Jacob Schlaephor, a case study in laser innovation and the unexpected

This report aims to counter some assumptions about the nature of industrial technology by exploring the creative potential of the distance inherent in laser materials processing between designer and manufactured product.A case study of an industrially based project involving the textile company Jakob Schlaepfer, St Gallen, Switzerland, will provide the research material and underpin the report. The case study presents the development and expansion, by Schlaepfer, of self-customised laser technologies and how different laser processes have come to form an integral part of the design and production process. We aim to offer through this historical picture of Schlaepfer’s commitment to new technologies and investments that encourage innovation, two propositions that are facilitated by the distance inherent in the creative use of lasers. Firstly, that it is possible to utilise technologies normally linked with impersonalised standardisation in production, to instead create experimental products; and secondly, that technologies normally used to repeat and replicate the unexpected unique capacities of traditional making, can-be in-themselves capable of un-programmed unpredictability<br/

Unemployment Insurance: Legislative Issues in the 113th Congress

The 113th Congress may face a number of issues related to currently available unemployment insurance programs: Unemployment Compensation (UC), temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08), and Extended Benefits (EB). With the national unemployment rate decreasing but still high, the weekly demand for extended unemployment benefits continues at elevated levels. Congress deliberated multiple times on whether to extend the authorization for several key temporary unemployment insurance provisions in the 112th Congress and may do so again in the 113th Congress. The signing of P.L. 112-240 on January 2, 2013, now means that the EUC08 program expires the week ending on or before January 1, 2014. The 100% federal financing of the EB program expires on December 31, 2013. In addition, the option for states to use three-year EB trigger lookbacks (the period of time considered in determining an active EB program within a state) expires the week ending on or before December 31, 2013. The 113th Congress will face these expirations as well as likely unemployment insurance policy issues, including unemployment insurance financing, integrity measures, and the appropriate length and availability of unemployment benefits. This report provides a brief overview of the three unemployment insurance programs—UC, EUC08, and EB—that may currently pay benefits to eligible unemployed workers. This report contains a brief explanation of how the EUC08 program, as well as some other UC-related payments, began to experience reductions in benefits as a result of the sequester order contained within the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25). This report also includes descriptions of the unemployment insurance provisions within H.R. 51, H.R. 188, H.R. 1172, H.R. 1229, H.R. 1277, H.R. 1502, H.R. 1530, H.R. 1617, H.R. 2177, H.R. 2448, H.R. 2821, H.R. 2826, H.R. 2889, S. 18, S. 803, and S. 1099, as well as the President’s Budget Proposal for FY2014

Easy on that trigger dad: a study of long term family photo retrieval

We examine the effects of new technologies for digital photography on people's longer term storage and access to collections of personal photos. We report an empirical study of parents' ability to retrieve photos related to salient family events from more than a year ago. Performance was relatively poor with people failing to find almost 40% of pictures. We analyze participants' organizational and access strategies to identify reasons for this poor performance. Possible reasons for retrieval failure include: storing too many pictures, rudimentary organization, use of multiple storage systems, failure to maintain collections and participants' false beliefs about their ability to access photos. We conclude by exploring the technical and theoretical implications of these findings

Unemployment Insurance: Programs and Benefits

[Excerpt] A variety of benefits may be available to unemployed workers to provide them with income support during a spell of unemployment. The cornerstone of this income support is the joint federal-state Unemployment Compensation (UC) program, which may provide income support through the payment of UC benefits for up to a maximum of 26 weeks. Other programs that may provide workers with income support are more specialized. They may target special groups of workers, be automatically triggered by certain economic conditions, be temporarily created by Congress with a set expiration date, or target typically ineligible workers through a disaster declaration. UC benefits may be extended at the state level by the permanent Extended Benefit (EB) program if high unemployment exists within the state. Once regular unemployment benefits are exhausted, the EB program may provide up to an additional 13 or 20 weeks of benefits, depending on worker eligibility, state law, and economic conditions in the state. The EB program is funded 50% by the federal government and 50% by the states, although the 2009 stimulus package (P.L. 111-5, as amended) temporarily provides for 100% federal funding of the EB program. A temporary unemployment insurance program, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) program, began in July 2008. The authorization for the EUC08 program expires the week ending on or before January 1, 2014. Therefore, the last day of EUC08 availability is December 28, 2013 (December 29, 2013, for New York). This was the eighth temporary program Congress has created to provide extended unemployment compensation during an economic slowdown. The EUC08 benefit is 100% federally funded. State UC agencies administer the EUC08 benefit along with regular UC benefits. See Appendix A for diagrams of the current unemployment benefits available to workers as well as a detailed diagram of the expansions and contractions of the EUC08 benefit. This report describes three kinds of unemployment benefits: regular UC, EB, and EUC08. The report explains their basic eligibility requirements, benefits, and financing structure

