New aircraft for research

Public release date: 28-Oct-2011
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Contact: Folke Mehrtens
medien@awi.de
0049-047-148-312-007
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

Polar 6 ready for first assignment in Antarctica

Bremerhaven -- Today the new polar research aircraft Polar 6 will be presented in Bremerhaven, Germany, at the beginning of next week the Basler BT-67 will take off to the Antarctic. Its first job there will be to carry out measurements of the ice crust, which is up to several kilometres thick. The measurement flights will contribute to answering one of the major open questions in climate research: To what degree is the sea level rising due to changes in the ice cover in Antarctica? "The polar regions play a key role in the worldwide development of the climate. Research there thus has high priority for us. We provide modern and reliable research equipment that scientists need for their important work," states Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan, German Federal Minister of Education and Research. The ministry is funding the purchase and equipping of the Polar 6 with a total of 9.78 million euros.

"Aircraft of the Basler BT-67 type have proven to be outstanding for assignments in the polar regions," says Prof. Dr. Heinrich Miller, deputy director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, who has frequently travelled in the Antarctic on polar aircraft. "We are extremely delighted that with the Polar 6 we now have a second aircraft of this type at our disposal, giving us greater capacity to handle the enormous demand for research flights in polar regions." It is now possible, he adds, to carry out important investigations in the Arctic in spring without having to shorten the Antarctic season at the same time.

The sister plane Polar 5 has been in operation for the Alfred Wegener Institute since 2007 and has supplied a large volume of valuable data since then. For instance, researchers have developed a system for towing an electromagnetic sensor (EM bird) below the aircraft to measure the thickness of sea ice. Before this was only possible with helicopters and use of the plane will also increase the range several times over. In this way scientists can determine the thickness of sea ice in regions that could not be reached in the past. These data are entered in coupled climate models and thus improve our understanding of the interactions between ocean, ice and atmosphere.

Among others, geophysicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute employ polar aircraft in the Antarctic to determine the structure of the ice and the Earth's crust below it. This has enabled them to discover previously unknown lakes under ice that reaches a thickness of several kilometres in some cases. Of particular interest to the researchers, however, is how the ice formed, relocated and moved in the course of the Earth's history. For this purpose deep ice cores will be obtained at selected sites, thus permitting conclusions to be drawn about climate history in the course of the alternation between ice ages and interglacials. The best places for taking such cores will be specified beforehand, e.g. on the basis of aircraft measurements. And to make the picture even more complete, the ice structures between the specific drilling sites will be determined by means of geoscientific measurement flights.

The new research aircraft Polar 6 was modified and approved for operation in polar regions in the USA and Canada. Now technicians and scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute are equipping the plane with modern measuring instruments in Bremerhaven jointly with technicians and pilots of the operator Kenn Borek Air Ltd. (Calgary, Canada), FIELAX (Bremerhaven), OPTIMARE (Bremerhaven), Werum (Lneburg) and S. E. A. Datentechnik GmbH (Cologne). Openings in the roof and on the floor of the aircraft make it possible to install various sensors according to the respective scientific focus. Besides a configuration for geophysical measurements, the plane can also be specially fitted for atmospheric measurements, for example.

At the beginning of next week Polar 6 will take off for Antarctica where several geophysical measurement programmes are planned. With a radar altimeter researchers will determine the topography of the Antarctic ice sheet in areas where the satellite CryoSat-2 operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) as well as research groups from the University of Tasmania and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) on the ground also collect data on the topography of the ice sheet. Among other things, CryoSat-2 is used to determine changes in the surface elevations of the Antarctic to within a centimetre by means of repeated measurements. The measurements with Polar 6 serve to check the CryoSat-2 data products regarding their accuracy and constitute an important element of ESA's CryoSat validation programme. After that the scientists will combine several geophysical measuring instruments to map the structure of the Antarctic ice sheet, which is several kilometres thick, and record geological structures of the continent under the ice as well as the underground topography.

After additional measurement flights and logistics operations, such as to Germany's Antarctic Neumayer Station III, Polar 6 will be serviced in Canada in spring and prepared for assignments during the first Arctic campaign in 2012.

