Monthly Archives: August 2017

AI is creating new types of art, and new types of artists – Seattle Times

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The ultimate idea is not to replace artists but to give them tools that allow them to create in entirely new ways.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. In the mid-1990s, Douglas Eck worked as a database programmer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, while moonlighting as a musician. After a day spent writing computer code inside a lab run by the Department of Energy, he would take the stage at a local juke joint, playing what he calls punk-influenced bluegrass Johnny Rotten crossed with Johnny Cash. But what he really wanted to do was combine his days and nights, and build machines that could make their own songs. My only goal in life was to mix AI and music, Eck said.

It was a naive ambition. Enrolling as a graduate student at Indiana University, in Bloomington, not far from where he grew up, he pitched the idea to Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on minds and machines, Gdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.Hofstadter turned him down, adamant that even the latest artificial intelligence techniques were much too primitive.

But during the next two decades, working on the fringe of academia, Eck kept chasing the idea, and eventually, the AI caught up with his ambition.

Last spring, a few years after taking a research job at Google, Eck pitched the same idea he pitched Hofstadter all those years ago. The result is Project Magenta, a team of Google researchers who are teaching machines to create not only their own music but also to make so many other forms of art, including sketches, videos and jokes.

With its empire of smartphones, apps and internet services, Google is in the business of communication, and Eck sees Magenta as a natural extension of this work.

Its about creating new ways for people to communicate, he said during a recent interview inside the small two-story building here that serves as headquarters for Google AI research.

The project is part of a growing effort to generate art through a set of AI techniques that have only recently come of age. Called deep neural networks, these complex mathematical systems allow machines to learn specific behavior by analyzing vast amounts of data.

By looking for common patterns in millions of bicycle photos, for instance, a neural network can learn to recognize a bike. This is how Facebook identifies faces in online photos, how Android phones recognize commands spoken into phones, and how Microsoft Skype translates one language into another. But these complex systems can also create art. By analyzing a set of songs, for instance, they can learn to build similar sounds.

As Eck says, these systems are at least approaching the point still many, many years away when a machine can instantly build a new Beatles song or perhaps trillions of new Beatles songs, each sounding a lot like the music the Beatles themselves recorded, but also a little different.

But that end game as much a way of undermining art as creating it is not what he is after. There are so many other paths to explore beyond mere mimicry. The ultimate idea is not to replace artists but to give them tools that allow them to create in entirely new ways.

For centuries, orchestral conductors have layered sounds from various instruments atop one other. But this is different. Rather than layering sounds, Eck and his team are combining them to form something that did not exist before, creating new ways that artists can work.

Were making the next film camera, Eck said. Were making the next electric guitar.

Called NSynth, this particular project is only just getting off the ground. But across the worlds of both art and technology, many are already developing an appetite for building new art through neural networks and other AI techniques.

This work has exploded over the last few years, said Adam Ferris, a photographer and artist in Los Angeles. This is a totally new aesthetic.

In 2015, a separate team of researchers inside Google created DeepDream, a tool that uses neural networks to generate haunting, hallucinogenic imagescapes from existing photography, and this has spawned new art inside Google and out. If the tool analyzes a photo of a dog and finds a bit of fur that looks vaguely like an eyeball, it will enhance that bit of fur and then repeat the process. The result is a dog covered in swirling eyeballs.

At the same time, a number of artists like the well-known multimedia performance artist Trevor Paglen or the lesser-known Adam Ferris are exploring neural networks in other ways.

In January, Paglen gave a performance in an old maritime warehouse in San Francisco that explored the ethics of computer vision through neural networks that can track the way we look and move. While members of the avant-garde Kronos Quartet played onstage, for example, neural networks analyzed their expressions in real time, guessing at their emotions.

The tools are new, but the attitude is not. Allison Parrish, a New York University professor who builds software that generates poetry, points out that artists have been using computers to generate art since the 1950s. Much like as Jackson Pollock figured out a new way to paint by just opening the paint can and splashing it on the canvas beneath him, she said, these new computational techniques create a broader palette for artists.

A year ago, David Ha was a trader with Goldman Sachs in Tokyo. During his lunch breaks he started toying with neural networks and posting the results to a blog under a pseudonym. Among other things, he built a neural network that learned to write its own Kanji, the logographic Chinese characters that are not so much written as drawn.

