce scarcity. A further revealing fact is that seats in leading institutions are limited compared to similar institutes in developed countries such as MIT, Stanford, Caltech and UMIST. It seems China wants to have 100 IIT-like institutions! Why not India? With the tough competition, struggle has increased and coaching centres claim to provide that extra strength to fight. As a corollary, there is a gradual evolution in the quality of tests. It is generally felt that the quality of question papers is getting tougher over the years, aimed at elimination. This means extra coaching over and above the preparation for the board exam. Further, due to popular pressure, the quality of syllabus and testing for the board exams has been diluted over the years. Question papers in board exams tend to be easy, non-challenging, and straight forward, with bright students scoring nearly cent per cent marks. In States admitting students only on board exam score, it is observed that the lower cut-off for some top colleges is as high as 95 per cent. Thus, the gap between the standard of entrance test and that of the board exams tends to increase, needing extra training to bridge the same. What is the solution to this multi-dimensional problem? What is the basis for the solution? Who are the target groups? Whose interest is supreme? There will always be powerful people who will oppose any change. Remember the TINA (There is no alternative) factor! But we should be bold and open enough to consider alternatives and implement them if found fair and practical. At this juncture, it is pertinent to look at the procedure followed by MIT of the U.S., a reputed institute. The multiple input on a candidate is considered, which includes school exam marks/rank, SAT (entrance test) score, recommendations by teachers and extra-curricular activities. Multiple inputs are scientific, as they reflect the cumulative potential of the candidate and minimise errors accruing from a single input. Of course, this requires honesty and integrity on the part of the assessor and executor. People question the honesty and credibility of the assessor whenever discretions are allowed, as there are rampant cases of misuse of power and favouritism. While multiple input should be attempted, we may evolve a least unacceptable solution. Obvious choice A single, well-conducted all-India entrance test is an obvious choice. All State Governments and institutions must be magnanimous to agree to this novel idea for the sake of students and the country at large, although each can put forth its constitutional arguments. While this may appear to be a drastic transformation, we must move in this direction so that proliferation of tests is avoided. There is no logic in having separate tests for admission to IITs and NITs, both administered by the Human Resource Development Ministry. To start with, we should have a common test for all IITs and NITs. Subsequently, deemed technical universities, private and State colleges may be included. Such a gradual merger may be less painful. Often, a strange argument is put forth against a single test: that it deprives all chances if one falls ill on the test day. Of course, this logic can be extended to any exam. For the sake of a few who fall sick, the majority should not be punished. However, to address this problem, we may have two tests per year, once in six
[ppiindia] Taking the pulse of technology at Davos
January 31, 2005 NEW ECONOMY Taking the Pulse of Technology at Davos By JOHN MARKOFF DAVOS, Switzerland NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE, the technology guru from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, prowled the halls of the World Economic Forum holding the holy grail for crossing the digital divide: a mock-up of a $100 laptop computer. The machine is intriguing because Mr. Negroponte has struck upon a remarkably simple solution for lowering the price of the most costly part of a laptop - the display - to $25 or less. He has been a passionate advocate of using digital technology to improve the quality of life and erase economic barriers in the developing world since the early 1980's, when he took Apple II computers to Senegal with his colleague Seymour Papert. Now, in partnership with Joseph Jacobson, a physicist at M.I.T., he wants to persuade the education ministries of countries like China to use laptops to replace textbooks. He has not yet found a customer. Indeed, his mission has been complicated at Davos 2005 because the digital divide and the information technology industry are no longer the center of attention at this annual intimate gathering of the world's most powerful and wealthy. The digital power elite remain in vogue. Bill Gates of Microsoft, Eric Schmidt of Google and Carleton S. Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard played prominent roles, as usual, at the January forum. There was a distinct shift, however, away from geek chic and toward traditional star power: Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Angelina Jolie and Bono took center stage. The rush to close the digital divide began in earnest at Davos in 1998 during the height of the dot-com era, driven by American executives like John Chambers of Cisco and John Gage of Sun Microsystems. Committees were formed, money was committed and during the next three years the idea of digital equity became a rallying cry for the world's dot-com elite. It was really cool, but in the end we got nothing done, one executive candidly acknowledged. At the time, Mr. Gates was a notable skeptic, arguing that it was more important to address basic life necessities - health and food, for example - before connecting the world's poorest citizens to the Internet. Although he was widely criticized for his remarks then, he now appears to have been vindicated. Mr. Gates was in the thick of the plenary discussions at the 2005 Davos forum - considering ways of eliminating poverty and disease that do not encompass information technology. In a late-evening discussion Jan. 28, however, he acknowledged the shift in emphasis: I think it's fascinating that there was no plenary session at Davos this year on how information technology is changing the world. Despite technology's absence from center stage, there was a general consensus that many of the technology companies have dug in for the long haul with significant education initiatives in countries like Jordan and Egypt, with support from companies like Microsoft and Cisco. Mr. Negroponte said that he had found initial backing for his laptop plan from Advanced Micro Devices and said that he was in discussions with Google, Motorola, the News Corporation and Samsung for support. The device includes a tentlike pop-up display that will use the technology now used in today's rear-projection televisions, in conjunction with an L.E.D. light source. Mr. Negroponte said his experience in giving children laptop computers in rural Cambodia had convinced him that low-cost machines would make a fundamental