The Fundamentals of Unemployment Compensation

[Excerpt] The joint federal-state Unemployment Compensation (UC) program provides income support through UC benefit payments. Although there are broad requirements under federal law regarding UC benefits and financing, the specifics are set out under each state’s laws. States administer UC benefits with U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) oversight, resulting in 53 different UC programs operated in the states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Total UC expenditures include benefits and administrative costs. During economic expansions, states fund approximately 85%-90% of all UC expenditures—as almost all of the benefits are state-financed by state unemployment taxes. In comparison, federal expenditures are relatively small during these expansions (approximately 10%-15%) in which federal expenditures are primarily administrative grants to the states financed by federal unemployment taxes

Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08): Current Status of Benefits

The temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) program may provide additional federal unemployment insurance benefits to eligible individuals who have exhausted all available benefits from their state Unemployment Compensation (UC) programs. Currently, EUC08 benefits are available in all states except for North Carolina. Congress created the EUC08 program in 2008 and has amended the original, authorizing law (P.L. 110-252) 11 times. The most recent extension of EUC08 in P.L. 112-240, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, authorizes EUC08 benefits through the end of calendar year 2013. Under P.L. 112-240, the potential duration of EUC08 benefits available to eligible individuals depends on state unemployment rates. Figure A-1 provides the sequence, availability, and total maximum of all unemployment benefits. This report summarizes the structure of EUC08 benefits currently available through December 28, 2013 (December 29, 2013, for New York). It also provides the legislative history of the EUC08 program

Unemployment Insurance: Legislative Issues in the 116th Congress

The unemployment insurance (UI) system has two primary objectives: (1) to provide temporary, partial wage replacement for involuntarily unemployed workers and (2) to stabilize the economy during recessions. In support of these goals, several UI programs provide benefits for eligible unemployed worker

Unemployment Insurance: Legislative Issues in the 115th Congress

[Excerpt] The 115th Congress continues to consider many issues related to the two major components of the unemployment insurance (UI) system: Unemployment Compensation (UC) and Extended Benefits (EB). This report provides short summaries of legislative proposals with respect to UI programs. It also gives a brief overview of the UI programs that may provide benefits to eligible unemployed workers. In addition, it briefly summarizes UI proposals included in the President’s budget for FY2018

Rigid motions: action-angles, relative cohomology and polynomials with roots on the unit circle

Revisiting canonical integration of the classical solid near a uniform rotation, canonical action angle coordinates, hyperbolic and elliptic, are constructed in terms of various power series with coefficients which are polynomials in a variable $r^2$ depending on the inertia moments. Normal forms are derived via the analysis of a relative cohomology problem and shown to be obtainable without the use of ellitptic integrals (unlike the derivation of the action-angles). Results and conjectures also emerge about the properties of the above polynomials and the location of their roots. In particular a class of polynomials with all roots on the unit circle arises.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figur

Modular symmetry and temperature flow of conductivities in quantum Hall systems with varying Zeeman energy

The behaviour of the critical point between quantum Hall plateaux, as the Zeeman energy is varied, is analysed using modular symmetry of the Hall conductivities following from the law of corresponding states. Flow diagrams for the conductivities as a function of temperature, with the magnetic field fixed, are constructed for different Zeeman energies, for samples with particle-hole symmetry.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figure