text:
algebraic quantum field theory (perturbative, on curved spacetimes, homotopical)
quantum mechanical system, quantum probability
interacting field quantization
physics, mathematical physics, philosophy of physics
theory (physics), model (physics)
experiment, measurement, computable physics
Structural phenomena
Types of quantum field thories
Recall that a TQFT is an FQFT defined on the -category of cobordisms whose morphisms are plain cobordisms and diffeomorphisms between these.
In a conformal quantum field theory the cobordisms are equipped with a conformal structure (a Riemannian metric structure modulo pointwise rescaling): conformal cobordisms.
A conformal field theory (CFT) is accordingly a functor on such a richer category of conformal cobordisms. See the discussion at FQFT for more details.
The conformally invariant quantum field theories have fields for whom the correlation functions have a specific behaviour accounting for the conformal dimension of the fields. This kind of constraints coming from conformal invariance, leads to constraints on the possible behaviour of correlation functions; this has being formulated in 1971 by Polyakov as a conformal bootstrap program: the conformal invariance should be sufficient to classify consistent conformal QFTs directly from the analysis of symmetries, rather than computing the Feynman diagram perturbation series from some action functional; this avoids the usual problems with regularization and renormalization.
Precisely in 2-dimensions is the representation theory of the conformal group exceptionally interesting. In , the global transformations, i.e. the elements of the conformal group, are given by the Poincare algebra, dilations and special conformal transformations. In dimensions, there are additionaly infinitely many local generators of conformal transformations whose commutation relations are given by the Virasoro algebra. This circumstance enables Belavin, Polyakov and Zamolodchikov to make a breakthrough in the bootstrap program in 1984 (what also helped a 1984-1985 revolution in string theory). There are well-developed tools for handling the theory locally (conformal nets, vertex operator algebras) and at least in the rational conformal field theory case there are complete classification results for the full theories (defined on cobordisms of all genera).
For this reason often in the literature the term "CFT" often implicitly refers to 2d CFT.
-dimensional conformal field theories have two major applications:
they describe critical phenomena on surfaces in condensed matter physics;
they are the building blocks used in string theory
In the former application it is mostly the local behaviour of the CFT that is relevant. This is encoded in vertex operator algebras.
In the string theoretic applications the extension of the local theory to a full representation of the 2d conformal cobordism category is crucial. This extension is called solving the sewing constraints .
In the definition paragraph we will show how to define a conformal field theory using the axiomatic approach of Wightman resp. Osterwalder-Schrader. There are several approaches to axiomatically define conformal field theory, the said approach is not the most "popular" or "elegant" one. There are two reasons to consider the Wightman approach however: If one is already familiar with the Wightman approach, it helps to put conformal field theories into context. The second reason is that several notions often used by physicists can be easily and rigorously defined and explained using this approach. Therefore, it may serve as a bridge between mathematicians and physics literature.
A definition of conformal field theories can be formulated using the appropriate version of the Osterwalder–Schrader axioms, that is by a system of axioms of the correlation functions. From the correlation functions it is then possible to deduce the existence of field operators in the sense of the Wightman axioms, that is fields aka field operators are operator valued distributions. Both the Hilbert space and the field operators are therefore not defined in the axioms, but reconstructed from the correlations functions defined in the first three axioms.
be the space of configuration points. Let be a countable index set and .
The correlation functions are a family of continuous and polynomially bound functions
For all indexes , configuration points and permutations one has
In this context, covariance is meant with respect to the Euclidean group .
For every index there are conformal weights ( is completly independent from , it is not the complex conjugate, this notation is widly used in the physics literature so we use it here, too) such that for , and , one has
The are called conformal spin (for the index ) and is the scaling dimension. As an axiom 2.2 we assume that all conformal spins and scaling dimensions are integers.
For the next axiom, which is about reflection positivity, we need some notation:
We write as and identify as the space coordinate and as (imaginary) time. So, time reflection is simply:
Let be the space of Schwartz functions and
Finally let the space of all sequences with fpr with only finitely many entries .
reflection positivity
There is a map
with that extends to a map
so that
for all
The scalar product is defined as
Both a Hilbert space and the field operators of the theory can be (re-) constructed from axioms 1, 2 and 3.
TODO: Details
scaling covariance
The correlation functions satisfy the covariance condition also for dilatations .
Explicitly, the last condition says that
Given axioms 1-4, the 2-point functions can be fully classified, see below.
existence of the energy-momentum tensor
There are four fields with the following properties:
has scaling dimension 2 and the conformal spin is restricted by
The energy momentum tensor allows us to define two densly defined operators that both define unitary representations of the Virasoro algebra.
T is holomorphic. Therefore, the operators
are well defined and satisfy the commutation relations of two commuting Virasoro algebras with the same central charge.
primary field
A conformal field , is called a primary field if
and likewise for .
So, primary fields are the fields whose correlation functions are covariant "infinitesimally" with respect to all holomorphic functions, the "infinitesimal symmetry" expressed in the definition.
The fields are operator valued distributions and cannot be multiplied in general. The possibility of multiplication of fields evaluated at different points and some control of the singularities of this product are part of the axioms of conformal field theory:
operator product expansion
An operator product expansion (OPE) for a family of fields means that there is for all fields and all a relation of the form
Here means modulo regular functions.
A rigorous interpretation of an OPE would interpret the given relation as a relation of e.g. matrix elements or vacuum expectation values.
An OPE is called associative if the expansion of a product of more than two fields does not depend on the order of the expansion of the products of two factors. Since the OPE has no interpretation as defining products of operators, or more generally the product in a ring, the notion of associativity does not refer to the associativity of a product in a ring, as the term may suggest.
existence of associative operator product expansion
The primary fields have an associative OPE.
Many formal calculations of physicists in CFT involving OPE can be justified by using vertex operator algebras, so that vertex operator algebras have become a standard way to formulate CFT.
Any 2-point function satisfying axioms 1-4 has the following form:
with some constant .
The Liouville cocycle appears when one moves from genuine representations of 2-dimensional conformal cobordisms to projective representations. The obstruction for such a projective representation to be a genuine representation is precisely given by the central charge ; when , one says that the conformal field theory has a conformal anomaly.
In AQFT conformal field theory is modeled in terms of local nets that are conformal nets.
some discussion of full vs. chiral CFT goes here… then:
The following result establishes which pairs of vertex operator algebras can appear as the left and right chiral parts of a full field algebra in the sense of (Huang-Kong 05), etc. (see vertex operator algebra).
Two modular tensor categories and are said to have the same Witt class if there exist two spherical categories and such that we have an equivalence of ribbon categories
Here is the category whose objects are pairs consisting of an object and a natural isomorphism , such that for al objects we have
This becomes a monoidal category itself by setting
If is a modular tensor category then there is an equivalence of ribbon categories
The mathematical axioms of CFT, as well as its relevance for surface phenomena goes back to
Textbook accounts:
Philippe Di Francesco, Pierre Mathieu, David Sénéchal: Conformal field theory, Springer (1997) [doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-2256-9]
Martin Schottenloher, A Mathematical Introduction to Conformal Field Theory, Lecture Notes in Physics 759, Springer 2008 (doi:10.1007/978-3-540-68628-6, web)
With emphases on braid group representations constituted by conformal blocks via the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equation:
Introduction and surveys:
Paul Ginsparg, Applied Conformal Field Theory, lectures at: Fields, strings, critical phenomena, Les Houche Summer School 1988(arXiv:hep-th/9108028)
Krzysztof Gawedzki, Conformal field theory: a case study (arXiv:hep-th/9904145)
Ingo Runkel, Boundary problems in conformal field theory (pdf)
Ralph Blumenhagen, Erik Plauschinn, Introduction to Conformal Field Theory – With Applications to String Theory, Lecture Notes in Physics 779, Springer (2009) [doi:10.1007/978-3-642-00450-6]
Yu Nakayama, A lecture note on scale invariance vs conformal invariance, arXiv:1302.0884
Katrin Wendland, Snapshots of Conformal Field Theory, in:
Mathematical Aspects of Quantum Field Theories. Mathematical Physics Studies. Springer 2015 (arXiv:1404.3108, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09949-1_4)
Jörg Teschner, A guide to two-dimensional conformal field theory (arXiv:1708.00680)
Joaquin Liniado, Two Dimensional Conformal Field Theory and a Primer to Chiral Algebras (arXiv:2110.15164)
Marc Gillioz, Conformal field theory for particle physicists [arXiv:2207.09474]
Satoshi Nawata, Runkai Tao, Daisuke Yokoyama, Fudan lectures on 2d conformal field theory [arXiv2208.05180]
Jürgen Fuchs, Christoph Schweigert, Simon Wood, Yang Yang, Algebraic structures in two-dimensional conformal field theory, in: Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics 2nd ed, Elsevier (2024) [arXiv:2305.02773]
Andrew M. Evans, Alexandra Miller, Aaron Russell, A Conformal Field Theory Primer in [arXiv:2309.10107]
For a discussion of mathematical formalization (vertex operator algebras, conformal nets, functorial QFT) see
James E. Tener, Representation theory in chiral conformal field theory: from fields to observables (arXiv:1810.08168)
Yi-Zhi Huang, Liang Kong, Full field algebras, Commun.Math.Phys.272:345-396,2007 (arXiv:0511328)
Liang Kong, Full field algebras, operads and tensor categories, Adv. Math.213:271-340, 2007 (arXiv:0603065)
For a survey of perspectives in CFT with an eye towards string theory see various contributions in
Discussion in relation to the AdS-CFT correspondence:
For chiral 2d CFT:
Edward Frenkel, David Ben-Zvi, Vertex algebras and algebraic curves, Math. Surveys and Monographs 88, AMS 2001,
xii+348 pp. (Bull. AMS. review, ZMATH entry)
Alexander Beilinson, Vladimir Drinfeld, Chiral Algebras, Colloqium Publications 51, Amer. Math. Soc. 2004, gbooks
For further references see conformal net.