difference when broadly deployed. You can just give laptops to kids, he said, noting that they quickly take advantage of the machines. In Cambodia, the first English word out of their mouths is 'Google.' Advanced Micro, Mr. Negroponte's first backer, brought its own low-cost computer initiative to Davos 2005. Hector de J. Ruiz, the chief executive, said that the company believed that its new Personal Internet Communicator, or PIC, might have a broader market than just developing countries. At the 2004 Davos forum, the company started an effort to give half the world's population access to the Internet by 2015. Currently, about 12 percent of the world is connected. Now, Mr. Ruiz said, Advanced Micro has been working with a variety of mainstream applications for low-cost computing, ranging from inexpensive Web surfing terminals to digital cash registers. The PIC, which sells for $185 without a monitor and comes with a stripped-down version of Microsoft Windows, is housed in a rugged sealed case without a fan. With very minor alternations we can create a variety of new platforms, he said. The box, which Advanced Micro hopes to shrink to the size of a deck of cards soon, has generated a good deal of interest. But the availability of an inexpensive device that can do the work of its higher-priced cousins will undoubtedly create challenges for high-technology companies as they try to sell low-cost versions of
[ppiindia] Di Davos, China jadi buah bibir
Change agent China keeps Davos guessing By Mark Landler The New York Times Monday, January 31, 2005 DAVOS, Switzerland In almost every panel discussion at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum here, there comes a moment when somebody mentions China. A hush typically ensues, as panelists draw their breath, gather their thoughts and struggle to put the bewildering vastness of the topic into a few words. China is going to be the change agent for the next 20 years, said Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, when asked about the country's future on a panel led by the American television interview host Charlie Rose. China's staggering potential, coupled with the steep language barrier and cultural discomfort of many Chinese who come to this conference, has made it Davos's annual enigma. But after three days of outsiders' dissecting its motives and prospects, China finally took the stage on Saturday, with a speech by its vice prime minister, Huang Ju. China's development will by no means pose a threat to other countries, Huang declared cheerfully, as if to soothe people here who spent the week fretting about China's lengthening shadow. Huang, however, said little on the two issues of overriding importance to the investors and business executives gathered here: whether China would allow its currency to rise against the dollar, and whether the Chinese would crack down on the rampant theft of intellectual property. We have to maintain the exchange rate at a reasonable level, said Huang, who directs China's finance policy and who was billed by organizers here as Beijing's chief operating officer. Some here interpreted that comment as a signal that China would not allow its currency, the yuan, to rise against the dollar this year, as some Europeans and Americans have demanded. But Michael Dell, the chairman of Dell, who had breakfast with Huang, said he had not drawn any conclusions. Huang also did little to ease investors' concerns about China's regard for intellectual property rights, saying only that through new laws and tougher enforcement China was trying to achieve in a dozen years what it had taken the Western world a century to do. At a dinner with the theme of investing in China, several foreign executives said they discerned little progress on the issue. The only way to avoid having their proprietary technology pilfered by Chinese competitors, they said, was to keep most research and development activities at home, and to use China for simple manufacturing. For the Chinese who trek to this Alpine ski resort, the problem is less a legal matter than a cultural question. Except for a handful of fluent English speakers with long experience with foreigners, most keep to themselves - shying away from the high-octane networking that is the fuel of Davos. Davos's history is as a European and American conference, said Chen Feng, the chairman of Hainan Airlines. People come here to relax and ski. China's culture is not about skiing. Chen, an irrepressible entrepreneur who worked the hallways like a Davos regular, is one of only four chief executives of major Chinese companies at this year's conference. He said at previous meetings his peers had found the experience uncomfortable. Zhao Jianfei, an editor at The Observer, a Shanghai-based magazine, said, In China, the basic idea is to watch Davos, not take part in it. People have other theories for why the Chinese do not turn out in droves. China is not exactly soliciting investment, said Stephan Newhouse, the president of Morgan Stanley. They're turning it away. Huang dramatized China's potential with forecasts. Its economic output will grow to $4 trillion by 2020, from $1.6 trillion today, he said, and its output per capita would triple, to $3,000 per person. For its part, the World Economic Forum says the Chinese turnout this year has been noteworthy, mostly because of the attendance of Huang, a member of the Politburo's powerful standing committee. The deputy governor of the People's Bank of China also came. The conference organizers have gone to considerable lengths to make this a congenial place for China. There are no sessions on Taiwan - a topic sure to drive away Chinese officials. Huang did not take questions from the audience. It's understood that some things about China don't come up in polite conversation at Davos, said Orville Schell, the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Politesse did break down occasionally. At a lunch held by Schell, several non-Chinese participants confronted the handful of Chinese guests about how Beijing could justify not allowing the Taiwanese people to vote on whether they wanted to be an independent nation. After an awkward silence, a few Chinese spoke about the passionate feelings in China regarding Taiwan's status. Yuan Ming, the director of the Institute of American Studies at Beijing University, alluded to the frustration that
[ppiindia] A nation of drop-outs