Technical data:

Polar 6 (call sign C-G HGF); type: Basler BT-67
Overall length: 20 m
Overall height: 5.2 m
Wingspan: 29 m
Empty weight: 7680 kg (with ski landing gear 8340 kg)
Max. cruising speed: 400 km/h
Min. cruising speed: 156 km/h
Range (excluding payload): 3900 km
Range (1000 kg payload): 3530 km

###

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 28-Oct-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Folke Mehrtens
medien@awi.de
0049-047-148-312-007
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

Polar 6 ready for first assignment in Antarctica

Bremerhaven -- Today the new polar research aircraft Polar 6 will be presented in Bremerhaven, Germany, at the beginning of next week the Basler BT-67 will take off to the Antarctic. Its first job there will be to carry out measurements of the ice crust, which is up to several kilometres thick. The measurement flights will contribute to answering one of the major open questions in climate research: To what degree is the sea level rising due to changes in the ice cover in Antarctica? "The polar regions play a key role in the worldwide development of the climate. Research there thus has high priority for us. We provide modern and reliable research equipment that scientists need for their important work," states Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan, German Federal Minister of Education and Research. The ministry is funding the purchase and equipping of the Polar 6 with a total of 9.78 million euros.

"Aircraft of the Basler BT-67 type have proven to be outstanding for assignments in the polar regions," says Prof. Dr. Heinrich Miller, deputy director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, who has frequently travelled in the Antarctic on polar aircraft. "We are extremely delighted that with the Polar 6 we now have a second aircraft of this type at our disposal, giving us greater capacity to handle the enormous demand for research flights in polar regions." It is now possible, he adds, to carry out important investigations in the Arctic in spring without having to shorten the Antarctic season at the same time.

The sister plane Polar 5 has been in operation for the Alfred Wegener Institute since 2007 and has supplied a large volume of valuable data since then. For instance, researchers have developed a system for towing an electromagnetic sensor (EM bird) below the aircraft to measure the thickness of sea ice. Before this was only possible with helicopters and use of the plane will also increase the range several times over. In this way scientists can determine the thickness of sea ice in regions that could not be reached in the past. These data are entered in coupled climate models and thus improve our understanding of the interactions between ocean, ice and atmosphere.

Among others, geophysicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute employ polar aircraft in the Antarctic to determine the structure of the ice and the Earth's crust below it. This has enabled them to discover previously unknown lakes under ice that reaches a thickness of several kilometres in some cases. Of particular interest to the researchers, however, is how the ice formed, relocated and moved in the course of the Earth's history. For this purpose deep ice cores will be obtained at selected sites, thus permitting conclusions to be drawn about climate history in the course of the alternation between ice ages and interglacials. The best places for taking such cores will be specified beforehand, e.g. on the basis of aircraft measurements. And to make the picture even more complete, the ice structures between the specific drilling sites will be determined by means of geoscientific measurement flights.

The new research aircraft Polar 6 was modified and approved for operation in polar regions in the USA and Canada. Now technicians and scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute are equipping the plane with modern measuring instruments in Bremerhaven jointly with technicians and pilots of the operator Kenn Borek Air Ltd. (Calgary, Canada), FIELAX (Bremerhaven), OPTIMARE (Bremerhaven), Werum (Lneburg) and S. E. A. Datentechnik GmbH (Cologne). Openings in the roof and on the floor of the aircraft make it possible to install various sensors according to the respective scientific focus. Besides a configuration for geophysical measurements, the plane can also be specially fitted for atmospheric measurements, for example.

At the beginning of next week Polar 6 will take off for Antarctica where several geophysical measurement programmes are planned. With a radar altimeter researchers will determine the topography of the Antarctic ice sheet in areas where the satellite CryoSat-2 operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) as well as research groups from the University of Tasmania and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) on the ground also collect data on the topography of the ice sheet. Among other things, CryoSat-2 is used to determine changes in the surface elevations of the Antarctic to within a centimetre by means of repeated measurements. The measurements with Polar 6 serve to check the CryoSat-2 data products regarding their accuracy and constitute an important element of ESA's CryoSat validation programme. After that the scientists will combine several geophysical measuring instruments to map the structure of the Antarctic ice sheet, which is several kilometres thick, and record geological structures of the continent under the ice as well as the underground topography.

