Tag Archives: united states

Wanted: A Life Outside the Workplace

A memo to employers: Just because your workers live alone doesn’t mean they don’t have lives beyond the office.

New research at Michigan State University suggests the growing number of workers who are single and without children have trouble finding the time or energy to participate in non-work interests, just like those with spouses and kids.

Workers struggling with work-life balance reported less satisfaction with their lives and jobs and more signs of anxiety and depression. (more…)

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USGS Estimates 162 Billion Short Tons of Recoverable Coal in the Powder River Basin

New basin-wide assessment of recoverable resources and reserves

The Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana contains about 162 billion short tons (BST) of recoverable coal from a total of 1.07 trillion short tons of in-place resources according to a new USGS assessment. This assessment also estimates that 25 BST of those resources are currently economical to recover, the first such estimate released by the USGS for coal for an entire basin.

The Powder River Basin—a large geologic feature located in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana—contains the largest deposits of low-sulfur subbituminous coal in the world. This study is significant because it illustrates that only a relatively small percentage of in-place coal resources are technically and economically recoverable. (more…)

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Yammer Announces Message Translation to Ignite Multilingual Collaboration

Uses Microsoft Translator technology to support 39 languages.

SAN FRANCISCO — Feb. 28, 2013 — Yammer, Inc., a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network and part of the Microsoft Office Division, today announced plans to add message translation capabilities, which will allow users to instantly translate Yammer conversations into their native languages.

“Removing language as a barrier to cross-company collaboration can be a competitive game changer for multinational organizations. It opens a world of possibilities,” said Adam Pisoni, Yammer co-founder and general manager of Engineering, Microsoft Office Division. “This is another example of Yammer’s accelerated innovation following the Microsoft acquisition — we’re able to use Microsoft Translator to quickly deliver additional value to customers.” (more…)

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Immigration among Latin American Countries Fails to Improve Income

New study challenges theory of upward mobility in developing nations

Donald Bogue, professor emeritus in sociology and a distinguished scholar of demography, has found that unlike immigrants to the United States, immigrants between nations in Latin America frequently do not improve their lives by moving. (more…)

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Yammer Accelerates Momentum Following Microsoft Acquisition

Quadruples sales in Q4; surpasses 7 million users.

SAN FRANCISCO — Feb. 20, 2013 — Yammer, Inc., a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network and part of the Microsoft Office Division, today announced record growth in 2012 and accelerating momentum following the Microsoft acquisition.

2012 Highlights

• Full-year 2012 sales nearly tripled year-over-year (ended Jan. 31, 2013)

• Fourth-quarter sales quadrupled year-over-year (ended Jan. 31, 2013)

• Number of paying customers increased 165 percent in 2012

• Surpassed 7 million registered users (more…)

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In Conversation with: Paul Bracken, Expert on Nuclear ‘Power Politics’

North Korea, which just conducted its third nuclear test, is using its weapons program to deter the United States by holding its allies “hostage,” according to Paul Bracken, who teaches management and political science at Yale.

Bracken is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on several Department of Defense advisory boards, and is the author, most recently, of “The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics” (Times Books, 2012). The following is an edited version of an email interview with him. (more…)

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Unchecked Antibiotic Use in Animals May Affect Global Human Health

The increasing production and use of antibiotics, about half of which is used in animal production, is mirrored by the growing number of antibiotic resistance genes, or ARGs, effectively reducing antibiotics’ ability to fend off diseases – in animals and humans.

A study in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that China – the world’s largest producer and consumer of antibiotics – and many other countries don’t monitor the powerful medicine’s usage or impact on the environment. (more…)

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Big Data + Great Western Bank = Triumph in a Time of Austerity

Editors at Microsoft News Center recently spoke with Ron Van Zanten, vice president of Data Quality at Great Western Bank, to learn more about how big data solutions from Microsoft help his institution more easily attract and retain customers.

REDMOND, Wash. Feb. 14, 2013 —Remember 2008? It was the year the Great Recession descended, bringing the global economy to a near-standstill. The financial meltdown on Wall Street flowed through main streets around the globe, destroying many community banks in its path. In fact, according to the IMF, through 2010 the recession had already drained a whopping $3.4 trillion from financial institutions around the world.

Which makes Great Western Bank’s story truly amazing. As some institutions shuttered and shrank, Great Western reinvested – in its people, customers and in how it uses technology to make its business better. (more…)

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