Formulation in full AQFT on curved spacetimes:
Discussion of D=2 conformal field theory as a functorial field theory, namely as a monoidal functor from a 2d conformal cobordism category to Hilbert spaces:
and including discussion of modular functors:
Graeme Segal, Two-dimensional conformal field theories and modular functors, in: Proceedings of the IXth International Congress on Mathematical Physics, Swansea, 1988, Hilger, Bristol (1989) 22-37.
Graeme Segal, The definition of conformal field theory, in: Ulrike Tillmann (ed.), Topology, geometry and quantum field theory , London Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 308, Cambridge University Press (2004) 421-577 doi:10.1017/CBO9780511526398.019, pdf, pdf
General construction for the case of rational 2d conformal field theory is given by the
See also:
Greg Moore, Graeme Segal, D-branes and K-theory in 2D topological field theory (arXiv:hep-th/0609042)
Richard Blute, Prakash Panangaden, Dorette Pronk, Conformal field theory as a nuclear functor, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science Volume 172, 1 April 2007, Pages 101-132 GDP Festschrift (pdf, doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2007.02.005)
A different but closely analogous development for chiral 2d CFT (vertex operator algebras, see there for more):
Discussion of the case of Liouville theory:
Early suggestions to refine this to an extended 2-functorial construction:
A step towards generalization to 2d super-conformal field theory:
Discussion of 2-functorial chiral 2d CFT:
For full CFT, The special case of rational CFT has been essentially entirely formalized and classified. The classification result for full rational 2d CFT was given by Fjelstad–Fuchs–Runkel–Schweigert
Anton Kapustin, Natalia Saulina Surface operators in 3d TFT and 2d Rational CFT, in Hisham Sati, Urs Schreiber (eds.), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field and Perturbative String Theory (arXiv:1012.0911)
Liang Kong, Conformal field theory and a new geometry , in Hisham Sati, Urs Schreiber (eds.), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field and Perturbative String Theory (arXiv:1107.3649)
Last revised on March 26, 2024 at 18:52:38. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.


text:
Well can you believe I finally have a post. I thought I was way ahead of the game for the Christmas Season and as you can tell I was a big fail....
Between craft sales, my own shopping, helping my Mom get ready for the busy season, there just wasn't enough hours in the day.
But I managed to get another Christmas card done and I think it may be my last for this year. Now if I can only get them addressed and posted..maybe this weekend..i can always hope..ha ha
Let's have a look
I just love this image. The look on her face is priceless. I coloured her with promarkers but for the browns I used copics. I'm trying to get used to using them. There's going to be a learning curve for these for sure. They tend to blend a little different than I'm used to. But the overall look is ok i think. Can you see the fabulous shimmer on the present. On a youtube followers advice I found some Wink of Stella that works so nice. I will be using it again for sure.
Thanks so much for not giving up on me and dropping by to see my newest coloured card.
Have yourselves a great holiday season and please take extra care to be safe during this busy time.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Review: Poor Boy
It was the end of the first punishing day of this century-busting Melbourne heatwave, and Ms TN dragged out the gladrags and made her way into the city, leaving a little puddle of sweat behind her on the train. Boy, is it hard to maintain opening night elegance in this weather (and I won't even mention the Lindt chocolate that was lurking, forgotten but not gone, in my handbag...I just didn't know chocolate could get that liquid).
The destiny that lay before me, as inevitable as Luke Skywalker's brush with Dad, was the Melbourne Theatre Company's glamorous Sumner Theatre. We've been watching the MTC's new home grow for years now, and many have been the lively arguments about its eye-catching exterior (which I rather like, but others rather don't). And Wednesday night was its premiere outing.
I confess that the most attractive part, at least to begin with, was the blissfully cool air-conditioning, and the efficient and pleasant bar. Then there was the adventure of the toilets, which should be religiously visited by all patrons. Downstairs the men's toilets are blue and the women's are pink. So pink, so girly, so marbly and swirly that Ms TN nearly became delirious. I've never been much good at girly, and this was beyond the fairyfloss of giddy Barbara Cartland nightmares. The upstairs toilets, on the other hand, are a kind of gondola fantasia, with Venetian designs based on JC Williamson sets and mirrors that you have to be careful not to walk into.
After all this excitement, they finally let us into the theatre to see the main event. And let me be upfront: I looove this space. The scraps of quotes from famous plays that wrap the auditorium might be a bit kitsch, sure, but what a place to watch theatre! The seats are huge, big enough to sit cross-legged on if the fancy takes you, and covered with non-stick suede-ish upholstery (a fine idea on sweaty evenings). But what's most beautiful is the shape of the auditorium: the seats sweep upward steeply in one architectural gesture from the foot of the stage, giving the audience a singular unity, the democratic intimacy that is the first secret of good theatre.
And the stage. The stage has everything that opens and shuts. With Poor Boy, a "play with songs" by Matt Cameron and Tim Finn, director Simon Phillips was always going to use every inch of it. And this production certainly opens with some seductive theatrical conceits.
As the audience enters the auditorium, we encounter a poetically imagined Australian backyard – tufted grass, cumulus sky, a string of washing, a not-quite-solid house that is structured rather like the bridge of a ship. More than anything else, Iain Aitken's set summons nostalgia. As with Arthur Miller's imagined stages, we know before a word is spoken that boundaries between the present and the past are troubled and unstable.
Front stage a child's swing hangs down from the flies. Next to it is a red tricycle. The auditorium lights go down, the sound comes up – the amplified soughing of waves – and the tricycle begins to peddle around by itself in a circle, as if it is ridden by a ghost. Danny (Guy Pearce) pushes the washing line aside, as if it is a curtain, and launches into the play's title song. He becomes an animating spirit, sweeping dust sheets aside that reveal different cast members and summoning the musicians, who rise out the floor with the music. By the song's end, the play has been magicked into existence. This sequence shows director Simon Phillips at his best: he has a gift for graceful mise-en-scène, here tempered to Matt Cameron's gently absurdist imagination.
Poor Boy itself, which features songs taken from various Tim Finn albums since the early 1980s, is a peculiar beast, and despite the odd moment of lyrical splendour or passionate performance, it doesn't escape some fundamental conceptual problems.
The story, a kind of supernatural melodrama, concerns Jeremy Glass (played on different nights by three young actors), a seven-year-old boy who, after he is nearly hit by a car on a zebra crossing, suddenly claims that he belongs to another family. His parents Viv (Linda Cropper) and Sol (Greg Stone) are deeply worried, but then he walks across town and plants himself in the heart of another family, claiming to be their dead adult son Danny. He demonstrates such intimate knowledge of their secrets that the two families are forced to accept that the unbelievable is true.
This opens up a lot of deeply-buried conflict in both families, much of it driven by bitter sibling rivalries. Jem is the resented younger brother of the disaffected teen Sadie (Sara Gleeson), and Danny the older brother whom Miles (Matt Dyktynski) can never match. Ruth (Sarah Pierse), Danny's mother, is the stifling matriarch who infantalises her sons and cannot let them go, even in death; Viv, Jem's mother, is aging unhappily in her unhappy marriage, smouldering with resentment against her feckless husband.
Oddly, given the Chagall-like charm of the best of Matt Cameron's writing, the playwright irresistibly summoned throughout this text is Arthur Miller. The suburban family as a site of tragedy, the play's lyric realism, in particular the poetic ambitions of some of the monologues, all have the flavour of Miller. And there are specific allusions, such as the insubstantial walls of the family homes, which recalls the ghostly house in Death of a Salesman, or the tree that Ruth plants when her son dies, which echoes the memorial tree planted (and uprooted) in All My Sons.
But while he can certainly write a line, Cameron cannot match Miller's superb dramatic craft. The narrative of Poor Boy founders in its own complications, declining from the boldly impossible (which sparks the imagination) to the merely improbable (which becomes either tedious, embarrassing or laughable). Cameron's major problem has always been a tendency to tip from absurdity into whimsy, and here is no exception; only in Poor Boy the whimsy has become a little earnest. It gives a forced air to the emotional intensities that are so clearly aimed for, but which, as in Browning's Andrea Del Sarto, remain just beyond reach.
And then there is the problem of the songs, which are shoe-horned into the text even though they sometimes bear only the most tangential connection to the events on stage. They are mostly sung well and imaginatively arranged, although the band, riding its hydraulic stage up and down the haunted house, lacks a certain brio. It's hard to know why, dramatically speaking, the songs are there, except to provide a pleasant noise and emotional flavour. They all seemed terribly nice ditties, but in fact compositions like I Hope I Never or In A Minor Key are better than nice. There is a nagging air of ABC-TV variety special about it all.
