Exam Leaked to Guards at Y-12 Nuclear Site, Inquiry Finds

WASHINGTON ? The security guards at a nuclear weapons plant who failed to stop an 82-year-old nun from reaching a bomb fuel storage building earlier this year were also cheating on a recertification exam, according to an internal investigation by the Department of Energy, which owns the weapons plant.

National Nuclear Security Administration, via Reuters

An inspector visiting the Y-12 National Security Complex saw a copy of a recertification exam on the seat of a patrol vehicle.

Shawn Poynter for The New York Times

Sister Megan Gillespie Rice and two accomplices broke into Y-12 on July 28, cutting through three layers of fence.

The exam, with answers, was circulated to guards at the Y-12 National Security Complex, near Oak Ridge, Tenn., before they sat down to take it, according to the report, by the department?s inspector general. The report, released on Wednesday, said that the cheating was enabled by the department itself. It was routine practice for the department to involve contractor personnel in preparation of such exams, because the federal government did not know enough about the security arrangements to write the exam without the help of the contractor.

A federal security official sent the exam by encrypted e-mail to ?trusted agents? at the management contractor, B&W, but did not instruct those executives to keep it secret from the people who would have to take it, according to the report. The government found out about the cheating only because an inspector visiting the plant noticed a copy of an exam on the seat of a patrol vehicle the day before guards were to take it.

The security contractor was Wackenhut, but its contract was terminated after a security breach on July 28, when the nun, Sister Megan Gillespie Rice, and two accomplices cut through three layers of fence, splashed blood on a building housing bomb-grade uranium, performed a Christian ritual and then waited to be apprehended. A subsequent investigation found that many security cameras had been disabled long before the break-in.

B&W remains the management contractor at the site.

The inspector general, Gregory Friedman, said the failure to secure the exam before it was administered was ?inexplicable and inexcusable.? Contractor officials treated the test ?as if it were a training aid,? he wrote. Part of the problem, he said, was ?contractor governance? by the Energy Department. Almost all the work done by the department is performed by contractors.

But there were indications that some officials at Y-12 knew they were doing wrong even as they did it. One contractor official, who had described the exam during a daily meeting of officers, said in an e-mail discovered by the inspector general: ?Please remember the sensitivity issue with these questions. It would not be a good idea for these to be left lying around? or for an officer ?to have these in hand during an audit.?

The inspector general added that ?the issue at Y-12 does not appear to be unique to that site.? Sending exams to the contractor for checking is common because federal officials often lack the knowledge to check the tests themselves before they are administered, the report said. Similar episodes may have happened elsewhere but not been discovered, the inspector general found.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, the part of the Energy Department that runs the weapons plants, disagreed with the report?s conclusions. In a written response, Thomas P. D?Agostino, the head of the administration, said that the problem was not governance, because the issue was not the release of the test to contractor officials for checking, but ?the abuse of discretion (or disregard of controls for further distribution) on the contractor?s part in releasing the materials to a broader group of employees.?

Mr. D?Agostino wrote that his agency would work ?to ensure that there are no similar lapses in the effective control of performance test information in the future.?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/us/guards-at-breached-nuclear-site-in-tennessee-cheated-on-exam-report-says.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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All eyes on?where else??Ohio

Since the final presidential debate, 15 polls have surveyed voter opinion in Ohio, the state that is more likely than any other to determine the election. President Barack Obama leads former Gov. Mitt Romney in 13 of them. The candidates tied in one, and Romney leads in one. Those last two polls were both conducted by Rasmussen, one of the more right-leaning polling institutions, as FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver has documented.

No one is saying Ohio is a walk for the president. The Huffington Post's Pollster and the RealClearPolitics average both have Obama leading with 51.2 percent among those who express a preference for either major candidate. There is still time for a shift toward Romney, and it's always possible that there is a systematic bias in the polls.

But I don't think it's likely. Historically, polls have been pretty accurate this close to the election. Based only on these surveys, the Signal gives Obama a 75 percent chance of victory in Ohio. When we factor in prediction markets, that figure ticks up a small amount, to 77 percent.

All is not lost for Romney. A 25 percent likelihood of winning Ohio is far from negligible, though that value is likely to diminish with each day that elapses, because most of the uncertainty in this prediction is over what can happen in the next five days. Romney does not need a miracle, but he should hope at least for a very good roll of the dice.

Follow the state-by-state and overall presidential predictions in real time with PredictWise.com.

David Rothschild has a Ph.D. in applied economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Follow him on Twitter @DavMicRot.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/signal/eyes-where-else-ohio-153354761--election.html

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Inside Tucson Business features Title Security Agency ? Title Security

Did you catch the story that Inside Tucson Business ran on October 12, 2012? Title Security Agency is celebrating its 40th year anniversary which is no small accomplishment.? Considering the changes which have occurred from 1970 to 2012, Title Security Agency has been known to be innovative, entrepreneurial and always on the cutting edge of whatever is new in the real estate industry. The changes in our industry and the world are vast and well detailed in the story run by Inside Tucson Business. Tom Sullivan Jr. attributes the many successes of the company to the employees who make Title Security the great company it is. Go to Inside Tucson Business to read the full story. Read More. Tell us what you think, we would love to hear from you, our customer!

