Firstly, you can download a print friendly version of this guide which also contains your Roleplay Assessment scoresheets using the link below.
You will find it much easier to assess whether an applicant is suitable for the role when you have clearly defined what the role will entail. You would be surprised how many businesses start the recruitment process without a clear picture of what a new consultant would do. This is equally important for experienced consultants as it is inexperienced consultants. After all, job descriptions and expectations can differ from business to business.
What market will they cover?
Will they be responsible for temporary, contract or permanent recruitment?
Will they have an established client base or be responsible for generating their own clients?
How will I measure their performance?
What do I expect them to deliver?
Q What does 'good' look like?
It is important that you clarify what 'good' looks like within your business so you can clearly communicate this to your new team member.
How will you and your new consultants know if they are successful?
What support will you be providing to them in their first 6 months to help them achieve this?
The following outlines a two-stage interview process for a graduate or inexperienced recruitment consultant.
This interview is designed to assess the candidates ability to react to coaching and guidance. The primary assessment tool used within this first interview is roleplay followed by facilitated coaching. It is created to emulate much of the training they should receive if they are successful.
(It is important that you prepare notes for this element to ensure consistency in the message you deliver to each candidate).
Brief the attendee that they are going to roleplay a phone call to a candidate about the job. The candidate is currently looking for work so this is designed to be a test of listening skills. The attendee should firstly find out what the candidate is looking for and then secondly demonstrate relevance within the job specification.
Make sure they also take notes as if on the phone.
After their first attempt give them feedback as appropriate.
Now coach them through the principles of effective questioning - Open Vs Closed questions and the use of Pain, Impact and Situation based questioning techniques. (Should you need further help with these then please contact us).
Before roleplaying again make sure they have an objective set as to what they are seeking to achieve from the conversation.
Roleplay a second time and again give feedback - did they achieve their objective?
Repeat the process for a third time.
Using the same job specification and CV change the roleplay so now they are selling the candidate they have profiled to the client who is recruiting.
Brief the attendee using their notes and the CV that they are now to call the hiring manager and give them a short presentation on the candidate.
After the first attempt give feedback. Before starting the second roleplay ensure they have relevant objectives that are commitment based.
A candidate pulling out of an interview - tomorrow!
Use a separate score sheet for each of the roleplays (ie. you will need at least 6 score sheets) Look for the rate of improvement from attempt 1 to 2 to 3.
What was the quality of their listening both during the roleplay but also the coaching sessions?
How did they respond to feedback and constructive criticism?
The level of final result is only secondary at this time as the primary objective was to assess how the attendee will respond to the coaching. If the attendee responds and improves at a desired rate then you can more accurately predict how they will develop in the business environment and from the training they will receive.
Make sure you accurately record on the score sheet your findings for each attendee to help with easy comparison of results between each person you interview.
Competency-based interviews, sometimes referred to as structured interviews, are interviews where each question is designed to test one or more specific skills. The answer is then matched against pre-decided criteria and marked accordingly.
Normal interviews, sometimes referred to as unstructured interviews, are essentially a conversation where you ask a few questions without any specific aim in mind other than getting an overall impression of them as an individual. Questions are often fairly random and can sometimes be quite open. For example, "What can you offer my company?" can be used to gather general information about them but does not test any specific skill or competency. In an unstructured interview, the candidate is judged on the general impression that they leave. Unstructured interviews are therefore much more likely to be subjective.
[Full competency frameworks for each of these seven competencies along with example questions are included in the full Talent Builder training solution].
The following outlines a two-stage interview process for an experienced recruitment consultant.
This interview is designed to test the attendees' ability to think commercially and demonstrate their 'recruitment brain' capacity. It combines the use of situational questions and an intray exercise.
Introductions and set agenda for interview.
Brief history of your company and vision of the future.
A candidate tells you that they have an interview scheduled for a job as a [INSERT JOB TITLE] in three days time. They are very interested in the position and tell you all about what the role involves: It is for a [INSERT RELEVANT SECTOR/INDUSTRY] (exactly the candidates background). They are due to meet with the Managing Director, Bob Smith for the interview. Salary is around the [INSERT A RELEVANT SALARY] with the potential to develop a team around themselves. The agency they are going through has told them they are one of one so looking very promising.
What will you do or say on the call and afterwards?
Whilst sourcing for candidates through Linkedin you speak to a really good Account Manager who tells you that they have just accepted another position, so there is no point in carrying on talking to them.
What will you say next? What are your objectives now you have heard this?
Whilst conducting your business development activity, you speak with a Head of Sales who is currently recruiting for a Senior Sales Manager to be the first person "on the ground" in their new North West office. Although struggling to find the right candidate she does not have time to talk on the phone and wants to email you a job description and get some CVs from you ASAP.
It is a good idea to create 10+ of these questions along with model answers for a Low, Medium and High result. That way during the interview the interviewer can select the 2 or 3 that they feel are the most appropriate. This will also help for you to assess potential training needs of the consultant prior to them joining so that steps can be put in place to address these as soon as possible.
An intray exercise measures the prioritization skills of a potential recruit and their ability to be able to think on their feet.
The following example intray exercise can be simplified or developed according to the level of the individual. The exercise should be timed with the attendee having 5 minutes to read through the contents and then a further 10 minutes to discuss how they would approach the day that has been mapped out for them.
Some of the above will interlink e.g. the Linkedin request could be from someone who is a good match for the new job that has come in and the placement returning to find a new opportunity could be right for the job the candidate is ducking out of attending the interview for etc.
The attendee has to prioritise what they are going to do and then act upon each element.
Building the intray exercise once will then allow it to be used multiple times. Elements can be added and removed to test different attendees from different backgrounds and levels of experience.
Final feedback and then invite open questions on how they felt they did and what impact it has had on their desire to work for you.
If you already have a small office team try to organize a small social event so that they can meet everyone. This will also help to make their first day less daunting and will reduce the possibility of them not turning up for their first day. If it is not possible or practical to arrange a small get together before they start then arranging something within their first week will help them to settle into an already established team.
Notice periods can feel like a lifetime. Do as much as you can throughout this period of keep their motivation high.
If they are working through a month (or even longer) notice period then ensure that you call them every week to check in with them – but have a reason! For example, check that they have received their contact, ask if they have any specific needs for when they start, etc.
Also, send them a congratulations card to their home address.
TIP: Choose the best day and time for you. Not when they are first available.
It is not recommended that your new consultant joins you at 9am on a Monday morning as from a practical point of view it will probably be difficult to donate the required amount of time to them and their first experience in your office will probably be a little chaotic.
By picking a slightly later time, such as 10am, or possibly even delaying it until Tuesday you can ensure that you are fully prepared and organized.
If you do have existing team members ensure that they are also aware of the day your new starter will be joining you.
With so much to complete in their first week there are a few things that your new starter(s) can do before their first day to provide a good foundation for building upon.
Ask your new starter to provide a short 5 minute presentation on one of the following topics (of course add your own question if desired).
Who will their main competitors be within the market they are covering?
Who are the big employers in their market?
What changes could be happening over the next 2 years in their market which will impact on businesses recruitment needs?
Schedule a time for them to give their presentations during the afternoon of their first day.
Also ask them to set up both a Linkedin and a Twitter account if they don't already have one which you can then tweak during their early days with you.
[Talent Builder clients also receive a complete 'Recruiters Guide to Social Media' to pass onto new recruits].
All of this should be completed prior to their first day with you in the office. How well they complete these activities will serve as a good indicator to their commitment levels to their new role, your business and their desire to learn as much as they can about their market.


