Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in ...
SynopsisTimetrics ?Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in Austria to 2016: Market Databook? contains detailed historic and forecast data covering claims and expenses in the personal accident and health insurance industry in Austria. This databook provides data on gross claims, paid claims, change in outstanding reserves, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, combined ratio and insurance fraud and crimes.SummaryThis report is the result of Timetrics extensive market research covering the personal accident and health insurance industry in Austria. It contains detailed historic and forecast data for claims and expenses in Austria. ?Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in Austria to 2016: Market Databook? provides detailed insight into the operating environment of the personal accident and health insurance industry in Austria. It is an essential tool for companies active across the Austrian personal accident and health insurance value chain and for new players considering to enter the market.Scope Historic and forecast data for claims and expenses in the personal accident and health insurance industry in Austria for the period 2007 through to 2016 Historic and forecast data on gross claims, paid claims, change in outstanding reserves, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, combined ratio and insurance fraud and crimes for the period 2007 through to 2016Reasons To Buy This report provides you with valuable data for the personal accident and health insurance industry covering claims and expenses in Austria This report provides you with a breakdown of market data including data on gross claims, paid claims, change in outstanding reserves, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, combined ratio and insurance fraud and crimes This report allows you to plan future business decisions using the forecast figures given for the marketKey HighlightsNA
Original Post Personal Accident and Health Insurance Claims and Expenses in Austria to 2016: Market Databook source Researchmoz Market Research Health Insurance Reports
Sticking around - what clues could 'goose' barnacle adhesives hold? Photos: Dr Anne Marie Power and Jaimie-Leigh Jonker
Some people use social media to keep up with breaking news. Some sign in to catch up with friends and meet business contacts. But a group of researchers in Galway, Ireland, is using Twitter and Facebook to find? barnacles. Barnacles?
It?s not as peculiar as it may sound. By encouraging members of the public to alert them if they find clumps of barnacles washed ashore on the west coast of Ireland, the researchers hope to peel back some of the mysteries behind how the animals stick to surfaces. And what they find could even help to inform the development of new synthetic glues.
But Dr Anne Marie Power and Jaimie-Leigh Jonker at NUI Galway aren?t in search of just any old barnacles. They are specifically after large, stalked, goose barnacles (Lepas anatifera). The marine crustacean produces an adhesive made up of several proteins and can affix to material such as wood, plastic, glass and even other animals and plants, explains Jonker, who is doing a PhD on the goose barnacle?s sticky properties.
?Our morphological results show that the adhesive is produced by large gland cells and all of the adhesive components appeared to be produced together in the same cell,? she explains. ?This is quite different to the adhesive systems of other animals, where components are separated prior to being extruded from the body.?
The goose barnacle adhesive also seems to have its own way of sticking around: the NUI Galway research, which is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Marine Institute, has not found in the goose barnacle the types of protein residues that are common in other animal adhesives. Teasing out the modus operandi of this particular crustacean?s underwater stickiness will help the researchers get a better grip in how it conducts ?wet adhesion?, explains Dr Power.
?The fact that the barnacle?s natural adhesive works in a saline environment means that there are possible applications for use inside the human body,? she notes. ?That said, we are still a long way from this point. This work is more advanced in other marine animals like mussels, but barnacles do not use the same system as mussels and so there are potential novelties there. Besides, the more that we know about the many different marine adhesives, the more likely we are to succeed in developing new biomimetic adhesives.?
So where do Twitter and Facebook come in? One of the challenges in the project to date has been to gather specimens. Goose barnacles can dehydrate and die quickly when washed ashore, so they have to be rescued promptly and moved to an aquarium. In the past, the researchers trawled the beaches several times a week themselves, but it was a slow and largely unsuccessful way to find the sporadically stranded barnacles, says Jonker. So the scientists have started a social media campaign this summer to get people to tell them when they find the sticky marine creatures.
?It is difficult to be in the right place at the right time to find these animals, so we are now appealing to the public to help,? she explains. ?If somebody happens to notice our publicity campaign and then they see some of these barnacles washed ashore, they could contact us and we would find a way to get there as soon as possible to collect the animals. They can survive a few hours on the beach, and even longer if they are in a bucket or pool of seawater and if they can be kept cool.?
Once retrieved, the barnacles will be kept in an aquarium, and the researchers will examine gene expression in the animals and chemical bonds in the adhesive. ?Our experience in previous years has been that these animals will mostly wash ashore in August and September, so now is a good time to spread the word,? says Jonker. ?The response so far has been quite positive, with many people saying that they have seen these animals on the beach before and didn?t know what they were. Well, now they know and hopefully they will see them again and contact us.?
See @BarnacleHunt on Twitter, or search for The Amazing Goose Barnacle on Facebook
College football notebook: Ohio State?s Dunn charged with possession of marijuana (updated)
Eamon Queeney | Dispatch
Bri'onte Dunn (25) during Ohio State's spring game this past April
Monday July 30, 2012 10:14 AM
Alliance police confirmed this morning that Ohio State running back Bri?onte Dunn, a former standout at GlenOak (Canton) High School, was charged over the weekend with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, The Repository of Canton reported on its website.
The charges stem from a traffic stop at about 11 p.m. Saturday.
Police observed Dunn driving when he almost ran a blinking red light, traveled over the crosswalk and almost struck a patrol car, according to a police report.
Police stopped Dunn for the violation and he and his passenger were found to have a wooden pipe used for smoking marijuana, along with less than 200 grams of marijuana on the seat cushions and floor boards where he was seated, The Repository says. A small amount of marijuana was also found in the driver?s door pocket, according to the police report.
Dunn, 19, was charged with possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, not wearing a seat belt and a tail-light violation. All the charges are misdemeanors.
The traffic stop and resulting charges were first reported by CantonRep.com last night. Dunn was not arrested or booked into the jail, contrary to online reports from other media outlets.