Soon, Eck and other Googlers spotted the blog, and now Ha is a researcher with Google Magenta. Through a project called SketchRNN, he is building neural networks that can draw.

By analyzing thousands of digital sketches made by ordinary people, these neural networks can learn to make images of things like pigs, trucks, boats or yoga poses. They do not copy what people have drawn. They learn to draw on their own, to mathematically identify what a pig drawing looks like. Then, you ask them to, say, draw a pig with a cats head, or to visually subtract a foot from a horse or sketch a truck that looks like a dog or build a boat from a few random squiggly lines.

Next to NSynth or DeepDream, these may seem less like tools that artists will use to build new works. But if you play with them, you realize that they are themselves art, living works built by Ha. AI is not just creating new kinds of art; it is creating new kinds of artists.

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AI is creating new types of art, and new types of artists - Seattle Times

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Walt Disney Was NOT Frozen – MousePlanet

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I recently did a presentation at the Museum of Military History in Kissimmee, Florida, about Disney and World War II. During the question-and-answer session, I was asked if I actually believed Walt was cremated and his ashes interred at Forest Lawn Glendale, because they had heard from a reliable source "that worked at Disney" that it was obvious he was frozen.

I was even asked about this during a question-and-answer session after a presentation I did at the Walt Disney Family Museum a few years ago about Disney and outer space.

It is a question I keep getting asked not out of idle curiosity, but because the person often wants to prove that they know this "secret fact" and if I am simply a Disney apologist who only promotes the official Disney line.

First, it is always challenging to try to prove a negative to the satisfaction of all people.

Second, just the mere mention of these falsehoods about Walt continues to give them additional life, with people claiming they saw this assertion in a book or heard it somewhere, like from a Disney cast member, so it must be true.

Finally, there will be people who despite common sense and all the evidence to the contrary will condescendingly assume that where there is smoke, there must be fire, or that someone is trying to cover-up the real story.

The one image that sticks in my mind when someone asks me if Walt were frozen is the memory of his oldest daughter Diane Disney Miller. I remember her telling me with a mixture of sadness and anger in her face and voice about how upsetting it was to the Disney family over the years for this question to even be asked in the first place.

She told me that one of the reasons she was so adamant about creating the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco was "Other little kids would say to my kids, 'Your grandfather is frozen, isn't he?' And I just couldn't let that stand. What if someone said that about their parent? How would they feel?"

When I lived in California, some California Institute of the Arts students as an art project raised some money by producing a limited amount of "Waltsickles" that featured a full-figured model of Walt Disney in a suit inside of a popsickle. That never happened again although gags about "Disney on Ice" with Walt frozen in a block of ice and skaters performing on top of him abound.

An editorial cartoon jokingly referred to Disney on Ice as being Walt frozen in ice.

Walt Disney was not cryogenically frozen, but was cremated on December 17, 1966. Rumors still persist that Walt was put into cryogenic suspension and buried somewhere underneath Disneyland, in particular under the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, since it was still under construction when he died.

However, I have had people tell me, he was put under the dedication plaque on Main Street or directly in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Interestingly, I haven't yet had anyone tell me Walt's supposed frozen body is somewhere in the Haunted Mansion. I guess that is because the Mansion is supposed to be for dead people and in theory, if he were frozen, Walt would still be alive.

Articles and books about the preservation of animal tissue through freezing appeared in medical and scientific journals and occasionally the general press starting in the late 1950s. Perhaps the most prominent book during Walt's lifetime, The Prospect of Immortality by Robert C.W. Ettinger, was published in 1964.

However, this book still discussed cryonics as merely theoretical although eventually possible. Just as it was possible Walt "might" have heard about this topic, but there is no documentation that he ever did. Neither his family nor his closest associates ever heard him talk about the topicand Walt talked about everything he was interested in at the moment.

Certainly, there are several untrustworthy and unreliable sources that have proposed that he did but there is no evidence, including interviews with those who actually knew and worked with Walt.

Again, this is one of those Walt Disney Urban Legends that "everyone knows" but nobody seems to know where the information originated.

