Author: Serkadis

Mike O’Rourke of BTIG spotlights some interesting comments from a recently released IMF report (.pdf) on Germany:

“Simulation exercises suggest that German banks could suffer significant losses from commercial real estate investments in the U.S. and Spain, and more generally from exposures to Southern Europe.  The simulations also suggest that a reassessment of risks associated with claims on Southern Europe could have a large impact on capital flows within Europe, as German (and also French) banks would significantly reduce their foreign claims to restore capital ratios.”

That was part of a broader argument against rosy German growth prospects.

And as for France, he’s O’Rourke:

The IMF breaks down the “Geographical distribution of Foreign Claims on International Banks,”  for Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.  By a wide margin, the United States has the least exposure in Southern Europe, with only $118.5 Billion of its $2.58 Trillion in foreign claims.  The U.K. has the second lowest exposure at $236 Billion of its $3.69 Trillion in foreign claims.  German bank exposure is $523 Billion of $3.46 Trillion and French exposure is $781 Billion of $3.57 Trillion.  Based upon those stats, it looks like the downgrade of French growth should be in process. 

Now back to the IMF, which draws the following conclusions about Germany:

      The recovery underway is likely to be moderate, with predominantly downside
risks. Muted euro area expansion and the restraint of U.S. consumers will limit Germany’s
export growth, while domestically consumers will remain cautious given the expected
increase in unemployment and moderate income gains, and remaining banking problems will
contain credit supply. GDP growth could also be lower because of setbacks to world trade or
the domestic financial system. 
     The policy challenge is managing ongoing risks while preparing to unwind the
extraordinary measures introduced during the crisis. Fiscal policy will have to transition
from supporting the recovery to credible consolidation, financial sector policies from balance
sheets repair to improvements of the stability framework, and labor market and structural
policies from employment smoothing to fostering domestic growth.
     Fiscal consolidation needs to start as soon as the recovery has firmed up. The
2010 budget appropriately provides stimulus for a still fragile recovery. As a consequence,
the general government deficit is estimated to rise in 2010 to nearly twice the limit set by the
SGP. Moreover, the federal structural balance is significantly below the target set by the new
constitutional rule for 2016. With public debt rising and private sector growth expected to be
self-sustaining by 2011, consolidation should become a priority. 

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Google has just announced a great, new feature in Gmail, which enables third-party apps to access your email securely using the OAuth authorization protocol. Developers can now gain access to your Gmail account without being forced to ask for your password. This creates a much safer and friendlier environment for developers and users alike a… (read more)

We’ve seen tons of lawsuits from companies upset that their competitors were buying ads on their trademarked brand names. Obviously, these tend to be trademark disputes, and the suing companies rarely prevails, since most courts seem to realize that buying ads on competitor trademark keywords is perfectly legal, so long as the ad isn’t confusing. But, sometimes the arguments get quite bizarre. JJ sent over an article about two personal injury law firms in a legal fight over Google advertising — but the (initial) twist here is that the one firm is claiming that it’s a violation of Wisconsin state privacy laws to buy keywords based on the names of the partners in the firm. It’s difficult to see who’s privacy is being violated here. And, of course, to make the case a bit more exciting, the defendants surprised everyone in court by doing a search on YellowPages.com for their own law firm — and having an ad for the plaintiff show up. So, now the defendants are claiming that the plaintiffs have “unclean hands,” since they appear to be doing the exact same thing they’ve accused the defendants of doing. It sounds like quite a trial…

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The series of magnetostrictive transducers with SSI interface have been renewed, increasing performance to satisfy market demands. The electronics has been completely redesigned to improve the linearity and communication of all models. Among the principal innovations is the new “internal linearization” option, which provides linearity up to 4 times higher than the standard version by performing linearity compensation in the electronics.

The entire SSI series has been given new electronics compatible with EMC standards and is more resistant to power surges. The reduction in overall noise improves transducer communication. In addition, the communication structure has been aligned in all versions (with and without the oversampling algorithm), making the entire series more compatible with SSI sensors made by other companies.

