Acer Aspire P3-171-6820

The Acer Aspire P3-171-6820 is a cleverly designed hybrid/convertible tablet featuring a ten-point touch-screen, an ultra-low voltage Core i5 processor, a Bluetooth keyboard case, and a 120GB solid state drive. The keyboard comes in handy for those times when only a keyboard will do, but it doesn't do a very good job of supporting the tablet and it doesn't have a touchpad. Priced at just under $900 (list) it is relatively affordable as far as hybrid go, but it can't match the performance of similarly priced hybrids, including our current Editors' Choice, the Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro.

Design and Features
The P3-171-6820 is wrapped in a sleek brushed silver aluminum chassis that weighs 1.7 pounds and measures 11.6-by-7.5 -by-0.04 inches (HWD). A micro-HDMI port and a full-size USB 3.0 port share space on the left side of the tablet with a microphone, rest button, and the power jack. On the right side are a headphone/speaker jack, the power button, a battery status indicator, and a volume key. There are two air vents on the top, a rear-facing five-megapixel camera on the back, and a 720p HD camera embedded at the top of the screen.

There are two small speakers embedded in the bottom of the tablet. Combined with Dolby Home Theater software they deliver a much bigger sound than their size would indicate, although bass response is non-existent. Missing is a card reader slot.

The 11.6-inch glossy screen has a maximum resolution of 1,366-by-768, which is disappointing as it can't display video in full (1080p) high-definition like the Microsoft Surface Pro and the Samsung ATIV SmartPC Pro 700T (XE700T1C-A01US). However, it does a good job with 720p content, delivering rich colors, sharp imagery, and good viewing angles. The screen uses 10-point touch technology, which provides effortless and accurate swiping, gesturing, pinching, and zooming.

Unlike the Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX) and Samsung 700T, the Aspire P3's keyboard is detached and stays that way as it uses Bluetooth technology to communicate with the tablet. Simply snap the tablet into the keyboard case, press the power button on the upper part of the keyboard deck, slide the screen into the groove above the keyboard, and you're ready to type. Be careful, though; the tablet doesn't sit very snug in the groove and can be knocked loose with slight pressure to the top of the screen.

Typing is relatively comfortable but those with big hands may feel a bit cramped. There's no room for a touchpad here either, but there is a mini-USB port on the upper left side. The black textured keyboard case adds 0.78-inch to the P3-171-6820's overall thickness and 1.32-pounds to the overall weight.

The 120GB drive comes loaded with Windows 8 and the usual assortment of apps including Skype, Amazon Kindle, Netflix, and trail versions of MS Office and McAfee Internet Security Suite. There's also eShopping, eReading, and iCookbook programs, as well as Acer Cloud and Nero Backitup software.

Rounding out the feature set are Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 radios, a mini-USB to full-sized USB adapter (for use with the keyboard), and a micro-HDMI to VGA video dongle. Acer covers the P3 with a standard one-year warranty.

Performance
The Aspire P3 is powered by a 1.5GHz Intel Core i5-3339Y processor, 4 GBs of memory, and Intel's integrated HD Graphics 4000 GPU. It's score of 3,750 trailed the Surface Pro (4,768) by more than 1,000 points and the Samsung SmartPC Pro 700T by around 700 points. The P3 came in last on our Cinebench R11.5 CPU test with a score of 1.80 while the Surface Pro scored a 2.39.

Multimedia performance was similar; the Aspire P3's Photoshop (8:25) and Handbrake (2:01) encoding times were significantly longer than the Microsoft Surface Pro (6:11 and 1:28, respectively), while the Core i7-fueled Asus Transformer Book TX300C led the pack.

Most tablets come up short when it comes to gaming and the Aspire P3 is no different. It managed a paltry 8 fps on our medium quality Alien vs. Predator test and 7 fps on our medium quality Heaven benchmark test. On the plus side, video played smoothly without any sign of chop or stutter.

