China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog has learnt that Chinese supercomputer producer announced that China has once again built the world’s fastest supercomputer, capable of performing 33.86 quadrillion operations per second, surpassing the U.S. Titan supercomputer.

The Tianhe-2 has a peak performance speed of 54.9 quadrillion operations per second, according to the National University of Defense Technology, which built the computer, Xinhua news agency reports.

The computer’s predecessor, the Tianhe-1A, was the world’s fastest supercomputer from November 2010 to June 2011, when it was surpassed by Japan’s K computer.

China Watch Blog has learnt that a New York federal judge long accused of bias against Ecuadorian rainforest residents over a $19B pollution case is continuing to allow Chevron to “systematically harass” two victims of its toxic pollution and their long-time New York lawyer, according to new motions filed in recent days.

The lawyer, Steven R. Donziger, asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to grant a three-month stay to prevent the case from degenerating into a “mockery” where unrepresented defendants are fighting hundreds of Chevron lawyers and are barred by the court from mounting a basic defense using evidence of Chevron’s pollution and corrupt acts in Ecuador.

“This is an extraordinary situation where the evidence suggests that a federal judge is allowing a major oil company to crush its critics by denying them a defense and overwhelming them with abusive legal tactics to drive up their costs, making it virtually impossible for them to obtain counsel,” said Donziger.

“Judge Kaplan is now allowing Chevron to pursue litigation over litigation over litigation,” said Donziger. “It’s unprecedented and offensive.”

In the motion seeking the stay, Donziger outlined for Judge Kaplan how he is now litigating alone (pro se) against at least 114 lawyers from Chevron’s lead outside firm in a case with millions of pages of discovery documents, a privilege log that is 15,000 pages long, and close to 1,200 docket entries. Chevron also disclosed that it has well over 100 private investigators working on the case, some of who have conducted secret surveillance of the plaintiffs and their lawyers to intimidate them, said Donziger.

Despite the request for a stay, Judge Kaplan is allowing 14 depositions in three weeks, with the first starting tomorrow and the last – of Chevron’s CEO, John Watson – scheduled for June 27.

China Watch Blog has learnt that An emergency door of Sriwijaya Air flight number SJ 039 broke off as passengers were boarding at Raja Haji Fisabilillah airport in Tanjungpinang, Riau Islands, on Tuesday, the Jakarta Post reported.

The aircraft, scheduled to depart for Soekarno-Hatta airport, Jakarta, at 7 a.m. local time, had to delay take off until the damaged door was replaced.

“Shortly after I took my seat, an emergency exit door in the right side of the aircraft suddenly detached and the emergency chute also opened,” one of the passengers told Antara news agency.

Tanjungpinang-branch Sriwijaya Air manager Gusmansyah said the aircraft was actually in good condition.

“If the emergency equipment does not function, an aircraft is not allowed to fly,” said Gusmansyah.

China Watch Blog has learnt that IDTechEx, Cambridge, UK says that electric vehicles, planes and boats go more electronic.

According to Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx, the day is coming when electric vehicles (EVs) land, water and airborne are as much as 80% electronics and electrics if we include the power components. It is even true of hybrids as they shed piton engines and employ ever smaller range extenders, the fuel cell option being fully electric.

There are two reasons for much less mechanics and more electrics and electronics. Firstly, it is how you improve a mechanical part or system. An example of this is the energy harvesting shock absorbers that replace existing ones or are an upgrade with a drop-in electric module from Levant Power. As they have shown, redirecting a little of the 12 kW or so generated by these in a bus or truck can provide much improved electrically active suspension. Levant Power is introducing the world’s most advanced fully active, recuperative suspension systems for autos and trucks. Its GenShock technology virtually eliminates all perception of bumps in the road while enabling unprecedented handling.

Another example of improving an existing part, by less hardware and more electrification, is the switched reluctance motor from Nidec and others where the rotor has no winding or expensive magnets that can demagnetise when hot. However the motor control needs twice the amount of silicon power circuitry that is needed for conventional synchronous traction motors.