Kekhawatiran Andreas Mihardja ada benarnya: orang berprestasi di India didominasi oleh kasta brahmin (dan, by extension oleh kelas baru yang naik kelas, Parsees dan upper class Muslims/ismailiah; Red.). Meskipun dari awal pemerintah sudah mendesain kebijakan sosial/pendidilan melalui affirmative action agar golongan terbawah dari yang terbawah yaitu para harijan/untouchables dapat menikmati pendidikan, tapi tetap saja sebagian besar golongan ini tidak mampu (kesan saya: tidak mau) naik kelas. Padahal mereka yang masuk golongan terbawah ini jumlahnya ratusan juta orang. Akibat selanjutnya, terjadi pockets of development. Sementara Azim Premji (Wipro), Narayana Murthy - Nanda Nilekani (Infosys) dan TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) sudah berada di invisible continent (Kennichi Ohmae, 2004) dan Ambani bersaudara dan banyak yang lainnya berjaya di old continent, ratusan juta lainnya drop out dari pendidikan dasar dan tak punya atau tidak mau punya pengharapan lagi. Salam, RM - JANUARY 31, 2005 INTERNATIONAL COVER STORY (Business Standard) India: A Nation Of Dropouts While the rest of the world frets about the economic effects of an aging population, one country that will grow increasingly younger is India. By 2050, its 1 billion population will hit 1.57 billion. According to India's census bureau, 40% of the populace is below the age of 18, and by 2015, 55% will be under 20. That sounds like plenty of worker bees to fulfill the promise of making India a services and manufacturing power over the next two decades. The bad news is that India could easily squander its demographic edge. Despite the success of a few world-class schools such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, India's education system is in a dismal state overall. India spends just 3.5% of its gross domestic product on education, way below China's 8%. Of its 1 million schools, most are state-run and substandard. The teachers just sit around talking, and my child has learned nothing, says Sasikala Nadar, wife of a Bombay fisherman, who wants to transfer her 4-year-old daughter to a private school, whatever the cost. While 96% of India's children enroll in primary school, by the age of 10 about 40% have dropped out, says the education department. Just over a third of high school students graduate. Without a much deeper reservoir of educated youth, India may see its gains in software and manufacturing evaporate. No country can survive if its young lose hope about their future, says Vivek Paul, vice-chairman of Wipro Ltd. (WIT ), India's premier software company. According to a 2004 study on India's manufacturing exports by McKinsey and the Confederation of Indian Industry, the nation will need 1.5 million trained technicians every year for the next decade -- twice the number it currently produces -- to be able to boost its manufactured exports from $40 billion a year to $300 billion, the amount exported by China. The government is slowly responding. Last year, New Delhi made schooling compulsory for all children under 14 and pledged to double spending on education, to 6% of GDP. In 2004 the Azim Premji Foundation implemented an incentive scheme, whereby state schools with the best student and teacher attendance and the biggest improvement in scores, win $500. Others, such as Madhav Chavan, co-founder of an educational nonprofit, Pratham, are developing village parent-teacher associations to improve state schools. We are trying to change a huge, entrenched system, says Chavan. Unless he and others succeed in making radical changes, that system may squander India's greatest asset. By Manjeet Kripalani in Bombay Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
[ppiindia] As more firms send research to India and China, could the US fall behind?
TIME Asia 31st January, 2005 The New Ideas Labs As more firms send research to India and China, could the U.S. fall behind? BY ARAVIND ADIGA AND JYOTI THOTTAM A decade ago, Whitefield, a remote suburb of Bangalore, made headlines on those rare occasions when gangs of armed bandits burst into homes at night. Today that former stretch of farmland and scattered houses is disturbed only by giant cranes, cement mixers and trucks piled up with white sand. Buildings of glass and steel are rising all over, as Bangalore's fast-expanding outsourcing industry radiates far beyond the city. Perhaps the most impressive spot in Whitefield is the campus of SAP Labs. The main building, with its comfortable sofas and a sunny atrium, is a sumptuous workplace by Indian standards. But what is most remarkable about that site, built by the German software giant SAP, is what's going on inside. SAP Labs' 1,400 employees in Bangalore form the company's largest research-and-development unit outside Germany. Instead of dumping its call-center work and low-end programming in Whitefield, SAP relies on the area's computer scientists and engineers to carry out its most critical activity. More than 10% of the patents filed by SAP originate in Bangalore, and the influx of Indian engineers is accelerating the adoption of English at SAP and loosening up its traditionally rigid attitude toward software engineering, says Martin Prinz, the joint managing director of SAP Labs India. The Bangalore center is starting to change SAP. That transformation is just one example of a realignment by U.S. and European companies that is turning India from a distant satellite of Silicon Valley into one of the inner hubs of global technology. Since 2003, Yahoo's software-development center has been nestling up to the pizza joints and blue-jean shops on Bangalore's swank Mahatma Gandhi Road. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin visited their company's RD center in Bangalore last October and said they plan to create a mirror image of Google's U.S. research team in India. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer visited India a month later, unveiling a new campus and plans to hire hundreds of software engineers. We want access to the phenomenal engineering talent graduating out of Indian universities, Ballmer told reporters. Intel hired 800 people in India last year, and CEO Craig Barrett last fall inaugurated construction of a new building. To be sure, research and development is still just a sliver of India's tech boom. The bulk of the more than $16 billion earned by India's tech outsourcers in 2004 came from call-center work and low-end programming. Worldwide, only 0.3% of the $180 billion spent each year on developing software products goes to India. But, as with the earlier wave of tech outsourcing, RD in India may prove to be too good a bargain to ignore: the cost of developing a basic software product in India is about $2 million, or just 40% of the cost in the U.S., according to India's IT industry group Nasscom. We're likely to see an explosion in RD outsourcing in 2005 and 2006, says Partha Iyengar, an analyst at the research firm Gartner who is based in Pune. If that happens, India's tech sector could enter a new, more mature phase of growth. U.S. and European firms would have a fresh way to nurture innovation. But they will also face the risks of laying the building blocks of their technological future far from home. I really worry about RD, says Ralph Wyndrum, a former research executive at ATT and president-elect of IEEE, a professional group for engineering. If outsourcing erodes opportunities for engineers in the U.S., he says, then you're not going to have the innovation that gives you a competitive edge. Giants like Intel and Microsoft are bellwethers for other technology firms, but