Using extant popular songs to punctuate a show is, of course, as old as The Beggar's Opera. Poor Boy demonstrates that a pop song, however finely crafted, is not necessarily theatrical. As the familiar songs rolled out, the sometimes desperately illustrative staging began to remind me irresistibly of a music video, in the same way that the play itself was reminiscent of a tv soap. Neither of these things is, in itself, a bad thing; without the bracing invigoration of such cultural slang, theatre dies a slow and sticky death. And the show could have done, certainly, with some of a soap opera's economy and dramatic drive. But all the rough bits of these popular influences had been smoothed out or sawn off, making the whole rather anodyne.
It's well served by its cast, which, as has been usual recently at the MTC, is top notch: but again they seldom manage to find glints of hard emotional reality in between the plot. The notable exception is Stone, who excavates some fine moments of comic relief. The double staging of Danny/Jem, with lines shifting between Guy Pearce and the young actor, is beautifully effective, and Pearce has a fine voice and a touching (if sometimes rather earnest) presence. And Sara Gleeson, who was marvellous as the daughter in the recent Moliere and here reprises the cliched bratty teen with a refreshing candour, is clearly a talent to keep on eye on.
In all, I would have liked to have liked it more, since there are so many likeable elements; but Poor Boy never gels into a whole breathing creature. It's a slight story that can't sustain its two and a half hours, and it doesn't avoid moments of cheese or sheer silliness. As a play, it doesn't make a lot of sense; as a work of music theatre, it is conceptually muddy. But as a piece of design, it's a triumph; and perhaps, given the nature of the evening, it isn't surprising that the real star of the show was the stage itself.
A shorter version of this review is published in today's Australian.
Picture: The cast of Poor Boy. Photo: Jeff Busby
Poor Boy by Matt Cameron and Tim Finn, directed by Simon Phillips, musical direction Ian McDonald. Set design by Iain Aitken, costumes by Adrienne Chisholm, lighting design by Nick Schlieper. With Linda Cropper, Matt Dyktynski, Sara Gleeson, Guy Pearce, Sarah Pierse, Greg Stone, Abi Tucker and Gulliver McGrath/Jack McKinnis-Pegg/Hunter Stanford. Band: Ian McDonald, Michael Barker, Stephen Hadley, Stephen Ely and Gerry Hale. Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company, Sumner Theatre, MTC, until March 8. Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, July 9 to August 1. Bookings: 1300 723 038.


text:
Why is speaker update necessary? How can I do it?
Speaker update
Model : NP8340, NP8540, NP8740, NP8350, LAS650M, LAS750M, LAS950M
■ Preparation
Connect the smart device and the speaker to the same network.
Firmware is released occasionally to enhance the performance of the product, improve bug fixes and add current features
via network. You should update Firmware to the latest version to use the optimized performance of the product.
How to update Firmware
- Run Music Flow Player application. A popup window displayed if there is new Updates.
Select the [OK] button to start. - If the message is not displayed, tap [Setting] >[Version Information] in Music Flow Player application.
- The speakers will be listed and [Need to update] on the right of speaker name.
- When you tap [ ] on the right of [Device version info]
- When update starts, progress bar displays.
- When update is completed, it automatically reboots.


text:
Dr. Graham's book 'Courageous Parenting' will help you build the kind of rock-solid family we all want to have. Get 'Courageous Parenting' when you give today.
Dr. Jack Graham serves as Senior Pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the nation's largest, most dynamic congregations.
When Dr. Graham came to Prestonwood in 1989, the 8,000-member congregation responded enthusiastically to his straightforward message and powerful preaching style.
Now thriving with more than 57,000 members, Prestonwood continues to grow, reaching throughout the North Texas region. In 2006, the church launched a second location, the North Campus, in a burgeoning area 20 miles north of the Plano Campus. Prestonwood also has a flourishing Spanish-language ministry, Prestonwood en Español, which includes members from more than 20 nations. And Prestonwood.Live, the online community, draws worshippers from all over the world.Dr. Graham is a noted author of numerous books, including the latest Reignite: Fresh Focus for an Enduring Faith. In this deeply personal book, Dr. Graham shares lessons he learned in the midst of crisis – offering insight on how to focus on Jesus even in the darkest days.
Other books include A Man of God: Essential Priorities for Every Man's Life; Unseen: Angels, Satan, Heaven, Hell and Winning the Battle for Eternity; Angels: Who They Are, What They Do and Why It Matters; Powering Up: The Fulfillment and Fruit of a God-Fueled Life; and Courageous Parenting, written with his wife, Deb.
His passionate, biblical teaching is also seen and heard across the country and throughout the world on PowerPoint Ministries. Through broadcasts, online sermons and e-mail messages, Dr. Graham addresses relevant, everyday issues that are prevalent in our culture and strike a chord with audiences worldwide.
In October 2022, the Bible in a Year with Jack Graham podcast was launched in partnership with iHeartPodcasts and Pray.com, with a cinematic feel that brings the Bible to life. Within the first week of its release, the podcast reached the top spot on the Spotify religion list, and it has now surpassed 30 million downloads.
Dr. Graham has served as Honorary Chairman of the National Day of Prayer and has helped lead various national prayer initiatives. He served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country with more than 14 million members.
He and Deb have three married children and eight grandchildren.


text:
Movistar wanted to develop a more granular understanding of the TV and video consumption behaviours of their Pay TV subscriber base in order to enrich already available industry TV panel data. The main goal was to provide a more accurate picture of total viewing behaviour in order to explore non-live consumption and time-shifted viewing across all TV channels and programs.
Kantar developed a data framework, now used on an ongoing basis, to connect census and panel data to provide Movistar with unique viewing data. Specifically, Kantar processes Movistar's 1st party return path data to provide insights into how time-shifted viewing, interactive services, or video-on-demand services are used in each subscriber's household. Alongside this, we supply TV audience data per viewer across national and regional TV properties (full TV industry currency data).
Fusing these data sets to generate this granularity of insight across their audience database allows Movistar to have a deeper understanding of their Pay TV subscribers, highlighting TV and video consumption behaviours.
Movistar can now make more informed decisions on content and programming, and also evidence the effectiveness of their portfolio in reaching and engaging sought after target audience segments, ultimately supporting Movistar in the delivery of their advertising revenue goals.


text:
The Kindle Fire, which Amazon is widely reported to be sold at cost or below the margin, has been one of the most intensely followed technology product stories over the past year.
A new study from ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) concludes that the cross-subsidized device model that Amazon uses is a viable strategy. According to senior analyst Aapo Markkanen's calculations, the firm would need, on average, an incremental profit of about $3 in each month of a tablet's lifespan to achieve an overall profit margin of 20%.
"Considering the probable margins of app and content sales, our research shows that Kindle Fire is a credible proposition," Markkanen comments. "We expect that there will be a certain level of 'innovation plateauing' in mobile hardware taking place over the next five years, and that would certainly work in Amazon's favor. Its future devices are likely to require less cross-subsidy than the ones we've seen so far."
Amazon's mobile strategy is distinctly two-pronged, since besides its own devices the company also offers a popular portfolio of apps running on all major OSes. ABI Research estimates that altogether the Kindle, Amazon Mobile, Cloud Drive, and Price Check apps have seen over 180 million downloads. The already established presence on mobile devices begs the question whether such a platform-agnostic approach would actually serve Amazon's interests better than investment in a competing ecosystem.
Markkanen doesn't think so, saying, "Kindle Fire may look like an aggressive push into a whole new market, but it's more of a defensive play, born out of necessity. If Amazon bet its post-PC future only on the web and apps, it would be dangerously exposed to the likes of Apple and Google. Whoever controls the platform has a more frictionless relationship with the user, and that relationship can become real poison for any third party that relies on the same platform for its own business."


text:
Imidazolium Salts Show Powerful Antioxidant Properties To Fight Diseases And Are Efficient Catalysts For Converting Biofuels
- Date:
- December 1, 2008
- Source:
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore
- Summary:
- Commonly used as solvents for various organic reactions, imidazolium salts are room-temperature ionic liquids that are chemically stable and have low vapor pressure. While their physical properties have been widely studied, the Singapore study is one of the few scientific reports about the salts' biochemical properties and medical applications.
- Share:
Scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have uncovered new properties of imidazolium salts (IMSs), which suggest that they could play a vital role in disease prevention and treatment.
The report on the redox properties of IMSs was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
In a separate study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, IBN researchers reported the first use of these salts to convert carbohydrates into versatile chemical compounds for biofuel production.
IBN researchers successfully used IMS to develop a new catalyst system for converting sugars into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a key compound used in biofuel chemistry and the petroleum industry.
In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the IBN researchers described how they used IMSs to synthesize successfully uniform gold nanoparticles within seconds at room temperature. The ultrafine (1-2 nm) nanoparticles remained stable for up to 6 months at 4°C.
Unlike conventional synthesis techniques using borane or borohydride reduction processes, IBN's method does not require a strong reducing reagent yet is able to produce gold nanoparticles under very mild reaction condition with remarkable efficiency.
IBN's new synthesis protocol could easily be scaled up for industrial applications.
Commonly used as solvents for various organic reactions, IMSs are room-temperature ionic liquids that are chemically stable and have low vapor pressure. While IMSs' physical properties have been widely studied, their biochemical properties and medical applications have seldom been mentioned in the scientific literature.
