Reconnecting With Customers: Building Brands & Profits in The Relationship Age by Jack Myers Spurge Ink!; First Edition edition (October 27, 1998) | ISBN: 188823248X | 250 pages | PDF | 11.28 MB
As the Information Age evolves, welcome to The Relationship Age, where relationships come first, the deal second. In today?s global marketplace, the irrevocable trend is away from commoditization, and towards marketing and brand-based relationships. Integration is an imperative. Success demands we apply the new Three R?s: Reconnecting, Relevance and Results. Myers explains how.
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ZAROZJE, Serbia (AP) ? Get your garlic, crosses and stakes ready: a bloodsucking vampire is on the loose.
Or so say villagers in the tiny western Serbian hamlet of Zarozje, nestled between lush green mountain slopes and spooky thick forests. They say rumors that a legendary vampire ghost has awakened are spreading fear ? and a potential tourist opportunity ? through the remote village.
A local council warned villagers to put garlic in their pockets and place wooden crosses in their rooms to ward off vampires, although it appeared designed more to attract visitors to the impoverished region bordering Bosnia.
Many of the villagers are aware that Sava Savanovic, Serbia's most famous vampire, is a fairy tale. Still, they say, better to take it seriously than risk succumbing to the vampire's fangs.
"The story of Sava Savanovic is a legend, but strange things did occur in these parts back in the old days," said 55-year-old housewife Milka Prokic, holding a string of garlic in one hand and a large wooden stake in another, as an appropriately moody mist rose above the surrounding hills. "We have inherited this legend from our ancestors, and we keep it alive for the younger generations."
Vampire legends have played a prominent part in the Balkans for centuries ? most prominently Dracula from Romania's Transylvania region. In the 18th century, the legends sometimes triggered mass hysteria and even public executions of those accused of being vampires.
Sava Savanovic, described by the Zarozje villagers as Serbia's first vampire, reputedly drank the blood of those who came to the small shack in the dense oak tree forest to mill their grain on the clear mountain Rogatica river.
The wooden mill collapsed a few months ago ? allegedly angering the vampire, who is now looking for a new place to hang his cape.
Some locals claim they can hear steps cracking dry forest leaves and strange sounds coming from the rocky mountain peaks where the vampire was purportedly killed with a sharp stake that pierced his heart ? but managed to survive in spirit as a butterfly.
"One should always remain calm, it's important not to frighten him, you shouldn't make fun of him," said villager Mico Matic, 56, whose house is not far from the collapsed mill.
"He is just one of the neighbors, you do your best to be on friendly terms with him," he said with a wry smile, displaying garlic from both of his trouser pockets.
Some locals say it's easy for strangers to laugh at them, but they truly believe.
"Five people have recently died one after another in our small community, one hanging himself," said Miodrag Vujetic, a local municipal council member. "This is not by accident."
Vujetic, however, said that "whatever is true about Sava," locals should use the legend to promote tourism.
"If Romanians could profit on the Dracula legend with the tourists visiting Transylvania, why can't we do the same with Sava?"
Richard Sugg, a lecturer in Renaissance Studies at the U.K.'s University of Durham and an expert on the vampire legends, said the fear could be very real. Stress can bring on nightmares, which makes people's feelings of dread even worse.
"The tourists think it is fun ? and the Serbian locals think it's terrifying," he said.
NEW YORK (AP) ? A month after Sandy's floodwaters swept up his block, punched a hole in his foundation and drowned his furnace, John Frawley still has no electricity or heat in his dilapidated home on the Rockaway seashore.
The 57-year-old, who also lost his car and all his winter clothes in the flood, now spends his nights shivering in a pair of donated snow pants, worrying whether the cold might make his chronic heart condition worse.
"I've been coughing like crazy," said Frawley, a former commercial fisherman disabled by a spine injury. He said his family doesn't have the money to pay for even basic repairs. So far, he has avoided going to a shelter, saying he'd rather sleep in his own home.
"But I'm telling you, I can't stay here much longer," he said.
City officials estimate at least 12,000 New Yorkers are trying to survive in unheated, flood-damaged homes, despite warnings that dropping temperatures could pose a health risk.
The chill is only one of the potential environmental hazards that experts say might endanger people trying to resume their lives in the vast New York and New Jersey disaster zone.