the seeds of globalized RD were planted decades earlier. The old model of research was Bell Labs', says Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Working on everything from basic science to prototypes of new products, centralized labs produced landmarks like the transistor, and every major corporation had such incubators. That changed over the past 20 years, as businesses started to shift their RD money away from basic science in centralized labs (they would rely on universities for that) and toward design-and-development work done elsewherecloser to production sites, by private research companies and eventually overseas. More recently, the digital revolution narrowed the focus of RD to software. From cars to cell phones to toasters, a large part of the value of a project becomes embedded in the software, Hira says. So countries like India, with strong capabilities in software development, have gained leverage in attracting the work. Joining the tech companies congregating in Bangalore is a diverse group of manufacturers developing software for their products. Philips, the Dutch consumer-electronics giant,
[ppiindia] Earthquake antidote:foam
from the January 27, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0127/p17s01-stgn.html On the horizon Compiled from wire services Earthquake antidote: foam Polystyrene - used to make disposable foam cups - turns out to be a great way to build earthquake-resistant homes. A two-story structure made with polystyrene and cement boards, shaken harder than any earthquake has ever shaken anything, remained standing in tests performed at a Cincinnati earthquake lab last week. Now, a group of scientists hope to convince poor residents of seismologically active areas to replace their mud huts with foam homes. These inexpensive composite panels can be used to build homes that are safer, less expensive to build and operate, and more comfortable than conventional home construction, says Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit scientific group promoting responsible use of technology. The tests were conducted on a shake table, which simulates an earthquake. The structure survived forces greater than 10 on the Richter scale. The earthquake that caused last month's Asian tsunamis registered a 9. Distant relatives: whales and hippos A second look at some 40 million-year-old fossils provides a missing link to suggest that the closest living relative of whales is the hippo, a group of scientists said Monday. Although the hippopotamus does not seem a likely relative of whales, genetic study has suggested they are close. Now, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Poitiers in France, and the University of N'Djamena in Chad say they have found more evidence in the fossil record. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team proposed a new theory that whales and hippos had a common water-loving ancestor that lived 50 million to 60 million years ago. From it evolved two groups - one which gradually moved into the water full time, and a large and diverse group of pig-like animals. The theory would class whales, dolphins and porpoises with cloven-hoofed mammals such as cattle, pigs, and camels. Great lakes troubled by dredging Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are losing vast amounts of water because of erosion from a decades-old dredging project, according to a new study. The lakes, connected geologically, saw levels drop when a commercial navigation channel was dug at the bottom of the St. Clair River in 1962, boosting the flow south toward Lake Erie. But, according to a report issued Monday, previously undetected erosion has made the channel more than 60 feet deep in some places - twice as deep as needed for shipping. Several environmental organizations said the report illustrates the unintended consequences of dredging, sand mining, shoreline alteration, and other activities. Scientists make petrified wood Researchers have found a way to achieve in days what takes nature millions of years - convert wood to mineral. The ability to make petrified wood could hold promise for separating industrial chemicals, filtering pollutants, and soaking up contamination, says Yongsoon Shin, research scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. To create petrified wood, researchers gave a half-inch cube of pine an acid bath, then soaked it in a silica solution for days. The wood was air-dried, cooked in an argon-filled furnace at temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees C, and cooled in argon to room temperature. The result was a new silicon carbide that exactly replicates petrified wood, Dr. Shin says. The results were published in the latest edition of the journal Advanced Materials. Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links -- Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
[ppiindia] Food for the brain
Curcumin = curcuma longa (Wikipedia). Melihat tampilannya, tak salah lagi bahwa curcumin adalah kunyit, yaitu bahan yang banyak dipakai pada masakan Padang dan jamu di Jawa. Bahan ini sudah lama dikenal khasiatnya sebagai anti-oxydant. Salam, RM -- (TIME Asia) (January 17, 2005 / Vol. 165, No. 2 Food for the Brain Can an ingredient in Indian curry help prevent Alzheimer's? BY BRYAN WALSH Fans of Indian cuisine know a spicy curry can go straight to the headand now medical science backs them up. A recent study by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles and the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Healthcare System concludes that curcumin, the substance that gives the curry spice turmeric its yellow pigment, may help combat Alzheimer's disease. In India's ancient Ayurvedic health system, the spice is known as an anti-inflammatory and a cleanser of blood. Alzheimer's researchers became interested in it due to evidence that the prevalence of the neurological disease among the elderly in India may be considerably lower than that in the U.S. In the study, scientists found that elderly lab rats fed curcumin experienced a reduction in the beta-amyloid proteins found in the brains of Alzheimer's victims. When researchers tested curcumin on human beta-amyloid proteins in a test tube, the chemical blocked the proteins from forming destructive plaquesmeaning that curcumin could be useful for treating Alzheimer's, and more importantly, for preventing it. Dr. Greg Cole, the lead researcher, hopes that curcumin could be for Alzheimer's what aspirin has become for heart disease: a simple, safe and affordable preventative. New Delhi-based restaurant consultant J. Inder Singh Kalra, who has touted the holistic value of Indian food on his TV cooking show for years, hopes such news will instruct younger Indians, who have been turning to unhealthy Western food. It's the great tragedy of this country, says Kalra, that we won't value our own culture unless it comes back to us from the West. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] Fearful report for IT services workers ?