IBN Principal Research Scientist Yugen Zhang, Ph.D., said, "Our successful use of IMSs as a reducing agent led us to believe that we might also be able to use this compound as a radical scavenger antioxidant to counter the damage caused by reactive oxygen species in the body."
Environmental stress triggered by an unhealthy lifestyle, such as excessive alcohol consumption, exposure to toxins and drugs, smoking and lack of sleep, may lead the body to produce superoxide radicals known as reactive oxygen species (ROS) that could cause cell damage through oxidation.
Oxidative stress from ROS is implicated in most diseases including cancer, heart disease, liver fibrosis, neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune disorders and aging. Radical scavenger antioxidants help to trap free radicals in the body's cellular system, thus attenuating the effects of ROS.
IMS is a precursor for N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHC). A naturally occurring form of NHC is thiamine or vitamin B, which plays a very important biological role. Vitamin B deficiency has been linked to oxidative stress. While natural antioxidants such as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a green tea extract, have been known to slow down or prevent the oxidative process, they also exhibit low potencies and a rapid turnover in the body's metabolism.
IBN Principal Research Scientist Lang Zhuo, Ph.D., said, "Our investigations with hepatic stellate cells show that IMSs have more powerful antioxidant properties than EGCG, yet are remarkably less cytotoxic. They significantly decreased ROS levels in liver cells by 11% more than EGCG. In addition, IMSs are simple and inexpensive to produce. Therefore, they show great promise as a new type of antioxidant with potential biomedical applications."
In a separate study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, IBN researchers successfully used IMS to develop a new catalyst system for converting sugars into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a key compound used in biofuel chemistry and the petroleum industry.
Diminishing fossil fuel reserves and global warming effects have made the search for sustainable, renewable alternative energy sources a critical global concern. Biofuels are currently the only sustainable source of liquid fuels available, but the lack of highly efficient methods to convert carbohydrates into chemical compounds for biofuel production has impeded the replacement of petroleum feedstock by biomass.
HMF and its 2,5-disubstituted furan derivatives can replace key petroleum-based building blocks, and there are several known catalysts that are active in the dehydration of sugars to form HMF.
However, most of them also produce side reactions that form undesired byproducts, and rehydrate HMF to form acid. Therefore, the use of these catalysts has often been constrained to simple sugar feedstock such as fructose. They have not been able to efficiently convert glucose, a more abundant and stable sugar source.
With IMSs as the starting point, IBN researchers developed NHC-metal complexes as catalysts to transform sugars into HMF. These offer a great deal of flexibility as the catalytic activity may be modified by changing specific properties of the NHC. The researchers were able to extract HMF easily as the sole product. IBN's new catalyst achieved the highest reported yields of HMF so far, for both fructose and glucose feedstocks.
Dr. Zhang said, "Our HMF yields were as high as 96% for fructose and 81% for glucose. As both the catalyst and the ionic liquid can be recycled, our technology is more environmentally friendly and would potentially lead to cost savings in the biofuel manufacturing process."
IBN Executive Director Professor Jackie Y. Ying added, "We are excited by the tremendous potential of these novel compounds to make an impact on medicine and alternative energy. Our discovery paves the way for more effective treatment of various degenerative diseases, as well as the conversion of biofuels, helping to alleviate some of the pressing concerns facing our global community."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal References:
- Zhao et al. Imidazolium Salts: A Mild Reducing and Antioxidative Reagent. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2008; 130 (38): 12586 DOI: 10.1021/ja8037883
- G. Yong, Y. Zhang and J. Y. Ying. Efficient Catalytic System for the Selective Production of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural from Glucose and Fructose. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 47 (2008); 9345-9348
Cite This Page:


text:
This school does not have an administrator. Learn more
To register for this school, click here.
To search again, click here.
* Teachers from this school that have signed up with SpellingCity.com
- Alternative School
- Alton Elementary School
- Alton Memorial Junior High School
- Ann Richards Middle School
- Bl Gray
- Bryan Elementary School
- Cantu Elementary School
- Cesar Chavez Middle School
- Diaz-villarreal Elementary School
- Dr. Palmira Mendiola Elementary School
- E B Reyna Elementary School
- Eagle Academy Of Pharr At Mission
- Elementary Aep
- Eligio Kika De La Garza Elementary School
- Elodia R Chapa Elementary School
- Excellence In Leadership Academy
- Flores Elementary School
- Harry Shimotsu Elementary School
- Henry B Gonzales Elementary School
- Hidalgo County J J A E P
VocabularySpellingCity's mission is to facilitate vocabulary development, phonics, and writing skills through a word study tool that allows for differentiated instruction while working with vocabulary and spelling word lists. The site has been particularly useful in engaging struggling students, facilitating English language vocabulary skills with ESL students, building a school-home link, and simplifying teachers' and parents' administrative work.
The most popular learning activities are word unscramble, wordsearch, hangman, crossword puzzle, alphabetical order practice, grammar, handwriting practice worksheets, and writing activities.


text:
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Island Jumping
The changing sands of Elliott River mouth have formed a small point in the Northern channel that gets covered over at 1/2 tide. I've been using this point for a while to use clean water on the inside of it and a boost into the (somewhat) deeper water on the other side. A few weeks ago I got a good lookback at the point just before it went under:


text:
10 Principles for Leading the Next Industrial Revolution
Tools and techniques to ensure your company will stand out in the new age of digitization. See also "A Guide to Leading the Next Industrial Revolution."
A version of this article appeared in the Autumn 2017 issue of strategy+business.
It isn't often that the broad infrastructure that underlies industrial civilization undergoes a dramatic transformation. But just such a change appears to be happening now. In a great wave of technological change, sensors are spreading through factories and warehouses, software is predicting the need for maintenance before a machine breaks down, power grids and loading docks are becoming intelligent, and custom-designed parts are being produced on demand. The leaders of the next industrial revolution are companies making advances in fields such as robotics, machine learning, digital fabrication (including 3D printing), the Industrial Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics and blockchain (a system of decentralized, automated transaction verification). Because these technologies all reinforce the others' impact, they are leading to a new level of proficiency, and to new types of opportunities and challenges for business and for society at large.
One key indicator is that conventional boundaries between industries are eroding. It's getting harder to tell the difference between, say, a telecommunications company and an entertainment producer, or between a retail bank and a retail store. The relationships among suppliers, producers, and consumers are also blurring, more rapidly than many business decision makers are prepared for.
The foundation of business strategy has long been the classic value chain, which links together raw materials producers, manufacturers, distributors, and (in the end) consumers through a well-established commercial infrastructure characterized by a stable set of transactions. But the rise of digital technology enables individuals to connect outside the value chain and deliver more efficient, effective products and services. This will reduce the importance of economies of scale and conventional divisions of labor. Relationships among companies will be more fluid and the price and cost of goods and services more volatile than they are today. There is one certainty, however: Trustworthiness and a clear articulation of purpose, will become more important to business. An enterprise that is continually changing must balance that turbulence with purpose and trust, or people — including employees, suppliers, customers, and regulators — will not be able to make the full commitments that businesses need.
Our research at PwC suggests that the Industrial Internet presents unprecedented potential gains for companies that claim leadership roles. Their ability to realize these gains will depend, in part, on their actions during these early years: the capabilities they build and the extent to which they reframe their business and operating models to make the most of this new technological infrastructure.
How, then, can you lead your company, whether it is large or small, to play a pivotal role in the next industrial revolution? How can you take advantage of your existing strengths while developing the digital prowess and personal skill that you need? How do you balance the technological acumen you require with the managerial skill to become a true market leader in this field? How can you help the broader society meet the challenges posed by this technology — issues related to privacy, employment, income equality, and general well-being, among others — while still ensuring success for your enterprise? The following 10 principles can help senior executives navigate the uncertainties of the next few years in a systematic and profitable way.
Establishing Your Strategy
1. Rethink your business model. The business world has become accustomed to disruption. In industry after industry, incumbents that cling to old business models lose ground to upstarts that introduce new products and services at much lower prices. The next industrial revolution will accelerate this sequence, especially in manufacturing, by reducing costs and improving efficiency at a broad scale. Companies that are slow to change will lose to those that rethink their business models to take advantage of the new platforms and their new opportunities.
Consider, for example, the electric power utility industry, which has essentially maintained the same business model since it began in 1882: metered power generation, selling electrons to residential and commercial customers. Now power utilities find themselves at the nexus of an evolving technological ecosystem that allows them to offer a variety of new options — and just in time, because the revenues from selling electrons are rapidly shrinking. The new offerings include renewable energy from solar and wind sources; sensor-based energy monitoring systems that use data analytics to continuously improve efficiency; and heating, cooling, and facilities management services. Some power utility companies are recasting their offerings as "gateway hubs" for Internet access and home security. The utilities have the potential to capture several new sources of value, but they will also face unprecedented competition from technology and telecommunications companies.
Automakers, too, are anticipating a dramatic new business model; a few years from now, they may no longer rely solely on individual car sales. They will provide mobility on demand, through their stakes in shared or self-driving vehicles. Manufacturers of tools, hardware, instruments, and heavy equipment are adding sensors and connectivity to their products, enabling predictive maintenance, security, and frequent upgrades. The healthcare industry is moving toward its own adaptation of the IoT, with wearable sensors providing data that health professionals can use for early diagnosis and better follow-up services. Financial services, engineering and construction, and entertainment and media are all poised for similar changes.