The Aspire P3's 4-cell lithium-ion battery lasted 5 hours 11 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's right up there with the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro (5:12) and a bit longer than the Dell XPS 12 (5:09), the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 (5:00), and Microsoft Surface Pro (4:58). The Asus TX300C held onto its lead with a battery time of 7:35, but it needed two batteries to do so. Without the help of the secondary keyboard case battery, the Transformer Book lasted 4:47.

With the Acer Aspire P3-171-6820 you get a tablet and an Ultrabook in one slim, affordable package. Its 10-point touch-screen is ideal for swiping your way through Windows 8 apps, and you'll never have to worry about reattaching the Bluetooth keyboard (but you may want to take care not to knock the tablet off its perch while typing). Its battery provided over five hours of unplugged computing power, but when it came to performance, it couldn't keep pace with the competition. If you can spare an extra $100, the Editors' Choice Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro offers better performance as well as a 1,920-by-1,080 screen, a digitizer pen, an SDXC card reader, and a slightly bigger solid-state drive.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/K2RiQ-nmaG0/0,2817,2421584,00.asp

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Analysis - Sting in dragon's tail for foreign companies in China

By Sujata Rao

LONDON | Sun Jul 14, 2013 8:29pm BST

LONDON (Reuters) - China's vast market for foreign goods and services, once seen by global companies as a modern-day El Dorado, is becoming a weight around their necks as its growth slows.

The rise of the Chinese economic "dragon" over the last two decades has transformed international business. But now the country is in the grip of a slowdown due to a slump in exports and banking sector excesses, as recent data has shown.

That has led fund managers worldwide to re-assess their investments in companies with a focus on the world's No.2 economy.

"Anything China-sensitive is performing poorly and the trend will not go away because there is no sign of growth recovery," said Maarten-Jan Bakkum, investment strategist at ING Investment Management, which has cut its holdings of China-exposed stocks.

Markets are already braced for slower commodity demand. But Beijing's recent moves, from an anti-corruption drive that has dented luxury demand to a crackdown on shadow banking, will hurt domestic demand too, Bakkum said.

Indeed, investors fear a full-blown banking crunch that could derail credit and consumption growth for years more than they fear sub-7 percent economic growth.

"Even if part of the China fears is correct, consumption will also be hit," he added.

MSCI's China Exposure Index, made up of about 50 companies that derive a significant portion of revenues from China, has fallen around 10 percent this year. Two-thirds of the losses have come in the past quarter with the darkening growth outlook.

In contrast, a similar MSCI list of stocks with exposure to developed economies has gained over 12 percent in 2013, trading off the improving outlook for the West and Japan.

Amit Lodha, portfolio manager of the Fidelity Global Real Assets Securities fund, said he favours stocks such as Volkswagen, whose China exposure is effectively hedged by its sales back to a recovering Europe.

The German carmaker's luxury division, Bentley, this month reported a 23 percent fall in Chinese sales while U.S. and European deliveries rose 12-22 percent.

"Over the longer term, consumption growth in emerging markets like China remains the theme to play. Nearer term, with some resurgence in the United States and signs of bottoming in Europe it would be better to focus on names which have exposure to growth here," Lodha said.

SEMICONDUCTORS AND CEMENT

For two decades China's 10 percent-a-year growth rates allowed foreign companies to enjoy fat profits and surging share prices. Its multi-trillion dollar infrastructure projects sucked in commodities from Brazil and Russia, as well as semiconductors and construction equipment from Germany and the United States.

Companies selling cars, clothing and cosmetics meanwhile benefited from the growing wealth of China's 1.2 billion people, whose per capita incomes have quadrupled since 2000.

China directly accounts for 5-6 percent of U.S. and European company earnings, banks reckon. The indirect share, due to Beijing's influence on commodity prices, is probably far bigger.

It economic slowdown has already hit commodities trade.