Uncounted numbers of families have returned to coastal homes that are contaminated with mold, which can aggravate allergies and leave people perpetually wheezing. Others have been sleeping in houses filled with construction dust, as workers have ripped out walls and flooring. That dust can sometimes trigger asthma.
But it is the approaching winter that has some public health officials worried most. Nighttime temperatures have been around freezing and stand to drop in the coming weeks.
New York City's health department said the number of people visiting hospital emergency rooms for cold-related problems has already doubled this November, compared with previous years. Those statistics are likely only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Mortality rates for the elderly and chronically ill rise when people live for extended periods in unheated apartments, even when the temperature is still above freezing, said the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley.
"As the temperatures get colder, the risk increases," he said. "It is especially risky for the elderly. I really want to encourage people, if they don't have heat in their apartment, to look elsewhere."
Since the storm, the health department has been sending National Guard troops door to door, trying to persuade people to leave cold homes until their heating systems are fixed. The city is also carrying out a plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars helping residents make emergency repairs needed to restore their heat and hot water.
Convincing people that they could be endangering themselves by staying until that work is complete, though, isn't always easy.
For weeks, Eddie Saman, 57, slept on sheets of plywood in the frigid, ruined shell of his flooded Staten Island bungalow. He stayed even as the house filled up with a disgusting mold that agitated his asthma so much that it sent him to the emergency room.
Volunteers eventually helped clean the place up somewhat and got Saman a mattress. But on Sunday the wood-burning stove he had been using for heat caught fire.
Melting materials in the ceiling burned his cheek. A neighbor who dashed into the house to look for Saman also suffered burns. The interior of the house ? what was left of it after the flood ? was destroyed.
Two days later, another fire broke out in a flood-damaged house across the street, also occupied by a resident trying to keep warm without a working furnace.
Asked why he hadn't sought lodging elsewhere, Saman said he didn't have family in the region and was rattled by the one night he spent in an emergency shelter. He said it seemed more populated by homeless drug addicts than displaced families.
"That place was not for me," he said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency offered to pay for a hotel, but Saman said he stopped looking because every inn within 100 miles of the city seemed to be booked solid through December.
Saman's case may be extreme, but experts said it isn't unusual for people to hurry back to homes not ready for habitation.
After Hurricane Katrina, medical researchers in New Orleans documented a rise in respiratory ailments among people living in neighborhoods where buildings were being repaired.
The issue wasn't just mold, which can cause problems for years if it isn't mediated properly, said Felicia Rabito, an epidemiologist at Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. There was simply so much work being done, families spent their days breathing the fine particles of sanded wood and drywall.
People complained of something that became known as the "Katrina cough," and while it subsided once the dust settled, researchers later found high lead levels in some neighborhoods due to work crews ignoring standards for lead paint removal.
A group of occupational health experts in New York City, including doctors who run programs for people sickened by World Trade Center dust after 9/11, warned last week that workers cleaning up Sandy's wreckage need to protect themselves by suppressing dust with water, wearing masks and being aware of potential asbestos exposure.
"There are clearly sites that you don't want children at ... and it is very challenging for homeowners to know whether it is safe to go home," said Dr. Maida Galvez, a pediatrician and environmental health expert at The Mount Sinai Hospital who is part of a team evaluating hazards in the disaster zone.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler has urged FEMA and the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a testing program that could give residents an indication of whether their homes were free of mold, sewage and other hazardous substances.
Farley, New York City's health commissioner, said people entering rooms contaminated by floodwater should wear rubber boots and gloves, and exercise care in cleanup. The hazard posed by spilled sewage is a short-term one and experts say the disease-causing bacteria found in it can be wiped out with a good cleaning. But they say anything absorbent that touched tainted water, like curtains or rugs, should be thrown out.
As for the bitter cold, there was no test needed to tell John Frawley that his home is no place to be spending frigid autumn nights.
"A couple of days ago, I was shivering so badly, I just couldn't stop," he said.
Yet with winter nearly here, he still had no plan for getting his heat working again or his ruined electrical system restored, although he also has passed up some of the programs designed to help people like him.