-- The (Canton) Repository
? Iowa sophomore running back De?Andre Johnson has been suspended after two run-ins with police in the past week.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz issued a statement saying he had suspended Johnson from all team activities after learning about Johnson?s latest encounter with police.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Johnson was ticketed for speeding and eluding arrest on Saturday. It reported Johnson drove his motorcycle 60 mph in a 25 mph zone.
Two days earlier, Johnson was ticketed by Iowa City police for maintaining a disorderly house after neighbors complained of a loud party at his home.
Mexico Exports Increased 10.7 Per Cent in First Half of 2012
News
MEXICO - Agricultural sales reached $12,518 million during the first half of 2012, representing a growth of 4.5 per cent compared with the same period last year.
According to the report of the trade balance of Mexico, prepared by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), agricultural exports rose 10.7 per cent in the first half of 2012, compared to the same period in 2011, this represents a value of $6,491 million dollars.
During June the most significant by-product increases were recorded in cattle, 60.5 per cent and fish and shellfish, 18.6 per cent.
The Secretary for Food and Competitiveness of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), Ernesto Fernandez Arias, said the first half of 2012 the value of food exports (including agricultural and agribusiness) from Mexico increased 4.31 per cent, compared with the previous year.
Arias Fernandez also said that in the period from January to June 2012, the main destinations for exports of Mexican food products were the United States, Japan and Canada.
Microsoft intros Wedge Mobile Keyboard, whose case doubles as a stand
As we've seen, there will be no shortage of tablet / laptop hybrids on offer when Windows 8 starts shipping this fall. But since those keyboard docks will typically be sold separately, that means you're also about to see loads of third-party alternatives. Not to be left out, Microsoft just announced a Bluetooth mobile keyboard, along with its smallest-ever mouse -- both of which can be used with any Windows tablet.
Starting with that Wedge Mobile Keyboard, it resembles Zaggmate's iPad case from 2010, in that it has a hard case to make it more travel-resilient. Here, though, the casing is made of flexible rubber, allowing it to double as a tablet stand. Putting it over the keys also turns the keyboard off, allowing you to conserve battery life. On board, you'll also find hotkeys specific to certain Windows 8 features, such as the Charms Bar. And, as the name suggests, the keyboard rises a bit in the back, thanks to the battery door on the other side (this takes two AAA cells, by the way.) One caveat: though you can use it with Windows 7, 8 and RT, and even Mac OS X, but it's not compatible with Vista. Sorry, folks.
In a similar vein, the tiny Wedge Touch Mouse has a matching soft-touch surface and is also Bluetooth-enabled. Like other mice in Microsoft's lineup, it has BlueTrack technology, allowing it to be used on a wide variety of surfaces. The mouse, which runs on a single AA battery, also shuts down whenever you power down whatever device it's paired with. These products will ship "soon," according to Microsoft, with the keyboard retailing for $79.95 and the mouse going for $69.95. For now, we've got a bunch of photos below for your viewing pleasure.
Genetic test maker 23andMe is asking the Food and Drug Administration to approve its personalized DNA test in a move that, if successful, could boost acceptance of technology that is viewed skeptically by leading scientists who question its usefulness.
Gene mutations linked to most cases of rare disorder -- Alternating Hemoplegia of Childhood
Gene mutations linked to most cases of rare disorder -- Alternating Hemoplegia of ChildhoodPublic release date: 30-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Sahm phil.sahm@hsc.utah.edu 801-581-2517 University of Utah Health Sciences
Next-generation sequencing provides key in finding gene
(SALT LAKE CITY)Alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC) is a rare disorder that usually begins in infancy, with intermittent episodes of paralysis and stiffness, first affecting one side of the body, then the other. Symptoms mysteriously appear and disappear, again and again, and affected children often experience dozens of episodes per week. As they get older, children fall progressively behind their peers in both intellectual abilities and motor skills, and more than half develop epilepsy. Unfortunately, medications that work for epilepsy have been unsuccessful in controlling the recurrent attacks of paralysis, leaving parents and physicians with few options, and significantly disabling those affected.
Researchers at the University of Utah Departments of Neurology and Human Genetics, in collaboration with researchers at Duke University Medical Center, have discovered that mutations in the ATP1A3 gene cause the disease in the majority of patients with a diagnosis of AHC. The study was published online on Sunday, July 29, 2012, in Nature Genetics.
In a collaborative effort with the AHC Foundation, Kathryn J. Swoboda, M.D., co-first author on the study, associate professor of neurology and pediatrics, and director of the Pediatric Motor Disorders Research Program at the University of Utah, established an international database of patients with AHC from around the world, starting with a single family nearly 14 years ago. This database now includes 200 affected individuals from more than a dozen countries. Access to clinical information and DNA samples from this database were critical to the success of the international collaboration that helped to identify the first gene causing AHC in a significant percentage of patients.
"AHC is almost always a sporadic disease, which means that there is no family history of the disorder," says Tara Newcomb, genetic counselor, University of Utah Department of Neurology, and a co-author of the study. "The rarity of the disease and the almost exclusively sporadic inheritance made AHC an ideal candidate for next-generation sequencing."
The mysterious and intermittent nature of the neurologic symptoms, which range from unusual eye movements to seizure-like episodes, to partial and/or full body paralysis often results in a prolonged diagnostic odyssey for parents and children, according to Matthew Sweney, M.D., an instructor in the U of U Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics and an epilepsy specialist at Primary Children's Medical Center. "Families often present again and again to the emergency room, and children may undergo dozens of tests and invasive procedures," says Sweney, also a study co-author. "Often, it is only after the spells fail to respond to antiepileptic medications that the diagnosis is considered."