"We are not interested in investing in companies that have exposure to commodities and raw materials, goods that China has historically stockpiled. At the end of the day there is a clear reduction of demand from China," said David Bailin, global head of managed investments at Citi Private Bank.

Consumer plays may have more traction, he says.

Consumption makes up just 35 percent of China's economy, almost half the level in neighbouring India. And with 300 million-plus people deemed to be part of the middle class, the bet is that smartphones and designer gear will not lack buyers.

But prosperity and employment in China are still closely tied to trade. So the export slump along with rising inflation and higher borrowing costs caused by the crackdown on so-called shadow banking may already be biting into disposable income.

Take Swiss watch exports. These fell 25 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Sales to Hong Kong, where many Chinese shop to avoid import duties, fell 9 percent.

European luxury firms, chipmakers, energy and auto companies all derive over a tenth of their revenues from China, according to Morgan Stanley, which advised clients in a note last week to "be wary of China and emerging markets exposure".

Roughly 5 percent of U.S. earnings come from China but for some, such as restaurant chain Yum, owner of Pizza Hut and KFC, the figure is as high as 50 percent, Deutsche Bank data shows.

So a slower China is bad for company earnings and for emerging markets who rely on its custom.

But the implications stretch further still - right to the heart of the euro zone's economic recovery, says Dan Morris, global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management.

"If you think how well Germany's economy did during the (euro) crisis and if you look at the numbers, a lot of it was down to exports - and most of that was exports to China," Morris said. "Now that we are not getting any more Chinese stimulus, German growth rates are looking the same as everyone else's."

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/UKBusinessNews/~3/p_E0CqIPC9U/story01.htm

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Wayne State University scientists identify neural origins of hot flashes in menopausal women

Public release date: 15-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julie O'Connor
julie.oconnor@wayne.edu
313-577-8845
Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research

DETROIT A new study from neuroscientists at the Wayne State University School of Medicine provides the first novel insights into the neural origins of hot flashes in menopausal women in years. The study may inform and eventually lead to new treatments for those who experience the sudden but temporary episodes of body warmth, flushing and sweating.

The paper, "Temporal Sequencing of Brain Activations During Naturally Occurring Thermoregulatory Events," by Robert Freedman, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, founder of the Behavioral Medicine Laboratory and a member at the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, and his collaborator, Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, appears in the June issue of Cerebral Cortex, an Oxford University Press journal.

"The idea of understanding brain responses during thermoregulatory events has spawned many studies where thermal stimuli were applied to the skin. But hot flashes are unique because they are internally generated, so studying them presents unique challenges," said Freedman, the study's principal investigator. "Our participants had to lie in the MRI scanner while being heated between two body-size heating pads for up to two hours while we waited for the onset of a hot flash. They were heroic in this regard and the study could not have been conducted without their incredible level of cooperation."

"Menopause and hot flashes are a significant women's health issue of widespread general interest," Diwadkar added. "However, understanding of the neural origins of hot flashes has remained poor. The question has rarely been assessed with in vivo functional neuroimaging. In part, this paucity of studies reflects the technical limitations of objectively identifying hot flashes while symptomatic women are being scanned with MRI. Nothing like this has been published because this is a very difficult study to do."

During the course of a single year, 20 healthy, symptomatic postmenopausal women ages 47 to 58 who reported six or more hot flashes a day were scanned at the School of Medicine's Vaitkevicius Imaging Center, located in Detroit's Harper University Hospital.

The researchers collected skin conductance levels to identify the onset of flashes while the women were being scanned. Skin conductance is an electrical measure of sweating. The women were connected to a simple circuit passing a very small current across their chests, Diwadkar said. Changes in levels allowed researchers to identify a hot flash onset and analyze the concurrently acquired fMRI data to investigate the neural precedents and correlates of the event.

The researchers focused on regions like the brain stem because its sub regions, such as the medullary and dorsal raphe, are implicated in thermal regulation, while forebrain regions, such as the insula, have been implicated in the personal perception of how someone feels. They showed that activity in some brain areas, such as the brain stem, begins to rise before the actual onset of the hot flash.