News.blog: Outsourcing Outsourcing index Fearful report for IT services workers? January 20, 2005, 11:52 AM PST Another research report is weighing in on the topic of sending information technology work overseas, with a rather alarming statistic for U.S. workers at IT services companies. The report, from United Kingdom-based Bullhound, focuses attention on IT services companies and is bullish overall about the offshore trend. IT offshore outsourcing is here to stay, and we believe that a vast majority of companies will eventually have to adopt some kind of dual-shore delivery model, it says. That model is heavily stacked with workers on the lower-wage shore, according to Bullhound. A 70/30 offshore/on-site staffing mix is increasingly being considered 'optimal' by the industry from a profitability and execution perspective, the report says. One argument in favor of an unbridled global market in tech software and services is that lower prices will promote wider use of IT in the U.S. economy and therefore lead to greater demand for IT skills in the United States. If this theory turns out to be true, thousands of U.S. techies at companies like IBM and Electronic Data Systems presumably would be able to find work, even if much IT work is done in places like Bangalore. If the theory is bunk, and the U.S. doesn't take steps to curb offshoring, U.S. technology workers may face a bleak future. On the other hand, there are signs that tech operations in the United States can thrive amid offshoring, which isn't always ideal. What's more, big tech services companies may be slow in moving work abroad, according to Bullhound. Due to the size of companies like IBM (319,000 employees), it will take years before these companies can significantly shift their delivery mix, the report says. --Ed Frauenheim Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] India and ISRO all set to launch lunar mission in 2007
India, ISRO all set to launch lunar mission in 2007 Wednesday, January 26, 2005 [India News]: Indian Space Research Organisation's will launch unmanned lunar mission in 2007 as scheduled, said ISRO Chairman P. Madhavan Nair. ISRO has completed all design activities for the mission. We are in the process of building special instruments required for the mission, he told reporters during a meeting at Satyabhama deemed university. ISRO had also designed a special three stage tracking network to monitor the mission, when the spacecraft was in orbit. A special ground station had been designed and would come up near Bangalore, he said. The spacecraft would keep on circling the moon and would send data, he said, adding a small equipment in the spacecraft would detach itself and descend to the moon surface. This would also send data. The Communication satellite INSAT 4A with 12 KU band and 12 C Band transponders would be launched from the launch pad at French Guyana in May this year. The satellite would weigh 3.5 tonnes and would enable 100 television channels to transmit programmes, he said. ISRO would also launch a carto satellite from Sriharikota by end of March or in early April this year. This would help mapping the landmass of the country. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/BRUplB/TM ~- *** Berdikusi dg Santun Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc *** __ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru; 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ppiindia] India's IT challenge == World Economic Forum
(Forbes.com) World Economic Forum India's IT Challenge Tara Murphy, 01.25.05, 2:55 PM ET Think of India and information technology, and, if you are in the U.S. or Europe, you tend to think of outsourcing. But the world doesn't look quite as rosy from the opposite end of the telescope. True, business-process outsourcing is the fastest-growing part of the industry's revenue and is driving 30% growth in India's IT exports. But sustaining that growth rate is a challenge, and new, lower-cost rivals are going after the business. Forbes.com Editor Paul Maidment discusses these and other issues affecting the sector. Paul, what is the state of the sector? India's three leading IT companies--the giant Tata group's consulting arm TCS, Infosys and Wipro--get about 80% of their revenue from overseas sales--and 80% of that is accounted for by the U.S. But a weakening dollar and the political scrutiny in the U.S., where nine states are considering anti-outsourcing legislation, have put pressure on India's IT sector to diversify its export markets. Where else is it looking? Indian IT companies are making substantial inroads in the U.K., which is responsible for two-thirds of their European earnings. Labor union opposition to outsourcing there is diminishing. A recent IMF study found that the practice has not led to a net loss of jobs in Britain, and the U.K.'s employer organization, the Confederation of British Industry, reckoned outsourcing provided a net gain to the U.K economy last year of $30 billion. One Indian company has even set up a new call center in Northern Ireland--sort of reverse outsourcing. What about elsewhere in Europe? Much slower going than in the English-speaking world, but that is starting to change notably in France and Germany. A lack of French and German speakers is an obstacle to overcome. Most educated Indians are trilingual--speaking Hindi and their regional language. But their third language is invariably English. Some Indians working in call centers are being retrained to speak English with either an American or British accent, according the market they are serving. How is that going? Some Indian regional accents, especially those from the north, have proved easier to remodel than those from the south. The problem here is that the IT industry is largely based in the south around Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. A