If you are falling into the trap of thinking that your company can make money indefinitely by following its traditional business model, you risk losing out to more flexible competitors. You are not in the same industry that you were in before; soon, that industry may not even exist. Your path to profitability is different. Your opportunities for raising capital have changed. Your capabilities may not apply to the same customers they did before. Your circumstances are probably different from those of any other company, so you need to look freshly at them, without relying on an industry playbook, and rethink your business model accordingly.
To fund new investments in R&D, operations, and customer experience, you may have to cut back legacy activities that no longer apply. This will take perseverance and discipline, but your competitive advantage lies with your role in the infrastructure of the future. Selling or shutting down less essential practices, and focusing your portfolio of products and services more effectively, can make you fit for growth in this new world.
2. Build your strategy around platforms. What the value chain was to the old industrial system, the platform is to the new. A platform is a combination of interoperable standards and systems. It creates a plug-and-play technological base on which a wide range of vendors and customers can interact seamlessly with the same collection of hardware, software, services, and one another. The most successful platforms match customers with vendors, maintain an appealing and effective customer experience, and collect data and rents from people who use the system. A business that controls a popular platform — Microsoft with Windows, Apple with its mobile iOS, Amazon with its "everything store" merchandising system, Facebook with social media, and Google with its search engine — can influence the direction of evolution for a business-to-consumer market. The same will be true of the new industrial operating systems for business-to-business markets. The users of a platform become, in effect, an ecosystem: a group of companies exchanging goods and services, their fates bound together.
These are still the early days of platform building on the Industrial Internet. Companies such as GE and Siemens are staking their claims now. GE has announced its goal to be "the world's first digital industrial company"; its cloud-based Predix platform combines data analytics, connectivity, cyber-protection, and offerings such as the Digital Twin, a simulation of industrial processes based on digital profiles of more than half a million machines. Siemens is developing its equally ambitious MindSphere platform in collaboration with Microsoft, offering its apps on the Azure cloud starting in 2017.
Other industrial platforms are more narrow, but equally profitable. For example, the Trumpf company, based in Germany, has established a platform called Axoom, which provides laser equipment, welding, and metalworking equipment for the many small companies that build components from metal and plastic, giving them all access to specialized 3D printing tools and software. There will be platforms for specific types of supply chains, and platforms for hospitals, banks, and other types of organizations. As automobiles evolve into autonomous vehicles, they will be designed as platforms, operating within "smart city" platforms that continue to improve the ways in which autonomous vehicles navigate.
Your first step in establishing yourself as a participant in the Industrial Internet is to figure out what role you can realistically play in this platform-based world. Will you be a platform "enabler" like Trumpf, GE, and Siemens, a company responsible for building (and owning) the underlying megahubs? Will you be an "engager" of customers, using the platform as a vehicle for providing products and services? Will you be a platform "enhancer," a developer of new technologies on the platform, selling them primarily to enablers and engagers? Or will you develop a business that combines two or three of these roles?
If you become an enabler, building out your own platform, three elements will help you stay ahead of competitors. First, digitize your own enterprise — the platforms at GE and Siemens began as in-house services for their own operations. Second, continually work on gaining efficiencies, improving the technologies that you already have. Third, build cost reduction into that continuous improvement; use sensors and analytics, for example, to raise the quality and performance of your products and thus lower costs. These abilities take time and acumen to develop, and they will become core distinctive elements of your platform.
3. Design for customers. Because the next industrial revolution is driven by large-scale digital technology, it's easy to overlook the way it could affect human relationships. The new infrastructure is a web of connections among people: Producers and consumers, in particular, are much more closely connected than they used to be. Through smartphones and social media, consumers can connect directly to primary producers of the products and services they buy. Through sensors and data analytics, producers can be thoroughly attuned to the needs, habits, and long-term interests of the people who buy products and services. As a designer of the new platforms, or a business leader participating in them, you have an unprecedented opportunity to build a customer-centric enterprise, one that connects with what people genuinely want and need from your company, thus generating commitment that will last a lifetime.
For many large businesses, this represents a dramatic change. Apparel companies, for example, are building new connections between the retail store and the factory, so that retail customers' preferences rapidly translate into new clothing designs. A few farsighted companies, such as Inditex (Zara) and H&M, have pioneered this approach in their own operations. Now, the platforms of the Industrial Internet make it much easier for any apparel manufacturer to follow suit. Banks, power utilities, and telecommunications providers are making similar transitions: They are cleaning up their user interfaces, offering new types of services, and solving customer problems in faster, friendlier, more responsive, and more effective ways.
When you design for customer-centricity, you translate your desired relationship and mutual commitment into the look and feel of your enterprise. A true omnichannel customer experience connects every touch point: all face-to-face contact, every retail environment, all online activity, anything connected through a smartphone, and all the other myriad connections between you and your customer. In the new infrastructure of your business, there are far more touch points to work with. Customers live in an interactive world. Their behavior is aggregated into data you can consult to make business decisions. Your behavior, in turn, is more evident and transparent to them than it has ever been before.
For example, consider a simple shopping transaction. A customer places an order online for a shirt, trying it on in a virtual showroom, and then picks it up in a local store. Can he or she move seamlessly from the smartphone to the pickup point? Is it obvious how to try it on and pay for it without waiting in line? Is it easy to pay? Does the store, abetted by analytics, show the customer other items that would look good with that shirt?
The next industrial revolution is driven by large-scale digital tech, so it's easy to overlook the way it could affect human relationships.
You will need new levels of design acumen to succeed. People will interact with your company through online automated systems, and perhaps through robots in the physical world. Are these machines appealing or frustrating? Do they draw upon knowledge of ergonomics and human sensitivity? (Does it mimic the sequence and pacing of human interaction?) Equally important, are your systems adaptable? The more easily professionals and customers can change and customize their systems — without having to be an IT professional — the more effective they will be.
Embracing New Practices
4. Raise your technological acumen. No matter what industry you're in, you live in a programmable world, and software will be key to your competitiveness. Take the German auto industry, for example. For years it has traded on a worldwide reputation for excellence in mechanical and powertrain engineering. But from now on digital excellence will be at least as important. This change is forcing some hard thinking about future industrial strategy, in a country that is known, according to the Financial Times, for relative weakness in IT. "In the future, 50 to 60 percent of the value of a car will consist of digital devices and tools," said German federal chancellery chief of staff Peter Altmaier, one of Angela Merkel's senior advisors, at a panel debate in November 2016. "And 20 percent [will be] batteries. If we're not careful, [German manufacturers will] only be responsible for the windows, seats, and wheels."
Every company, even if it's in Silicon Valley, will need to improve its technological acumen during the next few years. This is a matter not just of recruiting people with software expertise, but of raising the skills of everyone at your company. They need not just the technical training to use digital tools, but insight into the patterns of technology — for example, how to create an operations footprint that can take advantage of the Industrial Internet, or how to accumulate the type of data that can foster machine learning.
You will be adopting manufacturing execution systems that link the elements of enterprise resource planning with all the factory operations of a company and its suppliers. Augmented reality will enable operators and decision makers to see data about operations (or anything else) on wearable devices. A schematic might pop up, helping an engineer (or, in another setting, a surgeon) determine where to direct a probe. Digital fabrication will allow a wider range of components and products to be created close to where they are needed, rather than being shipped long distances or going through customs; the costs of this technology are dropping about 10 percent per year. Interoperability among all these technologies is much more common than it was in the past. This allows even the largest enterprise to coalesce around a more coherent global strategy — and when your people have the right kind of digital acumen, they can make use of systems far more effectively.
The industrial infrastructure will make it easier to design your workplace for digital acumen. Set up displays with shop floor or financial data, offering opportunities for employees to discuss their meaning and how to improve them. If your factories have robots, design them as "cobots": collaborative robots, equipped with sensors that make them responsive to the people who work nearby. The robots handle the rote tasks, such as moving parts into position; the people handle the more fine-grained parts of the operation, where judgment or artistry is required. Tailor office environments to the work needs, learning opportunities, and emotional engagement of the people who work in them, with collaborative workrooms that bring teams together easily with videoconferencing and other digital connections. In general, design your work spaces as opportunities for your people to learn — from experience, from analyzing data, from the increasingly intelligent technology around them, and from one another.
As people throughout your company become more comfortable with the Industrial Internet, they will develop a collaborative culture of innovation. They will also better understand the risks of the new world — for example, risks related to accidents, privacy violations, and cyber-attack. This insight will be invaluable, not just within your company, but across the platforms you inhabit.
Because possible points of attack or vulnerability are spread throughout the ecosystem, responsibility for their security needs to be shared broadly, and frameworks for legal liability need to keep pace with technological developments. CEOs and their boards may need to be as good at judging when the world is not ready for their technology as they are at judging when their technology is ready for the world.
5. Innovate rapidly and openly. Innovation and leadership go hand in hand in the next industrial revolution. Many companies will seek disruptive innovation, but a steady stream of incremental innovations can be more profitable. Smaller innovations will be easier to generate and, more important, easier to test in the market. With the tools of the Industrial Internet, you can prototype new products, manufacture them in small batches profitably, distribute them rapidly, and see how your customers respond before rolling them out worldwide. As you continue to develop incremental innovations, they can sometimes snowball into disruption. That's what happened with the smartphone, which evolved between 2000 and 2007 from a music player (the iPod) into a world-changing device.