The ATP1A3 gene encodes one piece of a key transporter molecule that normally would move sodium and potassium ions across a channel between neurons (nerve cells) to regulate brain activity. Mutations in this gene are already known to cause another rare movement disorder, rapid onset dystonia parkinsonism, and clinical testing for mutations in this gene is readily available through a blood test. "Having a means to confirm a diagnosis more quickly, using a simple blood test, will allow us to better care for our patients and provide them opportunities for early enrollment in clinical trials," Swoboda says. "The identification of the gene provides scientists with the opportunity to identify specifically targeted and truly effective therapies."
In a broad international collaborative effort, the initial collaboration between the University of Utah and Duke investigators expanded to involve more than three dozen researchers from 13 countries. "This discovery is a testament to the power of the next-generation sequencing technologies, which are becoming increasingly available as a result of the Human Genome Project," says co-author Lynn Jorde, Ph.D., professor and chair of the U of U Department of Human Genetics. "These technologies are rapidly revolutionizing our ability to diagnose rare disorders, and provide hope for hundreds of families of children with rare disorders about which little is known and no targeted treatments currently exist."
###
Funding for the work at the University of Utah was provided by a grant from the Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood Foundation (AHCkids.org). The Utah team also included former postdoctoral fellow Chad Huff, Ph.D., from the Department of Human Genetics, and Louis Viollet, M.D., Ph.D., and Sandra Reyna, M.D., from the Department of Neurology Pediatric Motor Disorders Research Program (https://medicine.utah.edu/neurology/research/swoboda).
Whole genome sequencing was performed in collaboration with the Institute for Systems Biology.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Gene mutations linked to most cases of rare disorder -- Alternating Hemoplegia of ChildhoodPublic release date: 30-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Sahm phil.sahm@hsc.utah.edu 801-581-2517 University of Utah Health Sciences
Next-generation sequencing provides key in finding gene
(SALT LAKE CITY)Alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC) is a rare disorder that usually begins in infancy, with intermittent episodes of paralysis and stiffness, first affecting one side of the body, then the other. Symptoms mysteriously appear and disappear, again and again, and affected children often experience dozens of episodes per week. As they get older, children fall progressively behind their peers in both intellectual abilities and motor skills, and more than half develop epilepsy. Unfortunately, medications that work for epilepsy have been unsuccessful in controlling the recurrent attacks of paralysis, leaving parents and physicians with few options, and significantly disabling those affected.
Researchers at the University of Utah Departments of Neurology and Human Genetics, in collaboration with researchers at Duke University Medical Center, have discovered that mutations in the ATP1A3 gene cause the disease in the majority of patients with a diagnosis of AHC. The study was published online on Sunday, July 29, 2012, in Nature Genetics.
In a collaborative effort with the AHC Foundation, Kathryn J. Swoboda, M.D., co-first author on the study, associate professor of neurology and pediatrics, and director of the Pediatric Motor Disorders Research Program at the University of Utah, established an international database of patients with AHC from around the world, starting with a single family nearly 14 years ago. This database now includes 200 affected individuals from more than a dozen countries. Access to clinical information and DNA samples from this database were critical to the success of the international collaboration that helped to identify the first gene causing AHC in a significant percentage of patients.
"AHC is almost always a sporadic disease, which means that there is no family history of the disorder," says Tara Newcomb, genetic counselor, University of Utah Department of Neurology, and a co-author of the study. "The rarity of the disease and the almost exclusively sporadic inheritance made AHC an ideal candidate for next-generation sequencing."
The mysterious and intermittent nature of the neurologic symptoms, which range from unusual eye movements to seizure-like episodes, to partial and/or full body paralysis often results in a prolonged diagnostic odyssey for parents and children, according to Matthew Sweney, M.D., an instructor in the U of U Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics and an epilepsy specialist at Primary Children's Medical Center. "Families often present again and again to the emergency room, and children may undergo dozens of tests and invasive procedures," says Sweney, also a study co-author. "Often, it is only after the spells fail to respond to antiepileptic medications that the diagnosis is considered."
The ATP1A3 gene encodes one piece of a key transporter molecule that normally would move sodium and potassium ions across a channel between neurons (nerve cells) to regulate brain activity. Mutations in this gene are already known to cause another rare movement disorder, rapid onset dystonia parkinsonism, and clinical testing for mutations in this gene is readily available through a blood test. "Having a means to confirm a diagnosis more quickly, using a simple blood test, will allow us to better care for our patients and provide them opportunities for early enrollment in clinical trials," Swoboda says. "The identification of the gene provides scientists with the opportunity to identify specifically targeted and truly effective therapies."
In a broad international collaborative effort, the initial collaboration between the University of Utah and Duke investigators expanded to involve more than three dozen researchers from 13 countries. "This discovery is a testament to the power of the next-generation sequencing technologies, which are becoming increasingly available as a result of the Human Genome Project," says co-author Lynn Jorde, Ph.D., professor and chair of the U of U Department of Human Genetics. "These technologies are rapidly revolutionizing our ability to diagnose rare disorders, and provide hope for hundreds of families of children with rare disorders about which little is known and no targeted treatments currently exist."
###
Funding for the work at the University of Utah was provided by a grant from the Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood Foundation (AHCkids.org). The Utah team also included former postdoctoral fellow Chad Huff, Ph.D., from the Department of Human Genetics, and Louis Viollet, M.D., Ph.D., and Sandra Reyna, M.D., from the Department of Neurology Pediatric Motor Disorders Research Program (https://medicine.utah.edu/neurology/research/swoboda).
Whole genome sequencing was performed in collaboration with the Institute for Systems Biology.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Robert Gibbs: Mitt Romney 'Embarrassed' Himself at Olympics
This morning on "This Week," Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs said that presumptive Republican nominee for presidentMitt Romney "embarrassed" himself in London when he questioned the readiness of the city to host the Olympics.