Waking Walt was a novel published in 2002 by former Disneyland and Walt Disney World Vice-President Larry Pontius about Walt Disney supposedly being defrosted by a very small group of former confidants to save the Disney Company from the machinations of Michael Eisner.

It is no surprise that Walt's disgust about what has happened to his dream, especially Epcot, is clearly apparent in the novel. Pontinus never knew Walt, but worked as a Disney marketing executive from 1976-1982.

Diane Disney Miller asserted in 1972: "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics."

Walt's official death certificate clearly shows that his body was cremated at Forest Lawn Glendale on December 17, 1966. The name, license number and signature of the embalmer, Dean Fluss, are those of a real embalmer who worked at the mortuary at the time. Court papers show that the Disney family paid $40,000 to Forest Lawn for the interment location of his ashes.

Certainly, Walt did not like attending funerals and even avoided the ones for his own father and brother.

"He never goes to a funeral if he can help it," wrote Diane in 1956. "If he had to go to one it plunges him into a reverie which lasts for hours after he's home. At such times he says, 'When I'm dead I don't want a funeral. I want people to remember me alive'."

Walt did not want people to see him in the hospital, and so only the immediate family was allowed into his room. Very few people, even those close to him, knew how really sick Walt actually was. The story told to the public was that he was undergoing surgery for an old neck injury from playing polo that most people knew had troubled him for decades and then re-entered the hospital days later for a routine post operative checkup.

Walt's death was not immediately announced to the press until several hours after it occurred at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 15, 1966. Walt lay in his hospital bed for a few hours while his family arrived and said their farewells. If Walt was to be put into cryonic suspension, it would have had to be done immediately to preserve him or even just moments before his death. That did not happen.

He lay there as his daughter Diane tried to get her mother to hurry up to get to the hospital but Lillian kept delaying the inevitable. His older brother Roy sat at the edge of the bed rubbing one of Walt's feet that was sticking out from the under the sheets. Walt had always complained his feet were cold in the hospital.

The cause of Disney's death was initially announced as being "acute circulatory collapse" and, on the death certificate, "cardiac arrest," which meant simply that his heart had stopped beating. It was a standard medical phrase giving no indication of what caused the heart to stop beating, which, in this case, was cancer. The cause was considered of secondary importance and to the general public the actual cause was unimportant. Walt Disney was gone.

Walt's funeral was quietly held at the Little Church of the Flowers in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale at 5 p.m. on Friday, December 16, the day after his death. No funeral announcement was made until after it had taken place. Only immediate family members attended, no friends, people who worked at the studio or business associates.

The Disney characters and cast members mourn Walt Disney in this cartoon.

His widow Lillian; daughters Diane and Sharon, with their husbands (Ron Miller and Robert Brown); his brother Roy and his wife Edna; and their son, Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney, with his wife Patty, were the only ones there. His sister Ruth was told not to fly down from Portland, Oregon, where she lived for fear the press would follow her to the service.

The Los Angeles Times reported, "Secret rites were conducted at the Little Church of the Flowers at Forest Lawn. The services were a closely-guarded secret. Family services were announced only after they had been concluded. Studio and cemetery officials refused to reveal details."

Forest Lawn officials refused to disclose any details of the funeral or disposition of the body, stating only that "Mr. Disney's wishes were very specific and had been spelled out in great detail."

The situation that people were not fully aware how ill Walt was, never saw him in the hospital and how badly he had deteriorated, nor attended his funeral to see him lying in state sparked the speculation that like other popular celebrities who died somewhat suddenly, including Elvis Presley, Walt was not really dead.

While the Disney family were a private family and felt this was a private matter, others saw it as a mystery.

The origin of the rumor of Walt being frozen has often been credited to Disney Studios animators who "had a bizarre sense of humor" and perhaps the earliest known printed version appeared in the French magazine Ici Paris in 1969.

In 1985, I asked animator Ward Kimball if he was the source for the rumor since he was well known for his pranks. "When Disney fans ask me if it's true that Walt's body is kept frozen for future resurrection, I answer that question by pointing out that Walt was always intensely interested in things scientific and he, more than any person I knew, just might have been curious enough to agree to such an experiment."

