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Amazon announces controversial HQ2 locations
Michelle R. Matisons Science & TechnologyWhen Amazon announced that it was searching for a new second headquarters location, speculation began to swirl as hundreds of cities competed. Finally, on Nov. 13, the company announced it will be splitting HQ2 between two locations: Arlington, Virginia; and Long Island City in Queens, New York. It will also build an "Operations Center of Excellence" in Nashville that will provide 5,000 jobs. Immediately after the announcement, debates kicked into motion about the tax breaks given to Amazon and how HQ2 will affect the communities chosen.
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Is your big idea the best idea?
Lisa Mulcahy Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementYou think you've come up with a winning concept that will garner huge profits for your company, so of course you want to get working on its specs ASAP. Not so fast: before going any further, you need to step back and review your idea's merits with an eye toward quality control. According to research, the best concepts have the following factors in common.
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How emerging technologies are affecting food and beverage
Bambi Majumdar Food & BeverageThe food and beverage industry is witnessing a paradigm shift. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are changing the way food is processed and transferred as well as the way consumers shop. The most impact these new capabilities have had is on the manufacturing side of things. Manufacturing in the food and beverage sector is a continuous and labyrinthine process that cannot afford snags or stops during production. AI and IoT will help to cut down on losses and downtime.
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U.S. economy adds 250,000 jobs as unemployment remains at 3.7 percent
Seth Sandronsky Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementNonfarm payroll jobs rose 250,000 in October versus 134,000 in September while the rate of unemployment remained at 3.7 percent, a 49-year-low, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. In October, the number of jobless workers was 6.1 million compared with 6.0 million in September. October’s upbeat jobs report could bolster President Trump and the Republican Party in the Nov. 6 midterm elections. Apparently, the 3.7 percent unemployment rate is spurring a rise in workers’ hourly wage-income.
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How can controls, automation, and instrumentation help with integration…
Joseph Zulick ManufacturingAs advances in technology make it more cost-effective to deploy the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), industries will need to acquire a strategic approach to integrating new sensor data with pre-existing data environments. Now more than ever, industries are seeking simple integrations with controls, automation, and data analytics visualization software to harness the power of IIoT and realize attractive operational and competitive benefits for their business. IIoT can unite people and systems on the plant floor with those at the enterprise level and enable users to get the most value from their automated systems while reducing technological and economic limitations.
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Report: US job losses to China grow, as does trade deficit
Seth Sandronsky Civil & GovernmentThe U.S. trade deficit with China has reduced sharply employment stateside since 2001, according to "The China Toll Deepens," a new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The finding from the EPI’s Robert E. Scott and Zane Mokhiber "examines the job impacts of trade by subtracting the job opportunities lost to imports from those gained through exports." Their thesis is simple. The bilateral trade deficit in goods between the planet’s two biggest economies is the main cause of the U.S. employment losses that are concentrated in the American manufacturing sector.
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An ill wind blows: Hurricanes and supply chains don’t mix
Delany Martinez Distribution & WarehousingNatural disasters are a huge headache for man-made systems — in addition to disrupting services like water and power on a residential level, they can also bring supply chains to a screeching halt. From flash flooding to outright facility damage, hurricane-proofing your supply chain is a challenge, but one well worth tackling. While you can't predict when and where a hurricane will completely shut down 3PL availability and reach, you can commit to frequent monitoring and communication throughout the storm.
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The last mile: Logistics’ final frontier meets gig culture
Delany Martinez Distribution & WarehousingLogistics and supply chains are excellent models of efficiency, moving huge cargo containers of everything imaginable across cities, countries, and even oceans with unimaginable speed. They have a very unusual Achilles' heel, however: Main Street, USA. The so-called "last mile" conundrum has stumped otherwise perfectly tuned systems, confronting them with routes and infrastructure that simply aren't designed to handle the demands of frequent shipments.
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Intellectual property protections grow under USMCA
Seth Sandronsky Civil & GovernmentA revised 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, dubbed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, pleases the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). "The successful conclusion of the USMCA is a significant step toward leveling the playing field with our trading partners by delivering strong IP (intellectual property) protections for American manufacturers and innovators," said PhRMA President and CEO Stephen J. Ubl. Public Citizen, based in Washington, D.C., takes a less cheery view of the renegotiated IP for biologics under the USMCA.
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Heating industry turns up the temperature on PLC cybersecurity
Joseph Zulick Science & TechnologyHow important is cybersecurity for programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in today's industrial settings? Merely a matter of national security. Consider this: in 2016, the NATO nations officially recognized cyberspace as a domain of warfare. In geopolitical terms, a cyberattack is now as actionable as a naval attack. Within industrial and commercial settings, cyber malice is a frequently seen as a leading threat, and likely a permanent one. As first brought to global attention by the Stuxnet attack in 2010, PLCs are a tempting target for malice.
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