With regard to technical specifications, maximum working temperature has been raised to 90°C and current input has been halved, dropping to 50 mA, the lowest level on the market for this product!

The Dresden specialist for infrared measuring technology InfraTec GmbH presents a newly developed binocular thermal image system of the highest geometric resolution commercially available at this time.

This brand new product line VarioVIEW of the exclusively represented manufacturer JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, Systeme GmbH combines a high-resolution infrared imager with an eye-safe and hardly detectable laser distance meter.

A microbolometer detector of a geometric resolution of 640 x 480 pixels guarantees, in conjunction with a highly precise, light-intense 150 mm lens, excellent ranges in object detection, recognition and identification. The VarioVIEW permits to discover people within a range of up to 5 km and vehicles up to 7 km. The laser distance meter works at 1,550 nm and is able to measure distances of up to 5 km most precisely.

Further outstanding technical features of the VarioVIEW are both ist fast infrared image frequency at 30 Hz and its high thermal resolution (< 70 mK). The high-resolution OLED binocular view finder allows for fatigue-free observation. The easily portable thermal image system VarioVIEW also distinguishes itself by robust design and intuitive handling. Weighing less than 3 kg and staying operable for more than five hours without having to change the rechargeable battery, it is particularly suited for mobile application, such as border observation or in the security service.

The new fully automated PV-LIT Inline test system is creating new benchmarks for routine tests during the production process for solar cells and complete solar modules. PV-LIT Inline guarantees 100 % quality inspection within the shortest time during the manufacturing process. Recently, during the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference in Hamburg/Germany InfraTec presented the advanced PV-LIT inline. Today InfraTec proudly announces the shipment of the first PV-LIT Inline systems for routine tests to the facility of a large international solar cell producer.

The new PV-LIT Inline system is the application of outstanding characteristics of InfraTec’s proven standard system PV-LIT. For the fully automatic system it is possible to use either cooled or uncooled camera systems, depending on the problem definition and customer requirements. Cycle times of less than 1 second and a continuous operation allows reliable tests in serial production. User-defined testing criteria (e.g.: limit values, temperature levels, number and size of defects) and flexible data interfaces (e.g. Ethernet, Profibus) permit optimal adjustment to the customers. The system contains various testing options for different kinds of defects.

At the Solar Power International in Anaheim, California/USA October, 27 – 29 the new PV-LIT Inline system and other thermography products for use in the solar power field will be on display. Visit InfraTec at booth 1689 and convince yourself.

Article Tags: ClimateGate

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is dissatisfied with but not surprised by the report by the House of Commons Committee on Science Technology regarding “the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.” Only 5 out of 14 members of the Select Committee considered this report which did not arrive at unanimous conclusions.

Regrettably, the report lacks even-handed consideration of all submitted evidence. Interested observers will therefore have to look at the submitted evidence independently rather than rely on the committee’s political assessment to get to a more balanced picture.

There is not much analysis in the report – it is mostly a ‘he said this and he said that and we believe Phil Jones’ type of report. Overall, it is far too kind to Phil Jones, accepting everything he said without question.

This report will be widely regarded as an attempted whitewash, not a fair and balanced assessment of the submitted evidence. Its evident bias risks further undermining the reputation of British science.

On a positive note, the report makes clear that current scientific ‘best practice’ is inadequate and that in the future all data, methodologies and computer codes should be published. This is a victory for those who have been asking for years.

It also found that the UEA helped the CRU break the law. Even if they can’t be prosecuted this should lead to resignations.

We welcome the report’s support for our demand that the Muir Russell Review should be held in public. From now on, climate science has to be done in a new and open way.

Source: thegwpf.org

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(This guest post previously appeared at the author’s blog)

As stocks have become increasingly invulnerable over the last few weeks high beta assets have gone through the roof.  The discrepancy between small caps and large caps has been particularly noticeable.  Since the February 8th bottom, large caps have rallied 12.5% while small caps have rallied 18%.  The divergence in performance has resulted in an unusual and potentially bearish scenario. 

