Experience Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a unique European city.

It is a city of art, with the heritage of Rembrandt and Van Gogh and the city's museums represent its place in the art world. But Amsterdam has another side, that of the Red Light District with a variety of adult fun.

Curious about either of these sides of Amsterdam? Both? Find the best deals in Amsterdam hotels for your next European adventure. You'll find the cheapest hotel deals no matter if you are looking for a three-star room or a five-star accommodation.

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Faster, Better Emergency Response Through Satellite

When emergency teams are well informed and governments can coordinate their efforts, lives and property can be saved. The Health Early Warning System, a project supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), is intended to bring this benefit to Europe. Extreme natural phenomena like tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes have featured prominently in the news. So, too, has the rapid spread of new diseases such as SARS and avian flu. By identifying and mapping occurrences of these problems sooner, agencies can relieve suffering more quickly and contain a situation more efficiently. That is why ESA is supporting the Health Early Warning System (HEWS), which will improve the performance of emergency service end-users.

HEWS offers these users a wider, real-time perspective of events and how to manage them. It integrates knowledge of a particular threat or disease and brings it to remote areas, even if they are in an extreme state of disorder. It helps with logistical support and reduces the need to carry large amounts of heavy equipment to trouble spots.

A pan-European solution HEWS works by setting up a communication network via satellite to survey and monitor risk indicators. It allows communication between teams in the field and with command centres. Data from many locations can be collected, stored and processed. It can then be quickly analysed and distributed to the users who need it the most. HEWS is an open platform, built using a modular approach, so the widest variety of users can implement it. What will make HEWS critical to disaster relief agencies is that it is satellite based. Disasters may disrupt or even destroy local infrastructure – but satellites are immune to their effects.

Two scenarios

The system will be tested in two different exercise scenarios, one African and one European. In the first, a suspected case of an infectious disease is reported. Field teams will be deployed by the local Ministry of Health, international organisations and NGOs. The scenario will require them to assess the current situation and deploy a mobile laboratory. Based on field reports, a practice emergency will be declared. HEWS will provide real-time reporting from the various locations and provide insight into how the epidemic is developing. A response will then be organised and feedback provided to mobile teams on road access, water, food, drugs, and medical disposables.

The second scenario simulates a terrorist attack in the center of a European capital. The resulting confusion leads to traffic jams and saturation of the mobile telephone network. The work of the many civil protection and health operators, who are all entering the scene at the same time, is hindered by a lack of coordination and field information, particularly on decontamination measures and treatment protocols. HEWS will give civil protection authorities the ability to supply this information and coordinate the field teams correctly.

HEWS is the work of a consortium of three companies, Instituto Nacional de Saúde and Tekever S.A., both from Portugal, and Ridgeback s.a.s. from Italy. The project is co-financed by ESA as part of the Health and Telemedicine via Satellite Program.

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Safer Air Traffic With EGNOS

Vertical guidance by means of signals from the sky: this is what EGNOS, the first European satellite navigation service, will offer pilots during approach and landing. Flight trials are regularly conducted to demonstrate the new possibilities offered by the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), which has been launched by ESA, the European Commission and Eurocontrol.

A few weeks ago, the Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile (DGAC – French Civil Aviation Authority) test plane was specially equipped to make tests using EGNOS. At Limoges airport the ATR42 made a number of approaches and landings using the new procedures, in each case aligning itself with the runway's axis and then following a descent path to touchdown.

Inside the plane, normally used for calibration of airport systems in France, the method of analysing the quality of the EGNOS signals was by comparing the landing phases guided by satellite with landings using traditional means such as the Instrument Landing System (ILS).

The results of Limoges trials show again that EGNOS signals allow approaches and landings that meet the safety standards that govern international air traffic. One of the main advantages of EGNOS in this application is that it is available everywhere without the need for ground infrastructure and it provides vertical guidance procedures for every runway.

Furthermore, the cockpit data display is the same as for ILS, so there are no familiarization problems for the pilots and no additional training costs. Currently in pre-operational service, EGNOS will be certified in 2008 for safety-of-life applications such as air traffic control.

Systems that are equivalent to EGNOS have been set up in the United States, Japan and India, and these systems are compatible and interoperable.

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US Pay Increases to Lag China, India, Eastern Europe In 2007

New research from Philadelphia-based Hay Group reveals real pay increases (adjusted for inflation) for workers in the United States will substantially lag those in China, India and Eastern Europe in 2007. US administrative, professional and senior management employees arepredicted to see real increases of just 1.4%, v. increases approaching 8%in high-growth economies.

"Much like their colleagues in Europe, US employees will be seeingrelatively modest increases in base salaries when compared to the emergingeconomies," says Iain Fitzpatrick, general manager of Hay Group's US RewardInformation Services. "Projected 2007 increases are fairly consistent with real increases seen in the US over the past several years."

Hay Group's Global Pay Day analysis, compiled using Hay GroupPayNet, one of the world's most comprehensive global pay databases, predicts real base salary increases for administrative, professional and senior management in 2007 for 50 countries worldwide, based on employers' projections once inflation has been considered. The PayNet database contains 7 million individual records from 13,000 organizations in 19 job families across a number of industries.

"The wealth created by rapid, focused economic development is resulting in a pay boom for Chinese and Indian workers, who will enjoy some of thelargest real pay increases worldwide in 2007," says Hern Yin Goh, director of Hay Group Reward Information Services in Shanghai. China tops the tables for each of the three job categories, with apredicted 7.9% increase for administrative workers, 7.8% for professionals and 8.9% for senior management.

High pay increases in India last year -- 7.2% across the board -- look set to continue into 2007. The country boasts the second highest pay increase predictions for 2007, with increases of 6.2% forecast across thethree job levels. Senior managers can anticipate a real increase of 6.9%, professionals and administrators 5.9% each, according to Hay.

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