text:
Technology Gateways: pathway to a more sustainable future
The move to a more sustainable future can provide many opportunities for companies in the area of Research, Development and Innovation. As Irish companies, of all sizes, strive towards a low carbon future, many are thinking about developing, and investing in sustainable products, processes or services. For some this may mean adapting their business strategy, engaging with new or disruptive technologies, changing an existing product or even developing a new product. In this planning and development stage companies can often experience challenges as they move to a greener and more sustainable position.
Technology Gateways are at the forefront of assisting companies, wherever they may be on their sustainability journey. Expertise and support are available in a range of sectors such as Energy, Food and Beverage, Bioresources, Manufacturing, Engineering and IoT. Experienced researchers and engineers provide companies with a pathway to develop ideas and access the considerable range of skills, support and equipment available across the network.
Our 16 Technology Gateways are located nationwide, ensuring companies can benefit from the expertise of over 300 industry-focused researchers and engineers right across our Gateway teams. In recent years the Network has collaborated on a variety of sustainable projects. Read below some examples on how the Technology Gateway Network has assisted Irish Industry in areas such as energy appraisal, prototype design and bio resources.
Lambay Irish Whiskey and CREDIT Gateway
Lambay Irish Whiskey Company is a partnership between Lambay Estate Company and the French cognac distiller Camus. The two companies formed a partnership in 2018 based around a view to produce Irish whiskey on Lambay Island, initially ageing the product there and then manufacturing part or all of the product there.
Lambay Island is not grid connected and sources most of its electrical power from wind and solar installations, with a backup generator.
CREDIT Technology Gateway research staff undertook an energy appraisal of the current loads and forecast future loads and possible energy supplies including a battery storage system. This involved installing electricity metering on the island with dedicated broadband connection which was capable of monitoring the electrical flows on the island with high accuracy. The company have now obtained an energy baseline for the island and know the impact that the new distillery will have on the island.
RainSurfer Limited and PEM Gateway
Rainsurfer Limited are a Dublin based company who design and manufacture innovative and sustainable rainwater harvesting solutions. Their current Prototype the HiRiser® is an independently powered pumping unit designed to collect rainwater through domestic roof/gutter systems and pump it from ground level to a storage tank at a higher elevation for domestic re-use.
The original prototype's design utilised a coil of pipe connected to a plastic circular disk to form a spiral wheel which was used to pump the water, this was a component that Rainsurfer Limited felt could be improved significantly.
Rainsurfer Limited engaged with the PEM Technology Gateway to assist in designing and manufacturing a fully functional spiral component to replace the initial rudimentary design. The Gateway was also the main point of contact with the manufacturing company on behalf of Rainsurfer Limited and oversaw the entire manufacturing process of the next generation prototype of the spiral component.
Bord na Mona and Shannon ABC Gateway
Bord na Mona are a semi-state company who have had a remit to develop the peatlands of Ireland over the past 80 years, for the economic benefit of this country. This remit has now changed and Bord na Mona have begun to execute the biggest change of land use in modern Irish history. Some of these changes include Renewable Energy Development, Biomass Development, Waste Recycling, Health & Wellbeing, Eco-tourism and Community amenities.
One project in progress is the growth of 8,000 hectares of birch trees, with a potential significant application in the production of birch water Bord na Mona are exploring the possibility of using the sap extracted from these trees as a health drink, food and ingredient in cosmetics and personal care products.
Shannon ABC Technology Gateway has over a decade of experience in screening bioresources for a variety of commercial applications. A range of birch water samples were received from Bord na Mona and were tested for a range of analytes including vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates to support potential EFSA approved health claims, as well as shelf-life testing to determine stability
A report was generated for Bord na Mona detailing these results which included potential health claims that could be made based on the data and EFSA guidelines as well as impact of storage and processing on shelf life.
Medite SmartPly and PMBrc Gateway
Medite Smartply is a market-leading manufacturer of innovative medium density fibreboard (MDF) and oriented strand board (OSB) panels. Combining the very latest technologies, sustainable raw materials sourced from their own forests and customer-led innovation allows the company to produce products of the highest quality, defining the standards of engineered timber panels.
Medite Smartply believes that the next generation of wood panel products will be determined by scientific-led research and enabling technologies. PMBrc Technology Gateway has been an important R&D partner since 2012, providing technical support to the product development process with an increasingly important role in their development of 'intelligent engineered wood panels'.
The equipment and expertise of the Gateway are not available to Medite Smartply in-house. By partnering with PMBRC, the company has been able to develop new solutions and products and get them to market quicker than would have been possible otherwise.
MCC Water Solutions and WiSAR Gateway
MCC Water Solutions is a family run business based in Donegal that operates throughout Ulster, with over 40 years' experience in the pipe-laying and the water pumping industry. The company's ethos is to protect the environment by sustainably harnessing our ever-decreasing water sources by getting the most from every litre that is used in irrigation systems.
The aim of the collaboration with WiSAR Technology Gateway was to investigate the feasibility of developing a mobile water dosing system for golf greens to allow the green keeper to accurately add various agents such as fertiliser or other chemicals, to the flowing water in a controlled and automated fashion, optimising the mix according to grass conditions.
WiSAR began with a full technical review of the client's current mains-powered system. The next step was to determine the power source required to power the mobile dosing system. With the energy requirements scoped out, a lightweight rechargeable lithium battery was identified that could supply the current capacity required to run the system. A PCB was then designed and manufactured to connect the power supply, dosing pump, flow meter, LCD, micro-controller and relay.
The final stage of the project was to set up the dosing pump and to develop the firmware to control the signals from both the water meter and dosing pump to accurately control the addition of agents such as fertiliser and other chemicals, to the flowing water. The client created a test rig which allowed WiSAR to confirm the functionality of the components and the overall system, which is now fully operational.
If you have an idea for a new sustainable product, service or process or are in need of innovation assistance for an existing element, get in touch to see how we can help you develop a solution.
Check out more of our case studies here.
12th April 2022 /by Technology Gateways
https://www.technologygateway.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/sustainable-e1649753078885.jpg 699 1181 Technology Gateways https://www.technologygateway.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Enterprise-Ireland-Technology-Gateway-logo.jpg Technology Gateways2022-04-12 09:42:392022-04-12 09:44:46Technology Gateways: pathway to a more sustainable future
Design Strategy: Supporting companies through the innovation process MyGug: From WiSAR to Harvard Innovation Labs

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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published by simply bloggerathome in 2018-09-13 08:54:46. To discover almost all pictures inside Awesome Modern Single Story Homes Inspiration photos gallery make sure you adhere to this hyperlink.


The start of the new series is soon upon us, and as everyone knows it opens with a special two-part adventure set in America.
From the trailers and publicity still out so far, it appears The Doctor accessorises with appropriate American headwear – a Stetson!
Some more recent candid pictures emerged of the filing for a later episode, and the Stetson seems to crop up again (see left), this time giving us a much better view of it and the chance to find a match.
A bit more classy than the fez from last year, there are a number of places to easily get authentic Stetsons – in screen-accurate designs!
Some eagle-eyed members of the RPF have found out that it's a Stetson 2X (see right).
OMG -The Doctor has got a new COAT!
Filming on the new series was back on location this week, and we got the very first look at a brand new addition to The Doctor's wardrobe – a Green Overcoat!
The crew had been filming in a Cardiff department store for what is expected to be an episode from the latter part of Season Six, with James Corden looking like he is returning to play Craig from last seasons The Lodger.
It looks like the Cybermen may be back, with Matt holding what looks like a re-imagining of the cybermat, not seen since 1975.
Luckily some keen Who fans were around to snap some pictures, and these initial images give us the first hint of the rear of the coat, which has a very distinctive yolked back, which seems to hang separate from the body of the coat.
This coming week is Red Nose Day, and following on for several previous Doctor Who involvements, there is a special mini-episode to be screen as part of the Comic Relief fund raising entertainment.
This gives the excuse for a Red Nose Day inspired photoshoot. David Tennant had appeared in 2009 to publicise the cause (see left) and this year it turns to Matt Smith to take up the baton.
He was joined in the photocall by Karen and Arthur, and images of them appeared on the cover of this month's Doctor Who Magazine (see right).
It gives another nice close-up of the new 'tweed' jacket Matt wears, as well as the while gridded shirt.
He can also be seen sporting a new bow tie in a midnight blue silk.


The books on this website are now also available from www.delpher.nl. On Delpher you will find over 1 million digitized Dutch books, newspapers and magazines.
In time www.earlydutchbooksonline.nl will cease to exist.
Early Dutch Books Online gives full-text access to more than 2 million pages in 10,000 books from the Dutch-speaking region from the period 1781-1800.
The project is a collaboration between the Royal Library of the Netherlands and the university libraries of Amsterdam and Leiden. Books from the Special Collections of these libraries have been digitized and made available on word level via this website.
Array of printed sources from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.
Online library of over 136,000 titles published between 1701 and 1800, and printed in English-speaking countries, or countries under British colonial rule.
Group aiming to stimultate research about all aspects of 18th century history in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The content of this website has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.
You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the contents of this site, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. However, you need follow the guidelines for acknowledgement.


Book Description: "Romantic Recovery" is a study of the modern relationships game, revealing the drama in the lives of the characters who perform within it. Showcasing eight well-known players: - Failed Family - Daddy's Girl - Cheating Partner - Posing Friend - Mummy's Boy - Sexual Predator - Bully - Fanatic this is a unique journey through the thrilling Contest of Recovery where females and males score points in deciding the fate of 64 relationship dilemmas. As a finale, there is an intimate eight-day diary with questions and answers designed to benefit singles or couples on a personal quest for romantic recovery.
As co-authors Waterford Adams, we are sisters with a British cultural heritage, who were born in Australia and spent our early years in rural and remote outback regions of Queensland. During our personal histories we have lived and worked in many and various situations, and have learned through adversity that pain is a brilliant teacher. Now in our mature years and with an honourable working relationship, we specialize in the promise of romantic recovery through an ongoing commitment to peacemaking. The collective outcome of this proposal is strengthened by our individual contributions.
WATERFORD: As a registered nurse in public hospitals, I received extensive experience in observing and treating trauma and recovery. Additional periods of real life research have encouraged me to strive to locate the definitive cause of less noticeable trauma. During this study, I have developed through a foundation of insight, the wisdom to appreciate that unidentified emotional pain, if not addressed, is re-created in the form of various discordant and abusive relationship behaviours. My contribution to this book has been refined and inspired over fifteen years.
ADAMS: Teaching for nineteen years in state high schools, with further professional involvement in human relationships education, school camps, term dances and the senior formal, I had the opportunity to study young adults and gain insights into their struggles. The additional years I worked as a telephone counsellor developed my natural intuition, giving me instinctive perception in personal pain and relationship issues. My contribution to this book is to offer a potential for its readers to secure greater awareness through self discovery.


text:
Laelia rotundata är en fjärilsart som beskrevs av Walker 1855. Laelia rotundata ingår i släktet Laelia och familjen tofsspinnare. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Tofsspinnare
rotundata

