Mark Winterbottom ahead of the Bathurst 1000. Photo: Getty Images

V8 Supercars championship challenger Mark Winterbottom has dismissed a vicious personal attack by the team boss of his title arch-rival Jamie Whincup, vowing to answer the criticism on the track at Bathurst this weekend.

A one-sided war of words erupted after Ford Performance Racing's Winterbottom snatched second place in the closing stages of last month's Sandown 500, by bumping Whincup's Triple Eight Holden aside.

Although the move was cleared by race officials, Triple Eight chief Roland Dane denounced the aggressive overtake as a B-grade move from a so-called professional driver and branded Winterbottom as being about as popular as a turd in a swimming pool.

But Winterbottom, who is dogging defending V8 champion Whincup in this year's points race, has shrugged off Dane's outbursts on the eve of the Bathurst 1000, declaring that he'll do his talking on the track.

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He came out with a personal attack on me, Winterbottom told Fairfax Media. I just use that as motivation because I've obviously got to him a little bit. We'll see what happens this weekend.

It'd make me feel pretty good if I can beat them and hold the trophy up.

Nicknamed "Frosty", the 31-year-old front-runner has been backed by hard-driving veteran Russell Ingall, who disagreed with Dane and questioned the team boss's tactic of making his criticism public and personal.

The officials ruled his move was acceptable, in which case, I reckon what Roland said was out of line, Ingall said. I wouldn't have said anything about it. What I would have done was shut up and next time the opportunity arose - payback time.

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Sideswiped: attack on Winterbottom gets personal

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02-10-2012 10:40 see more at: That's I started by doing all the silly things and I'm afraid if I lead them go somebody else before long your gonna realize that one of these little competitors have right now is now big competitor, delegate maybe. There is no such thing as competition but he's talking right here is a fear, it's a fear, don't even do it your not making any money on it anyway don't even do it. Chop up the twenty percent, yes where you started. But I'm afraid that it could be somebody else, how big where you when you were born what did you weigh? You grew; do you ever wanna go back down in seven pounds? No, seven pounds you'll be pretty slinky if you would back down in seven pounds, you'll be dead. "Professional Business Coaching" "Professional Coaching" "business coaching""Performance Coaching" "Personal Performance Coaching"

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Professional Business Coaching: Don't even do it! - Video

RIYADH, KSA--(Marketwire - Oct 2, 2012) - With a need to create a modern, future-proof network infrastructure to support bandwidth-intensive research applications and data sharing across global universities and research agencies --such as the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) and the UNESCO (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) --King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), the national science agency and laboratory for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has turned to Brocade ( NASDAQ : BRCD ) to deliver a state-of-the-art network infrastructure comprised of high-performance campus networking and load balancing solutions.

Commenting about the reasons behind the upgrade, Eng. Hasan Alhowimel, Assistant of IT Directory and Network Engineer at KACST, said, "Factors such as an increasing number of employees and deployment of bandwidth-intensive applications -- like Oracle ERP, wireless applications as well as external services [to share data with international agencies] -- led to tremendous strain on the underlying infrastructure. We had plans to go wireless to increase user productivity, but were being held back by the limitations of a network that could not deliver the kind of performance we required. The need for a more stable, high-performance network was becoming increasingly obvious to us, and we knew that the success of a number of our future initiatives would depend on a strong and reliable foundation."

The new Brocade campus network environment, deployed by Brocade's local partner Nesma Advanced Technology, spans 16 buildings including the KACST headquarters, which houses the institution's data center. Each building has a Brocade FCX Series switch at the edge connected to a Brocade FastIron SX Series switch with 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) uplinks to Brocade BigIron RX Series core switches in the data center. KACST also deployed Brocade VDX 6720 Switches to provide reliability and performance, while paving the way for the institution to deploy Brocade VCS Fabric technology and private cloud services in the future.

The benefits of the Brocade FastIron SX switches, with industry-leading Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology, were immediately realized. "We found that the Brocade PoE solution not only reduced the cost of cabling, but also greatly simplified integration of our security camera and fingerprint attendance systems," said Eng. Alhowimel.