A decade earlier, Kimball had told another interviewer, "The smoking may have set the stage for his death. It probably weakened his physical condition. But I'm convinced it was the emotional stress he was under that killed him. It's such a dull world. So when I am asked if Walt's body was frozen and if he believed he could come back someday, just to stir things up I tell everybody he is frozen. Actually, he was cremated."

in 1972, Bob Nelson, who was then the president of the Cryonics Society of California, gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times. He specifically stated that Walt was not cryogenically frozen and reaffirmed that he had been cremated. However, he continued that he felt that Walt wanted to be frozen and based it on the fact that he had been contacted by someone at the studios prior to Disney death that asked elaborate questions about the process, the facilities, the staff, and their history.

That someone may have been writer Charles Show, who had worked on the Tomorrowland episodes for the Disney television series and has admitted doing research on the topic before Walt's death.

Nelson pointed out that the first cryonic suspension took place just a month after Disney's death. Dr. James Bedford, a 73-year-old psychologist from Glendale, was suspended by Nelson and his team on January 12, 1967. Bedford has yet to be revived from his comfortable rest in Arizona.

"If Disney had been the first it would have made headlines around the world and been a real shot in the arm for cryonics," said Nelson who had hoped to put Walt in a nitrogen filled capsule chilled to minus 371 degrees Fahrenheit. Interestingly, Nelson's organization had its incorporation papers approved by the state of California on December 15, 1966, the same day Walt passed away.

Nelson was later asked if some other facility than his own might have been involved.

"There was no other facility at that time. The only other group was the Cryonics Society of New York and they had nothing no mortician, no doctor, no nothing," Nelson said.

Author Ray Bradbury said later, "There was a rumor that (Walt) had been frozen in a cryogenic mortuary to be revived in later years. Nonsense! He's alive now! People at the studio speak of him as if he were present! That's immortality for you. Who needs cryonics?"

In the 1970s, the National Enquirer revealed the grave site of Walt Disney.

For nearly a year after the cremation, Walt Disney's ashes remained un-interred. When Sharon's husband, Bob Brown, died less than a year later, in September 1967, Sharon made the arrangements for her father and her husband to be interred together so that neither would be alone. She and her older sister, Diane, chose a remote plot outside the Freedom Mausoleum.

A modest bronze rectangular tablet on a wall lists the name of Walter Elias Disney; his wife, Lillian; his son-in-law, Robert Brown; and a mention that daughter Sharon's ashes were "scattered in paradise."

To locate the site, drive through the entrance to a road called Cathedral Drive. Stay on the road to the eastern edge of the park where Cathedral Drive intersects with Freedom Way. At that intersection, turn right onto Freedom Way. On your left will be trees, fountains, and statues. This area is called Freedom Court.

At the far end of Freedom Court is a large mausoleum. Pull over and park on the right-hand side of the street. There should be a "33" painted on the curb opposite your car, indicating 33 Freedom Way. Standing at the base of the steps leading to the main entrance of the Freedom Mausoleum, turn to your left and walk to the far edge of the steps.

There is a small, private, low-gated courtyard garden near the brick wall. Inside this area guarded by a hedge of orange olivias, red azaleas, and a holly tree there is a small statue of Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid sitting on a rock.

In recent years, another huge falsehood has circulated in regards to Walt Disney's death and I have no clue where this could have originated.

According to the myth, in Walt Disney's Last Will and Testament dated March 1966, he stipulated that the first man to get pregnant or give birth would receive millions of dollars, all of Walt Disney World or even the entire Disney Company. The vagueness of the reward should be the first clue that this is bogus.

Walt Disney's will is a public document and easily accessible so it is easy to see that no such statement exists or anything else like it relating to bizarre statement.

In addition, Walt was a highly conservative Midwest Christian and such a decree would certainly be out of character even for a man interested in innovation and the latest technology. In any case, this would not be something the traditional Walt would likely want to encourage at all nor did he ever discuss anything like it.

In any case, The Walt Disney Company was a publicly held corporation so Walt wouldn't have been able to give away the company or Walt Disney World. He didn't own them. In his will, Disney clearly left 45 percent of his estate to his wife and daughters and another 45 percent to be distributed primarily to California Institute of the Arts and the remaining 10 percent to be divided among his sister, nieces, and nephews.

So there were no extra millions of dollars to be distributed to any other bequest.

While there have been stories of eccentric wealthy people making unusual bequests in their wills, Walt never did.