Rapid innovation is more effective when you are open to collaboration with those outside your own company's walls. Draw on a broad group of participants, including the organizations that are connected to your platform. Much of the technology in the Industrial Internet is not just cross-functional, but cross-industry. When whole supply chains and customer ecosystems are automated, integrated, and transformed, innovation follows a similar pattern.
Siemens, for example, is making a billion-dollar investment in what Lak Ananth, the head of the company's Next47 startup unit, hopes will be "a new era of collaboration between hungry early-stage startups." (The name Next47 echoes the landmark year of 1847 when the company was founded.) Areas of collaborative venture capital investment include artificial intelligence, autonomous machines, decentralized electrification (smart grids), connected mobility, and blockchain applications.
6. Learn more from your data. The exponential increase in real-time data — gathered from customers, equipment, and work processes — is giving companies new insights. Gathering and analyzing data are important, but they are only the beginning. It is critical to use the analytic results to recognize important patterns, and to gain insights that help you make the right choices and keep improving on the fly.
For example, getting accurate information about progress and cost on construction sites has always been a challenge. Now, a construction company or investor can use drones to gather photographic images, overlay them with the original site plans, verify contractor reports, and spot discrepancies as small as a centimeter wide. In the agrochemical sector, farming companies also use drones, along with data from weather reports and sensors mounted on their machinery, to fine-tune their planting, fertilizing, and harvesting practices. Industrial companies of all sorts now use data gathered from factory floor sensors to inform maintenance and operational decisions. GE's chief digital officer, Bill Ruh, estimated that just one performance increase resulting from these efforts, in locomotives, saves one railroad US$200 million per year.
In the military aerospace sector, manufacturers are able to use the data set that is fed back from an aircraft to create immersive and experiential simulation software and training programs that can transform the training economics for fighter and other flight crews. Wear and tear on the airframe can be minimized and the aircraft reserved for the missions that matter, substantially reducing the overall cost to customers of military training and preparedness.
And of course, in all industries, companies are now able to develop highly customizable, on-demand manufacturing, with customers having real-time access to design, supply, and demand systems. Direct feedback and interfaces between manufacturing systems and customers' own ordering and demand planning systems are shortening lead times and improving capacity utilization planning. One of the great frontiers in data analytics is materials. A plastics maker that notices a customer using a polymer in one way could propose a different approach, based on analysis of what other companies have done with that same polymer.
To make the most of your data, integrate your analytics teams. Schedule regular sessions in which people talk about what they are finding, and how it could affect the business. Ensure that data from all your operations and customer insights is considered. Draw in relevant information from other companies and from the government. By doing so, you balance your proprietary interest in your own data against the fact that open data sharing allows for much more insight. Platforms make sophisticated data sharing of this sort far easier than it used to be. Finally, in addition to any business changes you make, revamp your analytics approach so that your data gathering and synthesis will be still more effective next quarter.
7. Adopt innovative financing models. New large-scale technologies inevitably put pressure on the old ways of raising money for them. As the Industrial Internet expands, the ability to finance major capital projects will remain one of the hallmark capabilities of an industrial company. But the particulars will shift.
Infrastructure projects will closely follow the example of the software industry, where cloud computing has sparked a quiet but pervasive change. Software users no longer buy packages; instead, they subscribe to software-as-a-service, paying rent to the provider in exchange for access and continual upgrades. This approach affects the type of financing that tech companies need, and the ways they manage return on investment.
Larger industrial firms will similarly move from financing the ownership of factories and machinery to financing a pay-as-you-go system, with smaller but more frequent rent charges for more flexible installations. There will be less interest in replacing old equipment, and more interest in continuing to upgrade it, using 3D printing and other forms of digital fabrication to manufacture and customize new components. Industrial companies will take a cue from Silicon Valley and finance more of their investments through equity and venture capital, rather than through debt. Adjustable pricing will also be more common; technology will allow B2B prices to vary by time of sale, amount of use, and type of application.
Amazon has been a pioneer with innovative financing, particularly in the way it scales up and upgrades its platforms. It consistently innovates in areas such as cloud computing and warehousing, which require large but targeted investment. It has done so by repeatedly raising money from the stock market and making a convincing case that these investments are going to pay off in the long term. It has thus been able to put in money where other companies didn't have it. GE has had similarly strong financing acumen, drawing its investment capital from the management (and divestment) of multiple businesses. It's building an enormously expensive platform almost from scratch. The company has a staff of about 28,000 software engineers.
In the end, to fully develop the Industrial Internet (and thus to continue the viability of industrial civilization), it will be necessary to replace or upgrade every aspect of the world's industrial infrastructure, with capabilities and systems that didn't exist before. Financing all this will require as much expertise and creativity as the technological innovation. The technologists understand this. They are establishing metrics for tracking short- and long-term returns, balancing immediate payback and long-range aspiration. They are also embracing new mechanisms, such as blockchain, to ensure that pricing, billing, transfer payments, and subsidies are reliable and free of undue influence. By the time they are finished, the capital infrastructure could be as boldly innovative, and as different from that of the past, as the physical infrastructure that it made possible.
Making a Better World
8. Focus on purpose, not products. As a leader in the Industrial Internet, you will probably develop a wide range of products and services during any given five-year period, potentially in several sectors. Many other companies will use the same platforms to enable their capabilities. To differentiate your company, you need to develop a clear purpose: a value proposition, more effective than anyone else's, that applies to everything you do. This means looking closely at the reasons people come to your company, the outcomes they expect, and the ways you can deliver. When you are clear about what your company is, and why you sell what you sell, people will trust you to deliver what you promise.
Customers recognize when a company fulfills its purpose. They are interested not in products or services, but in outcomes. Consumers at a premium retailer are buying more than clothing or a coffee drink. They are buying a distinctive experience as well. Instead of thinking of your company as providing a particular type of product or service — electric power, health records management, or automobile components, say — think of it as a producer of outcomes. The customer needs to get somewhere, so you're not a car company; you're a facilitator of mobility. Already in many cities, customers are using vehicle sharing apps for short-term rentals (often of electric vehicles), reserving cars where they need them and dropping them off when they are finished. The house is cold, so you're not just a fuel supplier. Your purpose is to help make the home warm, possibly through energy consultation.
Ask yourself whether your company truly has an outcomes focus or is still stuck in a physical product mind-set. Are you judging success according to the meaningful differences you make to customers in terms of satisfaction, quality of life, and productivity? Could better outcomes be possible for customers if you could produce or provide goods and services in a different way?
9. Be trustworthy with data. You already collect a vast amount of data. As the IoT spreads to wearables, consumables, cars, and every conceivable part of the home, what you know about people will increase exponentially. The Industrial Internet will bring that level of data collection into your workplace. Shared data is the fuel of the next industrial revolution. And just as earning digital trust will be key to success, forfeiting people's trust will be a surefire route to failure.
You will need not only to manage customers' behavior, but to prevent outsiders from gaining access to critical information. Strong risk management, cybersecurity, and data integrity systems are essential in helping companies avoid breaches and better manage disruption to operations. Transparency has to be an integral part of your strategy. Without a clear idea of how rules are defined and implemented, for example, stakeholders may question a company's fairness and honesty.
Keep up with leading-edge approaches to protecting sensitive information from cyber-attack or theft. Cloud-based systems built into most digital platforms will make it easier to protect data by enabling companies to track and recognize intrusion in near real time. As PwC cybersecurity experts David Burg and Tom Archer put it, your company will most likely protect itself in the future "by monitoring activity across all its online systems, studying not just the moves of hackers but the actions of legitimate customers as well. Both types of visits, after all, are forms of repetitive human behavior, opposite sides of the same coin."
It might seem as if the lack of trust in large businesses and government institutions, endemic throughout the world, will compromise your ability to be trustworthy and transparent. But it actually creates a powerful opportunity to differentiate your company. In PwC's latest global survey of CEO opinion, many CEOs recognize as much. Just under two-thirds of chief executives (and three-quarters of those who head companies with revenues of more than $10 billion) believe that how their firm manages data will be a differentiating factor in the future.
10. Put humanity before machines. You might think the principle of putting people before machines is so obvious that it goes without saying. But the history of technology is full of examples where the opposite has happened. The Industrial Internet places unprecedented power in every enterprise. As machines become increasingly interconnected, the quality of user experience will spread in viral fashion. If people are shut out — of jobs, creative opportunities, income, and customer satisfaction — embracing technology will backfire. Business, in particular, will thrive in this new world only if its leaders understand the place of human values.
Set up your enterprise to foster better connections among people, to encourage humane behavior, and to build the requisite capabilities that overcome technological isolation. The most important skills for accomplishing this will be those that can't be replicated by machines. Your company will need people who can understand the technologies of the industrial infrastructure, such as artificial intelligence and analytics, but who are also adept at working with an organization's culture. Helping people take pride in their endeavors, as our colleague Jon Katzenbach suggests, will be critically important; so will establishing a diversity of points of view, so that people from different backgrounds can challenge one another's perspectives.
Most important of all will be a basic attitude of respect for human beings; as technology becomes more proficient at this larger scale, the most distinctive thing about people will not be their ability to solve problems or achieve results, but their empathy, intuitive judgment, and authenticity; their abilities to care, connect, and choose, in ways we can't predict in advance.