Circuitry for extra functions

The second form of rapidly expanding circuitry is for new capability, from telematics to managing one hundred times the number of sensors that exist in a conventional vehicle, including taking the temperature of every cell in the lithium-ion traction battery now coming in for almost all applications. Another addition, multiple energy harvesting, is being considered part of the basic toolkit of the vehicle designer. Choose several ways of generating “free” electricity variously from vibration, rotation, vertical or forward movement, temperature difference and light, to take just a few examples. More benchmarking needs to take place. In a marina, the parked boats have little wind turbines and wide area photovoltaics charging batteries, so why not the same with parked pure-electric cars?

Variants on regenerative braking

Energy harvesting in EVs starts with variants on regenerative braking. No longer will some of the energy be dumped into power resistors to be wasted because the battery cannot cope with the full surge of returned energy. Better lithium-ion batteries, sometimes protected by supercapacitors across them or replaced by supercapacitors or supercabatteries, mean all the energy is recaptured. The same approach is being applied in regenerative sailing and mooring of boats in tidestreams – the propeller goes backwards. The aerial equivalent has arrived in regeneratively soaring sailplanes and the new small electric aircraft with one or two fully integrated propeller drives regenerating on descent and landing, very much the latest topic at the recent 7th CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium in Santa Rosa, California.

Benchmarking best practice across different EVs

All this underlines the need to benchmark best practice in electric vehicles for land, water and air. Hybrid buses have often replaced lithium-ion batteries with supercapacitors before it happened in a few cars. The integration of circuitry into motors has also tended to happen at the heavy end first but in-wheel motors are successful in e-bikes as well as large vehicles, cars coming later. Multiple energy harvesting is commonplace with marine vehicles. No battery management system (BMS) can fully protect a vehicle from trouble in the large lithium-ion battery; best practice can be seen in buses, military and some other applications, however not in the Boeing Dreamliner or Chinese taxis. For instance, Lithium Balance has a good reputation supplying the BMS in the sit-on electric floor cleaners of Tennant Corporation and others without problems. However, the BMS and over it the vehicle management system electronics are becoming more complex, for reasons including further improvements to safety and squeezing out extra range and duration of the vehicle.

Circuitry rapidly replacing mechanical parts

One result of this rapid move to circuitry in place of mechanical parts is a shortage of designers and suppliers of these systems. Later, we get the structural components being developed at Imperial College London (supercapacitor load-bearing components and smart skin), at Warwick University UK (3D printing including circuits) and elsewhere, replacing dumb mechanical components but calling for new design skills in short supply. Add to that printed electronics – the term includes electrics and combinations as with the overhead cluster of the new Ford Fusion electric car. For more information attend, Printed Electronics Asia (www.PrintedElectronicsAsia.com) 9-10 July and Printed Electronics USA (www.PrintedElectronicsUSA.com) 20-21 November. Also, see www.IDTechEx.com and read www.PrintedElectronicsWorld.com for more.

Shortage of circuit designers and suppliers

The European Union INTRASME project is assisting small and medium enterprises in Europe to participate in the electric vehicle supply chain for land, water and air. An early result from its interviews and analysis is to reveal a dearth of designers and manufacturers of the latest, more complex, motor controllers. It has also established that, although there are few opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to make mainstream cars successfully, there are huge opportunities in most other types of electric vehicle. In meeting its brief, the project has been particularly looking at the burgeoning electric aircraft business. Here the small businesses FlyNano of Finland (flying jet ski – pure-electric) and Equator Aircraft of Norway (amphibious leisure and work plane – hybrid electric) are instances of small companies that have successfully flown a prototype and are commercialising it with adequate funding. So where are the market statistics and forecasts for all these categories of electric vehicle?

New EV categories become important

Such is the pace of advance in electric vehicles, new categories become important every year, deserving the attention of those making other vehicles or their components and systems. IDTechEx provides forecasts and analysis of all electric vehicles for land, water and air and now we share some of the new results in the master report, “Hybrid & Pure Electric Vehicles for Land, Water & Air 2013-2023: Forecasts, Technologies, Players” (www.IDTechEx.com/ev).

Cars but not as we know them

This year it is the turn for car-like vehicles not homologated as cars to become a separately forecasted category because of a lift-off in sales. They are called MicroEVs but in Europe they are homologated as Quadricycles. Previously they were forecasted by IDTechEx within a more general category but now they have their own figures split out for numbers, unit value and market value over the next ten years because their sales are increasing rapidly in China, India and the Philippines; 100,000 of the e-trike taxi version are being bought by the Philippine government. Three million will be sold in 2023 because they are much lower in cost than mainstream cars, they escape the crash testing and most other requirements and are made simpler; most are three-wheelers.