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The students of Footwear Design & Development Institute (FDDI), Rohtak visited Footwear India Expo 2018 which was held from 31st August to 2nd September 2018.
The Expo was held at DDA Ground, Rohini, Delhi.
Footwear India Expo is an event where brand manufacturers, wholesale dealers and distributors, accessories, components, material and machinery manufacturers are brought together under one roof.
Under the guidance of the highly experienced faculty of FDDI, the students of FDDI School of Footwear, Design & Production Management (FSFDPM) visited the Expo on 01st September, 2018.
The objective of this visit was to provide a solid foundation & to make them conversant with latest technological developments in footwear technology along with leather manufacturing process for domestic & export market which will help them in their professional skill enhancement.
Students visited the stalls of various leading footwear brand manufacturing companies and were guided by the factory experts of Global Footwear, Sfarek, Classic Fibres, Lehar Footwear, Mittal Polymers, ARV Footwear Pvt. Ltd., Laxmi Plastic, P.H. Polymers. These experts briefed them about all the concepts in leather manufacturing to footwear marketing & promotions.
The visit also helped the students to gain exposure to the technological changes taking place in the footwear world.


text:
package org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.internal.queue;

import org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.internal.AbstractService;
import org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.internal.LifecycleQueueService;
import org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.queue.Callback;
import org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.queue.Job;
import org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.queue.JobInfo;
import org.apache.felix.ipojo.extender.queue.QueueService;
import org.osgi.framework.BundleContext;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Dictionary;
import java.util.Hashtable;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.*;

/**
 * An implementation of the Lifecycle Queue Service for synchronous processing.
 */
public class SynchronousQueueService extends AbstractQueueService implements LifecycleQueueService {

    private final Statistic m_statistic = new Statistic();

    public SynchronousQueueService(BundleContext bundleContext) {
        super(bundleContext, QueueService.class);
    }

    @Override
    protected Dictionary<String, ?> getServiceProperties() {
        Hashtable<String, Object> properties = new Hashtable<String, Object>();
        properties.put(QueueService.QUEUE_MODE_PROPERTY, QueueService.SYNCHRONOUS_QUEUE_MODE);
        return properties;
    }

    public int getFinished() {
        return m_statistic.getFinishedCounter().get();
    }

    public int getWaiters() {
        return 0;
    }

    public int getCurrents() {
        return m_statistic.getCurrentsCounter().get();
    }

    public List<JobInfo> getWaitersInfo() {
        return Collections.emptyList();
    }

    public <T> Future<T> submit(Job<T> callable, Callback<T> callback, String description) {
        JobInfoCallable<T> exec = new JobInfoCallable<T>(this, m_statistic, callable, callback, description);
        try {
            return new ImmediateFuture<T>(exec.call());
        } catch (Exception e) {
            return new ExceptionFuture<T>(e);
        }

    }

    public <T> Future<T> submit(Job<T> callable, String description) {
        return submit(callable, null, description);
    }

    public <T> Future<T> submit(Job<T> callable) {
        return submit(callable, "No description");
    }

    private class ImmediateFuture<T> implements Future<T> {
        private T m_result;

        public ImmediateFuture(T result) {
            m_result = result;
        }

        public boolean cancel(boolean mayInterruptIfRunning) {
            return false;
        }

        public boolean isCancelled() {
            return false;
        }

        public boolean isDone() {
            return true;
        }

        public T get() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
            return m_result;
        }

        public T get(long timeout, TimeUnit unit) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException, TimeoutException {
            return get();
        }
    }

    private class ExceptionFuture<T> extends ImmediateFuture<T> {
        private ExecutionException m_exception;

        public ExceptionFuture(Exception e) {
            super(null);
            m_exception = new ExecutionException(e);
        }

        @Override
        public T get() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
            throw m_exception;
        }

    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


 José Mourinho: "Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't dive, like a few others do"
12.09.2011 » José Mourinho: "Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't dive, like a few others do"
Real Madrid proved they are a more mature team this season, as they pulled up the 3 points against Getafe, in a match where they could afford to play bad. One of the highlights of the game was the controversial penalty awarded to Cristiano Ronaldo, which allowed Real Madrid to restore the lead.
In the aftermath of the game against Getafe, on which Real Madrid was awarded a penalty kick in a controversial foul play on Ronaldo, José Mourinho defended his player once more and claimed that Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't have the habit to dive, as a few other players in this League do. Real Madrid finished the game with a 4-2 victory, with CR7 adding another goal to his personal count.
José Mourinho was the first to admit that he didn't like the way Real Madrid performed against Getafe: "I'm not happy with my team. We won and we deserved to win, because we scored 4 goals, but we could have scored more, even though our opponent had a good game. We gave them too much freedom to play and they presented themselves very organized. I was close to their coach, Luis Garcia and I could hear the instructions he was giving to his players. I must say he was well documented and he had his homework done regarding my team. This was a very hard match, where we didn't play well. I'll have to think why that happened and take my conclusions from it."
José Mourinho also commented the recent controversy regarding how uneven and unbalanced the Spanish La Liga has been turning to be: "I'm a bit tired of too much people talking about that matter and trying to explore the idea that it is easy to win most of this league matches when you're coaching Real Madrid or Barcelona, just because the other teams are bad. If you see one of those teams, who have been considered as "bad teams" by those supposed "opinion makers", you can see they really work well, with tremendously good and professional players and managers. They are well prepared to win matches."
Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema had a good performance against Getafe, and José Mourinho preffered to praise the French man's work and improvement from last season: "Benzema is very well, he has transformed and he's the one to be credited for that, even though he got a bit of an help by me, his teammates, Zinedine Zidane and Laurent Blanc. The fact is, he has a great attitude and the quality he has always had since the beginning. It's true that last season he got booed a few times, but this year everyone realizes he's in a totally dimension and playing some of his best football.
Real Madrid coach then approached the most controversial play of the match, where Cristiano Ronaldo was fouled near the penalty area. José Mourinho: "It wasn't a penalty, that's a fact. But what's also true is that it was a foul, because Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't dive, like a few others do, and even less when he already has a yellow card, as it was the case. There was no reason for a penalty (the foul was outside the penalty area), but that incident took place when were dominating the match and I'm convicted we would end by scoring sooner or later and still win the match.", said Mourinho in what could be interpreted as an insinuation to what had happened a few hours before, in Barcelona 2-2 draw against Real Sociedad, where Lionel Messi dived in the penalty area close to the end of the match, being shown a yellow card as a result of that action.
After defeating Getafe in La Liga, Real Madrid next match is against Dinamo Zagreb in the UEFA Champions League debut this season, the 14th of September. You can watch Juventus live stream, Dinamo Zagreb vs Real Madrid live stream, in our Live Games Streams section. Cristiano Ronaldo will probably be on the line-up for this match. The countdown clock timer, displaying the time left for the next Ronaldo game, is shown on the top right corner of all pages. You can also watch Benfica vs Manchester United and Barcelona vs AC Milan in our dedicated live streams pages.


The Oklahoma Horticulture Society will hold its annual fall meeting Sept. 16 at The Botanic Garden at Oklahoma State University.
Kim Toscano, host of the popular OETA program Oklahoma Gardening, said the meeting will feature Mark Fishbein, associate professor of botany and herbarium director at OSU, as the keynote speaker.
"We've very excited to have Mark be part of the annual fall meeting. He will showcase many familiar milkweeds among some less recognizable relatives," Toscano said.
Fishbein helped The Botanic Garden at OSU staff install a spectacular milkweed garden as one of the many new additions to the garden this season. He will highlight many of those plants in his presentation.
In an effort to support OHS's many different programs, including scholarships and educational speaker series, the day also will feature a plant auction.
The schedule for the day begins at noon with The Botanic Garden at OSU grounds opening for visitors. The plant auction runs from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., with the OHS business meeting taking place at 1:30 p.m. Fishbein will give his presentation at 2 p.m. Toscano will provide garden tours beginning at 4 p.m.
In addition to the milkweed garden, The Botanic Garden at OSU has a number of other new gardens this season, including the sensational Earth, Wind, Water and Fire Garden, along with the educational Integrated Pest Management Demonstration Garden.


text:
{| class="infobox vevent" width="350" cellspacing="0" style="font-size: 90%;"
|-
! class="summary" colspan="2" style="font-size: medium;" | Temporada 1984 de la NFL
|-
| colspan="2" bgcolor="white" align="center" |
|-
colspan=2 align=center bgcolor=#efefef Temporada regular
-
| Duración
| |2 de septiembre al 17 de diciembre de 1984
|-
colspan=2 align=center bgcolor=#efefef Playoffs
-
| Fecha de inicio
| 23 de diciembre de 1984
|-
| Campeónde la AFC
| Miami Dolphins
|-
|Campeónde la NFC
|San Francisco 49ers
|-
colspan=2 align=center bgcolor=#efefef Super Bowl XIX-
|Fecha|20 de enero de 1985
|-
|Sede|Stanford Stadium, Stanford, California
|-
|Campeones|San Francisco 49ers|-
colspan=2 align=center bgcolor=#efefef Pro Bowl
-
|Fecha|27 de enero de 1985
|-
|Lugar| Aloha Stadium
|-
colspan=2 align=center bgcolor=#efefef Temporadas de la NFL-
| colspan="2" bgcolor="white" align="center" | ← 1983 • 1985 →
|}

La Temporada 1984 de la NFL' fue la 65.ª en la historia de la NFL. Los Colts se trasladaron de Baltimore, Maryland a Indianápolis, Indiana antes de la temporada. La nueva casa de los Colts fue la Hoosier Dome. Los New York Jets se movieron sus partidos de local del Shea Stadium en la ciudad de Nueva York a Giants Stadium en East Rutherford, Nueva Jersey.