What place will your company occupy as the next industrial revolution unfolds? It depends on your ability to bring all these principles to bear. You will combine your people, your capabilities, and your technological acumen in ways that you never have before. We will soon not just see individual fortunes change, but also see them move forward in ways that provide stability, self-sufficiency, and a high quality of life. In a sense, this represents the culmination of the wave of digital technology that started in the 1950s, and it still has a few years to go before it stabilizes. By that time, we'll be just about ready to start all over again with yet another "next" industrial revolution —assuming this one works out as well as we hope.
Reprint No. 17310
Author profiles:
- Norbert Schwieters is a partner with PwC Germany. Based in Düsseldorf, he leads PwC's global energy, utilities, and resources business.
- Bob Moritz is chairman of the PricewaterhouseCoopers International Network.


text:
Asteroid 2012 DA14: What Is An Asteroid, Anyhow?
Asteroid 2012 DA14, a 130,000 metric ton chuck of rock, will pass within 17,200 miles of the Earth on February 15th. This is a relatively close encounter for such a large chunk of rock, given the vastness of our solar system.
But just what is an asteroid and where did it come from? Why are there massive mountains of rock floating around our solar system? The standard theory of asteroids supposes that they are the shattered remnants of planetesimals, "bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets."
This explanation is rather weak and it comes with a host of problems. For starters, there is no evidence to suggest that neutral dust in the vacuum of space will accumulate itself into planetary bodies. While many people believe this has been proven, it hasn't it is actually just an assumption made by cosmologists, given that their theories of cosmology can't see any other alternative mechanisms. In fact, studies that have tried to simulate neutral dust in a zero gravity have shown that it will not come together. We can see this proven to be true in comet tails, which disperse over space.
Further, if we look at the rings of Saturn, we can clearly see that the dust which makes up the rings has not collapsed into moons. Yet Saturn isn't the only planet that throws a monkey wrench into the planetesimal theory. Numerous exoplanets have been discovered that contradict the standard theory of planet formation. The star Kepler-36 has two such planets, along with XO-3b, HR 8799, and many more.
These findings leave cosmologists in a real bind. Any alternative theories about asteroids would require that some major pillars of cosmological dogma would have to change. Yet change it must, because the present theory is floundering.
Enter plasma cosmology. Plasma cosmology takes the approach of including electrical forces within the astrophysical plasma that is present in space. This theory of cosmology was founded by the Nobel Prize winning physicist Hannes Alfvén.
While plasma cosmology has been derided in the past by standard theorists, because of its use of charge separation in space, it has recently been making a comeback. Famous scientists like Rupert Sheldrake now count themselves among its adherents. After years of studying this subject, I also have concluded that this cosmology makes the most sense out of any of the current theories.
In plasma cosmology, asteroids are the product of "electrical discharge machining." That's a fancy term for lightning bolts blasting rock into space. Now, that might sound rather fantastic, but the amount of energy out in space makes this quite possible. Plasma physicists have concluded that many of the craters and valleys we see on various moons, and even our own planet, are the product of massive electrical discharges.
While I don't have time in this short article to discuss all the finer points of star and planet formation theory according to plasma cosmology, I can link to some great videos and web sites that will explain it all for those who are interested.
I highly recommend watching this tutorial on plasma cosmology first, and then following it up with Symbols of an Alien Sky. These two movies will change your entire outlook on the universe. I still remember the first time I saw Thunderbolts of the Gods. I walked away from it feeling like everything I was ever told about the nature of the universe was a wrong.
For more information on plasma cosmology, see the Thunderbolts Project website.


text:
When you deploy a new Windows 8/ 8.1 operating system, you have a lot of Modern UI Application in your profile. But, for an enterprise, these Apps can be annoying: almost all of them are for personnal use.
By example, we can find:
- Food & Drinks
- Health & Fitness
- Reader
- Games
Hopefully, you can remove / uninstall modern ui Apps by using a Powershell command line.
Microsoft provides two type of Powershell Cmdlet, depend of if you want to remove Apps on a User Profile, or on a System:
- Get-AppxPackage, retrieves all Modern UI Apps for a user profile.
- Get-AppxProvisionedPackage,retrieves all Modern UI Apps for a system.


text:
Men's Stability Running Shoes
Shop our selection of performance running shoes, including products from New Balance, Brooks, Asics, Saucony, Merrell, Inov8, Topo, Altra, Nike, and more to come.
If you are unsure about the type of footwear you should be using for your activity regimen, you can visit either of our 2 Ottawa based stores to have a proper fitting consultation with one of our trained Fit Specialists.
**Online inventory levels are not necessarily reflective of our stores' stock levels. If you would like to make a product inquiry at one of our locations, please contact us by phone or social media for in-store details


text:
Wednesday 19 June 2013
The CBS Drama Series That--With CIA Help--Predicted 9/11 and the Anthrax Attacks
The Agency, a major CBS drama series about the CIA that began being broadcast in late September 2001, featured storylines with remarkable similarities to the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax attacks that occurred in the U.S. shortly after them. One of the show's executive producers said the parallels were so apparent that "people are asking me, 'Are we showing the bad guys our script?'" because "it seems like they're kind of following, in some ways, things that we're doing." [1] Significantly, these storylines were written before September 11, and the show was made with extensive assistance from the CIA. Some of the show's storylines, including those resembling 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, were actually suggested to one of the writers by the CIA. [2]
News reports around the time The Agency was broadcast noted the similarity between the show's storylines and the horrifying events that had taken place in the U.S. No one suggested, however, that this similarity might have been the result of people having foreknowledge of the terrorist attacks that hit America in late 2001. But surely we need to look closer and consider whether some individuals, perhaps employees of the CIA, did indeed know about these attacks in advance and, for as yet unknown reasons, wanted episodes of The Agency to depict events similar to what was going to happen.
The Agency was a prime-time TV series that told stories of life inside the CIA and showed agents tackling problems of national security. [3] The villains they faced included Arab terrorists, Colombian drug dealers, and Iraqis.
The show featured well-known actors such as Gil Bellows, Will Patton, Ronny Cox, and Gloria Reuben. [4] Its principal executive producer was Wolfgang Petersen, who directed blockbuster movies including Air Force One and In the Line of Fire. [5]
The CIA provided substantial support for The Agency. It vetted scripts and allowed its employees to be used as extras. The Agency was also the first television program permitted to film inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. [6] There was even going to be a "big red carpet premiere" of the show's pilot episode at CIA headquarters the week before it aired on TV, on September 18, but the event was canceled because the CIA was busy responding to the 9/11 attacks. [7]
Three storylines written for The Agency are particularly notable. Two of these were made into episodes but one was never used.
The storyline that was not used bore a striking resemblance to the events of September 11, when, according to the official story, Osama bin Laden had four U.S. aircraft hijacked. Michael Frost Beckner, the creator of The Agency, revealed to Variety magazine that four months before 9/11, he wrote an episode "in which bin Laden had three U.S. planes hijacked." The script, though, "was never completed." [8] An episode of The Agency based on this plot could plausibly have been produced between May 2001, when the script was written, and September 11, when it would have become unusable. But Beckner has not said why such an episode was never made.
Beckner has revealed, however, that some storylines for The Agency were suggested to him by Chase Brandon, the CIA's entertainment liaison officer (who happens to be a cousin of Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones). [9] But Beckner has not said whether Brandon suggested to him the storyline about bin Laden having three American aircraft hijacked.
The pilot episode of The Agency also had similarities to what happened on September 11. David Clennon, one of the show's stars, commented that the episode was "spooky" in that it anticipated "a 9/11-type event, only taking place in London." [10] The storyline, according to Beckner, who wrote the episode, "was based on the premise that bin Laden attacks the West and a war on terrorism invigorates the CIA." [11] Osama bin Laden's name is mentioned twice in the episode. [12] Author Tricia Jenkins commented that the timing of the pilot episode was also "eerie," as the episode was originally scheduled to air "just two weeks after 9/11," on September 27, 2001. [13]
In the episode, it is revealed that the CIA has identified al-Qaeda as a threat, and has discovered that the terrorist group is planning to carry out a major attack in Europe. A CIA officer who infiltrated the group is able to provide the agency with the date of the planned attack, but this is only three days away. Agents then learn that the terrorists intend to bomb the Harrods department store in London, England--a target that one character describes as "an international symbol of consumerism." The CIA shares what it has learned with British intelligence officers and helps to avert the attack at the last minute. [14]
As well as noting "the eerie coincidence of an attack on a 'symbol of capitalism,'" Newsday pointed out that the episode "inadvertently anticipated debates in the aftermath of the [9/11] attacks about how harsh and indiscriminate our response to the terrorists should be, and what more, if anything, our intelligence operatives should be empowered to do in the way of preventive defense. It also anticipated, at least allusively, the response of CIA champions ... who've said that our spies failed to detect the [9/11] attacks because their hands have been tied by civil libertarians who care more about being 'good guys' than winning." [15]
The broadcast of the pilot episode on September 27 was canceled in response to the 9/11 attacks, with another episode of The Agency replacing it. [16] Gail Katz, one of the show's executive producers, commented around that time: "Our show seems to be too close to what's in the headlines. Too close, in fact, that ... it's not appropriate for viewing." The pilot episode finally went out on November 1, with all references to Osama bin Laden removed. [17]
Regarding the similarity between storylines of The Agency and real-world events, Bill Harlow, the CIA's chief spokesman, said there was "no magic" involved in the show's apparent ability "to predict the headlines." He claimed that "The Agency simply got lucky that the headlines intersected with its storylines so neatly." However, Beckner revealed that the plot of the pilot episode was one of several storylines suggested to him by Chase Brandon, the CIA's entertainment liaison officer. What this means, Tricia Jenkins has noted, is that it "originated from the CIA." [18]
Beckner said he wrote the episode "over a year before 9/11," presumably meaning around summer 2000. [19] He worked with Brandon to develop the script, and sent early drafts to Brandon. [20] "I made some comments and he made some changes," Brandon has said. [21]
Beckner also said the similarity between the storyline of the pilot episode of The Agency and what happened on September 11 was because, during his career as a writer, he had done "a lot of back and forth with the CIA," and, he said, "The CIA would let in anyone, including a little writer like me, to hear that al-Qaeda and bin Laden are going to attack us." [22]
When we consider the two storylines for The Agency described above--that of the pilot episode and the unused plot about three American aircraft being hijacked--it is worth noting that, before September 11, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were unusual choices as villains for a major television series, since they only became well known among the public after 9/11.