After additional measurement flights and logistics operations, such as to Germany's Antarctic Neumayer Station III, Polar 6 will be serviced in Canada in spring and prepared for assignments during the first Arctic campaign in 2012.

Technical data:

Polar 6 (call sign C-G HGF); type: Basler BT-67
Overall length: 20 m
Overall height: 5.2 m
Wingspan: 29 m
Empty weight: 7680 kg (with ski landing gear 8340 kg)
Max. cruising speed: 400 km/h
Min. cruising speed: 156 km/h
Range (excluding payload): 3900 km
Range (1000 kg payload): 3530 km

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/haog-naf102811.php

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Analysis: Buybacks potentially distort U.S. earnings picture (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Stock buybacks among large U.S. multinationals are poised to reach their highest level since the recession once third-quarter results are done, as companies step up repurchases to take advantage of lower stock prices.

The increase, however, raises several questions for investors because buybacks can make earnings look more robust than they really are, and because more money spent on shares means less invested in the business.

Even institutional investors may not fully appreciate the effect buybacks have on earnings, said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's.

Companies are "going to spend what they need to do to protect earnings." he said.

Buybacks among S&P 500 companies slumped from 2007 to 2008, when the United States entered a recession, and bottomed in the second quarter of 2009. They have risen steadily since then, notching up eight consecutive quarters of sequential gains, according to S&P, which says the third-quarter total may top the second-quarter's $109 billion.

In the second quarter, the most recent for which S&P provided data, buybacks accounted for just under 1 percent of the S&P 500's total market capitalization. At their decade peak, in third quarter 2007, buybacks accounted for 1.3 percent of the S&P 500's market cap.

The majority of U.S. companies that have reported third-quarter results so far have beaten Wall Street forecasts, many by just a penny or two per share. Pressure to make the number is no less intense when the economy is lousy.

Buying back stock when prices are low can be smart, but the scale of recent buybacks raises questions about the quality of earnings beats, analysts and investors said. Buying stock may foster shorter-term thinking in the management suite as executives use cash, or raise debt, to buy equity when the business may need additional investment.

Investors are not sensitive enough to know easily how a company can tack on a couple of cents to their earnings-per-share by lowering the share count, said Kevin Beech, manager of equity analysis at Behind the Numbers, a research provider.

"If management has done a deep dive and feels it's the best use of funds, that's one thing," Beech said. "But companies from time to time use, not chicanery necessarily, but accounting help and Band-Aids, to hit their numbers."

Through the third quarter, U.S. companies authorized more than $400 billion in stock repurchases, up by nearly half over 2010's year-to-date total, according to Birinyi Associates.

They include Lowe's (LOW.N), Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), Coca-Cola (KO.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), DuPont (DD.N) and Navistar (NAV.N). IBM (IBM.N) and Intel (INTC.O) and 3M Co (MMM.N) are committing billions.

Buybacks rose steadily in August then flattened, but last week reached a 13-week high of $16.4 billion, averaging $3.3 billion a day. Some jumped too soon as weekly buybacks peaked in late April, when the S&P 500 index (.SPX) was near highs for the year.

For a graphic, see http://link.reuters.com/wuz64s

APPETITE FOR STOCK

In 2004 and 2005, investors rewarded companies that reduced share count, so buybacks soared, but by 2008 nervous companies reduced or stopped such programs, Silverblatt said. These days, companies are negating stock options or shares used for acquisitions, but are not yet broadly reducing share counts.

"Companies are not making that leap yet," he said. "The question is, is the trend starting? Is Occupy Buyback starting up again? If we get more certainty and less uncertainty, yes."

Some buybacks are more effective than others. Netflix (NFLX.O) bought back shares at an average price above $200 in the third quarter. Its stock fell below $80 this week.

If the current pace continues, EPS could get a sizable boost next earnings season, said Trim Tabs, which analyzes stock market liquidity.

Some companies may be playing a quarter-by-quarter earnings game, but that is hard to prove, said Leon Mirochnik, research analyst and associate portfolio manager at Trim Tabs.

"Long-term, I don't think it's in their interest," he said. "It's not a sustainable measure of earnings power."

The recent increase in buybacks reflects a lack of confidence in the economy, so companies' own shares look like a better bet than other investments, Mirochnik said.

"At the moment, I think they're doing the right thing from a capital structure perspective," he said.