The ratio of large cap to small cap performance has plummeted in recent weeks to levels that have been seen just twice in the last 5 years.  At roughly 1.7, the ratio is reflecting the extremely bullish posture of most investors (just who isn’t bullish about 2010 besides Credit Suisse?). 

This rare divergence between large and small stocks occurred in Summer of 2006 just before small caps declined 15% and then occurred again just weeks before the market crashed in October 2008.    While this doesn’t necessarily mean the market is about to tank it does imply that high beta assets have become unhinged when compared to their safer low beta counterparts.  Investors would be wise to take note.

Read more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist >

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Article Tags: Alex Newman, Cartoon

Last December in Copenhagen at the United Nations climate summit, officials and global-warming alarmists seemed confident of their imminent triumph. “There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that it will yield a success,” proclaimed UN global-warming chief Yvo de Boer just weeks before the conference.

But Copenhagen was not the victory de Boer had been anticipating. In fact, most analysts labeled it a significant setback for the alarmist agenda. And since then, problems for the human-caused warming campaign have only grown. After a series of scandals exposed extreme misconduct (if not criminality) by leading climate scientists and errors surrounding the movement’s theories, pundits began announcing the inevitable collapse of climate hysteria. But the vested interests will not go down without a long, hard fight.

Source: thenewamerican.com

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Q1 has been so good, you had to figure that in the final days of the quarter fund managers would be buying up the hot names, just to make their statements look a little better.

So far though, not so much. Asian markets fell overnight, and S&P futures are already pointing down. Granted, there’s still several hours to go before they even ring the opening bell. But at the moment, there’s not much doing, following yesterday’s lackluster report.

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Mozilla has announced the availability of the latest bug-fixing release of its email and news client, Thunderbird 3.0.4. It’s a minor update with the usual array of security and stability fixes, but it also comes with several user-interface improvements. Meanwhile, the development team is working on its successor, with Mozilla Thunderbird 3.1 Beta 1 having just been r… (read more)

Quadrature sensors provide two 90º out of phase digital outputs to record speed and direction. The output signal # 1 leads output signal # 2 with clockwise, and the output signal # 2 leads output signal # 1 with counter clockwise rotation of the target wheel. Both output signals will be 50% duty cycle.

Supply Voltage: 4.5 to 24 VDC
Supply Current: 10 mA Max
Output Signal: Square Wave, NPN, 4.7K pull-up Resistor
4.7K pull-up Resistor
Output Current: 20 mA Sink each
Target Wheel: 8 teeth or slots to 32 pitch gear
Airgap: 0.100” with 8 pitch gear
Operating Temp. Range: -40 to 125 pC
Frequency: 0-15 KHZ
Protection: Reverse Polarity Protection

Sensoronix, Inc, a custom design and manufacturer of Magnetic Sensors head quartered in Tustin, CA with over 25 years experience in innovative design and manufacturing, is looking to establish partnerships with European distributors located in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain in order to promote and distribute its high demand quality Magnetic Sensor products throughout the region.

Sensoronix is interested in companies who have prior experience with promoting Sensors or related products and can demonstrate a base knowledge about sensor technology and industry.

Sensoronix will also consider working with sales & Marketing firms to act as manufacturer’s Representatives in the mentioned territories with attractive benefits.

In order to find out more about this opportunity, please contact Ron Gomnam ([email protected]) or by Phone: (714)665-6666.

Plastic, or GRP for short (glass reinforced plastic), is a fibre-plastic compound consisting of a synthetic material, e.g. duroplastic unsaturated polyester resin (UP) and glass fibres. The compound can also consist of phenol-formaldehyde resin (PF), silicon resin (SI), melamine resin (MF), polyester resin (PTFE) or polyamide and glass fibres.
A glass fibre is a long, thin fibre made of pure glass. Glass fibres are manufactured by drawing molten glass to form very thin threads (filaments). Amongst other things, glass fibres are used to make glass fibre cables for transmitting data, but they are mainly used in the form of roving or textile fabric for heat and sound insulation, and for the construction of glass fibre reinforced plastics. These are some of today’s most important construction materials. They are resistant to aging and to the effects of the weather, they are chemically resistant and some are inflammable. Their high elasticity is used to significantly improve the mechanical characteristics of synthetic materials.