La temporada finalizó con el Super Bowl XIX cuando los San Francisco 49ers derrotaron a los Miami Dolphins. Este fue el primer Super Bowl televisado por ABC, que entró en la rotación anual de juego de campeonato con CBS y NBC. Este juego marcó la segunda distancia más corta entre el estadio anfitrión del Super Bowl (Stanford, California) y un equipo de Super Bowl (San Francisco 49ers).

Los 49ers se convirtieron en el primer equipo en la historia de la NFL en ganar 15 juegos en una temporada regular y 18 para ganar en una temporada completa (incluyendo la postemporada). Además, dos de los principales registros ofensivos se establecieron en esta temporada, con el quarterback Dan Marino se estableció un nuevo récord de yardas en una nueva temporada con 5.084 (posteriormente roto por Drew Brees y Tom Brady en 2011. Posteriormente sería roto nuevamente por Peyton Manning en el 2013 con 5.477 yardas. Eric Dickerson estableció una nueva marca, para una sola temporada, de yardas terrestres con 2.105.

Asimismo, durante la temporada, el Wide receiver de los San Diego Chargers, Charlie Joiner se convirtió en el líder de todos los tiempos en recepciones en su carrera en un juego entre los Chargers y los Steelers en el Three Rivers Stadium.

Los salarios aumentaron significativamente en las últimas dos temporadas en la NFL, casi un cincuenta por ciento, encabezando la lista quarterback Warren Moon con $ 1,1 millones.

 Temporada regular V = Victorias, D = Derrotas, E = Empates, CTE = Cociente de victorias [V+(E/2)]/(V+D+E), PF= Puntos a favor, PC = Puntos en contra''

Desempates
 N.Y. Giants finalizó por delante de St. Louis y Dallas en la NFC Este basado en enfrentamientos directos (3–1 contra 2–2 de los Cardinals y 1–3 de los Cowboys).
 St. Louis finalizó por delante de Dallas en la NFC Este basado en un mejor registro de division (5–3 contra 3–5 de los Cowboys).

Post-Temporada

Premios anuales
Al final de temporada se entregan diferentes premios reconociendo el valor del jugador durante la temporada entera.

Enlaces externos

 http://www.nfl.com/standings?category=div&season=1984-REG&split=Overall
 http://www.footballdb.com

Temporadas de la NFL
Deporte en Estados Unidos en 1984


International artists meet Czech minister Hajek, Evelyn Lear sings and pianist Rubinstein plays.
Czech newsreel item. No title.
GV Exterior of Valdstejn Palace in Prague. CU Chandelier. Various shots, the Czechoslovak Minister of Education and Culture, Dr. Jiri Hajek, receives artists gathered for Prague's Music Festival. Various CUs of international artists: among them Yugoslavian composer Logar, Czech composer Dr Karel Reiner, member of the National Theatre Eva Zikmundova talking to an English critic, Australian Mr Spira, the Italian conductor Antonio Redrotti, the Czech conductor Zdenek Kosler and young Rumanian conductor Dieter Acker.
Various shots in the House of Artists, American singer Evelyn Lear sings an American song. MS Eric Werba on the piano accompanying Lear, pan to Evelyn Lear singing.
Various shots, Polish-born US / United States pianist Artur Rubinstein and his wife visiting the old Jewish cemetery in Prague. CUs Hebrew inscriptions on old grave stones. (Over this cut sequence we hear Brahms Piano Concerto being played by Rubinstein). MS The 80-year-old Artur Rubinstein seated at a concert piano playing Brahms Piano Concerto in B-Flat accompanied by the Symphonic Orchestra of Czechoslovak Broadcasting, conducted by Czech conductor Vaclav Neuman. He receives a rapturous applause, shakes hands with the conductor and bows to the audience.
Note: Date on original record: 09/09/1966. Czech commentary. Alternative spellings: Artur / Arthur.


The Klang River, now much neglected, was once a source of Malaya's wealth, writes Emily Ding IF you climb to the peak of Bukit Tabur, you'll be able to see the familiar skyline of Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Gates Dam, which holds Malaysia's first water reservoir. Beyond it, somewhere deep in the tropical forest of the Titiwangsa mountain range that forms the backbone of Peninsula Malaysia, is where the Klang River begins. Most photographs you'll see of the Klang River shows it passing right through the centre of our capital city, where it collides with the Gombak River at the steps of Masjid Jamek, one of Malaysia's oldest mosques. It's fitting as this is where, it's believed, Kuala Lumpur — "muddy confluence" —got its name. The Klang River was once the source of wealth for the capital city but after decades of industrialisation, the river has faded under the glitz of the skyscrapers that dot the city. Kickstarted in 2011, overseen by the Performance Management & Delivery Unit (Pemandu) and involving the cooperation of Federal and State ministries and agencies, the River of Life project (ROL) aims to clean up the river waters and beautify the riverbank, in hopes that a rejuvenated river will attract the development of public, commercial and residential spaces, and spark the beginning of a long-lasting revival.
It's impossible to talk about the history of Kuala Lumpur without talking about the history of Klang, the old capital of Selangor before it moved to Kuala Lumpur. Klang has been settled by humans since ancient times, evidenced by the discovery of artefacts dating back to the Bronze Age, circa 300 B.C. Even as early as 1405, Chinese explorer Admiral Cheng Ho made the first of his seven "treasure voyages" in and around the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, he was guided by maritime charts that already had the Klang River marked out and named. By the 1820s, the Klang River basin had already become known as an important centre of tin mining. More than 20 villages with an estimated total population of 1,500, made up mainly of ethnic Malays from Sumatra, had cropped up along the river to search for tin. But it wasn't until new mining techniques and machinery, imported along with Chinese labourers was it possible to reach deposits at much greater depths that the industry took a leap forward. It was around this time that the story of Kuala Lumpur began. In 1857, the chief of the Klang Valley, Raja Abdullah, sent a party of miners to the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers to prospect for tin in the valley's upper reaches. All the men would perish eventually from malaria but the mines were open for business — at Ampang, Pudu, Batu — and soon, there was a steady and profitable trade going. At this time, the Klang River was the only effective means of transportation. The historian J.M. Gullick described it as "the only highway through the jungle". Boats would make the four-day transit to and from the town of Klang to the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers to load and offload their cargoes, since it was the furthest point upriver through which heavy boats could traverse. As ancillary trade grew, Kuala Lumpur became a trade centre serving the outlying mines. Even the devastating effects of the Selangor Civil War of 1867-1874, which destroyed the mines, didn't dim Kuala Lumpur's prospects. Under the watch of Yap Ah Loy, the-then village kapitan, the town was rebuilt. Just after Selangor came under British colonial rule in 1874, the Resident General of the Federated Malay States, Frank Swettenham, visited Kuala Lumpur and declared it "the best mining village I have seen", and in just a few years, Kuala Lumpur would overtake Klang to become the new Selangor capital. Similarly, it would survive the extensive fire in early 1881 and the flood later that same year, which destroyed numerous buildings, including Yap Ah Loy's house. But some places persisted despite the odds stacked against them, through the sheer will of its people. By the 1890s, Kuala Lumpur had grown into a sizeable town with a population of about 20,000. It would continue to grow decade after decade even after the tin rush ended, with an estimated population today of 1.7 million, spurred on by the mass production of rubber and palm oil, and then the rise of the manufacturing industries. Even in the early days, this boom of population and growth, coupled with natural disasters and disease, contributed to sanitary and pollution problems and neglect. Eventually, this would all take a toll on the river.
There's a certain irony in the story of the Klang River. The river had created the city but as the city developed, it outgrew the river. According to George Peet, a former editor of The Straits Times, who visited Kuala Lumpur in the 1930s, the death knell had sounded when the Kuala Lumpur-Klang railway line was completed in 1886. As the population and the demands of industry grew, the four-hour boat journey was no longer an efficient means of transportation. In the first of the modifications that would be made to the river in service of human needs, one bend of the river was straightened to provide space for railway use. As road transportation arrived on a larger scale, the Klang River fell into further disuse and neglect. Today, the Klang River is mainly used to supply water, though it's not the major water source, since most of the potable water for Klang Valley is supplied from the dams in the Selangor River basin. According to the Global Environmental Centre, the Klang River and its tributaries supply 1,128.4 million litres per day for Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. The Klang Gates Dam reservoir alone, which has a capacity of more than 25 million litres, routes water directly to a water treatment plant in Bukit Nanas and produces 145 million litres of treated water each day. The Klang River is too polluted to be of much practical or recreational use. According to a government agency's report, the water quality at the upper reaches of the Klang River basin is Class I or II but the quality steadily worsens to Class III, IV or V — meaning it's not suitable for body contact — as the river wends downstream due to effluents from sewage treatment plants, commercial and residential centres, industries and workshops, food industries, restaurants, wet markets and squatters.
From the early days, two major floods contributed significantly to what the Klang River looks like today. In 1926, a deluge —"the mother and father of all floods", as Gullick described it — submerged the town to a depth of 900m. Then there was the massive flood of 1971, which lasted five days as a result of torrential monsoon rains and killed 32 people. As a result of these disasters, the Klang River that was drastically straightened, deepened and widened, to mitigate flood occurrences. The river began to resemble a canal (or a big drain), its banks transformed from mud and natural vegetation to slabs of concrete. Still, the problem persisted, with major floods occurring every decade. In another effort to mitigate the floods, in 2003 the federal government built the 9.7km-long submerged Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART Tunnel) that could carry traffic as well as stormwater runoff, intended to solve the problem of flash floods in the Jalan Melayu-Masjid India area of Kuala Lumpur and traffic jams along Jalan Sungai Besi and the Lok Yew flyover at Pudu. But things have only gotten worse. According to a government agency, flooding problems are increasing from year to year and they are no longer limited to the rainy season. Numerous possible contributing causes have been highlighted, including increasing siltation due to heavy construction along the riverbanks and unsustainable rubbish disposal practices.
Still, we build. The still rapidly growing city and its burgeoning population demand it. In further alienation of its original, natural features, the Klang River was transformed into a transportation corridor in the late 1990s. A modern public transportation system — the Ampang Elevated Highway and Light Railway Transit — was constructed in a parallel line above the river, straightening and concretising it further. The river cleaning phase will continue to be carried out along a 110km stretch along the Klang River, covering the municipal districts of Selayang, Ampang Jaya and Kuala Lumpur. The aim is to rehabilitate the water from its current Class III-V water quality to Class IIB by 2020, so as to be suitable for body contact and recreation. Other measures include building new water treatment plants, upgrading existing sewage facilities and drainage systems, and dealing with industrial discharge and general rubbish disposal in a sustainable manner. With the Klang River's water quality improved, both locals and visitors to Kuala Lumpur would be able to swim and fish as they did in the old days, even partake in water sports like canoeing. As for the riverbank, beautification works are focused along the Klang River's most visible stretch: The 10.7 km along the central section, where it flows just below the steps of Masjid Jamek. It's a symbolic move given this spot is Kuala Lumpur's birthplace and a well-known landmark. But Rome wasn't built in a day and our cities are often what our imaginations make it. If all goes according to plan, the Klang River will transform from divider to connector: Between the diverse inhabitants of the city, between nature and concrete, and between heritage and modernity. Just imagine the river as an integral part of the city so that when one thinks of Kuala Lumpur, one can't help but think of the Klang River — the same way one can't help but think of the Thames when they think of London or the Seine, when they think of Paris.