"Mitt Romney wondered aloud whether London was ready for the Olympics, and I think it's clear that voters in this country wonder aloud whether Mitt Romney is ready for the world, and I think the world is not yet ready for Mitt Romney," Gibbs said. "Literally to go overseas, stand in the country of our strongest ally, and on Olympics that they've been preparing for years for, and question whether or not they're ready does make you wonder whether or not he's ready to be commander-in-chief?I'm happy David Cameron had the last word, because I thought it was embarrassing for our country."
Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was verbally tweaked by London's mayor Boris Johnson and also by Prime Minister David Cameron, after Romney questioned the readiness of London to host the Olympics just days before they got underway in the UK, a strong ally of the United States.
"There are a few things that were disconcerting." Romney said. "The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging."
Romney campaign senior adviser Kevin Madden, joining Gibbs during "This Week," brushed off the remarks by the former Obama press secretary.
"I don't think that a gaffe or a YouTube moment is really going to make or break this particular election. I think it's going to be about the direction of the country, how we rebuild the economy, how we continue to have a stronger national security posture around the globe," Madden said. "I think that the headlines that - that come out of London on one day are not going to be as important as the overall view that people take when it comes to our economic prosperity here at home and then our safety and security around the globe."
For his part, President Obama has come under attack from the GOP for comments he made earlier this month in which he said "if you've got a business - you didn't build that." Gibbs lashed out at the Romney campaign for what he said was "selectively" editing the president's words.
"We're not going to let him play his tried-and-true role as prep school bully," said Gibbs, who seemed to reference reporting by the Washington Post earlier this year that Romney bullied a gay student while in high school.
Madden countered that President Obama bears responsibility for the negativity engulfing the presidential campaign.
"He promised to challenge the status quo. And instead, he's been very much a conventional politician over the last three-and-a-half years," Madden said.
By Ken Y-N ( July 31, 2012 at 01:29)
? Filed under Hardware, Polls
japan.internet.com recently reported the results of the fourth regular survey by goo Research into electronic books.
Demographics
Between the 2nd and 5th of July 2012 1,078 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 17.4% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 28.1% aged fifty or older.
I meant to publish this much earlier, but thanks to my delay an interesting story has blown up regarding Rakuten?s kobo reader. My wife had been asking me if she should buy it, as she was being offered a good members-only price, and I was making positive sounds, but then Rakuten started deleting negative comments, and have now made a press release stating that it?s all fine, just people jumped the gun with the reviews, although to be honest I find that line difficult to believe.
Research results
Q1: Have you ever read an electronic novel, magazine? (Sample size=1,078)
Yes (to SQ1)
35.1%
No, but want to (to SQ1)
27.8%
No, and don?t want to
37.1%
Q1SQ1: Would you like to (have you) read an electronic novel, magazine on a dedicated terminal? (Sample size=678)
Q1SQ2: Which dedicated terminals would you like to use, have you used? (Sample size=65, multiple answer)
Amazon Kindle
41.5%
Sony Reader
36.9%
Sharp Galapagos
27.7%
Panasonic UT-PB1
15.4%
KDDI biblio Leaf
7.7%
Barnes and Noble Nook
3.1%
iRiver Story HD
3.1%
Other
4.6%
None in particular
24.6%
Read more on: ebook,goo research,kobo,rakuten
Permalink
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Electronic book readers ? under 10,000 yen reasonable to four in five
Almost two in five Japanese don?t want to read ebooks
Wikipad reveals specs for gaming tablet (exclusive) | VentureBeat
Wikipad, the company developing an identically named tablet that will ship with an attachable gamepad for console-style gaming, has revealed the specifications of the device in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat.
The Wikipad (tablet, not company) will have a 10.1-inch IPS display with 16:10 1,280 x 800 resolution. The actual tablet will weigh 560 grams and be just 8.6mm thick, making it one of the thinnest and lightest 10? tablets ever, only slightly thicker than the iPad 2 and nearly 40 grams lighter. When the Wikipad was first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, it was a 7? tablet that was more similar in design to the Amazon Kindle Fire.
The final design model, which the company revealed to us at a design office in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will feature the NVIDIA Tegra 3 T30 1.4GHz quad-core processor with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. For comparison, the recently released Nexus 7 uses the T30L, which is a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with a 416MHz GPU (compared to 520MHz on the T30) and slower DDR2 RAM (667MHz vs. 1066MHz), and the ASUS Transformer Prime Infinity 700 and upcoming Ouya will use the more powerful T33, which clocks at 1.6GHz and has bandwidth for faster 1600MHz DDR3 RAM.
The Wikipad will also ship with at least 16GB of internal storage, though the amount of local storage hasn?t been finalized as of yet. However, according to Fraser Townley, President of Sales at Wikipad, ?we will not go down, we will only go up.? 16GB is the standard amount of storage for tablets today.
The battery is 23.46Wh, capable of six hours of continuous gaming and eight hours of video playback.
Instead of tapered edges, the Wikipad will have flat sides similar to the iPhone 4/4S. The rear panel will also have an elevated plastic lip designed for a better grip in any holding arrangement. This also enables the speakers on the back of the tablet to bounce off of any flat surface and deliver strong acoustics.
Every Wikipad will ship with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and the controller add-on. The controller, which connects to the Wikipad from the bottom with a proprietary connector, is designed similar to the Xbox 360 controller, though according to the company there is little relation to Microsoft?s nearly seven-year-old design. The controller features two sets of triggers, bumpers, and analog sticks, as well as four face buttons, start, and select. The controller is also designed to cover the speakers and flow sound through acoustic tubes out the front grill for better audio performance. The controller also has a port to connect it to a power source on the back.
Wikipad will also feature a built-in 8-megapixel?rear-facing camera and a 2 megapixel?front-facing camera.
Finally, the Wikipad will not ship the first line of the tablet with a 3D display, which the company originally showed off at CES. Future models may ship with a 3D display. The Wikipad doesn?t have a definite release date yet, but according to Wikipad President James Bower, it will release later this year, and the company will reveal much more regarding the tablet in the very near future.