Mirochnik added, however, that corporate insiders are selling more than they are buying, even as their companies spend big. When executives and companies are both buying, that combination is a strong predictor of future stock gains, but that is not happening now.

PRESSURE TO MAKE THE NUMBERS

Buybacks can substantially lift reported results.

Praxair Inc's (PX.N) third-quarter profit rose 14 percent, EPS by 16 percent, as the industrial gas supplier bought back 2 percent of its stock. Praxair acknowledged buybacks lifted results and said it plans more.

"Earnings per share grew faster than net income due to share repurchases," Chief Financial Officer James Sawyer said.

Rival Airgas Inc's (ARG.N) net income rose 17 percent, but EPS jumped 29 percent. At least one analyst cited the buyback as a reason for Airgas's 1-cent earnings beat.

Motorola Solutions (MSI.N) bought back $744 million in the quarter. Asked whether that was to boost EPS, Chief Executive Greg Brown said, "Smart investors see right through that."

When Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc (DPS.N) reported results on Wednesday, it had 218 million shares outstanding, down 22 million from a year ago. Credit Suisse analyst Carlos Laboy said earnings got a 2-cent boost from that lower share count, which helped the company beat expectations by 1 cent.

Illinois Tool Works (ITW.N), whose profit beat by 2 cents, spent $1 billion this year buying back shares that at one point were down by a third from their 52-week peak.

That discount "made it pretty attractive for them to do that, and it also highlights potentially some challenges in the market to meet their guidance," said Jeff Windau, industrials analyst at Edward Jones.

(Additional reporting by Martinne Geller, Krishna Das, Lewis Krauskopf, David Gaffen, Ernest Scheyder and Sinead Carew in New York, John Stoll in Detroit, Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111028/bs_nm/us_usa_companies_buybacks

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Mother accused of abusing, abandoning disabled son (Reuters)

DENVER (Reuters) ? A Colorado mother is accused of locking her 14-year-old developmentally disabled son inside a squalid trailer, feeding him just four meals a week, then abandoning him to take a trip with her boyfriend, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Amanda Jolliff, 36, is charged with false imprisonment, child abuse, and at-risk neglect of her son, discovered to be living in a rodent-infested mobile home in Erie, Colorado, northwest of Denver, according to a statement from the Weld County District Attorney's Office.

Her live-in boyfriend, Richard Smith, 31, also was charged, it said. They were jailed on $20,000 bond each.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, police were called to the mobile home park last month after a neighbor found the boy, who was not identified, hiding underneath his porch with his mother nowhere to be seen.

The neighbor said Jolliff and Smith had taken a bus to New York two weeks earlier, and others who lived at the home had moved away, leaving the boy to fend for himself.

When police searched the home, they found mice scurrying throughout the residence and "detected an overpowering odor of animal urine and feces," according to the affidavit.

Inside the home were two dogs, a macaw, two cockatiels, a cockatoo, two ducks and four toads, police said.

The boy told police his mother would lock him inside his room, letting him out just to clean up after the ducks. He said that since 2008 he was fed spaghetti or macaroni just four times a week.

Police said the boy's bedroom window was boarded up, and there was an outside lock on his bedroom door. Inside the pantry, police said they found bags of spaghetti noodles that had been chewed open by mice and contaminated with droppings.

The boy said he was supposed to be home-schooled but that he had not received any education since his mother removed him from public school three years ago.

When Jolliff was located by police and questioned, she admitted to locking up the boy because he would run away and "used to irritate me really bad," the affidavit said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Jerry Norton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111028/us_nm/us_childabuse_abandon

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FINRA ordered by SEC to improve documents policies (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The brokerage industry's self-policing organization has been ordered to improve its document procedures after allegedly providing altered records to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an inspection in 2008.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's Kansas City office altered the documents, the SEC said Thursday in announcing the order.

Known as FINRA, the 4,500-member organization agreed to hire an independent consultant to review its policies for handling documents. The SEC said the 2008 incident was the third time in eight years that FINRA employees had given the SEC doctored or misleading documents.