text:
Het wereldkampioenschap veldrijden 1954 werd gehouden op 28 februari 1954 op en rond de morenenheuvel Crenna in het noordwestelijke gelegen gelijknamige district  van de stad Gallarate, Italië.

Een parcours van net iets meer dan drie kilometer moest acht keer worden gerond wat de totale afstand deze editie tot 24,370 kilometer bracht. Uit acht landen gingen 38 renners van start waarvan er 31 de finish haalden. De titelhouder Roger Rondeaux brak in de zevende ronde en in leidende positie zijn frame en moest de strijd staken. Ook de Belg Firmin Van Kerrebroeck, die dit jaar voor de vijfde keer deelnam, moest na een valpartij het wedstrijdveld verlaten.

Net als in 1952 namen er twee Fransen en een Zwitser op het erepodium plaats. Na in 1951, 1952 en 1953 achtereenvolgens als 2e, 2e en 3e te zijn geëindigd behaalde André Dufraisse nu, als derde Fransman, de wereldtitel in het veldrijden. Zijn landgenoot op plaats twee, Pierre Jodet, eindigde in 1950 en 1951 als derde. De Zwitser Hans Bieri op plaats drie was na zijn landgenoot Albert Meier (dit jaar 16e) de tweede niet-Fransman op vijf edities die het podium haalde. De best presterende Belg was Georges Furnière die met de vierde plaats de hoogste Belgische klassering behaalde.

Uitslagen

Individueel

Landenklassement
Op basis klasseringen eerste drie renners.