As part of the wider network upgrade, the Brocade ADX Series of application delivery switches allowed KACST to achieve significant performance benefits from its Web portal. The Brocade ADX switches have also future-proofed the KACST for IPv6 support, enabling a seamless migration to this technology as required.

Since the network upgrade, KACST has seen improved performance and a dramatic increase in the speed of its many applications and Web services. The agency has successfully deployed its wireless network, which effortlessly manages the additional load from personal mobile devices, the security infrastructure and attendance systems.

The implementation has also brought about significant cost benefits. "The cost of the Brocade solution was exactly half that of the equivalent competitive offering, but delivers so much more in terms of performance," notes Eng. Alhowimel.

Such improved performance allows the agency to connect and collaborate with a broad network of universities and research centers across the globe. This permits the sharing of extremely expensive research equipment, which is used for analysis and calculations. Thanks to the new network, KACST now shares the utilization and cost of these systems with other research agencies.

About Brocade Brocade ( NASDAQ : BRCD ) networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

2012 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Brocade Helps KACST Deliver High-Performance Connectivity to Global Network of Universities and Research Agencies

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Answering an anonymized survey, more than 400 defense executives rated the top 20 defense firms across a wide range of criteria, showing significant deviations in perceptions among executives with different job roles and positions in the industry. This is the second year Defense Industry Daily conducted the survey of its defense procurement readership, analyzing the data to show individual firm trends for each of the measurements. Overall, contractors were rated worse than in 2011, especially in quality ratings.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121002/CG84628)

Starting off on opposite ends of the ratings spectrum, defense IT firms (poor performers last year) and major aerospace contractors (good performers in 2011) both suffered significantly worse ratings this year. These ratings were even worse among engineering executives and those with personal experience with those firms.

Defense contractors tended to perform in sync with other firms in their sector, and the included graph shows how those different defense sectors fared against each other.

"The individual comments people made in the open-ended questions were some of the most informative data we collected," said Defense Industry Daily CEO Olivier Travers. "It was in those boxes that the executives explained their reasoning and the causal links behind their more positive and negative ratings."

Travers noted three interesting developments in the 2012 data: "We found that respondents were more critical of the larger prime contractors; that they were less concerned with ITAR restrictions; and that the entire industry is progressively more disillusioned with the major information technology firms."

The study, a 45-page analysis containing more than 30 comparative charts, examines the different opinion sets in multiple dimensions, including by job role, industry sector, U.S. vs. international respondents and several other factors.

The study identified several segments and individual firms that have large perception problems among key decision makers. In some cases, firms were able to bounce back somewhat from severe negative opinions in the previous year's survey. In both types of cases, the difference between the opinions of those with personal experience with the firm and those who have not personally worked with the firm were useful in showing some of the causes in the perception changes.

The poll was conducted in late August and early September 2012 among the audience of Defense Industry Daily, an online defense procurement trade magazine with more than 300,000 unique monthly users. Information about the report and access to an executive summary can be found at: https://reports.defenseindustrydaily.com/?release.

Tig Tillinghast, Watershed Publishing, 8027854260, tig@watershed-publishing.com

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New Defense Exec Survey: Contractor Performance Falling

SPRINGFIELD, Va., Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Versar, Inc. (NYSE MKT: VSR) announced today that it has been awarded a new prime contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Middle East District, to provide Afghanistan National subject matter experts to perform on-site construction management support services for assigned projects supporting two USACE Engineer Districts in Afghanistan.

The construction management positions will support the Afghanistan Engineer District North (TAN), based in Kabul, with area and resident offices throughout Northern, Central, and Eastern Afghanistan, and Afghanistan Engineer District South (TAS), based in Kandahar, with offices throughout Southern and Western Afghanistan. These positions will replicate typical foreign national service employee positions obtained by U.S. Government Agencies to support overseas projects and locations. The first task orders under the contract are for $11.7 million for TAN and $4.3 million for TAS.

The Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract is a single award with a maximum four-year period of performance consisting of a base year and three options years. The maximum contract capacity over the entire length of the contract is $170 million. This contract is for Personal Services in exclusive support of the USACE construction mission in Afghanistan.