Pure-electric cars are a special case

Mainstream hybrid and pure-electric cars are, of course, important and they are closely covered by IDTechEx, but they are something of a special case. Being massively loss-making, forecasting sales of hybrid and pure-electric mainstream cars is largely a matter of forecasting very uncertain levels of industrial, government and other financial support. They are the largest sector by value but industrial/commercial EVs are very close behind at $93 billion in 2023 and they are already profitable for most manufacturers. IDTechEx forecasts slow progress with pure-electric cars until near the end of the decade, when they will have range and price acceptable to most prospective purchasers thanks to many small advances, not just the projected two- to three-times improvement in traction battery cost/performance, which, on its own, would be inadequate. Sales may take-off from a mere 300,000 in 2020 to 2 million in 2023, even causing a decline in sales of hybrid cars but no-one can be absolutely sure about timing, only sure that it will be the smaller ones that succeed first in volume. As Dr Pietro Perlo of IFEVS has pointed out, these will be lower cost than internal combustion versions, mimicking the situation with e-bikes, power chairs and 3- or 4-wheel scooters for the disabled, golf cars and other small pure-electric vehicles today.

One thing is certain – the improvements and enhancements will mainly concern the electrics and electronics in hybrid and pure-electric vehicles for land, water and air. They are already responsible for the primary cost and performance. Those making these will prosper. On the other hand, those making mechanical parts will have a hard time. The supply chain has yet to reflect this new reality.

New research reports from IDTechEx

The IDTechEx report “Hybrid & Pure Electric Vehicles for Land, Water & Air 2013-2023: Forecasts, Technologies, Players” (www.IDTechEx.com/ev) provides detailed analysis of all these aspects, including ten year forecasts. If you are looking to understand the big picture, the opportunities and the problems you can address then this report is a must.

Assessing specifically the opportunity for power electronics, the new IDTechEx report “Power Electronics for Electric Vehicles 2013-2023: Forecasts, Technologies, Players” (www.IDTechEx.com/power) provides coverage of key power components for hybrid and pure-electric vehicles on land, water and air.

Researched by multilingual IDTechEx consultants based in four countries and three continents, these reports build on ten years of knowledge of the industry.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Indonesia’s railway company has decided to scrap women-only trains less than a year after they were introduced.

State railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia launched seven brightly painted trains in October to provide safety and comfort for women following reports of sexual harassment in mixed-gender commuter cars linking Jakarta to outlying areas.

But the trains are largely empty outside rush hour while regular ones are always packed, company spokeswoman Eva Chairunnisa said.

“To increase capacity, we decided to convert the women-only trains into regular ones,” Chairunnisa said.

“The ladies’ trains are full during rush hour, but regular trains are even more packed,” she added.

The spokeswoman said the company planned to add 180 more cars this year and that trains for women only might be introduced again when capacity allowed.

Lack of space has forced many commuters to ride on the rooftops of trains, exposing them to dangers including falling and electrocution.

The railway company has tried various tricks to deter roof riding, including spraying them with paint and hanging concrete balls above train tracks, but they were largely unsuccessful.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Prolexic, the global leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, announced that it has issued a number of recommendations that organizations can use to validate their DDoS defenses, as well as protection services they receive from mitigation providers.

“Making sure a provider can actually deliver on the level of service it promises is a critical step that many organizations overlook,” said Stuart Scholly, president at Prolexic. “Mitigation failure is such a common problem that the majority of Prolexic clients came to us after the DDoS protection they had in place did not work.”

Prolexic recommends that organizations work closely with their DDoS mitigation provider(s) to complete a professional, planned provisioning and service validation. The only way to be sure that DDoS protection will be effective is through proactive validation against different types of attack scenarios.

Prolexic recommends the following best practices for DDoS mitigation service testing and validation:

· With the DDoS mitigation service active, verify that all applications are performing properly.

· Verify that all routing and DNS is working.

· In partnership with your mitigation service provider, generate a few gigabits of controlled traffic to validate the alerting, activation and mitigation features of the service.