However, even Walt knew that a good story is hard to extinguish and will often take on a life of its own. You might think that the information in this column is enough to put the story to rest but I can tell you that I shared this with an avid and somewhat knowledgeable Disney fan before publication and her immediate reaction was, "documents can be forged!"

I just sighed.

So the falsehoods will probably continue while the facts are forgotten. I just keep remembering how sad it made Diane Disney Miller and I wish there were more I could do.

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Walt Disney Was NOT Frozen - MousePlanet

Alternative Medicine – The New York Times

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Alternative Medicine - The New York Times

Alternative medicine has its own benefits – The Straits Times

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I was terribly disturbed by the report (More harm than good; Aug 15) which gave the impression that nearly all complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are harmful.

This will potentially deprive patients of an avenue to seek better outcomes for their health conditions.

The report mentions studies that were carried out, but as we know studies can be biased, depending on who funds them. It is nice to give a textbook answer but what is more important is to find out whether CAM benefited the patient, and if so, in what way.

The news report cites studies on arthritis and how patients had suffered from delayed treatment because they had first sought CAM.

However, I have also seen patients recover solely from diet change and herbs.

I agree that herbs may interact with medications. This is why patients should seek qualified CAM professionals for advice, who are also trained in herb-drug interactions.

In contrast, most medical doctors are not trained professionally in herbs and diet.

I am not trying to defend CAM. All kinds of medicines, whether is conventional or natural has value and we should not drive a wedge between the two groups.

Sebastian Liew

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Alternative medicine has its own benefits - The Straits Times

Alternative medicine doubles risk of cancer death – Australian Journal of Pharmacy (registration) (blog)

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Researchers from the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) Center at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Cancer Center studied 840 patients with breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer in the National Cancer Database (NCDB) a joint project of the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society.

The NCDB represents about 70% of newly diagnosed cancers across the United States.

The researchers compared 280 patients who chose alternative medicine to 560 patients who had received conventional cancer treatment. The patients were diagnosed from 2004 to 2013.

Conventional treatment was defined as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and/or hormone therapy. Use of alternative therapies was undertaken alone, rather than in conjunction with conventional treatment.

The patients who used alternative therapies alone were two and a half times more likely to die within five years of their diagnosis: 54.7% compared to 78.3% of those who used conventional therapies were still alive at the end of five years.

The risk of death spiked to 5.68 times more likely for those with breast cancer who used only alternative treatments.

The growth of interest in pursuing alternative medicine instead of conventional cancer treatment has created a difficult situation, the researchers say; there is limited research evaluating the effectiveness of alternative medicine.

We became interested in this topic after seeing too many patients present in our clinics with advanced cancers that were treated with ineffective and unproven alternative therapies alone, said the studys senior author, Dr.James B. Yu, associate professor of therapeutic radiology at Yale Cancer Center.

Lead author Dr Skyler Johnson said that the research provides evidence that using alternative medicine in place of proven cancer therapies results in worse survival.

It is our hope that this information can be used by patients and physicians when discussing the impact of cancer treatment decisions on survival.

Dr. Cary Gross, co-author of the study, called for further research, adding, Its important to note that when it comes to alternative cancer therapies, there is just so little known patients are making decisions in the dark.

We need to understand more about which treatments are effective whether were talking about a new type of immunotherapy or a high-dose vitamin and which ones arent, so that patients can make informed decisions.

The research was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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Alternative medicine doubles risk of cancer death - Australian Journal of Pharmacy (registration) (blog)

25-yr-old mom with rare disorder dies eating high-protein diet – myfox8.com

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MANDURAH, Australia Meegan Hefford, a 25-year-old bodybuilder, was found unconscious on June 19 in her Mandurah, Western Australia, apartment, according toAustralia News 7.

Days later, Hefford was pronounced dead. Only after her death did her family learn that Hefford, the mother of a 7-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, had a rare genetic disorder that prevented her body from properly metabolizing her high-protein diet.

Urea cycle disorder, which causes a deficiency of one enzyme in the urea cycle, stops the body from breaking down protein, according to the nonprofit National Urea Cycle Disorders Foundation.

Normally, the body can remove nitrogen, a waste product of protein metabolism, from the blood. However, a urea cycle disorder would prohibit this.