"Frankly, evidence of fMRI-measured rise in the activity of the brain stem even before women experience a hot flash is a stunning result. When this finding is considered along with the fact that activity in the insula only rises after the experience of the hot flash, we gain some insight on the complexity of brain mechanisms that mediate basic regulatory functions," Diwadkar said.

These results point to the plausible origins of hot flashes in specific brain regions. The researchers believe it is the first such demonstration in academic literature.

They are now evaluating the network-based interactions between the brain regions by using more complex modeling of the fMRI data. "We think that our study highlights the value of using well-designed fMRI paradigms and analyses in understanding clinically relevant questions," Diwadkar said.

The researchers also are exploring possibilities for integrating imaging with treatment to examine whether specific pharmacotherapies for menopause might alter regional brain responses.

###

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health Merit award (R37-AG05233), with additional support by a National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health award (MH68680) and the state of Michigan's Joseph A. Young Sr. Fund award to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences.

Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research institutions in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.

---

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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: 15-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julie O'Connor
julie.oconnor@wayne.edu
313-577-8845
Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research

DETROIT A new study from neuroscientists at the Wayne State University School of Medicine provides the first novel insights into the neural origins of hot flashes in menopausal women in years. The study may inform and eventually lead to new treatments for those who experience the sudden but temporary episodes of body warmth, flushing and sweating.

The paper, "Temporal Sequencing of Brain Activations During Naturally Occurring Thermoregulatory Events," by Robert Freedman, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, founder of the Behavioral Medicine Laboratory and a member at the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, and his collaborator, Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, appears in the June issue of Cerebral Cortex, an Oxford University Press journal.

"The idea of understanding brain responses during thermoregulatory events has spawned many studies where thermal stimuli were applied to the skin. But hot flashes are unique because they are internally generated, so studying them presents unique challenges," said Freedman, the study's principal investigator. "Our participants had to lie in the MRI scanner while being heated between two body-size heating pads for up to two hours while we waited for the onset of a hot flash. They were heroic in this regard and the study could not have been conducted without their incredible level of cooperation."

"Menopause and hot flashes are a significant women's health issue of widespread general interest," Diwadkar added. "However, understanding of the neural origins of hot flashes has remained poor. The question has rarely been assessed with in vivo functional neuroimaging. In part, this paucity of studies reflects the technical limitations of objectively identifying hot flashes while symptomatic women are being scanned with MRI. Nothing like this has been published because this is a very difficult study to do."

During the course of a single year, 20 healthy, symptomatic postmenopausal women ages 47 to 58 who reported six or more hot flashes a day were scanned at the School of Medicine's Vaitkevicius Imaging Center, located in Detroit's Harper University Hospital.

The researchers collected skin conductance levels to identify the onset of flashes while the women were being scanned. Skin conductance is an electrical measure of sweating. The women were connected to a simple circuit passing a very small current across their chests, Diwadkar said. Changes in levels allowed researchers to identify a hot flash onset and analyze the concurrently acquired fMRI data to investigate the neural precedents and correlates of the event.

The researchers focused on regions like the brain stem because its sub regions, such as the medullary and dorsal raphe, are implicated in thermal regulation, while forebrain regions, such as the insula, have been implicated in the personal perception of how someone feels. They showed that activity in some brain areas, such as the brain stem, begins to rise before the actual onset of the hot flash.

"Frankly, evidence of fMRI-measured rise in the activity of the brain stem even before women experience a hot flash is a stunning result. When this finding is considered along with the fact that activity in the insula only rises after the experience of the hot flash, we gain some insight on the complexity of brain mechanisms that mediate basic regulatory functions," Diwadkar said.

These results point to the plausible origins of hot flashes in specific brain regions. The researchers believe it is the first such demonstration in academic literature.