lot of new outsourced operations have been put in the north, near Delhi and Chandigarh--where Dell put a call center--to take advantage of better accents, but they are a long way from the industry's skill pool down south. Is language a barrier to Asian-Pacific markets, too? Absolutely. Indian companies have made barely any impression on the Japanese market for primarily that reason, though there are also some taxation issues. In places like China, the Philippines and Mauritius, Indian companies are buying into local IT firms as a way to get around the language issue. What are the prospects for the domestic IT market? India is a large country with a huge and still poor rural population. Until recent economic liberalization, it was a highly protected economy. Only 1.4% of the population owns PCs. But the government has an ambitious project to wire India for broadband. It is setting up what it calls an e-communications network for government offices, and encouraging the country's small businesses to get online too. But again remember, this is in a country where basic telephone and electricity services are often unreliable. Large companies often run their own networks for both. Won't the domestic market be increasingly important to India's IT companies as they begin to face more international competition? Yes. Other countries are starting to erode India's cost advantage in outsourcing, and particularly places where English-speaking skills are available. The Philippines has become a serious competitor. China is another growing rival. It has a more comprehensive and reliable infrastructure than India. Plus the diaspora of overseas Chinese is bigger that that of nonresident Indians, particularly in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Vietnam is an emerging lower-cost rival to Indian firms there too. Even further down the cost ladder are French-speaking ex-colonies such as the Seychelles or Mauritius. They have the language advantage in European markets, How are Indian companies tackling these challenges? Two ways: First, by moving more into RD. Satellite-mapping technology is one area it is specializing in. Microsoft moved one of its mapping projects to India, for example. Second, by more vertical integration, to offer clients a more comprehensive range of services. That is driving some of the international acquisitions Indian IT companies are making, such as here in the U.S. with UpStream, Essar Teleholdings and Aegis Communications. At the same time, they are buying outsourcing operations in lower-cost countries such as Mauritius and the Philippines.
[ppiindia] Hewitt wins in five
Agaknya Lleyton Hewitt tidak mengecewakan publik Australia. Pada tanggal 26 Januari 2005 ini yang adalah Australia Day, dia jungkir balik sampai 5 sets selama 4 jam lebih melawan David Nalbandian. Di set akhir, dia menang 10-8. Salam, RM - (australianopen.com) Hewitt Wins in Five, Roddick Two-and-a-Half by Damian Glass Wednesday, 26 January, 2005 Lleyton Hewitt has had to survive a comeback from Argentine David Nalbandian to win a classic five-set quarter-final at the Centenary Australian Open, setting up a semi-final clash with No.2 seed Andy Roddick. In a remarkable match which lasted for just over four hours, Hewitt defeated Nalbandian 6-3 6-2 1-6 3-6 10-8, with the Australian struggling in the third and fourth sets, seemingly restricted by his troublesome hip flexor injury. But, in his trademark style, Hewitt rallied in the deciding set as the two combatants played out a memorable contest. The marathon final set lasted for more than 100 minutes and featured only one break of serve - which came in the 17th game and ultimately proved decisive for the Australian. On Nalbandian's serve, Hewitt had a break-point and attacked a short ball, meeting it on the full in mid-court and driving a backhand down the line to secure the crucial break of serve in the fifth set to lead 9-8. For the first time Hewitt had a chance to serve for the match and, in contrast to most of Hewitt's other service games in the set, the Australian raced to a 40-0 lead. The Australian's serve had been under more pressure than the Argentine's but with a sniff of victory, needed only one match point to win a see-sawing contest. The match had looked set for an early finish as Hewitt grabbed a two-sets-to-love lead but just as a fireworks display as part of the Australia Day celebrations went off outside Rod Laver Arena during the start of third set, Hewitt appeared to lose his concentration. Nalbandian seized his chance to get back in the match, breezing through the third and fourth sets 6-1 6-3 to take the momentum into the deciding set. With the advantage of serving first, the Argentine had the upper hand and Hewitt was forced to defend grimly knowing that losing his serve could mean losing the match. However, at no stage in the final set did Hewitt face a break point on his serve, meaning he never had to defend a match point. Earlier on Rod Laver Arena, Roddick progressed to the semi-finals after his opponent - Russian No.26 seed Nikolay Davydenko - was forced to retire due to the extreme heat, with the American on track to record a straight-sets win, leading 6-3 7-5 4-1. Davydenko had made it through to the last eight without conceding a set. Along the way he had claimed the scalps of two seeded players - including No.7 seed Tim Henman - but in three previous attempts against Roddick, the Russian had yet to register a win. But it was clear on Rod Laver Arena that Davydenko was going to have to negotiate a lot more than Roddick's 200km/h serve. The oppressive conditions were shaping as the biggest threat to Davydenko's progress in the tournament After his fourth-round defeat of Argentine Guillermo Canas in straight sets, Davydenko gave a hint of the difficulties he may face having to play Roddick in the stifling