The beginning of everything: A new paradigm shift for the infant universePublic release date: 29-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy science@psu.edu 814-863-4682 Penn State
A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State University. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before -- all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of "space-time," which existed even at the very beginning of the universe over 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes. The research will be published on 11 December 2012 as an "Editor's Suggestion" paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
"We humans always have yearned to understand more about the origin and evolution of our universe," said Abhay Ashtekar, the senior author of the paper. "So it is an exciting time in our group right now, as we begin using our new paradigm to understand, in more detail, the dynamics that matter and geometry experienced during the earliest eras of the universe, including at the very beginning." Ashtekar is the Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics at Penn State and the director of the university's Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Coauthors of the paper, along with Ashtekar, are postdoctoral fellows Ivan Agullo and William Nelson.
The new paradigm provides a conceptual and mathematical framework for describing the exotic "quantum-mechanical geometry of space-time" in the very early universe. The paradigm shows that, during this early era, the universe was compressed to such unimaginable densities that its behavior was ruled not by the classical physics of Einstein's general theory of relativity, but by an even more fundamental theory that also incorporates the strange dynamics of quantum mechanics. The density of matter was huge then -- 10 to the 94 grams (10^94) per cubic centimeter, as compared with the density of an atomic nucleus today, which is only 10 to the 14 grams (10^14).
In this bizarre quantum-mechanical environment -- where one can speak only of probabilities of events rather than certainties -- physical properties naturally would be vastly different from the way we experience them today. Among these differences, Ashtekar said, are the concept of "time," as well as the changing dynamics of various systems over time as they experience the fabric of quantum geometry itself.
No space observatories have been able to detect anything as long ago and far away as the very early eras of the universe described by the new paradigm. But a few observatories have come close. Cosmic background radiation has been detected in an era when the universe was only 380-thousand years old. By that time, after a period of rapid expansion called "inflation," the universe had burst out into a much-diluted version of its earlier super-compressed self. At the beginning of inflation, the density of the universe was a trillion times less than during its infancy, so quantum factors are much less important in ruling the large-scale dynamics of matter and geometry.
Observations of the cosmic background radiation show that the universe had a predominantly uniform consistency after inflation, except for a light sprinkling of some regions that were more dense and others that were less dense. The standard inflationary paradigm for describing the early universe, which uses the classical-physics equations of Einstein, treats space-time as a smooth continuum. "The inflationary paradigm enjoys remarkable success in explaining the observed features of the cosmic background radiation. Yet this model is incomplete. It retains the idea that the universe burst forth from nothing in a Big Bang, which naturally results from the inability of the paradigm's general-relativity physics to describe extreme quantum-mechanical situations," Agullo said. "One needs a quantum theory of gravity, like loop quantum cosmology, to go beyond Einstein in order to capture the true physics near the origin of the universe."
Earlier work with loop quantum cosmology in Ashtekar's group had updated the concept of the Big Bang with the intriguing concept of a Big Bounce, which allows the possibility that our universe emerged not from nothing but from a super-compressed mass of matter that previously may have had a history of its own.
Even though the quantum-mechanical conditions at the beginning of the universe were vastly different from the classical-physics conditions after inflation, the new achievement by the Penn State physicists reveals a surprising connection between the two different paradigms that describe these eras. When scientists use the inflation paradigm together with Einstein's equations to model the evolution of the seed-like areas sprinkled throughout the cosmic background radiation, they find that the irregularities serve as seeds that evolve over time into the galaxy clusters and other large-scale structures that we see in the universe today. Amazingly, when the Penn State scientists used their new loop-quantum-origins paradigm with its quantum-cosmology equations, they found that fundamental fluctuations in the very nature of space at the moment of the Big Bounce evolve to become the seed-like structures seen in the cosmic microwave background.
"Our new work shows that the initial conditions at the very beginning of the universe naturally lead to the large-scale structure of the universe that we observe today," Ashtekar said. "In human terms, it is like taking a snapshot of a baby right at birth and then being able to project from it an accurate profile of how that person will be at age 100."
"This paper pushes back the genesis of the cosmic structure of our universe from the inflationary epoch all the way to the Big Bounce, covering some 11 orders of magnitude in the density of matter and the curvature of space-time," Nelson said. "We now have narrowed down the initial conditions that could exist at the Big Bounce, plus we find that the evolution of those initial conditions agrees with observations of the cosmic background radiation."