They are now evaluating the network-based interactions between the brain regions by using more complex modeling of the fMRI data. "We think that our study highlights the value of using well-designed fMRI paradigms and analyses in understanding clinically relevant questions," Diwadkar said.

The researchers also are exploring possibilities for integrating imaging with treatment to examine whether specific pharmacotherapies for menopause might alter regional brain responses.

###

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health Merit award (R37-AG05233), with additional support by a National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health award (MH68680) and the state of Michigan's Joseph A. Young Sr. Fund award to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences.

Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research institutions in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.

---

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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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/wsu--wsu071513.php

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SF probe brings questions over auto speed controls

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (AP) ? Investigators are trying to understand whether automated cockpit equipment Asiana flight 214's pilots say they were relying on to control the airliner's speed may have contributed to the plane's dangerously low and slow approach just before it crashed.

New details in the accident investigation that were revealed Tuesday by National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman were not conclusive about the cause of Saturday's crash, but they raised potential areas of focus: Was there a mistake made in setting the automatic speed control, did it malfunction or were the pilots not fully aware of what the plane was doing?

One of the most puzzling aspects of the crash has been why the wide-body Boeing 777 jet came in far too low and slow, clipping its landing gear and then its tail on a rocky seawall just short the runway. The crash killed two of the 307 people and injured scores of others, most not seriously.

Among those injured were two flight attendants in the back of the plane, who survived despite being thrown onto the runway when the plane slammed into the seawall and the tail broke off.

The autothrottle was set for 157 mph and the pilots assumed it was controlling the plane's airspeed, Hersman said. However, the autothrottle was only "armed" or ready for activation, she said.

Hersman said the pilot at the controls, identified by Korean authorities as Lee Gang-guk, was only about halfway through his training on the Boeing 777 and it was his first time landing that type of aircraft at the San Francisco airport. And the co-pilot, identified as Lee Jeong-Min, was on his first trip as a flight instructor.

Two of the four pilots were questioned Monday and the other two and air traffic controllers were interviewed Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport officials in South Korea. The ministry hadn't requested any criminal investigation because a probe is underway to determine the cause of the crash.

In the 777, turning the autothrottle on is a two-step process ? first it is armed, then it is engaged, Boeing pilots said.

Choi Jeong-ho, a senior official at South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said investigators confirmed the auto throttle was in an armed position, and an exact analysis on whether the automatic throttle system worked will be possible after an analysis on the plane's black box.

Hersman didn't say whether the Asiana's autothrottle was engaged.

Bob Coffman, an American Airlines captain who has flown 777s, said the only way he could think of for Asiana plane to slow as quickly at the NTSB has described would be if somehow the autothrottle has shifted into the idle mode.

"There is no way to get from a normal airspeed and normal position at 500 feet to an abnormally slow airspeed at 300 feet unless there wasn't enough thrust either deliberately or inadvertently," he said.

Only moments before the crash did the training captain realize the autothrottle wasn't controlling the plane's speed, Hersman said.

"This is one of the two hallmarks of complexity and challenge in the industry right now," said Doug Moss, an Airbus A320 a pilot for a major U.S. airline and an aviation safety consultant in Torrance, Calif. "It's automation confusion because from what Deborah Hersman said, it appears very likely the pilots were confused as to what autothrottle and pitch mode the airplane was in. It's very likely they believed the autothrottles were on when in fact they were only armed."

Their last second efforts to rev the plane back up and abort the landing failed, although numerous survivors report hearing the engines roar just before impact.

"We just seemed to be flying in way too low. Last couple seconds before it happened the engines really revved into high gear. Just waaah! Like the captain was saying 'oh no, we gotta get out of here.' And then, boom! The back end just lifted up, just really jolted everybody in their seats," said crash survivor Elliot Stone, who owns a martial arts studio in Scotts Valley.

Passenger Ben Levy noticed as the plane approached the airport the aircraft was flying very low near the water but said he dismissed concerns until he saw water from the Bay splashing at his window and he felt the engine "go full power" in an apparent attempt to lift the plane.