Therefore, nitrogen, in the form of toxic ammonia, would accumulate in the blood and eventually reach the brain, where it can cause irreversible damage, coma, and death.

The enzyme deficiency can be mild enough so that the person is able to detoxify ammonia adequately until theres a trigger, said Cynthia Le Mons, executive director of the foundation. The trigger could be a viral illness, stress or a high-protein diet, she added.

There was just no way of knowing she had it because they dont routinely test for it, said Michelle White, Heffords mother. She started to feel unwell, and she collapsed.

White blames protein shakes for her daughters death.

Since 2014, Hefford, who worked at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and studied paramedicine, had been competing as a bodybuilder.

It was only after Heffords death that White discovered containers of protein supplements in her daughters kitchen, along with a strict food plan. White understood then that her daughter, who had been preparing for another bodybuilding competition, had also been consuming an unbalanced diet.

Hefford was eating way too much protein, said White, which triggered her daughters unknown urea cycle condition. (For most healthy people, ahigh-protein diet, when followed for a short time, generally isnt harmful, according to the Mayo Clinic.)

Heffords diet included protein-rich foods, such as lean meat and egg white, in addition to protein shakes and supplements, her mother said.

Theres medical advice on the back of all the supplements to seek out a doctor, but how many young people actually do? White asked.

Le Mons said, typically, there are nuanced symptoms that just go unrecognized with mild cases of urea cycle disorder. Symptoms include episodes of a lack of concentration, being very tired and vomiting.

Sometimes, people think its the flu and might even go to the ER thinking they have a really bad flu, Le Mons said, adding that a simple serum ammonia level test, which can detect the condition, is not routinely done in ERs.

Its unclear whether Hefford suffered symptoms of her condition. White, who hopes her daughters story will serve as a warning to help save lives, believes protein supplements need more regulation.

The Australian Medical Association says theres no real health benefit to such supplements. And, while they may not be necessary for most people, theyre not dangerous to most, either.

The estimated incidence of urea cycle disorders is 1 in 8,500 births. Since many cases remain undiagnosed, the exact incidence is unknown and believed to be underestimated.

Theres a myth that this disorder only affects children, Le Mons said, noting that one patient reached age 85 before diagnosis.

Regarding Hefford, Le Mons said that this is not the first time this has happened. Other athletes, who like Hefford were unaware of their condition, have died when a high-protein diet triggered their condition.

Though there is no cure for urea cycle disorder, abalanced dietis all that is needed for some patients, according to the National Urea Cycle Disorders Foundation.

Treatment may include supplementation with special amino acid formulas, while in some more severe cases, one of two forms of an FDA-approved drug may be prescribed. When these therapies fail, a liver transplant may become necessary.

-32.536104 115.742408

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First pass for Minehunter Service Life Extension – Australian Defence – Australian Defence Magazine

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The Commonwealth has granted First Pass approval to extend the service life for Navys Huon Class Minehunter Coastal vessels, and Thales Australia is to deliver and support new deployable mine countermeasures (MCM) over the next 15 years.

The Head of Navy Capability, Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead, said the project forecast in the Defence White Paper 2016 will ensure Defence is able to provide an effective maritime mine countermeasure capability out to the 2030s.

Minehunters play a vital role in protecting Australias ships, harbours and infrastructure from the threat of sea mines, RADM Mead said.

First Pass approval is a major milestone for this project that will see the life of the Minehunters extended to ensure there is no gap in mine warfare capability as we determine the replacement vessels.

The Huon Class have proven highly capable, supporting Defences international engagement strategy through participation in exercises and operations to secure our sea lanes and disposing of WWII explosive remnants, and they will continue to serve Australia for years to come.

In addition to its mine warfare role, the Huon Class vessels play a unique role in Defence assistance to the civil community and in 2011 provided support in response to severe flooding in Queensland, including the disposal of debris that posed a navigational hazard, RADM Mead said.

The Australian Defence industry will be heavily involved in the future of the platforms. Negotiations are underway with Thales Australia to engage them as the Prime Systems Integrator to deliver the project. Under Thales lead there will be opportunities for other Australian companies to support the Minehunters through their service life.

The Huon class were built by Thales Australia, formerly ADI, and were introduced into service in the early 2000s.