5 Customer Service Memes You Can't Miss | Business 2 Community
The customer service industry is not keeping up with higher customer expectations, as only 8% of consumers feel that contact centers always provide excellent customer service.
With the constant evolution of technology, ?They?re accustomed to more options, greater control, and a worldwide platform to tell others what they think about the way brands treat them,? says Megan Burns of Forrester Research.
Here are 5 memes that explain what is frustrating customers today.
1. Phone Menu Hell
No surprise here ? people hate phone menus. In fact, callers say it is the fourth most frustrating aspect of customer service.
What customers really want is to speak to an agent right away. Even the most advanced phone menus will slow this process down. A customer can quickly become furious by the time they reach an agent and will zero-out to reach any support representative, complain on social media, or a combination of the three.
2. Waiting on Hold
No one likes to wait on hold. To be ranked as an ?excellent? service center, quickly reaching an agent is cited as the important factor. How serious is this problem? American consumers have wasted over 60 million precious hours? you guessed it ? waiting on hold.
Social customers expect fast customer service. When they don?t get it, they complain about it on social media, which can be catastrophic to a company?s brand.
Need further proof?? Check out all these ?On Hold? complaints happening right now on Twitter!
Source: Zendesk
3. Repeating Information
According to ClickFox?s second annual Consumer Tipping Points survey, 42% of consumers find speaking with multiple agents and repeating information as the most frustrating parts of customer service.
Quite frankly, it?s not their problem and they feel you should be working on keeping them happy. They?re angry and not afraid to show it by letting everyone on Twitter know about it.
Source: Zendesk
4. Agents Have it Tough
Being a customer service representative is one of the most demanding and stressful jobs. When customers are irate with your company, it?s your front line agents who absorb the brunt of their fury.
Instead of being reactive, consider a proactive approach that dodges verbal bullets fired by your angry customer. Callers are going to vent about long hold times with your agents which lengthens the handle time and the cost per call.
5. Treating Customers Like They?re Stupid
?Your call is very important to us.? Really? If that?s true, don?t keep callers on hold for 45 minutes. Invest in the time and resources necessary to make the caller experience smooth and more enjoyable. Over the years, customers have become experts in detecting corporate BS.
A company who holds true to the old adage, ?Honesty is the best policy? will win credibility points with their customers. If you?re contradicting corporate promises, expect customer uproar.
Do you really care about your customers? time? If so, why not implement a call-back solution so they don?t continue to waste time waiting on hold?
What other major issues are facing customers and call centers? Share your thoughts below.
Author: Omar Zaibak???? Omar Zaibak on the Web Omar Zaibak on LinkedIn
Omar Zaibak is the Marketing Manager for Fonolo and runs the?call center blog?for customer service, contact center, and customer experience professionals.??Fonolo?s cloud-based call center solutions provide companies with visual dialing and virtual queuing services, improving customer satisfaction and lowering call center costs. Callers simply click on the phone menu? View?full?profile
Samsung objects to 'gratuitous images' of Steve Jobs on five of Apple's opening slides
Ahead of the trial starting tomorrow in San Jose, Samsung just filed 14 objections to Apple's opening slides. The first one: "Samsung objects to the images of Steve Jobs appearing in Slide Nos. 6, 7, 12, 16, and 29 of Apple's Opening Presentation."
The parties' opening slides haven't been published yet. That's why all that's known about Apple's slides at this stage is what the parties say in the filings they just made. According to Samsung, "[t]hese gratuitous images have no evidentiary value and have been asserted in order to turn the trial into the popularity contest that the Court prohibited" in a previous ruling. Samsung quotes the relevant part of that ruling:
"Evidence related to Steve Jobs will generally be excluded unless it is specifically relevant to the IP rights at issue in the case, although the Court will make that determination on a case-by-case basis."
This is a situation in which Judge Koh will have to make a decision on specific references to Steve Jobs. To the extent that Apple's opening presentation references past events in which Steve Jobs was the protagonist, such as major product launches, there may be a factual basis for showing some of the pictures Samsung objects to, though the court might also agree with Samsung that "[t]he use of Mr. Jobs' image in these slides is not relevant to the specific intellectual property rights at issue in this case".
In its responsive filing, Apple seeks to justify the use of those images:
Three of the images are "from a joint exhibit ? 1091 (the MacWorld 2007 video), which Samsung itself relies on in its opening demonstratives (at Samsung slide no. 148)", so "Samsung cannot complain about Apple's use of the same video" that shows "the public introduction of the iPhone on January?7, 2007, which launched the fame that the iPhone trade dress has acquired". Also, "[b]ecause they demonstrate Apple's notice of the 200+ patents covering the iPhone -- including the asserted patents, they thus are relevant to willfulness".
Another slide refers to an exhibition relating to Steve Jobs's patents, which was organized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. "Among the highlighted patents at the PTO exhibit are at least two patents at issue in this litigation -- the D'677 and D'889" -- and Apple argues that "[t]he Patent Office exhibit demonstrates praise by others to rebut non-obviousness".
The fifth image of Steve Jobs in the presentation is "a screenshot from the announcement of the iPad in July 2010" and, therefore, "relevant to the introduction of the iPad and its acquisition of fame and secondary meaning", Apple says.
Samsung makes an equal treatment kind of argument: "If Apple is allowed to use these slides, Samsung requests that the Court allow it to use the quotes from Mr. Jobs -- which do have nonprejudicial evidentiary value -- and yet were excluded by the Court's ruling on Apple's Motion in Limine No.?7."
Simply put, if Apple shows pictures of Steve Jobs in its opening presentation, Samsung wants to quote the part on "thermonuclear war" against Android from Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography. But things aren't that simple. Quotes from that biography are just hearsay and were deemed inadmissible without any exception. As far as Apple's references to Steve Jobs are concerned, Judge Koh made this subject to case-by-case decisions, and we'll know soon how many of those five appearances in Apple's opening slides will be allowed by the court. I doubt that she's going to strike all five of them.