· Test small levels of traffic without scrubbing and without any DDoS protection to validate that your on-premise monitoring systems are functioning correctly. This action will also help you identify the stress points on your network.

· Conduct baseline testing and calibrate systems to remediate any network vulnerabilities.

· Schedule validation tests on a regular basis (yearly or quarterly) with your DDoS mitigation service provider to validate that the service configuration is still working correctly – and eliminate the risk of network element failures due to DDoS. If network issues arise during testing, your service provider may need to make modifications based on recent changes to your network, such as modified firewall rules, firmware updates and router reconfiguration.

“Based on the test results, Prolexic also recommends developing a mitigation playbook as part of an incident response plan,” said Scholly. “This helps ensure that everyone in the organization knows what to do and what to expect if an attack strikes.”

Additional DDoS service validation recommendations and guidance on how to develop a DDoS mitigation playbook can be found in Prolexic’s latest white paper, “Planning for and Validating a DDoS Defense,” which can be downloaded for a limited time from www.prolexic.com/planning.

China Watch Blog has learnt that French logistics student Pauline Bourderiou is about to sit her final examinations, helped on her way by a four-month internship at Impatex Freight Software, the UK’s leading freight and Customs software supplier.

During her stay with Impatex, Pauline has worked behind the scenes on the company’s 24/7 Help Desk to learn about the company’s software and the UK Customs system. She also translated Impatex’s Integrated Customs for Europe (ICE) and NetFreight software screens into French. In her final two months, she assisted in finding a French distributor for NetFreight, and also represented the company on its stand at a trade exhibition.

Pauline’s placement was arranged by Wiltshire College, where she has been studying in the UK; they publicised the availability of French interns through BIFA’s member newsletter. Wiltshire College operates an exchange scheme with IUT Laval, Pauline’s local business college close to her home near Le Mans, France.

In June, Pauline will sit her examinations for the “Licence Gestionnaire Import-Export” – equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in Import and Export; she will also receive an HNC in Business. In April, she sat and passed the Cambridge University Certificate in Business English.

To date, Pauline has spent two years studying international trade, with work placements in Spain and France that involved translation, organising and attending overseas exhibitions, identifying potential international distributors, supply chain analysis and accounting.

Says Pauline: “My last work placement in a logistics department in France, gave me the desire to follow my study in Import-export. For me, logistics is a really interesting sector because the aim is to coordinate all activities in the areas of procurement, production, handling, packaging, packing, storage, distribution and delivery.

“I was really pleased to do my work placement at Impatex; there is a really good atmosphere at work and everybody has been very welcoming when I arrived. This work placement gave me more knowledge about export and import documents, and how the UK trades with other countries using its software to prepare and manage their exports and imports. I learned how Customs works in England; it is quite unique, and different than French Customs.”

Pauline has her sights set firmly on a career in logistics; and although she favours a French company in the wine or foods sector, she is not against working in other countries or businesses: “I love travelling : it is the reason why I chose to study International trade. I would like to work as an export sales manager, because I really enjoy the contact with customers and it is a really important place within the logistics process.”

Adds Impatex MD Peter Day: “It has been a real pleasure helping Pauline with her studies, and she has also been a tremendous assistance to our business. We wish her very well for the future: she will be a real credit to whoever is lucky enough to employ her.”

China Watch Blog has learnt that from the kindergarten room to the boardroom, it’s commonly believed that a person’s perception of their potential will affect their behavior. This theory suggests you just think positive and somehow, magically, you’ll manifest the needed skills. But Al Bolea’s Applied Leadership Seminars turn this belief on its head.

“My position is that behavior drives potential,” says Bolea. “There’s been a great deal of research by contemporary psychologists and neuroscientists confirming this. Simply stated, when a person becomes aware of their behavior and changes it to adopt the behaviors of great leaders, they will become a great leader.”

People begin their leadership journey when they embrace the idea that their behavior determines their future potential, Bolea continues. This redefined potential-behavior relationship shines a new light on everything else in an organization.

While Al Bolea travels around the globe presenting this transformative approach to applied leadership, this summer a lucky few will have an extraordinary opportunity for personal and professional growth: the Alaskan Experience. From August 11 – 16, 2013, the Executive Leadership Retreat will combine topics from the Applied Leadership Seminars and guided fishing in the pristine waters of Alaska’s Inside Passage.