1954
Veldrijden in Italië
Sport in Lombardije
Wielrennen in 1954
Veldrijden


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text:
Ethics and Comparative Advantage
Presented at Brigham Young University by George P. Brockway
Let's start with a story. Professor Paul Samuelson tells us that several years ago, when he was asked by a Harvard mathematician to name "one proposition in all the social sciences which is both true and nontrivial," he confessed that this was a test at which he always failed. "But now, some thirty years later, he says, "on the staircase, so to speak, an appropriate answer occurs to me: the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage; the demonstration that trade is mutually profitable even when one country is absolutely more or less productive in terms of every commodity.
If Professor Samuelson is right, there is no point to this conference. Foreign trade goes on the way it does because of the law discovered by David Ricardo less than two centuries ago. While subject to refinement and correction, as is any scientific law, it is nevertheless immutable in the sense that we poor mortals cannot repeal it.
Most economists consider their discipline a science on the model of physics. There is nothing good or bad about "S = ½ gt²"; that's the way the natural world works regardless of our feelings on the ethics of falling bodies. Even when Aristotle, two millennia before Galileo, had an entirely different theory, no one thought ethics had anything to do with it. And most economists hold that there's nothing good or bad about the law of comparative advantage, which, they say, is the way the economic world works, regardless of our feelings and intentions.
Let us consider this remarkable law in three ways: historically, empirically, and morally.
First, what is the law? Ricardo explained it this way: Suppose that a certain amount of wine exchanges for a certain amount of cloth. Suppose that in England it would take a year's labor of 100 men to make the cloth, and of 120 men to make the wine, while in Portugal the man-years required are 90 and 80 respectively. In these circumstances, it would be to Portugal's advantage to make only wine and England's to make only cloth, with the countries exchanging the surpluses. Portugal would multiply its wine output 2.125 times, and England its cloth production 2.2 times; and since the cloth and the wine are equal in value, both countries would come out ahead, as follows:
Men per Cloth
Product per Man
Total Men
2.2 units
2.125 units
[editor's note: The Khan Academy has a 9 minute video that explains in more detail]
You can see why economists are fascinated by the law. In the case before us, Portugal is more productive than England in both wool and wine; yet specialization is advantageous for both countries, and particularly advantageous for England, the less productive of the two. And note this: Ricardo does not even mention the economies of scale that might well result from the specialization.
The law of comparative advantage is the bedrock of the standard theory of international trade, taught with remarkable unanimity in almost all economics departments throughout the land. On this foundation arguments for free trade–for GATT and against Gephardt–are erected. There have of course been many more or less technical corrections. For example, when Ricardo compares industries on the basis of the labor involved, he is using his special brand of the generally discredited labor theory of value. Today the notion of productivity is usually used. (For my part, I should question that notion, too, but that's another matter.)
The principal modification of Ricardo was advanced by the Swedish economist Eli Filip Heckscher in 1919 and developed by his student B. Ohlin in 1933. They argued that it would always be advantageous for countries to specialize in those industries where they were capital intensive and to import those goods where they were labor intensive.
So much for the history of the law. Now we come to what I find one of the most astonishing facts about it. Ricardo published it in 1817, but it was not until 1951–one hundred thirty-four years later that a serious attempt was made to find empirical confirmation of the law. The attempt was made by one G. D. A. MacDougal, and in the thirty-odd years since his paper appeared in Economic Journal, a debate has smoldered as to whether his results actually do support Ricardo. Of two widely used textbooks on international trade that I consulted at random, one says flatly that MacDougal did confirm Ricardo, and the other says just as flatly that he did not.
I think you will agree that this is an extraordinary state of affairs for a discipline that claims to be a science. Can you imagine a proposition in physics being taught as gospel for one hundred thirty-four years before anyone bothered to test it? And can you imagine it still taught as gospel when the test proved equivocal? And finally, in your wildest nightmare, can you imagine such an equivocally tested theory used to design a structure on which the livelihoods of literally billions of people may depend? An engineer who proposed to build on such a basis would be treated as a madman and locked up as a threat to civilized society.
But wait, as the television commercials say, there's more. Professor Ohlin published his elaboration of Professor Heckscher' s theory in 1933. It had to wait only twenty years–still an unconscionably long time for an alleged science to act–before its first full-dress test, which was conducted by Professor Wassily Leontief. And what was the outcome? The sad fact is that the empirical findings were the diametric opposite of the predictions of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. Leontief didn't merely fail to confirm Heckscher-Ohlin; he refuted it.
What do you think the economics profession, that stern band this of scientists, did when faced by this contretemps? I could give you a million guesses, and you'd never hit it. Psychologists tell us that the first step in mastering a fear is to name it; so the economists gave the results a name in capital letters–Leontief's Paradox. Then they said Leontief had chosen a bad year for the test. (So Leontief took another year, and Heckscher-Ohlin still failed, though not quite so badly.) Then an entire new industry grew like a fungus within the economics profession. If you needed a subject for your dissertation, or if (after getting your Ph. D.) you needed a subject for a journal article to ensure your promotion, all you had to do was to come up with a new explanation of Leontief's Paradox. The field was, and is, wide open. The only comparable situation I can think of is the Modern Language Association's fascination with William Faulkner. Since it was not clear, perhaps not even to Faulkner, what he had on his mind, there are no limits to what one can write about him. It's hard to say something new about Shakespeare, but anyone can be an innovative critic about Faulkner. It's an academic goldmine. Likewise Heckscher-Ohlin and Leontief's Paradox.
There is, however, a difference. Much ink and paper and brain power are no doubt wasted on Faulkner, but the damage is pretty well controlled within the profession. A few susceptible students may suffer temporary disorientation, but no one is much hurt. The case is otherwise with Heckscher-Ohlin, where it's not much too much to say that the fate of nations–particularly this nation–hangs in the balance.
Now, I think you'll agree that it would be legitimate to argue that the economics profession has, by and large, been morally irresponsible in its unequivocal advocacy of equivocal doctrines. This is not, however, the ethical issue that concerns me here. I wish to call into question, not the morals of economists (who as individuals are probably no better and no worse than ordinary people), but their view of their discipline as an amoral science– not an immoral science, whatever that might be, but an amoral science, like physics, where the behavior of electrons is neither right nor wrong.
Let's begin at the beginning–at least at the beginning of international trade. The first requirement of international trade is that there be nations. If there are no nations, there can scarcely be trade among them. This point may be stupifyingly obvious, but its consequences are far from trivial.
We haven't time to examine in detail the meaning of nationhood, but we can make a few observations. A nation will have citizens, and it will have boundaries, and within those boundaries it will be sovereign–a law unto itself. An aspect of that law will be that its citizens have, in the grand old phrase, certain rights, privileges and immunities that are denied to those who are not citizens. If we who are citizens are not, in this way, distinguished from those who are not citizens, of what meaning is citizenship to us? And if national citizenship is without meaning, of what meaning is the nation?
I leave the questions open. Maybe we don't want a nation; and immunities that are denied to those who are not citizens. If we who are citizens are not, in this way, distinguished from those citizens, who are not" of what meaning is citizenship to us? And if national citizenship is without meaning, of what meaning is the nation?
I leave these questions open. Maybe we shouldn't have one. Perhaps we reserve our loyalty for those who are very near and very dear to us. Perhaps, as D. H. Lawrence put it, we "love-whoosh for humanity." I'm prepared to argue those questions, but my point here and now is merely this: If we have international trade, we have a nation; and if we have a nation, then the well being of our fellow citizens is vital to us. We can't demand respect for our own well being unless we, at the same time, to the same extent, and for the same reasons, respect theirs.
David Ricardo was open to such considerations. He wrote that patriotic sentiments, "which I should be very sorry to see weakened, induce most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations."
What Ricardo could not foresee, and what his modern followers have overlooked, is the fundamental irresponsibility of the modern multinational corporation, which knows no boundaries other than the bottom line. Today capital flits from Schenectady to Singapore more speedily and safely than it moved in Ricardo's time from London to York. Aside from a few temporarily secret processes, technology anywhere is quickly available to literate people everywhere. Domestic availability of raw materials has not dictated a country's industry since the Industrial Revolution and certainly does not do so now. Today the costs of all but one of the factors of production are nearly homogeneous throughout the world.
But the cost of labor is not internationally homogeneous. And since labor is usually the single most costly factor, as well as always the original and necessary factor, the heterogeneity of wage scales and working conditions overrides all other considerations.
Returning to our parable, we find that what happens is not that England specializes in wool and Portugal in wine, but that England abandons the production of both wool and wine and imports both from Portugal.
The question becomes, how will England pay for the imported wool and wine? By exporting something else, most economists will answer; but they tend to be coy when asked what that something else might be. If because of its wage scales (or for any other reason), Portugal can underprice England in the production of every product you can name (many of which Portugal does not consume herself), why should she buy anything at England's higher prices?
Well, it may be urged, England, limping into the post-industrial world, can concentrate on service industries; and while some services, like dishwashing and motorcycle maintenance, can't be exported, financial services can be. Economists make much of the importance to the British Empire of "invisible imports"–interest, insurance premiums, royalties, profits, and employment for younger sons. Keynes once amused himself by calculating that the entire overseas wealth of the Empire at its height could be accounted for by 350 years of Queen Elizabeth's share of only 3 ¼ percent on the loot Sir Francis Drake plundered from Spain in 1580. Yet during all those years Britain compound interest also made pots of money in the usual visible ways of manufacturing and exporting textiles and steel rails and steam engines and anything else anyone could think of.
In any case, invisible imports can only help pay for visible imports; they can't carry the whole load or even a major share of it. All financial services together, including exploitative profits, account for certainly less that 35 percent of the cost of a commodity and often less than 20 percent. Thus 65 to 80 percent of the cost of imports remains uncovered even when the importing nation contributes the entire cost of financial services. And it's not clear why the exporting nation should not itself contribute part and, eventually, all of these services, as exporters are largely doing today. We call the consequence a trade deficit.
The ultimate consequence of abandoning productive industry is national stagnation and decline, not merely of power but also of standard of living. It has happened before. In 1675 a Spanish nobleman, one Alfonso Nuñez de Castro wrote, "Let London manufacture those fabrics of hers to her heart's content; Holland her chambrays; the Indies their beaver and vicuña; Milan her brocades; Italy and France their linens, so long as our capital can enjoy them; the only thing it proves is that all countries train journeymen for Madrid and that Madrid is the queen of parliaments, for all the world serves her and she serves nobody."
Don Alfonso understated Spain's contribution to the wealth and happiness of mankind. She produced no cloth, but she provided services–military services, administrative services, ecclesiastical services–to the New World, and also to the Two Sicilies, to the Low Countries, to Burgundy, and even to the Holy Roman Empire. These services, valuable though they might have been (there has been doubt on this point), were not enough to support the imperial style in Madrid. When the silver from the Indies ran out, Spain slipped into a slough of despond from which today, three centuries after Don Alfonso, she has yet to escape.
Immeasurably more important than the loss of imperial glory, the consequence of service orientation is unemployment. The owners of financial services (including the previous owners of those sold to cash-rich exporting nations) are as happy as clams, but the disemployed workers in the abandoned industries are not. People say that what matters is that those who still have jobs or money in the bank can buy cheaper sports shirts and classier sports cars. Nothing, they say, should interfere with the automatic working of the free market.
It is barely conceivable, as an imaginative exercise, that the market could be allowed much greater sway if we had a world state. Then it might be possible to say that the efficient accumulation and distribution of goods was the most important function of the state, and that the free market was the most efficient way of performing that function. But as it is–a world of nations and of international as well as intra national trade—we do not and cannot allow the market to define our national purposes or the method of their fulfillment. We will not buy our battle tanks from the Russians no matter how cost-effective they are. We may buy golf carts from Poland, but we will not contract with China to supply us with ground-to-air missiles, although we could thereby save half or more of the cost.
Since we make such exceptions to alleged economic laws in order to protect ourselves militarily, it is logically perverse to refuse at least to consider other exceptions in order to protect also the morale and well being of our fellow citizens and of ourselves. Indeed, that is why we have a nation–and why international trade is something to have a conference about.
We started with a story told by Professor Samuelson; let's conclude with a quotation from his famous textbook: "Thus [he writes] if exchange-rate parities and money wage rates are rigid in both countries or if fiscal and monetary policies are poorly run in both countries, then the blessing of cheap imports that international specialization gives might be turned into the curse of unemployment."
There is no doubt that the curse of unemployment is with us, with all of us all over the world. Can we conclude that our fiscal and monetary policies are poorly run? Who will claim they are not? How else could we Americans have doubled our national debt and turned ourselves from the world's leading creditor nation into the world's leading debtor?
Another fact beyond doubt is that "protectionism" in any form has not been part of the fiscal and monetary policies that have done so poorly for us. So "free trade" is not a plausible panacea for any ailment from which we now suffer. We have pretty close to free trade now, and we are very ill.
Proper fiscal and monetary policies are no doubt beyond the scope of this conference, but moral questions are inescapable. It is morally wrong for me as an individual or for the citizens of this nation or any nation to pursue our private pleasures at the expense of our fellow citizens. I have no moral need for a state-of the- art sports car or a state-of-the-style sports shirt, but I do
…. [copy ends – Editor would appreciate readers who may have the last page to send it on]