In other applications, glass fibre reinforced plastics are used exclusively as continuous fibres in woven fabrics or in UD (unidirectional) tapes.

* GRP made from woven or stitched fabric
* GRP made from rovings or unidirectional woven/stitched fabric (produced using the filament drawing method)
* Mixed forms of the above types

Laser technology has unrivalled advantages compared with conventional methods for the required glass fibre fabric separating process and for contouring:

* No tool wear
* Non-contact and therefore no introduction of force
* Only minor fraying
* Can also be processed in combination with aluminium foils or plastics

Examples of typical applications

* Vehicle manufacture: e.g. aviation, boat and ship building, automobiles, two-wheel
* GRP insulation technology
* Glass fibre sound insulation, fire and heat prevention
* Regenerative energy extraction: e.g. wind farm fans, model making
* Bath tubs, shower trays, wash basins, water slides
* Safety and protective clothing e.g. fireman’s helmets and motor sport helmets
* Sports and leisure items

Mercury Servo Drives allow for driving motors through resistive joysticks connected to its external analog inputs. Users just need to configure the Mercury Servo Drive to work on analog command reference mode.

Users can choose either to work on position or velocity profile.
Mercury will use the actual defined profile values to determine the velocity, acceleration and deceleration to use.

Two-axis joysticks can be connected to two Mercury Servo Drives to control a two axis system in a fashion and easy way.
If joystick includes a button, it can be used as a stop emergency for the whole system.
Ingenia do offer complete systems made up of Mercury Servo Drives with two axis joysticks, wired and tested as a system.
These systems are typically used to remotely control motorized systems in the field of robotics, optics, vision, tracking systems, etc.
For further information contact us at www.ingenia-cat.com

No matter what product you manufacture, ATExpo equips you with fresh ideas and new technologies to improve your assembly process, increase productivity
and exceed customer expectations.

Spend time face-to-face with OEP Coupling’s technical experts who are ready to discuss your shaft coupling specifications and requirements. We’ll assist you in choosing the type of shaft coupling appropriate for your application, a size that will fit your shafts and that has adequate torque, materials appropriate for your application and finally, the best bore types and shaft-locking features for your needs.

We’ll make sure that your selection meets all the criteria you consider critical.

Visit us at our booth 2609 at the AT Expo in Rosemont, Illinois.
September 28th through September 30th, 2010.

Hamelin, 4th March 2010 — Maximising energy efficiency, whilst minimising costs – at the Hanover Industrial Trade Fair from 19th to 23th April in Hall 14, at Booth H20, Lenze shall be demonstrating how to correctly implement the necessary measures. The solutions offered by the specialist in drive and automation technology are highly practical. Those visiting the trade fair will be able to have the potential savings of their own application calculated in euros and cent together with an Energy Performance Certificate. This is part of the powerful Drive Solution Designer drive dimensioning tool. Lenze’s second key topic for sustainable cost reduction on the customer’s side is decentralised drive technology.

The new 8400 decentralised inverters – 8400 motec and 8400 protec series – provide customers with all the benefits of decentralised drive technology. They are ahead of the field in terms of their scalability, compact and robust design, simple plug & go commissioning, uniform operation, not to mention their diagnostics and ease of maintenance. 8400 protec, which made its first appearance at the SPS/IPC exhibition, is the perfect device for high-performance and complex applications. The new, all-purpose and cost-efficient 8400 motec motor inverter is ideally suited to simple applications. As part of the complete “Drive Package” with the new inverter-optimised L-force three-phase AC motors of the MF series and matching gearboxes, Lenze is presenting a highly efficient drive solution. It minimises purchase costs and combines a high level of dynamics and power density at a high level of energy efficiency.