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If you want to start a real estate agency and a commercial
Many real estate agencies can consider as the poor cousin to the sales and rental property in the Office also the management service. While this concept in residential real estate management can work, the same applies not in and with commercial or retail property. Commercial and retail property management is a poor cousin simply much to specialized and complex nothing.
Working as real estate agents, who manage a commercial or retail property you need to cover operating costs and a profit. Here, the fees are so important. Commercial or retail property management is very special; do not apply the simple rules of residential real estate.
If you want to run a real estate agency and a range of commercial real estate management, then the rules are here:
Employ good people for the commercial, and are to retail services. You need to specialize in intelligence and drive.
The commercial and retail of market knowledge and trends to collect, to help you understand what your Division and company building is required.
Make sure that all really understand what theyre doing that you deal with on commercial or retail real estate, and they trained, access to any deficiencies.
Charges reasonable, reflecting the complex and specific tasks of the property management contract
What are the fees for the management of commercial or retail real estate today? Low fees do not apply if you are serious and professional sales representatives. Thus, it is necessary, provide outstanding services to clients that you serve to justify your fee.
Here are some fees, your property management, commercial and retail real estate to check:
A base management fee should be set for the management of the property on a daily basis. Which included rent collection, management of revenue and expenditure, renter, leasing, management and maintenance management. A fee should be set for the negotiations on the different types of lease rent reviews and, when they become due. The rent reviews of different types are, paying it off fees for each set. Rent reviews are the most time consuming and should win the higher fees.
A fee for the negotiation of new leases and renewals of leases with sitting tenants should be set. It is customary to negotiate leases sitting with your tenants.
New leases with companies, your free space in the property is also an own fee. Create an hourly fee for special tasks that are outside of the normal managerial responsibilities. This can be from hour property participation, Court, project management and business planning or budgeting of the property once a year be present.
Retail real estate is property manager time given the nature of the tenancy mix and the operations of the property as a general observation far more sophisticated on the. When setting a fee for a retail property and give due regard to your Office and staff costs.
So if you make how much profit in your area commercial or retail property management carried out? The answer is running about 30-40% on your operational gross costs of the Division. There may be other fees in addition the key above to look at, so be aware, which must feature in the daily management, and what does the local real estate market. Discount to win not your property management fees to the business; a high-quality service requires a fair and reasonable fee.
Poor S.African kids unlikely to escape poverty: World Bank
Inequalities in South Africa are threatening economic growth, with children born into poor families unlikely ever to escape poverty or reap the rewards of living in Africa's largest economy.
The World Bank's sobering assessment released last week found that a child's gender and ethnicity at birth, combined with a lack of education, largely determine that person's chances of success in life -- even 18 years after the end of apartheid.
"South Africa, the continent's largest economy by far and its only G-20 member, displays strikingly high and persistent inequality and marginalization for an upper middle-income country," said the report.
Although South Africa has made great strides in transforming the economy, which has produced one of the continent's fastest-growing black middle classes, poverty levels and unemployment remain high outside urban centres.
South Africa is often compared to Brazil, which also has a huge income gap, but while the Latin American country has narrowed the divide over the last decade, here the chasm is as deep as ever, the World Bank said.
The richest 10 percent of South Africans account for 58 percent of the nation's income, while the bottom 10 percent accounts for 0.5 percent, the Bank said. The bottom half earns less than eight percent of the nation's income.
The country will struggle to grow the economy until its riches are spread more evenly, the Bank said.
Sharp economic and social inequalities were especially visible along racial lines, said the report, with whites largely shielded from economic hardships thanks to privileges inherited from the fallen apartheid regime.
"Peering past the first-world living conditions of urban South Africa, it is not too hard to see the downcast situation of townships, informal settlements, and former homelands," said Sandeep Mahajan, who headed the report.
"Our results show that a South African child not only has to work harder to overcome the disadvantages at birth due to circumstances, but having done so, finds that these reemerge when seeking employment as an adult," he said.
The report said residents of these areas were usually unemployed or lacked the means to look for jobs, as they were disconnected from the job market.
Unemployment in the first quarter of 2012 rose to 25.2 percent, up from 23.9 percent in the previous quarter, and black people form the bulk of the jobless.
Modest economic growth, which averaged 3.2 percent since 1995, had proved "insufficient to absorb the wave of new entrants to the labour market from dismantling apartheid's barriers", the report said.
Labour analyst Andrew Levy said challenges of inequality were "deep rooted and not unique to South Africa".
"History has shown that societies that have emerged from any kind of unjust system of governance struggle with inequality," said Levy. But he added that the new government "could have done better".
Much of the blame is laid on the education system.
The World Bank found that black children from rural areas with parents who did not finish school were most likely not to finish school or have access to health care.
Children in some parts of the country are forced to learn in open spaces or under trees, even though education is the government's single biggest expenditure.
This year education campaigners took the government to court after schools across the poor northern province of Limpopo were left without textbooks, months into the academic year. More than one month after a court order, government has not delivered books to all the schools.
"The only way to reverse the trend of inequality is to invest in education," said economist Azar Jammine.
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Alexa Vega is flaunting how grown up she is on Twitter.
The actress, who began working with popular director Robert Rodriguez at an? early age for the ?Spy Kids? franchise, is now starring in Rodriguez?s upcoming? thriller ?Machete Kills,? where she plays the role of the sexy, buxom? Killjoy.
The Colombian star posted a sneak peek photo of her in character as Killjoy? on her Twitter account. She soon had many talking about her curves and plunging? neckline, Yahoo! Move Talk reported.
?RR gave the OK for a sneak peek,? Vega posted on her Twitter account.