Source: http://www.titlesecurity.com/inside-tucson-business/

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Sharp fears for future as Japan TV makers bleed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Struggling Japanese TV maker Sharp Corp warned it might not be able to survive on its own, as it almost doubled its full-year net loss forecast to $5.6 billion, and said it was considering alliances with other companies.

In a statement, the company said it booked massive second-quarter losses and is seeing "serious negative operating cash flow." "This raises serious doubts about (our ability) to continue as a going concern," it said, adding it was taking steps, from pay cuts and asset sales to voluntary redundancies, to generate cash flow.

Sharp has been in talks for months with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd about the Taiwan-based group becoming its biggest shareholder. Sharp said on Thursday it expected an agreement on that before a March deadline, but added it was considering other alliances as well.

"Perhaps it will not fail within this year, but I don't think Sharp has a viable business in the next 3-5 years," said Tetsuro Ii, CEO of Commons Asset Management in Tokyo. "The company hasn't got much time left and they need to cut off businesses that they can, conserve cash and ... produce something that's really competitive."

Sharp CEO Takashi Okuda told reporters: "We have lots of great technology and we want to tap that asset to revive and make money, but I can't say we are now a company with that vitality."

SONY PROFIT

Bigger Japanese rival Sony Corp, which blazed a trail in the early 1980s with its Walkman portable music players, made a small operating profit in July-September, helped by the sale of a non-core chemicals business, and kept its forecast for a full-year profit of $1.63 billion.

But the maker of Bravia TVs, Vaio laptops and PlayStation game consoles said it expects to sell fewer of its hand-held PSP and Vita consoles this year - 10 million - than it previously estimated. It also cut forecasts for sales of its TV sets - to 14.5 million - and compact digital cameras - to 16 million - but kept its PlayStation home console sales estimate at 16 million, and maintained its forecast to sell 34 million smartphones.

The grim tale from brands that led a consumer electronics boom from the 1970s came a day after Panasonic Corp said it will lose almost $10 billion this business year as it writes down goodwill and assets and prepares for more restructuring.

The maker of Viera brand TVs also skipped its dividend for the first time in more than six decades and cut its full-year TV sales forecast by more than a quarter to 9 million sets. Panasonic shares slumped by nearly a fifth on Thursday, wiping $3 billion off its market value.

By March, the three companies - all under new leadership after racking up combined losses of $20 billion last year - expect to have axed close to 60,000 jobs and are selling assets and closing facilities.

While battling weak demand and fierce competition from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics, the Japanese brands are also up against a strong yen and bumps in China, where growth has slowed and Japanese goods have been targetted in sometimes violent protests in a dispute over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

"Consumer needs have been changing and for too long Japanese electronics firms, like Sharp, with their size and heavy reliance on past successes, have been too slow to adapt," said Yuuki Sakurai, CEO of Fukoku Capital Management.

WHAT WILL DRIVE SONY?

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai has pledged to rebuild the company around gaming, digital imaging and mobile devices, and nurture new businesses such as medical devices, as the TV business shrinks. In late-September, Sony agreed to pay 50 billion yen to become the biggest shareholder in Olympus Corp, a world leader in medical endoscopes.

"The areas in which Sony is continuing to focus are of course high-risk, high-return markets," said JP Morgan analyst Yoshiharu Izumi ahead of the quarterly earnings. "Although we expect (full-year) margin improvement in electronics, we think it's too early to appraise a sustained recovery."

Sony reported a small operating profit of 30.3 billion yen ($379 million) for July-September, after a loss a year ago, and kept its forecast for a 130 billion yen operating profit for the year to end-March.

"The fact that Sony managed to maintain profits shows management's strong will and commitment to continue cost cuts even while their product sales remain sluggish," said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex Inc. "Compared to Panasonic and Sharp ... Sony's earnings should get some credit."

"But we still don't see what their major earnings driver will be in the future."

Shares in Sony, valued at less than $12 billion, have dropped by close to a fifth since end-June and the cost of insuring against debt default for five years has jumped by almost 60 percent.

SHARP CHARGE

Sharp, which makes Aquos TVs, almost doubled its forecast full-year net loss to 450 billion yen ($5.63 billion) after taking a $1.1 billion restructuring charge in July-September. At an operating level, it sees a loss of 155 billion yen. But it said it would make an operating profit in the current second half - allowing its banks to justify a $4.6 billion bailout.

Sharp, Japan's leading maker of liquid crystal displays, has secured fresh loans from banks in return for a pledge to cut jobs, sell assets and return to profit. It has mortgaged most of its offices and factories in Japan, including one that makes displays for Apple's iPhone and iPad. It kept its forecast for TV sales this year at 8 million sets.

The bank loans may prove to be just a sticking plaster rather than a salvation, said Makoto Kikuchi, CEO at Myojo Asset Management. "I don't think Sharp has a future. Even if it gets by this term, financial problems could emerge again next business year, and I don't see the banks coming to the rescue."