The team's results also identify a narrower range of parameters for which the new paradigm predicts novel effects, distinguishing it from standard inflation. Ashtekar said, "It is exciting that we soon may be able to test different predictions from these two theories against future discoveries with next-generation observational missions. Such experiments will help us to continue gaining a deeper understanding of the very, very early universe."
###
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
Barbara Kennedy (PIO): 814-863-4682, science@psu.edu
IMAGES
A high-resolution illustration related to this research is online at
http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Ashtekar11-2012
[ | 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.
The beginning of everything: A new paradigm shift for the infant universePublic release date: 29-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy science@psu.edu 814-863-4682 Penn State
A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State University. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before -- all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of "space-time," which existed even at the very beginning of the universe over 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes. The research will be published on 11 December 2012 as an "Editor's Suggestion" paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
"We humans always have yearned to understand more about the origin and evolution of our universe," said Abhay Ashtekar, the senior author of the paper. "So it is an exciting time in our group right now, as we begin using our new paradigm to understand, in more detail, the dynamics that matter and geometry experienced during the earliest eras of the universe, including at the very beginning." Ashtekar is the Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics at Penn State and the director of the university's Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Coauthors of the paper, along with Ashtekar, are postdoctoral fellows Ivan Agullo and William Nelson.
The new paradigm provides a conceptual and mathematical framework for describing the exotic "quantum-mechanical geometry of space-time" in the very early universe. The paradigm shows that, during this early era, the universe was compressed to such unimaginable densities that its behavior was ruled not by the classical physics of Einstein's general theory of relativity, but by an even more fundamental theory that also incorporates the strange dynamics of quantum mechanics. The density of matter was huge then -- 10 to the 94 grams (10^94) per cubic centimeter, as compared with the density of an atomic nucleus today, which is only 10 to the 14 grams (10^14).
In this bizarre quantum-mechanical environment -- where one can speak only of probabilities of events rather than certainties -- physical properties naturally would be vastly different from the way we experience them today. Among these differences, Ashtekar said, are the concept of "time," as well as the changing dynamics of various systems over time as they experience the fabric of quantum geometry itself.
No space observatories have been able to detect anything as long ago and far away as the very early eras of the universe described by the new paradigm. But a few observatories have come close. Cosmic background radiation has been detected in an era when the universe was only 380-thousand years old. By that time, after a period of rapid expansion called "inflation," the universe had burst out into a much-diluted version of its earlier super-compressed self. At the beginning of inflation, the density of the universe was a trillion times less than during its infancy, so quantum factors are much less important in ruling the large-scale dynamics of matter and geometry.
Observations of the cosmic background radiation show that the universe had a predominantly uniform consistency after inflation, except for a light sprinkling of some regions that were more dense and others that were less dense. The standard inflationary paradigm for describing the early universe, which uses the classical-physics equations of Einstein, treats space-time as a smooth continuum. "The inflationary paradigm enjoys remarkable success in explaining the observed features of the cosmic background radiation. Yet this model is incomplete. It retains the idea that the universe burst forth from nothing in a Big Bang, which naturally results from the inability of the paradigm's general-relativity physics to describe extreme quantum-mechanical situations," Agullo said. "One needs a quantum theory of gravity, like loop quantum cosmology, to go beyond Einstein in order to capture the true physics near the origin of the universe."
Earlier work with loop quantum cosmology in Ashtekar's group had updated the concept of the Big Bang with the intriguing concept of a Big Bounce, which allows the possibility that our universe emerged not from nothing but from a super-compressed mass of matter that previously may have had a history of its own.
Even though the quantum-mechanical conditions at the beginning of the universe were vastly different from the classical-physics conditions after inflation, the new achievement by the Penn State physicists reveals a surprising connection between the two different paradigms that describe these eras. When scientists use the inflation paradigm together with Einstein's equations to model the evolution of the seed-like areas sprinkled throughout the cosmic background radiation, they find that the irregularities serve as seeds that evolve over time into the galaxy clusters and other large-scale structures that we see in the universe today. Amazingly, when the Penn State scientists used their new loop-quantum-origins paradigm with its quantum-cosmology equations, they found that fundamental fluctuations in the very nature of space at the moment of the Big Bounce evolve to become the seed-like structures seen in the cosmic microwave background.