text:
COMMENT: Romania reaches new historical levels of foreign debt
Romania's total gross foreign debt has reached €103.1bn, according to the National Bank of Romania (pictured).
By Alexandru M. Tanase in London June 17, 2019
Since February 25 when my last comment on Romania's foreign debt was published by bne IntelliNews, many dramatic changes have happened on the country's political scene. The president of Romania's largest party who was also the president of the Chamber of Deputies was sent to prison. The race for the presidency of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) is wide open. On May 26, the Romanian electorate gave a stark warning to the leftist parties of the country during the elections of the 32 Romanian members of the new European Parliament. Support for the PSD was clearly on a declining trend, with especially the vote outside the country (by the Romanian diaspora) being cast in favour of new political forces. Meanwhile, nobody paid any attention to a much more concerning trend, namely that of the fast increase of the Romanian foreign debt. More seriously, perhaps, some Romanian political and academic circles took the view that Romania's foreign indebtedness could be much higher. Nothing could be more wrong or dangerous!
In two comments published by bne IntelliNews in September 2018 and February 2019, respectively (A concerning increase of Romania's foreign debt and Romania: Two 100s and still counting), I expressed clear concerns regarding the increasing trend of the Romanian foreign debt (in parallel with domestic debt). If anything, since then, as mentioned above, the trend has continued unabated and at a faster pace. According to the figures published on June 13 by the National Bank of Romania (NBR), the total gross foreign debt of the country reached €103.1bn, which was above the level reached in April 2013 of €102.7bn, considered so far an absolute peak. In absolute terms, this is a sizeable increase of €3.7bn as compared to end-2018. However, despite all of this, Romania's foreign debt is still treated by the current Romanian political authorities as a benign issue. During the last three years alone, total foreign debt increased from €92.9bn as of end-2016 to €98.5bn as of end-2018 before reaching €103.1bn as of end-April 2019. Such a fast increase will have lasting and/or dramatic consequences and it will be a clear burden on generations to come. In addition, the emigration of the young Romanian workforce (some 5mn have left Romania) gave also a heavy blow to the country's industrial, agricultural and, more generally, to its economic potential.
This worrisome increase was a direct result of very populist measures taken by the PSD governments (supported by its coalition partner ALDE) to increase salaries in the public sector (their average is currently higher than that of the private sector), to grant higher and/or special pensions to larger and larger segments of the Romanian society and to increase the subsidies for political parties for various elections past (May 2019) and future (November 2019). The cost of special pensions granted to parliamentarians, magistrates and other categories is estimated at €1bn per year and even more concerning is that this is envisaged to be extended to a wider range of beneficiaries at local levels (mayors, etc.). Their elimination and/or higher taxation is imperative. The state budget was finally approved very late in March 2019 after a lot of political wrangling and many large cities of Romania (starting with its capital Bucharest) have serious financial difficulties ("undeclared bankruptcies" according to some key mayors). The poor revenue collection was also a result of appointing very inexperienced managers at National Agency of Fiscal Administration (ANAF), the state revenue collection agency. The dismissal of such inexperienced management was finally done in June 2019, but precious time was lost in revenue collection for this year.
Romanian society should understand that living on debt (in this case, on foreign debt) is only a palliative solution. This is what Romania was doing over the last three decades since the events of December 1989. Sooner or later somebody should pick up the bill and repay the debt. The graph below is a very expressive illustration of the worrisome trends of the foreign debt, on one side, and of the international reserves, including gold, on the other side. The gap between foreign debt and international reserves has increased. The level of the international reserves alone decreased in absolute terms from €34.2bn as of end-2016 to €33.7bn as of end-April 2019. Moreover, the service of the foreign debt required payments of €22bn during the first four months of this year, according to the NBR. Two more key indicators: the foreign debt service ratio and the coverage of imports with international reserves also worsened to 16.6% (from 21.2% in 2018) and to 4.8 months (4.9 months as of end-2018), respectively. The coverage of short term debt with international reserves also declined during the first four months of 2019. The Romanian authorities should be concerned on all these counts, but this has not been the case so far. Under such circumstances, it is very likely that the government will have to borrow externally, as its relationship with the commercial banks in the country is at a very low level. The ROBOR scandal, to cite just one example, and many other populist measures contributed to this.
Also, as previously signalled, the structure of the Romanian foreign debt by maturities suffered major changes during the last five years. For instance the share of long term debt decreased from 80.41% as of end-2013 to 67.78% as of end-April 2019, while the share of the short term liabilities increased accordingly during the same period from 19.59% to 33.22%. This could be risky as the service of the short term debt tends to be more difficult to anticipate, service and control. Moreover, the news that Romania might consider selling some of its gold (103.3 tonnes as of May 2019), even if not true, had very negative connotations. A legislative initiative to bring the Romanian gold from London (some 60% of total holdings are deposited with the Bank of England) to Bucharest has unclear status in the Romanian parliament as one of its initiators is now in jail.
Starting from January 1, Romania holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months up to June 30, but the achievements have been very modest. Also, starting with 2018, a set of measures to adhere to the euro zone were announced by the Romanian authorities, but unfortunately this process is not driven by the experienced staff of the NBR, as it should have been. The fiscal sector of the country should be put in order first and foremost. All in all, the actions and results so far have not been very encouraging. There is an evident lack of experienced governmental staff or lack of will to handle such tasks properly.
It is fair to mention that compared with other countries in transition, Romania is not a heavily indebted country. There are various estimations of the increasing ratio of its foreign debt to GDP, with many such ratios being computed to around 50%. However, Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Czech Republic and others have much higher ratios. Nevertheless, the set of immediate measures to be taken by the Romanian authorities mentioned in the quoted articles (increase exports, develop tourism, attract more foreign direct investment, full absorption of the EU funds, re-develop the industrial and agri-business potential of the country, introduce more favourable treatment of the inflow of remittances, abolish or heavily tax the special pensions, etc.) should be treated as being needed now. All of those proposed measures are more valid than ever, but the focus of the Romanian authorities has been more on justice and the forthcoming presidential elections than anything else. This is not the right direction and therefore millions of Romanians are disillusioned with the current Romanian authorities. Hence the sharp changes in voting during the European Parliament elections in May 2019. Avoiding unsustainable populist measures and control of foreign debt should be a national priority, but the politicians in power do not want to hear this. Currently they have other priorities which are not in consonance with the will of the electorate, but this will be taxed soon by the voters.
Alexandru M. Tanase is an independent consultant and former associate director, senior banker at the EBRD and former IMF advisor. These are personal views of the author. The assessments and views expressed are not those of the NBR and/or of any other institution quoted. The assessment and data are based on information as of mid-June 2019.
The core message for bankers and investors active in the CEE region should be: close to old records, potential for more but watch out for late cycle phenomena.
In Europe's youngest country, media freedom is flourishing — yet a controversial story published by a leading broadsheet has turned the spotlight on the serious risks to press freedom and gender equality that remain.
Ukraine heads to the polls again for parliamentary elections on July 21, and expectations are building of another pro-reform vote to follow Volodymyr Zelenskiy's landslide victory in the run off of the presidential election in April.
COMMENT: Sberbank's chief economist says Russian inflation could come in below 4% in 2019
Sberbank's chief economist says Russian inflation could come in below 4% in 2019
ING: Hungary's budget is looking extremely good
The Hungarian year-to-date general government deficit came in at HUF 390bn - only 39.1% of the full-year target, but we can't really say if this good performance is here to stay


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Getting the Rates Right for a Public EV Charging Build-Out
Demand charges can tank the economics of early-stage electric-vehicle charging rollouts. Replacements must balance support for EV growth with fair cost-sharing.
Jeff St. John February 16, 2021
Demand charges are a big problem for EV fast-charging. Finding the right rates to replace them requires a careful balancing act. (Credit: EVgo)
Cathy Zoi, CEO of EVgo, pays a lot of attention to the economics of public electric vehicle charging, both in terms of the widely varying upfront costs from location to location, and the long-term calculations that go into making sure their revenue exceeds their costs over their lifetime.
"We have a first-mover advantage, but we also have a first-learner advantage," she said, with data collected from about 1,500 fast chargers across 800 locations to date. That's allowed the decade-old EV charging provider to develop "proprietary utilization forecasting tools" aimed at ensuring that the early years of a fast-charging site, when relatively few EVs are on the roads to use it, can eventually be made up by the end of its life as EVs proliferate in its region. "That's some of our secret sauce."
But this long-range payoff is threatened by the utility rates known as demand charges, which assess fees based on a customer's peak electricity draw at any moment during a monthly billing cycle. For charging sites dominated by relatively rare, yet very power-intensive, bouts of fast charging, demand charges can add up to 90 percent of total electricity costs, leaving many sites deeply in the red.
That's why "we really need to address rate structures," said David Nanus, EVgo chairman and co-head of private equity for EVgo owner LS Power. "We're really in the early innings of the game in terms of EV adoption," and until the volume of EVs on the road rises, "that demand charge has to be amortized over a lower number of charging sessions."
Back in 2017, EVgo and the nonprofit research group Rocky Mountain Institute studied the demand-charge problem across 230 charging sites in California. The results indicated "how it was killing the business case for [direct-current] fast chargers," said Chris Nelder, RMI's carbon-free mobility practice manager.
"Now it's a commonly understood problem," he said, and not just for public charging providers like EVgo and Electrify America but also for the government agencies, transit authorities and corporate fleet owners seeking to convert to EVs.
A balancing act for EV charging and demand charges
That's why states with decarbonization goals are increasingly pushing regulators and utilities to come up with alternatives to demand charges for the direct-current fast-charging networks seen as a prerequisite for mass-market EV adoption.
"There are different takes around the country about what demand-charge reform looks like, from an indefinite holiday from demand charges, to a five-year holiday, to more complicated ways to optimize utilization with pricing that's reflective of grid conditions," said Amanda Myers, senior policy analyst with the nonpartisan policy firm Energy Innovation.
But the attempts to solve the problem, starting with California's big investor-owned utilities and spreading to other utilities in other states, haven't always hit the right balance, RMI's Nelder said. For example, Southern California Edison's 2017 decision to offer a "demand-charge holiday" for large-scale EV charging sites will relieve the burden through 2024, and then slowly ramp up those charges to their conventional rate over the next five years.
That's not an ideal solution, however, because "all chargers are not going to experience the same demand growth over time," he said. "If you want to have a really functional network, you have to have some chargers that are located in remote areas where they're not going to get used eight hours a day." Delaying demand charges for those sites could simply postpone the low-utilization demand-charge trap facing most chargers today.
Northern California utility Pacific Gas & Electric's solution is even harder for EV charging owners and operators to plan around, he said. It's built on a subscription rate that asks EV charging operators to predict how much electricity they'll use per month. While it assesses no demand charges for use up to that amount, it does impose overage fees when they exceed it.
Other workarounds, like New York's decision to offer upfront rebates to EV charging installations to offset the demand charges they'll face, fail to engage in matching utilization rates with cost structures, he noted.
In light of these unpredictable cost structures, the EV charging industry "tends to want to see a full holiday" from demand charges, Energy Innovation's Myers said. But "folks that look at the nexus between high electrification and how [to] keep emissions low and the grid build-out in check want to see a more sophisticated optimization of encouraging increased utilization."
That's because demand charges are designed to recover the costs of building and maintaining the grid infrastructure to serve peak loads. "These rates were designed for factories or office buildings, not for these charging stations that happen to spike to 250 kilowatts maybe once or twice a month," Nelder said. Before smart meters and other technologies were available to track individual loads' contributions to overall grid stresses, that was a reasonable approach to assessing a customers' share of covering the "fixed costs" of utility transmission and distribution networks.
Densely packed EV charging in parking lots in shopping centers or highway rest stops, or at public and corporate vehicle depots, may require significant grid upgrades, and can be expected to put stress on circuits and transformers that will increase maintenance costs. Rate structures that don't find a way to account for that may end up shifting excessive costs onto utility ratepayers.
That means that a successful solution to the demand-charge problem needs to take individual charging stations' utilization rates into account, Myers said. It also needs to balance costs borne by utilities with costs borne by EV charging owners and operators if it's to gain support from both sides.
A sliding-scale rate to balance consumption and demand
That's where RMI hopes its new rate design may help. In 2019, Nelder's team released a study detailing a proposed replacement rate for Xcel Energy in Colorado. The fundamental challenge is to come up with a rate that doesn't undercut direct-current fast-charger economics in the early years but also doesn't leave the utility, and by extension utility ratepayers, shouldering extra costs.
RMI's rate does that by using a sliding-scale approach, with "volumetric charges starting high and demand charges starting low" to account for the early days of low utilization, Nelder explained. As more and more vehicles start using the chargers, those volumetric charges — that is, the prices per kilowatt-hour for the energy consumed — start dropping, while the demand charges — that is, the prices based on raw peak kilowatts of usage being borne by the connecting utility infrastructure — scale up.
Early bus electrification efforts ran squarely into the demand-charge problem under Xcel's previous rate regime, which was replaced with a new rate structure approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission last year. RMI's proposed rate includes the same fixed charges and time-of-use structures to encourage off-peak charging and discourage on-peak charging. It's also designed to "recover the exact amount that Xcel would have recovered from their own rate" but "without killing the early business case for fast chargers."
Xcel's Minnesota utility has proposed a somewhat similar sliding-rate design, albeit with a far more complicated approach that involves dividing the maximum actual demand by a percentage of power factor, and then setting minimum and maximum ranges for the demand charges that will be assessed.
Connecticut's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has included RMI's rate design concept in early-stage direction to the state's utilities as part of a broader grid modernization docket, although it's unclear if the state's utilities will take it up, Nelder said. Tracking utilization and shifting rate structures on a charger-by-charger basis does require more advanced data collection and billing methodologies.
The growth of EVs will create major new markets for the electricity utilities sell, as well as supporting a big capital build-out for the grid infrastructure needed to support that charging, Zoi said. That gives utilities an incentive to consider ways to bridge the rate-design divide that could stymie early-stage charging build-out.
"The utilities have a sincere interest in the growth of electrified transportation," she said. "They're looking inward to see if their rate structures are incentivizing this or disincentivizing this."
electrify america
ev fleets
fleet charging
southern california edison