"That's when I realized this was totally wrong," Levy said.

Then, the plane crashed, and the passengers moved quickly to leave the plane, but in an orderly manner.

"People were not rushing out fighting for their lives," he said. "They were like, 'OK, let's be orderly here. Let's get out fast but let's not step (onto) each other.'"

While in the U.S., drug and alcohol tests are standard procedure after air accidents, this is not required for foreign pilots and Hersman said the Asiana pilots had not undergone any testing.

A final determination on the cause of the crash is months away, and Hersman cautioned against drawing any conclusions based on the information revealed so far:

Seven seconds before impact, someone in the cockpit asked for more speed after apparently noticing that the jet was flying far slower than its recommended landing speed. A few seconds later, the yoke began to vibrate violently, an automatic warning telling the pilot the plane is losing lift and in imminent danger of an aerodynamic stall. One and a half seconds before impact came a command to abort the landing.

There's been no indication, from verbal calls or mechanical issues, that an emergency was ever declared by pilots. Most airlines would require all four pilots to be present for the landing, the time when something is most likely to go wrong, experienced pilots said. In addition to the two pilots, a third was "monitoring" the landing from a jumpseat, while a fourth was in the rear of the cabin.

"If there are four pilots there, even if you are sitting on a jump seat, that's something you watch ? the airspeed and the descent profile," said John Cox, a former US Airways pilot and former Air Line Pilots Association accident investigator.

The Air Line Pilots Association, the world's largest pilots union, criticized Hersman for fueling speculation that the crash is the result of pilot error before all the facts have been determined.

"The NTSB's release of incomplete, out-of-context information has fueled rampant speculation about the cause of the accident," the union said in a statement Tuesday. "The field phase of the investigation is barely three days old, and the pilots on the flight deck, at the controls of the aircraft, had little opportunity to provide vital information as to what exactly happened during the event before disclosing data recorded during the last moments of the flight."

Hersman said the board was following its usual pattern of trying to be transparent by releasing information as it is known.

In addition, authorities were reviewing the initial rescue efforts after fire officials acknowledged that one of their trucks might have run over one of the two Chinese teenagers killed in the crash. The students, Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan, were part of a larger group headed for a Christian summer camp with dozens of classmates.

Asiana President Yoon Young-doo arrived in San Francisco from South Korea on Tuesday morning, fighting his way through a pack of journalists outside customs.

He met with and apologized to injured passengers, family members and survivors. But Yoon said he can't meet with the Asiana pilots because no outside contact with them is allowed until the investigation is completed.

More than 180 people aboard the plane went to hospitals with injuries. But remarkably, more than a third didn't even require hospitalization.

The passengers included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans, 64 Americans, three Canadians, three Indians, one Japanese, one Vietnamese and one person from France.

South Korea officials said 22 people remained hospitalized, including 10 Chinese, four Americans and three South Koreans.

The flight originated in Shanghai, China, and stopped over in Seoul, South Korea, before making the nearly 11-hour trip to San Francisco.

___

Lowy reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Jason Dearen, Terry Collins, Paul Elias, Lisa Leff and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul also contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sf-probe-brings-questions-over-auto-speed-controls-084646467.html

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India @ 9 with Rajdeep Sardesai

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CHC Helicopter Uses ACL? GRC to Increase Productivity by 1

10 Jul, 2013

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ ? ;ACL today announced that the audit team at CHC Helicopter, the world?s largest helicopter services company and employer of more than 4,300 people in 30 countries, has increased productivity by 15%, cut software costs by 60% over their previous system, and reduced overall IT overhead through the use of ACL? GRC.

CHC Helicopter?s internal audit group was in search of a new audit management solution to organize its project workflow, as its previous program had become cumbersome and unreliable. Already familiar with ACL?s flagship data analysis technology, CHC Helicopter found ACL?s GRC project management capabilities to be accessible and easy to use, attributes that were critical to the team?s needs.