Spectacular natural wonders, stimulating leadership inquiry, team fishing in a rigorous environment, and evening dinners with gourmet Alaskan specialties offer a rare opportunity for leadership teams to re-envision their organization’s future.

Attendees will initially stay at the Cape Fox Lodge in Ketchikan, Alaska, then travel by sea plane to the Waterfall Resort, one of the finest remote sport fishing destinations in the world. Waterfall attracts anglers of all skill levels, from novice to avid, celebrities and professional athletes. The resort on Prince of Wales Island is the ideal all-inclusive Alaskan resort with a one-to-one staff-to-guest ratio.

Al Bolea offers Applied Leadership Seminars year-round. Designed as team experiences, they are ideal for groups of 12-16 attendees. Teams will gain new leadership tools and build greater cooperation among the members, achieving lasting personal and professional transformations. Eleven seminar options range from 5 days in length for “Leadership Transformation” to a 1 day seminar for “Being A Leader.”

The founder and architect of the Applied Leadership Seminars, Al Bolea is an executive leadership coach with clients in many industries. He is the former CEO/GM of Dubai Petroleum and a retired BP executive. His industry career spans almost forty years, including assignments in the US, UK and Middle East. He lectures at the University of Houston, and is the Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Leadership at the University of Alaska.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Turkey’s national airline has barred female flight attendants from wearing red lipstick and nail polish, striking a nerve among secular Turks worried the country is becoming more Islamic.

Turkish Airlines turning more Islamic

Turkish Airlines, Europe’s fourth-biggest carrier, said the ban was aimed at keeping crews “artless and well-groomed with makeup in pastel tones”, as a natural look improved communication with passengers.

“As a consequence of our current cabin uniforms not including red, dark pink, et cetera, the use of lipstick and nail polish in these colours by our cabin crew impairs visual integrity,” the statement said.

Turkish Airlines declined a request for comment.

The guideline follows other restrictions on employees’ appearance and on serving alcohol. Critics say they reflect the influence of the government’s conservative religious values at the fast-growing state-run airline.

“This new guideline is totally down to Turkish Airlines management’s desire to shape the company to fit its own political and ideological stance,” Atilay Aycin, president of the airline’s Hava-Is union, told Reuters.

“No one can deny that Turkey has become a more conservative, religious country.”

Turkey is 99 percent Muslim but the NATO state and European Union candidate has a secular constitution.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, which traces its roots to a banned Islamic party, has relaxed the state’s control over the expression of religion, such as once-strict limits imposed on wearing the Islamic headscarf.

Such restrictions were aimed at reining in Islamism and improving women’s rights, but effectively prevented many devout women from studying at university or taking government jobs.

Turkish Airlines scrapped its own ban on the headscarf more than a year ago, and covered women now work at check-in counters and at other positions in the company, Aycin said.

Other Turkish carriers also have guidelines on the appearance of cabin personnel.

China Watch Blog has learnt that the Secretary for Transport, Anthony Cheung, has promised to lead a thorough review of the Marine Department, that’s been blamed for ‘serious systemic failings’ that contributed to the Lamma ferry disaster last October, but not many people believe this statement.

An inquiry into the tragedy found the department had not enforced regulations on the provision of life-jackets, and had repeatedly failed to spot problems with the Lamma Four vessel, which sank following a collision last October, killing 39 people.

The Transport chief admitted to an RTHK programme that numerous mistakes had been committed by the authorities, and if these “very unfortunate” errors had not been made, the tragedy may not have happened.

But on whether the the Director of Marine, Francis Liu, should pay for these mistakes with his job, Cheung said he couldn’t say at this point, noting that any civil servants who are guilty of breaching regulations would face the appropriate punishment under civil service regulations.

Usually, the government makes statements as if it is going to take stringent action in such cases, but at the end of the day, it seldom blames anyone and everything is swept under the carpet. Outwardly, there will be string of transfers and then everything will be forgotten. That is how the civil service works.

Cheung also said the government has decided that the entire Marine Department needs comprehensive reforms, and he’ll head a new three-man steering committee to look into all aspects of vessel safety, including the issuing of licences.

The department itself will conduct its own internal review, headed by a senior civil servant.

He promised that his bureau will closely monitor the progress of the internal review, and the department will not be left to scrutinise its own failings by itself.