"Our new work shows that the initial conditions at the very beginning of the universe naturally lead to the large-scale structure of the universe that we observe today," Ashtekar said. "In human terms, it is like taking a snapshot of a baby right at birth and then being able to project from it an accurate profile of how that person will be at age 100."
"This paper pushes back the genesis of the cosmic structure of our universe from the inflationary epoch all the way to the Big Bounce, covering some 11 orders of magnitude in the density of matter and the curvature of space-time," Nelson said. "We now have narrowed down the initial conditions that could exist at the Big Bounce, plus we find that the evolution of those initial conditions agrees with observations of the cosmic background radiation."
The team's results also identify a narrower range of parameters for which the new paradigm predicts novel effects, distinguishing it from standard inflation. Ashtekar said, "It is exciting that we soon may be able to test different predictions from these two theories against future discoveries with next-generation observational missions. Such experiments will help us to continue gaining a deeper understanding of the very, very early universe."
###
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
Barbara Kennedy (PIO): 814-863-4682, science@psu.edu
IMAGES
A high-resolution illustration related to this research is online at
http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Ashtekar11-2012
[ | 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.
Nothing much has changed in this year's mobile carrier satisfaction survey from Consumer Reports, with Verizon again being rated the best of the major providers, netting good scores for voice and data service quality, staff knowledge and issue resolution. The other big players also ranked in the same order this time around, with Sprint and T-Mobile following behind Big Red, and AT&T staying in last position. None of the bottom three scored particularly highly, especially in relation to voice service quality, and only four points separated them in the ratings. While AT&T had the worst value and data service quality scores, its LTE network was ranked the best of any carrier, and the least problematic. MVNO Consumer Cellular, which piggybacks on AT&T's network, didn't disappoint after last year's overall first place finish, keeping the top spot and receiving great scores all round. Full results of the survey, which polled 63,253 subscribers, will be available in Consumer Reports' January 2013 issue.
When an architect begins to design a house, he/she should put into consideration new ways of thinking since every situation is different varying with time, the place and the clients. The client's personality, social factors, new building technologies and the site characteristics can merge to come up with a new approach.
For example, In Chile, the process and time in which materials are selected in order to determine the design criteria clearly shows disparity in philosophy. Material selection in architectural design is a clear indication of its relationship with geography, its closeness to technological advancements and the scheme's budget.
With Chile's new societal openness and new economy, the country's architectural design experimentation has boomed. For architectures to find form in this country, some use recycled materials, others use particular materials that are of a standardized nature to cut down construction costs and others emulate local materials as their basis of coming up with a new architectural style.
One of these extraordinary works of architecture is by a German called Del sol. His hotel 'Remota' is made up of a grass roofing and his design founded on agricultural outbuildings . The furrows of the hillside and the stretched out rectangles barns act as a basis or rather points for reference. Remota references so much to the local landscape because of del sol's use of grass pastures to put together the roof. Just by the mere look of it, anybody would notice the extensive extent to which the hotel merges with the surroundings as it is displayed below.
Del sol's hotel Casa Granero's home is the other work of architecture worth examining in these Chilean south Lake District landscapes. This house's design has been borrowed greatly from the local agricultural building. The design uses local unfinished forest wood to m?lange with the surrounding forest. Casa Granero's home Lakeside house in Chile's region IX looks like a minuscule castle made of bricks with a stone front wall. However, this is only an overture to a very expansive structure made of glass that puts its inhabitants directly into the heart of nature.
Cristian's Lakeside house This combination of stone, steel, concrete and glass in the right proportions is the work of architect Cristian Undurraga and Mario Marchant. Another extreme example in Chilean architecture is the copper-claud house built by Smijan Radic in Talca. This house is built on old materials as a way of discovering form. The house has modern boxes and lines in place instead of Del sol's adobe construction of his hotel explora Atacama. Smiljan specifically uses material as a foundation for the experimentation of design. Material can be chosen for philosophical, practical or aesthetic purposes.
Smiljan Radic's copper claud house On addition to that, Eduardo Castillo's architectural design in Chile's lakeside district takes up the shape of the minuscule roadside shrines to the dead in South America found scattered across all rural roads. He wanted to infuse religion with architecture, in his quest, Eduardo adds magnifies sculptured structures of clay to full scale structures people can live in. Eduardo's shrine like design
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Public release date: 29-Nov-2012
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