Tony Otten, CEO of Versar said, "Versar is pleased to be selected by USACE to support this important construction management program and we are privileged to continue our construction management and quality assurance support for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan."

VERSAR, INC., headquartered in Springfield, VA, is a publicly traded global project management company providing sustainable value oriented solutions to government and commercial clients in the construction management, environmental services, munitions response, and telecommunication and technology integration market areas.

VERSAR operates a number of web sites, including the corporate web sites, http://www.versar.com, http://www.geomet.com; http://www.viap.com; http://www.dtaps.com; http://www.adventenv.com, http://www.charronconsulting.com and http://www.ppsgb.com.

This news release contains forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be significantly impacted by certain risks and uncertainties described herein and in Versar's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ended June 29, 2012, as updated from time to time in the Company's periodic filings. The forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and Versar does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements.

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Versar Awarded A Personal Services Contract In Afghanistan From The US Army Corps Of Engineers With A Maximum Capacity ...

By Andrew Noel - 2012-10-02T10:22:17Z

BASF SE (BAS) named a new head for its European personal-care chemical business as it hones the units focus after a disappointing set of results from additives and ingredients used in cosmetics.

Jan-Peter Sander will take up the role of senior vice president of personal care in Europe on Oct. 1, succeeding Simon Medley, who is leaving to pursue his career outside the group, Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF said in a statement.

BASF is seeking more synergies and cost savings from its integration with Cognis after a dip in performance at its care- chemicals business, Chief Executive Officer Kurt Bock said July 26. BASF paid $3.8 billion for Cognis, which was folded into BASFs care chemicals division that saw a decline in second- quarter sales and earnings.

We will continue to establish BASF as the market-leading supplier to the personal care industry by focusing on anticipating customers current and future requirements and providing the market with innovation-driven solutions, Sander said today in the release.

BASF did a very detailed study into whether it may be losing market share to competitor Croda International Plc (CRDA), though there was no evidence of this happening, Bock said in July.

Shares of BASF rose 1.6 percent to 66.67 euros in Frankfurt as of 2:36 p.m.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Noel in London at anoel@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net

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BASF Names New Head of Personal-Care Unit to Bolster Growth

Norwich City manager Chris Hughton and Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers before the game. Picture: Paul Chesterton / Focus Images

Paddy Davitt Monday, October 1, 2012 11:04 AM

Brendan Rodgers insisted Liverpools emphatic Premier League win was all the sweeter given his recent personal history at Carrow Road.

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The former Swansea chief lost on both his previous visits to Norwich which made the scale of his first league win as Reds boss even more impressive.

I know Norwich and it is a wonderful club and particularly in the last two years it has been a real difficult place to come and get a result so to arrive here, score five goals and play as well as we did is a real great performance, he said.

They are a real good set of lads here who work ever so hard. Norwich are a very good group and I know that as well as anyone coming here for the last few years. For us to play as well as we did and dominate the ball was outstanding.

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Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers hails Luis Suarez masterclass against Norwich City

CuteOverload may be the cure for work overload. A Japanese study finds looking at pictures of cute animals can be a boost for work performance.

My personal workplace productivity consultant.

It turns out my obsessive daily viewing of eye-searingly adorable animal pictures online is actually an integral part of of my work productivity plan. I am indebted to some Japanese scientists for this revelation.

Researchers from Hiroshima University conducted a study to examine the effects of viewing cute images on task performance. Guess what? Looking at images of baby animals boosted performance, I'm thrilled to report.

The researchers measured the performance of test subjects on a task that required mental and physical coordination before and after viewing photos of puppies and kittens. A control group looked at not-quite-so-cute images of adult animals.

The paper, delightfully titled "The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus," is good news for all of us with CuteOverload and LOLcat addictions.

The abstract from the paper's publication in PLOS One concludes with, "For future applications, cute objects may be used as an emotion elicitor to induce careful behavioral tendencies in specific situations, such as driving and office work." You can get into all the details of the experiments and conclusions at the open-access journal.

(Via Livescience)

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Sweet LOLcats! Puppies and kittens can boost productivity?