In the black and white photo Vega dons a metal bra which barely contains her? um? assets. A heart tattoo is clearly seen in her right underarm. The star is? also wearing heavy, dark make-up and bold jewelry.
Vega?s fans took to Twitter to express their excitement to see her in? Rodriguez?s new flick.
Other celebrities which will be joining Vega in ?Machete Kills? include ?Savages? actor Demi?n Bichir, Jessica Alba and Danny Trejo. In the film Vega?s? character works for Madame Desdemona played by fellow Colombian stunner Sof?a? Vergara.
?Machete Kills? is the second installment to the ?Machete? trilogy, which? began with a fake movie trailer Rodriguez created for famous director Quentin? Tarantino?s 2007 film ?Grindhouse.?
Vega, 23, recently made headlines after announcing her divorce from? 36-year-old Sean Covel after a year and a half of marriage, entertainment? publication TMZ? reported.???
?My relationship with Sean was deeply important and formative for both of? us,? Vega posted on Twitter. ?It simply evolved out of a marriage and into a? friendship.?
Last year Vega sat down with Fox News Latino to talk about her role as Mary? alongside Venezuelan actor Wilmer Valderrama in ?From Prada to Nada.??
The storyline behind ?From Prada to Nada?: when their father passes away, two? spoiled Latina sisters are left penniless and go from living in a mansion in? Beverly Hills, to their aunt?s more ?modest? home in East L.A.
Mary is a party girl, and her sister Nora, played by Camilla Belle, is a law? student. Neither speaks Spanish nor cares to know about their culture.? Valderrama plays Mary?s love interest, Bruno.
Vega, a buoyantly beautiful Latina, said the tone behind the film should also? be that as the new Latino generation continues to assimilate into the American? fabric, it should not forgot its roots.
?There are many [Hispanics] who don?t accept both cultures, they only accept? one or the other instead of embracing both. We are hoping that this gives people? the opportunity to help teach them you can embrace both,? Vega said.
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Scientists find a 500-million-year-old mistake that led to the creation of humanity
Without an odd genetic mutation in something called a lancelet, you might not have that prized backbone
The human body is a pretty complex and marvelous thing. After all, have you really looked at how weird your fingers are? And our spine?? what's up with that thing? According to a scientific study of human proteins conducted by the University of Dundee, that prized backbone of yours is the result of a 500-million-year-old genetic mistake.
According to study co-author?Carol MacKintosh, "Organisms that reproduce sexually usually have two copies of their entire genome, one inherited from each of the two parents. What happened over 500 million years ago is that this process 'went wrong' in an invertebrate animal, which somehow inherited twice the usual number of genes. In a later generation, the fault recurred, doubling the number of copies of each gene once again."
The first animal to contain that gene duplication is unknown for certain, but scientists believe they have a possible culprit. Take away the two rounds of duplication, and our gene structure looks an awful lot like that of the lancelet, an aquatic invertebrate.
[Image credit: Hans Hillewaert] [via Geekosystem]
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
Everyone hates billboards - except the Bill Stouffer camp
Politicians run on a variety of platforms and issues, but Bill Stouffer's may be the most ingenious yet. Stouffer, a Republican candidate for Missouri secretary of state, is focusing a big part of his campaign around saving the state's roadside billboards, a stance that, if nothing else, has earned the candidate a whole lot of free advertising.
Stouffer has secured an estimated $118,000 in free advertising through Missouri billboard owners. The majority of that support has come through Lamar Companies, one of Missouri's largest billboard owners, and the Missouri Outdoor Advertising Association has also thrown its support behind his campaign.
While many are less than enthusiastic about billboards, Stouffer and his campaign make a point of praising the advantages of outdoor advertising. "Billboards promote the state and promote tourism," Chasen Bullock, Stouffer's campaign manager, said. "That's why [Stouffer has] been a long time supporter of billboards."
At the base rate of $1,500 that Lamar's website quotes for four weeks' ownership of a one-panel billboard in Missouri, Stouffer's campaign has amassed about 78 billboards' worth of donations from billboard companies alone. A representative of the Missouri Outdoor Advertising Association estimated that there were between 8,800 and 8,900 billboards in Missouri as of this spring.
Want a different take on politics? Check out OTUS on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @OTUSNews. As a state senator, Stouffer pushed through legislation that allowed electronic billboards and that protected existing billboards from being destroyed during highway expansions. The money-saving measure, which, according to Huffington Post reports, could save Missouri $60 million in billboard destruction costs by allowing governments to choose to relocate them instead, a much more cost-effective strategy. The move has also saved Stouffer a bundle in campaign costs this year.
Bullock believes that Stouffer's record will help him not only in terms of fundraising, but also come November. "This bill saved taxpayer dollars," he said. "Any bill that saves taxpayers helps communicate with the voters." While that may be true, Stouffer's billboard-friendly stance may not go over well with some voters - many drivers feel less than friendly toward what's been called the "spam of the open road."
While not a conventional donation, Stouffer's campaign will certainly still benefit from free billboard space, according to Bullock. "Our donors decided to help out our campaign by donating billboard space - and we are utilizing it as part of our discussions with voters," he said.
Stouffer's platform focuses on protecting small Missouri businesses, and with money-saving legislation under his belt, the campaign is confident that its message will reach voters this time around as well. And, you know, the free billboards don't hurt.
Stouffer faces two opponents in the Aug. 7 Republican primary. The nominee will then square off against Democratic Rep. Jason Kander in November.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Investors are dumping Facebook's stock, spooked by slowing revenue growth, the lack of a financial outlook and plans to spend more money in the coming months.
Are they right?
Only if they are thinking in the short term. Investors can expect Facebook's stock to be volatile for a few years. But analysts say those willing to wait will likely be rewarded ? someday.
"I view it as a tomorrow stock," says Christian Bertelsen, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Global Financial Private Capital.