According to Marian Jakovcic, Director of Internal Audit at CHC Helicopter, ?One of CHC?s most significant projects is a global Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance audit, and after implementing ACL GRC, the SOX audit is now two months ahead of schedule.?

The system required minimal user training and met CHC?s criteria for intuitive workflow, global accessibility, and cost-effectiveness. ?The cloud-based delivery has saved CHC?s IT department the cost of purchasing additional hardware and has eliminated the burden on IT staff to install the software, apply upgrades, and perform backups,? said Paul King, Vice President and CIO at CHC Helicopter. ?My team also gave high praise to the implementation process, which was quick and trouble-free.?

With users working at remote locations worldwide, it was necessary to have full access anywhere, anytime. The ACL? GRC for iOS application allows CHC?s users to access the full-feature system on various mobile devices. The software supports efficiency and productivity, allowing leaders to view, share, and collaborate with their teams, as well as provide on-the-go access to reports, project statuses, findings, and management responses.

?Overall, the ACL GRC solution is visually appealing, socially interactive, engaging, and positions ACL as one of the new generation of GRC vendors, with which I?m very intrigued,? said Michael Rasmussen, J.D., OCEG Fellow, CCEP, GRCP, CISSP, Chief Analyst & GRC Pundit at GRC 20/20 Research, LLC.

To read the full case study, please visit http://www.acl.com/portfolio/chc-helicopter/

Supporting resources:

About ACL
ACL delivers technology solutions that are transforming audit and risk management. Through a combination of software and expert content, ACL enables powerful internal controls that identify and mitigate risk, protect profits, and accelerate performance.

Driven by a desire to expand the horizons of audit and risk management so they can deliver greater strategic business value, we develop and advocate technology that strengthens results, simplifies adoption, and improves usability. ACL?s integrated family of products?including our cloud?based governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) solution and flagship data analytics products?combine all vital components of audit and risk, and are used seamlessly at all levels of the organization, from the C?suite to front line audit and risk professionals and the business managers they interface with. Enhanced reporting and dashboards provide transparency and business context that allows organizations to focus on what matters.

And, thanks to 25 years of experience and our consultative approach, we ensure fast, effective implementation, so customers realize concrete business results fast at low risk. Our actively engaged community of more than 14,000 customers around the globe?including 89% of the Fortune 500?tells our story best. Here are just a few. Visit us online at www.acl.com.

? 2013 ACL Services Ltd. ACL and the ACL logo are registered trademarks of ACL Services Ltd. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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China's East China Sea Gas Exploration Latest Flare-Up in Japan-China Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute

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Prime Minister Abe Shinzo?s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)/New Komeito (NK) coalition is certain to will a huge victory in the July 21 Diet House of Councillors election. Abe will surely win a majority of seats and could reach the two-thirds level that would facilitate his plan to amend Japan?s (U.S. written) ?Peace Constitution.?

The election campaign is now in full swing throughout the country.? In it we observe the strange but admirable phenomenon of abundant, almost excessive, media coverage being accorded leaders and candidates of fringe and obscure parties.? These are labels that might now apply to all except the LDP/NK.? The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) that ruled for three years until last December has imploded and retains a support level of only some 5%, below that of the Japan Communist Party.

Following the July 21 vote, Abe will have a relatively free hand to push through even the more controversial parts of his agenda, adumbrated in the LDP election ?manifesto? summarized in the previous two posts.

But what may be the most fateful issue for Japan has been carefully played down by Abe, and even by the opposition parties, during the election.? This is how or whether Japan can or should endeavor to unfreeze relations with China and resolve the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute.

The serious and increasingly dangerous rupture with China gained a new dimension?and regained the headlines?on July 5 when Abe, appearing on a Fuji Television program, expressed ?deep regret? that China was moving undersea gas field exploration equipment into an area of the East China Sea ?in violation of a bilateral agreement.?? ?I must ask China to honor our agreement,? said Abe.