Increased efficiency, higher levels of functionality, more flexible communication and integrated positioning control are just four of the key advantages offered by the second generation of fluxxtorque servo drives. This compact servo drive solution can be located outside the control cabinet, directly at the process, and contributes towards cost reductions with decentralised drives in the power range of 120 to 440 W.

A further L-force innovation is the HMI EL103 with bright 3.5” TFT display and LED backlighting. This compact device comes equipped with an Ethernet, USB and CAN interface and is available with an optional Soft PLC, including maintenance-free UPS for saving transient PLC data. With VisiWinNET®, the EL 103 offers convenient visualisation functions for representing process values, menus, text and graphics.

– compatible with modern residual current operated devices

By using the new EMC/EMI filters FN 3268 from Schaffner, you can prevent costly downtimes and lost production caused by accidental tripping of AC/DC sensitive residual current operated devices used in conjunction with frequency inverters.

In paper and wood processing plants, the risk of electrically ignited fires due to ground currents is reduced through the use of 300mA residual current operated devices of type B according to VdS guideline 3501. Residual current operated devices with 30mA release current are used for operator safety in energy-saving drive systems of building services. However, the risk of accidental tripping is increased during operation with frequency inverters, because the physical operating principle of frequency inverters and servo drives generates not only leakage currents with the line frequency, but also undesirable ground currents with the set pulse frequency. This leads to accidental tripping of residual current operated devices, which are unable to distinguish between ground currents and real residual currents.

Standard commercial EMC/EMI filters do not suppress the ground currents of the pulse frequency sufficiently, or may even multiply them many times over due to resonance with the line frequency. The filters become saturated, and the required EMC limit values are no longer maintained. Thus reliable functioning of the safeguard and at the same time compliance with the EMC Directive is no longer possible.

The innovative FN 3268 low leakage current EMC/EMI filters from Schaffner suppress undesirable leakage currents especially in drive systems. They ensure compliance with EMC regulations and support full functionality of AC/DC sensitive residual current operated devices.

The FN 3268 filter series is designed for applications with three-phase frequency inverters and servo drives. The rated voltage is 3x520V with rated currents of 7 to 180A at 50°C ambient temperature. Users of the popular FN 3258 series can convert to the new technology easily thanks to the identical external construction.

The F2F machine is a horizontal double-spindle machining center developed to double productivity while maintaining the high flexibility that is typical of single-spindle machining centers. The main advantage of this innovative machining center is the presence of two opposite independent spindles that provide the ultimate in both output and flexibility. When high outputs are required, two parts per cycle can be machined, or one large part can be machined on both sides simultaneously. When flexibility becomes more important than output, two different parts can be machined simultaneously. Having the availability of double the output and double the flexibility satisfies the ever changing demands of today’s manufacturing needs and tomorrow’s changes.

The F2F provides 2 independent spindles each with 3 CNC axes.
HSK 63 spindles with upto 16,000 rpm, torque of 260 Nm and 40kW of power can take-on the toughest jobs at the optimum speeds.

Each spindle has an arm-type automatic tool-changer that holds upto 120 tools per spindle (240 total tool positions) and an automatic pallet changeover system.

High power and thermo-friendly rigidity make the F2F ideal for the machining of steel or cast-iron while the high-speeds and accelerations minimize idle times so parts made of brass or light alloys are produced with optimum speed and efficiency. All of these features combined with generous work-strokes make the F2F suitable for any small-medium sized component made from any ferrous or non-ferrous material at low, medium or high volume production levels.

Each axis movement is obtained using pre-tensile re-circulating ball-screws.
The ball-screws and motor plate on each axis are also cooled internally to assure the highest of accuracy. With axis speeds up to 90m/min. and accelerations up to 1.5 g. there is no such thing as idle-time on the F2F.

The pallets are up to 500mm x 500mm with a max. height of 900mm and max. weight of 700kg.