FINRA didn't admit or deny the allegations. The organization has been criticized for failing to uncover Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme and the alleged fraud by R. Allen Stanford.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_on_bi_ge/us_sec_finra_documents

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Murata Manufacturing shows off self-balancing electric walking aid

Walking assistants of the future come in all shapes and sizes -- from exoskeletons to high-tech walkers -- and you can now also this electric walking aid from Murata Manufacturing to the list of possibilities. It's inspired by some of the standalone robots that the company has built and, much like the Segway, it's able to maintain its balance and stand upright on its own (with an extra set of wheels for some added security). Unlike traditional walkers, however, it requires virtually no effort to push, with built-in sensors able to detect how much the person's body is tilted, and how fast or slow it should move to keep up with them -- it's also apparently powerful to carry a person's luggage or groceries. As you might have suspected, however, it's still just a prototype, and the company isn't ready to say when it might become an actual product. Head on past the break for the company's recent demonstration at CEATEC.

Continue reading Murata Manufacturing shows off self-balancing electric walking aid

Murata Manufacturing shows off self-balancing electric walking aid originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bat Die-Offs Affect Human Health and Economics

60-Second Science | More Science

Biologist Jeffrey Foster at the ScienceWriters2011 conference in Flagstaff on October 16 discussed the implications to humans of the bat die-off resulting from the fungal disease called white nose syndrome. Steve Mirsky reports.

October 24, 2011?|

More 60-Second Science

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?With the loss of these one, two, maybe 10 million bat individuals in these populations, what are the implications??

Bats in the US are being plagued by a fungal condition called white nose syndrome. Northern Arizona University biologist Jeffrey Foster talked at the ScienceWriters2011 conference in Flagstaff on October 16th about what the loss of large numbers of bats would mean.

?And certainly, implications for ecosystem for ecosystem function, particularly for forest health, since these bats feed primarily on insects, and the insects are a major part of these forests. Human health implications, particularly with the vectors of particular diseases that we have out there. And then finally, economic implications for agriculture?so there?s a recent estimate by Boyles et al of the economic impact of bats at nearly $23 billion. Clearly bats are very, very important to agriculture in the United States.?

?Steve Mirsky

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=15270acbe93321ad57949e5840df9e3a

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Sanatoriums could battle drug-resistant TB boom

Tuberculosis resistant to antibiotics is booming in Europe. In Minsk, Belarus, 35 per cent of new cases of TB are already multiple-drug-resistant (MDR) when the patient is infected, new research reveals. The finding suggests there may be far more MDR TB worldwide than estimated by the World Health Organization.

There is little robust data on how many TB cases worldwide are MDR. Resistant bacteria emerge when patients do not take their TB antibiotics properly, and can then spread to healthy people. Of the 5.7 million new or recurrent cases of TB in 2010, the WHO estimates that only 5 per cent were MDR.

But the Minsk data suggest percentages are far higher in eastern Europe ? and they are thought to be increasing in parts of Asia and Africa as well. "Once again there are large numbers of patients for whom there are no effective anti-TB drugs," say Giovanni Migliori, head of the WHO collaborating centre for TB at Tradate, Italy, and Keetan Dheda of the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Extreme scenario

A few antibiotics are kept exclusively to treat MDR, but they are toxic and expensive. If patients stop taking them prematurely, resistance to even those drugs can develop, resulting in virtually untreatable, extremely drug-resistant (XDR) TB.

Some 15 per cent of the MDR cases in Minsk were also XDR. "The findings of this survey are alarming," conclude the investigators, Alena Skrahena and colleagues from the Republican Scientific and Practical Centre for Pulmonology and Tuberculosis in Minsk. They "represent the highest proportions of MDR TB ever recorded in the world".

In South Africa, another TB hotspot, people with XDR TB are often simply released into vulnerable communities. In rich countries they are isolated in hospitals, but this is expensive. Migliori says that work soon to be published shows even western European hospitals do not fully protect healthcare workers from infection.

"Specialised, voluntary sanatoria would protect the community, and treat patients correctly, even if it's only palliative care for the dying," says Migliori. Modern, cure-oriented medical systems are not built around isolating patients, or palliative care, he says. It is not clear whether current plans to build new treatment centres for the epidemic of TB ravaging South Africa, for example, will include such facilities.

Journal references: Skrahena et al.'s Minsk TB study; European Respiratory Journal, DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00145411; Migliori and Dheda's call for new sanatoriums: The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61062-3

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