WASHINGTON Some people have lost their taste for the stock market, with many concluding it's more dangerous than they can tolerate for their kids' college money or retirement savings.

And they have reason to be anxious.

At a Senate banking committee hearing in Washington in late September, professionals who have been involved with the high-frequency trading that dominates stock buying and selling confirmed some of the worst fears of individuals struggling with investments: The stock market has been behaving erratically and playing with people's emotions as frenetic stock movements have often been divorced from either the economy or businesses' performance.

It no longer is your parents' or grandparents' stock market. Rather, it's become a Wild West of trading, with errant technology too often in control and setting stocks, commodities, currencies and futures up for violent moves that could make the $1 trillion flash crash of May 2010 look tame by comparison, testified David Lauer, who has designed trading technology and worked as an analyst for Allston Trading and Citadel Investment Group.

"U.S. equity markets are in dire straits," Lauer said. "We are truly in a crisis."

He noted that "retail investors have been fleeing the stock market in droves" and that the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index shows "investor confidence is nonexistent with only 15 percent of the public expressing trust in the stock market."

Rather than buying a stock and holding onto it, institutions using high-frequency trading buy and sell stocks constantly in milliseconds, or much faster than a blink of the eye. Lauer said about 50 to 70 percent of the volume of trading in the stock market now takes that form. Often trading systems send out phony trades aimed at manipulating others into buying or selling. The activity can mislead legitimate traders working for mutual funds, pension funds or individuals to buy a stock at too high a price or sell it at too low a price.

It might involve pennies. But when combined day in and day out "it's death by a thousand cuts," said Andy Brooks, vice president and head of U.S. equity trading for one of the nation's largest mutual fund companies, T. Rowe Price. And computer glitches involving everything from Facebook's initial public offering to the flash crash of 2010 have left individuals with the lowest confidence he says he's ever seen.

"As we talk with our clients there is a growing distrust of the casino environment," Brooks testified at a committee hearing convened by Sens. Jack Reed and Mike Crapo. "Speed kills. We don't think it's for the benefit of investors."

Lauer added: "We must be concerned with whether the pendulum has swung too far." He wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to know who is trading, although much of it is now secret. And he wants more regulation because he fears a catastrophic flash crash late in the day could set off a panic that could cause stocks and other securities to plunge worldwide.

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Personal Finance: High-frequency trading keeps some people anxious

Up Close and Personal: Art, Music and Performance, Restarting the Heart of Christchurch

30 September 2012

Local music, performance, exhibitions, murals, graffiti art and art installations are set to bring further excitement and energy to Re:START the City Mall shopping precinct that brought thousands of Christchurch residents back to the inner city last year.

The arts and music programme called Art Beat is an initiative of Arts Voice Christchurch and Re:START which will take place from November 2012 to February 2013, integrating art and entertainment into the citys re-build.

Art Beat will build relationships between the arts community and businesses in the central city, as well as provide performance opportunities, exposure and work experience for established and developing artists.

Art Beat has received funding from Creative New Zealand for administration, project management, marketing and programme communication.

Art Beat is a fantastic arts-led initiative that over spring and summer will give the people of Christchurch the chance to have a ball in the Mall. Clever site specific projects like this will bring fun, vitality and people into the city, said Creative New Zealand Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright.

Art Beat is a collaborative business/arts venture between Re:START and Arts Voice Christchurch, advocating for the art community in Christchurch and ensuring that it remains fundamental and essential to the life of the city.

Arts Voice Christchurch Chair, Warren Feeney says, The funding Art Beat has received from Creative New Zealand is an opportunity for artists to operate outside traditional venues and institutions and get up close and personal in ways that will give Christchurch residents and visitors even greater reasons to visit the central city and Re:START.

Bob Parker opened Re:START a year ago and commented that it marked the beginning of our city making the most extraordinary comeback. Art Beat takes up the challenge of Parkers remarks with considerable enthusiasm. It represents the response of a vital arts community engaged in the citys rebuild, keen to create a vibrant central city that will connect - in the best of all possible ways - the arts , the city, businesses and people.

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Up Close & Personal: Art, Music and Performance - Chch