heat. Davydenko revealed that he would have struggled to continue against Canas had the match been forced into a fourth or fifth set. With the temperature on Rod Laver Arena hovering in the high 30's when the match started at 4pm, Davydenko began confidently against Roddick. He matched the world No.2 until the eighth game of the first set when the American broke serve to take a 5-3 lead. Roddick took the set 6-3 and, after breaking Davydenko's serve to take a 3-2 lead in the second set, the first signs of Davydenko's trouble with the stifling conditions began to show. (At first) I took a break for one or two minutes and the next two or three points were OK. I can play. I can control everything. But then I felt something is coming, coming so bad and then everything felt not so good, Davydenko said. I didn't play with Roddick, I play by myself, I played with the weather. Davydenko called for a doctor for the first time at the change of ends and after a short delay in which he complained of shortness of breath and used a Ventolin spray, the Russian returned to court. After that, as the players rested at every change of ends, Davydenko wore an ice vest to cool his body temperature down and initially it seemed to have the desired effect. Davydenko broke back and leading 5-4 in the second set he had a set point on Roddick's serve. But Roddick held on and immediately broke Davydenko to secure a 6-5 lead. The American then served the set out to take it 7-5. Down two-sets-to-love and with the conditions not improving, Davydenko's serve was broken twice in the third set. At 1-4 the Russian decided enough was enough and voluntarily ended his stay in the Australian Open
[ppiindia] Alicia Molik menang atas Venus Williams
Tiap hari saya ikuti jalannya pertandingan tennis dunia Australia Open 2005 yang digelar di Melbourne. Kemarin ada duel yang menawan antara Venus Williams (peringkat satu dunia dari Amerika) melawan pemain muda belia Alicia Molik (Australia). Diluar dugaan, ternyata Alicia Molik yang menang. Tepuk tangan penonton tidak luar biasa, padahal dua hari kemudian jatuh Australia Day yang adalah hari besar bangsa Australia. Setahun yang lalu, tepat pada Australia Day bertanding Roger Federer (Swiss) melawan Lleyton Hewitt (Australia). Seperti kita tahu, Roger Federer yang menang. Istimewanya, ternyata penonton tidak mengamuk tapi malahan dengan tulus menyalami si Roger Federer. Moral of the story? isi sendiri. Salam, RM -- Venus Williams' major drought continues - JOHN PYE, AP Sports Writer Monday, January 24, 2005 (01-24) 10:56 PST MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Venus Williams was out of step and out of time. Facing three match points, she stumbled chasing a ball, and her off-balance forehand flopped into the net, giving Alicia Molik a 7-5, 7-6 (3) upset Monday in the fourth round of the Australian Open. A group of women in the crowd of 14,225 unfurled a banner reading: Venus, you've been eclipsed. But Williams didn't see it that way, even if she hasn't been past the quarterfinals at the past six Grand Slam tournaments. I feel like that was one I definitely should have won. I just was off of my rhythm, the eighth-seeded Williams said. I definitely didn't produce my best tennis, that's for sure. She made 28 unforced errors, two more than the 10th-seeded Molik, who faces top-ranked Lindsay Davenport in the quarterfinals. Davenport cruised past No. 13 Karolina Sprem 6-2, 6-2 and has dropped just one set in four matches. Williams insists she's just as competitive now in big matches as she was when she won the 2001 U.S. Open final for the last of her four major titles. Absolutely! she said. A string of injuries that hampered her last year couldn't be blamed for this loss. At times, she showed glimpses of grace -- a leaping overhead winner in the fifth game of the second set was a prime example. But Williams clearly wasn't at her best. She swatted at one of Molik's looping forehands as if it were an irritating insect, missing the ball twice before it landed behind her. This is a huge feat; I beat Venus, said Molik, the singles bronze medalist at the Athens Olympics. I beat her playing my tennis, and I didn't wait for her to make mistakes, and that's something I can be pretty proud of. Molik is the first Australian woman in the Open quarterfinals since Anne Minter in 1988. Two other top women lost: French Open champion Anastasia Myskina and No. 6 Elena Dementieva, the runner-up at the French Open and U.S. Open. In men's action, No. 2 Andy Roddick, No. 3 Lleyton Hewitt, No. 9 David Nalbandian and No. 26 Nikolay Davydenko moved into the quarterfinals. Myskina and Dementieva were among seven Russians to make it to the round of 16, but only Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova and U.S. Open titlist Svetlana Kuznetsova reached the quarterfinals. They will face each other on Tuesday, when men's No. 1 seed Roger Federer will try to keep his 25-match winning streak alive against four-time Australian Open winner Andre Agassi. The third-seeded Myskina had 45 unforced errors in her 6-4, 6-2 loss to No. 19 Nathalie Dechy, a 25-year-old Frenchwoman in the quarterfinals of a major for the first time in 37 appearances. I couldn't focus during the match. I lost a lot of easy balls, Myskina said. I think I have to forget this match. Dementieva led 12th-seeded Patty Schnyder by a set and two breaks before losing 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4), 6-2 in a match marred by 116 unforced errors. Williams lost 13 games through three straight-set wins before facing Molik and thought she was in decent form. I would definitely say that when I'm playing well, I feel like I'm the best. And today was not my best, absolutely not my best, Williams said. I wasn't hitting it cleanly enough. I felt like my movement wasn't as good as the previous rounds. Asked if Molik can win the title, Williams said she'd like to think her younger sister, Serena, could get in the way. You know, it's out of my hands now, Williams said. I kind of want Serena to win. So that's my horse now. Roddick struggled with the serve of Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber but smacked 15 aces and overcame a second-set letdown to win 6-3, 7-6 (8), 6-1. I actually had a little trouble getting used to a serve coming from a righty, as weird as that sounds, said Roddick, who opened with matches against three straight left-handers. Took me a little while to get on it. He next faces Davydenko, who beat No. 12 Guillermo Canas 6-3, 6-4, 6-3. Against the 102nd-ranked Kohlschreiber, Roddick was erratic in the second set, doubling his unforced errors to 12 and throwing his racket to the court after sending a forehand