Abe?s criticism produced a brief flutter of comment in the Japanese media, but was quickly passed over.? In Beijing, however, there was a multi-day thunderstorm.

In this instance, as in so many others affecting Japan?s foreign relations?including with the U.S.?we are again witnessing from Abe a maladroitness bordering on incompetence.? What is going on here?

The specific issue is Chinese exploration in a section of the East China Sea close to?but not over?a notional mid-point line (illustrated in the graphic above) that can be drawn longitudinally (roughly north to south) through a large area of ocean and seabed that both China and Japan claim as falling within their respective 200 mile ?exclusive economic zones? (EEZ). ?After Abe?s statement, Chinese official media published maps and diagrams documenting that activity was taking place on the Chinese side of the ?mid-point line,? and that China was perfectly within its rights.

A July 4?Nihon Keizai Shimbun?article reported that on June 27 the second raking official in Japan?s foreign ministry delivered a formal diplomatic protest of China?s action to the Chinese ambassador to Japan.? On July 3, Japan?s cabinet secretary, Suga Yoshihide, stressed to the press that ?we will not recognize any unilateral development activities in sea areas where the two countries have overlapping claims.?

Anyone with a knowledge of Chinese negotiating style could have guessed what was coming next.

In response to Suga, on the same day, July 3, China?s deputy foreign ministry spokesman, Ms. Hua Chunying, announced to the press that ?we are are conducting exploration activities in sea area under our own administration.???Further, she continued,?China has never agreed to and does not recognize any so-called ?mid-point line??(my italics). ? Therefore, ?China rejects Japan?s protest.?

Ms. Hua was stating facts in denying that China had ever formally accepted the concept of a ?mid-point line.?? Formal acceptance would mean recognizing Japan?s EEZ claims.? This will never happen, just as China will never formally recognize or accept Japan?s claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

Hence Abe was telling a highly provocative untruth when he mentioned an ?agreement? with China over exploration in the East China Sea.

But of course there is something more.? In June 2008, Japanese and Chinese government negotiators reach tentative agreement that a Chinese gas field development project in the East China Sea called ?Shirakaba? by Japan and ?Chunxiao? by China should proceed based on Chinese law, but with capital provided by Japanese corporations.? Agreement in principle was also reached to establish a joint development zone in a northern area that extended across the notional ?mid-point line.? ? In these discussions both sides set aside the issue of their respective ?exclusive economic zones.?

As it happened, the above tentative agreements were scheduled to be formalized in signed agreements in September 2010.? However, when Japan-China political relations soured over the collision of a Chinese fishing vessel with a Japanese Coast Guard vessel, China asked for an indefinite postponement of the joint exploration agreement signing.? Since then, and particularly as the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute has escalated, China has reverted to strict interpretation of and insistence on its EEZ rights.

It is classic Chinese negotiating style to escalate rhetoric (sometimes combined with histrionic gestures) and to elaborately link otherwise seemingly unrelated issues, to bring maximum pressure on the counterparty to make concessions.? Subtlety is practiced only in obfuscating sources, not in the message or desired effect.? A vivid example of the style was an article penned by ?scholars? in the People?s Daily a few weeks ago that called into question Japan?s sovereign claim over Okinawa.

What is going on in the East China Sea is really about the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute and China?s determination not to de-escalate pressure for concessions from the Abe government.? Abe is also under pressure from the Obama administration to show initiative in trying to resolve the issue, so that the U.S. can continue improving relations with China.

It is obvious that Abe is showing strain, and even reaching for straws, as he stumbles in foreign policy. ? The pressure on Abe from both Washington nor Beijing will only increase after July 21.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenharner/2013/07/08/chinas-east-china-sea-gas-exploration-latest-flare-up-in-japan-china-senkakudiaoyu-island-dispute/

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