As it seeks survival, Sharp is further hampered by weakened finances. At end-September, the company's shareholder equity ratio fell to below 10 percent - half the rate generally considered a healthy minimum.

Sharp shares have plunged more than 75 percent so far this year, while the benchmark Nikkei average has gained more than 5 percent. Sharp fell 1.7 percent on Thursday ahead of its earnings release. Sony closed down 4 percent.

($1 = 79.9300 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai, Hirotoshi Sugiyama, Mari Saito, James Topham and Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Linda Sieg and Ian Geoghegan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sony-sharp-turnaround-battle-panasonic-battered-080234437--finance.html

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Paso Fino - Sahara - Small - Young - Female - Horse | Morriston ...

Paso Fino - Sahara - Small - Young - Female - Horse

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How Presidential Elections Made Social Media Marketing Banal ...

by Dorie Clark??|?? 3:01 PM November 1, 2012

As we approach the final days of the U.S. presidential campaign, all the media attention shifts to the ground game: how many doors are knocked, and how many voters are mobilized in crucial swing states like Ohio. But while field organizing is essential in this closely contested race, the groundwork has been laid over many months by the campaigns' digital operations.

Online outreach has enabled the candidates to raise vast sums of money, identify their supporters and likely supporters with precision, and leverage social networks to engage peer pressure (the more polite term from psychology is "social proof") on their behalf. And though the campaigns' digital efforts have received far less notice this time around compared to President Obama's much-ballyhooed effort in 2008, businesses can still extract many important (and little-noticed) lessons from this year's online contest.

Here are some of the most salient, which I discussed in a session I moderated last week at the Inbound Marketing Summit on "Digital Marketing in the Political Arena," guest-starring Harvard Kennedy School professor Nicco Mele and fellow HBR blogger Michael Schrage, who recently wrote an astute piece about polling.

You can thrive on constraints. Everyone knows politics is a big money game. In fact, a recent New York Times article revealed that nearly $6 billion will be spent on this year's election. But most of that money goes to high-priced television ads ? and on every other front, campaigns are as cheap as they come. (On the presidential campaign where I served as spokesperson, we were forced to raise the pay of our field organizers midway through the campaign because it turned out we had been violating minimum-wage laws.) That's why online media has been such a perfect match for the world of political campaigns: though it takes time and strategy, it doesn't take much money. Just as Nancy Lublin suggested in her book Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business, corporations have a lot to learn from underfunded nonprofits, and the same is true of political campaigns. Great online efforts can thrive with creativity and brainpower, even sans capital.

Novelty fades fast. During the 1996 election cycle, campaigns could literally get media coverage because they had a website; it was that unusual. By 2000, there were glimpses of websites' practical value, as when John McCain had a fundraising windfall in the days after his New Hampshire primary victory. In 2004 and 2008, the media gobbled up stories of the online prowess of the Howard Dean and Barack Obama campaigns, highlighting alluring new tools like Meetup, blogs, and text message marketing. Today, that process-based coverage is largely gone. In a little more than a decade, online tools have gone from novel to fashionable to completely unexceptional. You have to move fast to keep up, and the bar is getting higher.

Everyone has to play. Barack Obama's digital infrastructure is legendary. He ran a well-regarded online campaign in 2008, nurtured it during the intervening years, and throughout this election cycle has understandably held a formidable advantage over the Romney campaign: 31 million Facebook likes to Romney's 11 million, and 21.5 million Twitter followers to Romney's 1.6 million, as of the beginning of November. But it's clear that online operations have become so central to political success, everyone has to play: Romney simply cannot afford to cede the advantage and focus elsewhere. Indeed, AdAge revealed Romney has a whopping 110 staffers focused on digital efforts. And wherever possible, his campaign has tried guerrilla online actions against Obama, including making early use of Sponsored Results on Facebook, which presented viewers with Romney ads when they searched for the president.

You're not controlling the message, but you can (and should) try. It's been clear for a while that social media has allowed individuals access to a megaphone they never had in the broadcast era. But the sea change is only now becoming evident. A study by Bluefin Labs showed there were 7 million public comments on Facebook and Twitter in response to television coverage of the conventions ? 2.5 million of them in the final 90 minutes of the Democratic Convention. That's a tidal wave of public input, and it makes it much harder to shape the narrative, the traditional goal of campaign press departments. But that doesn't mean they aren't trying. After getting hammered by the press and most commentators for his lackluster performance during the first debate, Obama's campaign wasn't going to take any chances during the second one at Hofstra University in New York. In what was viewed as an effort to shape discussion and, essentially, distribute early talking points, his team tweeted a remarkable 37 times during the course of the 90 minute debate, leveraging 117,000 retweets. If there's a deluge of conversation, they're going to at least try to be part of it.

By itself, digital won't win elections ? or, for that matter, sell your product or service. It has limitations (as Nicco Mele pointed out during our session, it's still much better for rallying committed supporters rather than for persuading new ones). But it's also become a mandatory, even banal, part of campaign infrastructure. The sexiness of Internet tools has worn off ? but their emerging importance in meeting your ultimate goals, whether in politics or business, cannot be overstated.

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/how_presidential_elections_made_social_media_marketing_banal.html

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