[ppiindia] The cause of science in Bangalore
Senang rasanya melihat rak-rak buku iptek berbahasa Indonesia di toko buku Gramedia di Podok Indah Mall. Judulnya berbagai macam, mulai teknik sipil sampai nanotek. Yang lebih menggembirakan adalah buku populer untuk menggairahkan minat remaja pada fisika. Buku itu berjudul Fisika untuk Semua oleh Prof. Johannes Surya, Ph.D. Disitu ada sub-bab tersendiri tentang fisikawan C.V Raman dan fisikawan asal Asia lainnya yang memenangkan Hadiah Nobel. C.V. Raman dikenang dunia dengan Raman effect-nya. Selamat mengikuti. Salam, RM - C.V. Raman (second from right) poses with other dignitaries at the inaugural meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences in Bangalore on July 31, 1934. BANGALORE NEEDS no introduction to the scientific fraternity in India and abroad. The City is home for many reputed science institutes and forums and the Indian Academy of Sciences is one among them. The Indian Academy of Sciences was founded on April 27, 1934 by the Nobel Laureate, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970), with the objective of promoting the progress and uphold the cause of science, both in pure and applied branches. The Diwan of Mysore, Sir Mirza M. Ismail, formally inaugurated the Academy on July 31, 1934 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in the presence of distinguished scientists. The Academy, established with 65 founding Fellows, is registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. The foundation of the Academy is not an isolated event but was part of an intellectual renaissance that swept the country in the first few decades of the last century. The Academy has come a long way in the last 70 years and its evolution has seen the continuity of the objectives of the founder and the adaptation to the changing needs of science and the nation. Noted scientists such as T.S. Sadasivan, M.G.K. Menon, Satish Dhawan, S. Varadarajan, C.N.R. Rao and K. Kasturirangan have served as Presidents of the Academy. Science education panel The Academy conducts a number of programmes. The Council of the Academy set up a science education panel to organise activities for science teachers and students all over India. The Academy has 845 Fellows, who are distinguished scientists, covering all areas of sciences. The Council of the Academy elects about 25 Fellows each year after rigorous scrutiny of their work. A few scientists from abroad have been elected as Honorary Fellows, they include Nobel Laureates. The building of the Indian Academy of Sciences. Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash The Academy brought out a report titled University Education in Science in 1994. The report has been referred widely by many science agencies such as Department of Science and Technology, says the Chairman of the Science Education Panel of the Academy, N. Mukunda, who is also the Professor at Centre for Theoretical Studies, IISc, Bangalore. Summer Fellowships The Academy awards summer fellowships to bright students and motivated teachers to work with Fellows of the Academy on research-oriented projects. Approximately 150 and 50 fellowships to students and teachers respectively are offered every year. Besides travel expenses, the selected teachers will be provided an honorarium of Rs. 6,000 per month and students Rs. 4,000 per month. The duration of the fellowship is two months. The Academy has decided to give fellowship to 250 students and teachers this year. The fellowships provides a forum for interaction of students and teachers with distinguished scientists. The Academy has invited proposals from interested students and teachers for summer research fellowships-2005. The proposals should include a brief resume of the applicant, a one-page description of the planned activity, the Fellow with whom the applicant would like to work and the tentative dates of work as convenient to the applicant. The students' application should include a recommendation letter from a teacher familiar with their work. January 31, 2005 is the last date to reach the completed proposals to the Academy office. Information of selection along with concurrence of the Fellow will be dispatched by early March 2005. In 2003, 116 students and 30 teachers were offered fellowships. There were 1,260 students' and 152 teachers' applications, respectively. In 2004, the Academy offered fellowship to 167 students and 37 teachers. As many as 1689 students and 152 teachers applied. A large number of candidates apply for fellowship in Life Sciences (40 per cent) followed by Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and so on, says Prof. Mukunda. Refresher courses This is a programme to help teachers of colleges and universities to improve their knowledge and teaching skills. The duration is two weeks and approximately 30 teachers selected from all over the country undergo a rigorous course of lectures, discussions and problem-solving sessions. During the last five years, refresher courses on a