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Analysis Articles Feature News Transfer Story
Liverpool have moved in to secure signing of star with £27million clause – Report
July 31, 2020 July 31, 2020 Zahid 0 Comments Mandi, newsnow
On 23rd July, renowned outlet Estadio Deportivo reported that Liverpool would be interested in signing Aissa Mandi from Real Betis as Klopp is in the market for a center back.
If the latest reports going on in the media are anything to go by then the Reds have submitted an offer to hire the services of the Algerian international.
News – £190,000-a-week player would like to sign for Liverpool – We take a look
According to COPE, Liverpool have moved in with a bid worth 10 million euros to secure the signing of the African star, who will turn 29 in October.
The Spanish news source have mentioned that the Merseysiders have offered a low fee taking into consideration that the defender has got a release clause of 30 million euros (£27million).
However, Betis could allow Mandi to leave for cheap because his current contract with the club is going to expire in less than 12 months.
Jurgen Klopp has already lost an experienced central defender this summer in the form of Dejan Lovren and the Croatian international should be replaced keeping in view that the likes of Joel Matip and Joe Gomez have been in and out of the team due to injury concerns.
In your view, should Liverpool lure Aissa Mandi to replace the ex Saints man at Anfield?
The former Reims defender has played over 300 games in his senior club career and he was a regular starter for Betis in the last campaign.
As far as his international career is concerned, Mandi has already played 55 times for Algeria and he was a very important member of the squad that won the African Cup of Nations last year by beating Mane's Senegal in the final.
← £190,000-a-week player would like to sign for Liverpool – We take a look
Liverpool prepared to offer big money to sign £45million star – Face competition. →


"You don't think it could ever happen to you," said Janette Fennell, president and founder of Kids and Cars, referring to the accidental death due to heatstroke of children left in cars.
Credit: ShutterstockBut it does happen. Every nine days a child dies from vehicular heatstroke in the U.S., according to Kids and Cars. Tragically, the children are often unintentionally left in the car by their own distracted parents, and it's not just a summer danger. Within 10 minutes, according to a report in the journal Pediatrics, the temperature inside a closed car can rise 20 degrees, and children have died in cars when the temperature outside was only 60 degrees, according to safety-seat maker Evenflo.
Since 1990, over 800 children have died from heatstroke in the U.S. after being left in cars, an average of 37 children each year, according to the National Safety Council. It is a needless tragedy, say safety advocates, but one common enough to garner its own acronym: PVH, for pediatric vehicular heatstroke.
There are now several technological solutions to combat this issue, ranging from apps and safety gear to a handful of cars available with built-in child-reminder systems. Advocates want more, however, and have been encouraging proposed legislation that would mandate that carmakers include prevention systems and alerts in all vehicles in the future.
The simplest solution for parents and caregivers is to use a smartphone as a warning system. For example, Waze, the wildly popular traffic app, has a little-known setting people can use to remind them a toddler is in the back seat.
"In the U.S. alone, nearly 40 children and hundreds of pets die of heat stroke from being left in a hot car each year, so we felt it was necessary to offer this possibly life-saving reminder to our users."
To turn it on, you go to "Settings," and then under "Advanced settings" you'll find "General" settings, which is where you'll locate a menu where you can select the "Child Reminder" feature. Once it's turned on, whenever you reach the destination on a route, a chime on the phone will sound and display a Child Reminder alert to check the back seat.
"In the U.S. alone, nearly 40 children and hundreds of pets die of heatstroke from being left in a hot car each year," said Waze spokesperson Terry Wei, "so we felt it was necessary to offer this possibly life-saving reminder to our users."
It's not a foolproof solution, however. The Waze child alert works only if you have your phone with you and you happen to be using the app to navigate somewhere. Unfortunately, most people don't use the app for regular trips to the grocery store and other sundry tasks. And the child-reminder setting is buried several layers deep in the app, making it awkward to turn on and off at will.
Although there have been some aftermarket systems, such as clip-on sensors and pads, safety experts don't recommend them because anything you add to a child's seat can potentially reduce its effectiveness in a crash. A better approach is to build such a system into a child's car seat or a car.
Credit: EvenfloChild-car-seat maker Evenflo offers a system it calls SensorSafe in a number of infant and toddler car seats, which start at $90.
"Evenflo's SensorSafe generates a series of tones to remind the driver that a child is secured in a car seat in the rear seat of the vehicle, within 2 seconds of turning off the vehicle," explained Sarah Haverstick, Evenflo safety advocate. The system has two components, a special chest clip in the seat and a wireless receiver that plugs into the onboard diagnostics (OBD) port under the dash of most cars.
Credit: ShutterstockThe advantage of the Evenflo system is that it doesn't require an app or a smartphone, and it alerts parents if the child unbuckles his or her seatbelt while in transit. The system works in cars from 2008 on. Hybrid cars and vehicles with start/stop fuel-saving systems can also use Evenflo's SensorSafe, but a different OBD receiver — available from the company — is required.
Elsa Foley is the mother of two boys, ages 4 and 5, so she's sensitive to the problem of PVH. She also happens to be an engineer at Nissan, so she did something about it. Foley helped develop Nissan's rear-door alert system that first appeared in the 2018 Pathfinder.
"The idea is to have the horn honk to remind drivers to check the back seat" when they park, Foley said. "We paired it with a message in the instrument cluster, but since you might miss that, if you don't open the rear door, after a couple of seconds a distinctive horn honk sounds."
Credit: NissanFoley said Nissan focused on a simple yet effective solution that could easily be added to all of the company's vehicles in the future. The software is also smart enough to account for parents unpacking a stroller; if you open the rear hatch first, the car won't honk at you right away.
Other automakers have begun to introduce systems to prevent PVH. GM, for example, has a similar rear-seat reminder as standard equipment in its Terrain, Acadia and Yukon SUVs.
Credit: TeslaTesla has a cabin-overheat-protect feature that can automatically turn on a vehicle's air conditioning should the interior temperature rise above 105 degrees Fahrenheit (it will stay on for up to 12 hours).
"The idea is to have the horn honk to remind drivers to check the back seat."
Several car companies are exploring other solutions.
"Honda has investigated these types of fatalities and is working on a countermeasure that will be applied in our future vehicles," said Natalie Kumaratne, a safety specialist at Honda.
Ultimately, the goal is to have such alerts in all cars and SUVs.
There is legislation wending its way through the U.S. Congress now. Originally a separate bill, the "rear-seat-occupant-alert-system" mandate has been added to the Self Drive Act, which is intended to facilitate the introduction of autonomous vehicles.
Adding it to the bill makes technical sense, since autonomous cars will need to be able to sense who is in a vehicle at all times using pressure, video or ultrasonic sensors. Unfortunately, like most government bills, it has been bogged down in red tape.
"If you don't buckle your seat belt, you get a buzz," Fennell said. "If you leave your lights on, the car automatically shuts them off. So is it more important to prevent a dead battery than a dead child?"