"The whole thing on Facebook is, look, if your time horizon is hourly, weekly or even monthly, this is not the stock for you," he adds. "You need to take a much longer-term view on it."
That's about three or four years, he says.
Founded in CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room in 2004, Facebook was a product of the PC era. Now, in the age of mobile computing, a growing number of people are accessing Facebook through their iPhones, Android gadgets and tablet computers. Yet Facebook is only now starting to figure out how to make money from its mobile audience.
"The company is going through an almost painful transition from desktop to mobile," Baird analyst Colin Sebastian says.
He calls Facebook "a speculative investment," but one with plenty of potential.
"With almost one billion users, Facebook is amassing the most comprehensive user profile database in existence," Sebastian says. This, he adds, offers a "significant opportunity" to reap a big chunk of the global advertising market, which is currently at $500 billion a year.
"Amazon comes to mind immediately," Bertelsen says.
After that company went public in 1997, at the time mainly just an online bookstore, critics were quick to cry dot-com bust, call its business a broken, and so on. Today, it is the world's biggest online retailer, selling everything from DVDs to vacuum cleaners to Web storage.
"Now they are the retailer to the world," he adds.
Amazon.com Inc.'s stock price grew to more than $200 a share, from less than $2. Of course, Facebook has started out much higher, at $38.
Facebook's first earnings report since its rocky initial public offering on May 18 was the second coming that didn't quite materialize. So investors sent Facebook's stock to its lowest level ever on Friday. Shares fell $3.14, or nearly 12 percent, to close at $23.71 after hitting $22.28 in the morning. The previous low was $25.52, reached on June 6.
The stock dropped despite the fact that Facebook's second-quarter results met Wall Street's expectations, with revenue one-third higher than last year.
Given the rocky economy and investors' heightened sensitivity to a stock's value, betting on a company becomes a "show-me story" for many of them, Sebastian says. That means investors want proof rather than Facebook's word that it can grow its revenue and make a profit.
Facebook, for now, is more of a tell-me story, one whose success or failure will play out in the coming quarters, or even years. The company hasn't shown all it can do. Its revenue growth slowed. The company's revenue nearly tripled in 2010, compared with 2009.
In the first quarter of this year, revenue climbed 44 percent, higher than the 32 percent increase in the second quarter. Following in Google's footsteps, it did not offer financial guidance for the coming quarters, which makes it a riskier bet for investors.
Facebook also said it plans to increase its investments in the coming quarters. Higher expenses could mean lower profits.
Facebook, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., was valued at $104 billion when it went public two months ago. That means investors placed a higher value on its stock than established companies such as McDonald's, Pepsi and even Amazon.
With Facebook's stock hitting a new low on Friday, the company lost as much as 39 percent of its value. It's now around $66 billion, a little more than 3M, the company that makes Scotch tapes, stethoscopes and sandpaper. It's also in the same range as American Express.
Despite the doubts, Mike Magan of Carmel, Ind., plans to keep the 10 shares he bought at $34.25 each a few days after Facebook went public.
"I bought this thinking it was going to be something I was going to pass down to my kids," said Magan, who works for an industrial marketing firm. "I see this as a company that will be an Apple."
Other stocks he owns include Apple, naturally, which he bought a decade ago. Back then, it was trading at around $8 to $10. Now, it's pushing $600 as the world's most valuable company, thanks to successes with the iPhone and the iPad ? the same devices confounding Facebook.
"My purchase of Facebook was a vote of confidence," Magan says, adding that he buys stock about every three to four years.
Analysts are generally positive on Facebook. Of the 27 analyst ratings available from FactSet, 15 are "Buy" or equivalent, while just three are a "Sell." Analysts tend to have longer-term views of stocks than many day-to-day investors.
"We don't view these results as dramatically good or bad," Citi analyst Mark Mahaney says. "Key questions remain: the future of Facebook mobile monetization and the future of Facebook user engagement."
Clinton Drops One-Liners on Tea Party, Cell Phones
His wife Hillary has remained squarely in the public eye since he left the Oval Office in 2000, but former President Bill Clinton has been fairly unplugged for the past 12 years - so unplugged, in fact, that he doesn't even know how to use a cell phone.
During a keynote speech at the Global Business Travel Association Convention in Boston on Wednesday night, Clinton admitted that he hasn't stayed on top of developments in technology since he left Washington. "I have a hard time keeping up," the former president said. "I had to actually learn to text on that cell phone.
"That's the extent of my technology involvement, even though I spent a fortune of your money when I was president trying to make sure America was in the lead in all the emerging technologies," he joked.
Clinton also touted a message of compromise and cooperation during his speech, and even went so far as to say he feels sorry for Tea Party congressmen:
"I actually feel some sympathy for these Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives," he said, acknowledging that the audience "may find that hard to believe."
The former president cited the fickleness of voters as the reason for his empathy. "The sympathy I feel for them is this: They're at 18 percent approval, and you just elected them two years ago. And all they're doing is what they told you they were going to do when they ran," Clinton said. "But we don't pay attention to what people say they're going to do. We pay attention to how we feel, and whether it would be good to make a change."
Former President George W. Bush also spoke during the conference, which ran from July 22-25.
Want a different take on politics? Check out OTUS on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @OTUSNews.
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So where do Twitter and Facebook come in? One of the challenges in the project to date has been to gather specimens. Goose barnacles can dehydrate and die quickly when washed ashore, so they have to be rescued promptly and moved to an aquarium. In the past, the researchers trawled the beaches several times a week themselves, but it was a slow and largely unsuccessful way to find the sporadically stranded barnacles, says Jonker. So the scientists have started a social media campaign this summer to get people to tell them when they find the sticky marine creatures.
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Public release date: 30-Jul-2012
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japan.internet.com recently reported the results of the fourth regular survey by goo Research into electronic books.
The customer service industry is not keeping up with higher customer expectations, as only 8% of consumers feel that contact centers always provide excellent customer service.