Beckner in fact recalled that when he first presented his script for the pilot episode to CBS, the network "had no idea about bin Laden or al-Qaeda." On another occasion before September 11, CBS told Beckner: "This al-Qaeda thing, you've got to get off that. No one is interested. Trust us." [23] In light of the general lack of awareness of al-Qaeda at the time, therefore, it would be surprising if it was simply a coincidence that, before 9/11, Beckner was already writing storylines about attacks committed by bin Laden and his terrorist group.
While two of The Agency's storylines had similarities to what happened on September 11, another storyline is notable because it involved a planned terrorist attack in the U.S. using anthrax, and because, at the time the episode with this storyline was originally going to be broadcast, the U.S. was actually in the middle of a series of anthrax attacks.
The episode, titled "A Slight Case of Anthrax," featured a German terrorist who had obtained the type of anthrax that the U.S. developed and sold to Iraq when it was an ally. The terrorist has already committed an attack in Belgium using the anthrax. The CIA discovers his identity and finds that he intends to carry out his next attack in Washington, DC, using a crop duster plane to spray the deadly disease. CIA agents then hurry to stop the man in his tracks. [24]
Originally, al-Qaeda was going to be behind the fictitious anthrax attacks. But after CBS objected, the storyline was changed so that it involved "Iraqis making an anthrax attack through German terrorist proxies." [25]
The episode, filmed in August 2001, was set to be broadcast on October 11, 2001, but had to be rescheduled because President Bush decided to hold a news conference that evening. It was then set to air on October 18, but was canceled because it was deemed inappropriate in light of the real-world anthrax attacks talking place. At that time, anthrax had been discovered in three states and the District of Columbia; at least 13 people either had the disease or had been exposed to its spores, and one person had died. [26] The episode finally aired on November 8. [27]
Significantly, Michael Frost Beckner, who wrote "A Slight Case of Anthrax," revealed that the episode's storyline was another one of the plots suggested to him by Chase Brandon. This means that the storyline originated with the CIA. [28]
Considering that storylines written for The Agency appear to have predicted terrorist attacks that took place in the U.S., it is worth noting that the CIA's cooperation with the show included reviewing scripts. The CIA would presumably therefore have seen the scripts for "A Slight Case of Anthrax" and the pilot episode before the episodes were filmed. It would certainly be worth discovering how the agency responded to these scripts. Whether the CIA also saw the script about Osama bin Laden having three American aircraft hijacked, and, if so, how it responded, is unknown.
The fact that a major TV series with storylines about terrorists and the CIA's efforts to tackle them was ready to air within weeks of 9/11, when terrorism suddenly became a major concern, seems a remarkable coincidence.
When members of the press were shown the pilot episode of The Agency before September 11, their "big question," according to Michael Frost Beckner, was, "Who would want to make a television series about the CIA?" [29] At that time, according to Tricia Jenkins, "the CIA was suffering from attrition, Congressional attacks, and a lack of strong public support." But, as Jenkins noted, The Agency subsequently turned out to be particularly "timely ... both in terms of the show's ripped-from-the-headlines plotlines and the CIA's need to deflect the sharp criticisms aimed at the organization in the immediate aftermath of 9/11." [30]
Shortly after September 11, Chase Brandon similarly commented that "a show like The Agency couldn't be more timely." This, he said, was because, "Right now, the American public needs a sense of reassurance." [31] Indeed, CBS ran promos for the show in which the voiceover stated, "Now, more than ever, America needs the unsung heroes of The Agency." [32] Brandon added that as a result of the 9/11 attacks, "Our whole national consciousness is going to change, and I think a responsible film or TV episode about the agency, even one that weaves elements of terrorism into the storyline, can show the magnitude of what's at stake." [33]
A question to consider is whether it was just a coincidence that The Agency was ready to be broadcast just after September 11, when the American public needed to learn "the magnitude of what's at stake" and get "a sense of reassurance." Or could the show's timing have come about because some people in positions that enabled them to influence what programs a TV network produced had foreknowledge of 9/11 and the "war on terror" it would initiate? They therefore wanted programs made that would immediately be ready to fit in with the new reality that would emerge after September 11.
Likewise, could the resemblance of some of The Agency's storylines to 9/11 and the anthrax attacks in the U.S. have been the result of people having foreknowledge of these events?
CNN suggested that the similarity was because the producers and writers of The Agency "read intelligence manuals, pull from actual CIA cases, and confer at length with the show's consultant, retired [CIA] operative Bazzel Baz." [34] However, Michael Frost Beckner revealed that these storylines were suggested to him by the CIA, via its entertainment liaison officer. This surely indicates that some people at the CIA had foreknowledge of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks.
This issue should clearly be examined as part of a new investigation of 9/11. That investigation would need to find out what was known, and who knew it.
[1] Lauren Hunter, "'The Agency' Finds Art a Little Too Close to Reality." CNN, October 31, 2001.
[2] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012, pp. 55, 65-66.
[3] Elaine Sciolino, "Cameras Are Being Turned on a Once-Shy Spy Agency." New York Times, May 6, 2001; John Patterson, "The Caring, Sharing CIA." The Guardian, October 5, 2001.
[4] Duncan Campbell, "Hollywood Helps CIA Come in From the Cold." The Guardian, September 6, 2001; Julie Salamon, "Two New Spy Series at Unexpected Risk." New York Times, September 29, 2001.
[5] Ed Bark, "CBS' 'The Agency' Skips Terror-Themed Episode." Dallas Morning News, September 27, 2001.
[6] Philip Taubman, "Making Over the Central Intelligence Agency." New York Times, August 26, 2001; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 56.
[7] Brooks Boliek, "CIA Calls off 'Agency' Plan." Hollywood Reporter, September 17, 2001; Ed Rampell, "Hollywood's Year of Living Clandestinely." CounterPunch, May 2013.
[8] Army Archerd, "Art Imitates Life, Sort Of." Variety, November 20, 2001.
[9] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, pp. 65-66.
[10] Ed Rampell, "Hollywood's Year of Living Clandestinely."
[11] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 66.
[12] Ed Bark, "CBS' 'The Agency' Skips Terror-Themed Episode."
[13] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 63.
[14] Julie Salamon, "Two New Spy Series at Unexpected Risk"; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, pp. 62-63; Ed Rampell, "Hollywood's Year of Living Clandestinely."
[15] Noel Holston, "Three New Spy-Themed Series Also May End up Victims of the Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Newsday, September 22, 2001.
[16] Julie Salamon, "Two New Spy Series at Unexpected Risk."
[17] "Reworked Agency Pilot to Air Nov. 1 on CBS." South Florida Sun Sentinel, October 25, 2001; Lauren Hunter, "'The Agency' Finds Art a Little Too Close to Reality."
[18] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, pp. 66-67.
[19] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism." Hollywood, Health & Society, April 2, 2002.
[20] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 56.
[21] Duncan Campbell, "Hollywood Helps CIA Come in From the Cold."
[22] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism."
[23] Ibid.
[24] Eric Deggans, "Leave Attacks' Aftermath to Real Life." St. Petersburg Times, October 29, 2001; Bridget Byrne, "'Anthrax' Shows up for Sweeps." E! Online, November 2, 2001; Stephen M. Silverman, "Fictional Anthrax Hits 'The Agency.'" People, November 6, 2001; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 68.
[25] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism."
[26] "CBS Pulls Anthrax Episode of CIA Drama 'The Agency.'" Associated Press, October 17, 2001; Bridget Byrne, "'Anthrax' Shows up for Sweeps."
[27] Stephen M. Silverman, "Fictional Anthrax Hits 'The Agency.'"
[28] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 66.
[29] Bernard Weinraub, "The Moods They Are a'Changing in Films; Terrorism is Making Government Look Good." New York Times, October 10, 2001.
[30] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, pp. 55, 61.
[31] Patrick Goldstein, "The CIA Spins Itself." Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2001.
[32] Brian Lowry, "TV Viewers Flock to What is Familiar." Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2001.
[33] Patrick Goldstein, "The CIA Spins Itself."
[34] Lauren Hunter, "'The Agency' Finds Art a Little Too Close to Reality."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)