With regard to deployable MCM, RADM Mead said the prevalence and increasing sophistication of sea mines means the RAN must continue to improve the way it finds and disposes of these mines.

New autonomous and remote-controlled technologies deployed from within the maritime task force provides the opportunity to find and dispose of sea mines more safely and efficiently, RADM Mead said.

In the 2030s, Defence will seek to replace its specialised mine hunting and environmental survey vessels with a single fleet of multi-role vessels embarking advanced autonomous and uninhabited systems.

RADM Mead said these newly introduced systems are the first step in realising a future capability which would allow the Royal Australian Navy to clear sea mines with minimal risk to its people and assets.

Thales Australia Ltd will deliver and support the new equipment over the next 15 years, RADM Mead said.

The new capability will primarily be based and sustained at HMASWaterhenin Sydney, NSW.

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US cities rush to take down Confederate monuments after Charlottesville – The Independent

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In the fallout from the violent rally in Charlottesville last weekend, a renewed sense of urgency to remove Confederate monuments has taken hold in towns and municipalities across the country.

Under the cover of darkness, workers in Baltimore removed four statues memorialising Confederate figures, after the city council voted unanimously to make moves immediately. Statues in Lexington, Kentucky, are set to be taken down as well, pending approval from a state historical board. A woman in Durham, North Carolina was recently arrested for allegedly tearing down a statue there.

We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defence of slavery, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper later wrote in a post on Medium in what was a light condemnation of the events in Durham, and a call for official action. These monuments should come down.

The movement to take down the statues which some argue represent a violent and racist history, while others say are simply a tribute to Southern heritage echoes the zeitgeist seen in 2015, after nine black churchgoers were murdered in cold blood by a white supremacist hoping to start a race war. Photographs of the killer showed him posing with the Confederate flag, sparking outrage that led to efforts across the South to remove that flag from public grounds. The recent rally in support of keeping a Confederate monument also drew blood, and now the rush to remove the monuments is the topic of discussion in manycommunities with similar statues or plaques.

The debate over Confederate monuments isnt exactly new, however. Public displays honouring Confederate figures and ideas can be seen all across the United States, and many localities have been considering removal for a long time.

There were some victories for the anti-Confederate monument camp in the absence of national tragedy, too: New Orleans removed four statues earlier this year, for example. Activists in Hollywood, Florida, tell The Independent that their years-long effort to rename streets honouring Confederate figures is on the verge of succeeding.

But, the very fact that this is being debated after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee turned terribly wrong, shows how polarising the issue can be. Tensions were so high in Charlottesville that the planned rally needed to be disbursed almost immediately after its scheduled starting time, but clashes continued between demonstrators and counter protesters. That violence culminated in the death of a woman after a white supremacist allegedly drove his car through a crowd.

There are more than 1,500 Confederate monuments or symbols on public grounds around the country, according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre. That includes more than 700 monuments, and more than 100 public schools named after Confederate generals.

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US cities rush to take down Confederate monuments after Charlottesville - The Independent

Personal and Politically Charged, the Press Release for Kara Walker’s New Show Is a Work of Art All by Itself – artnet News

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The title of Kara Walkers upcoming solo exhibition at New Yorks Sikkema Jenkins & Co., even by Walkers baroque standards, is ostentatious: Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season! But its the extraordinary press release for the show that has already caused a stir on social media.

The first half of the release is written in the style of an old-timey advertisement for a sideshow attraction. It reads, in part, as acritique of the blockbuster status of Walkers previous exhibitions, such as her 2014 Creative Time installation, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby.

That35-by-75 sculpture, of a conspicuously naked black women rendered in tons and tons of white sugar, seemed to capture the cultural zeitgeist, attracting crowds and becoming an Instagram sensation during its run at an abandoned Brooklyn sugar factory.

Earlier this year, Walker toldNew Yorkmagazine that she was surprised to find that visitors to the exhibition were just as quick to gawk at her, when she stopped by, as at the mammoth sculpture.

That interview also hinted at Walkers struggles with her fame.Were in too much of a celebrity culture, she said, but at least that means I can be a disappointment to others.

Kara Walker, A Subtlety (2014). Courtesy Creative Time/photographer Jason Wyche.

Walker catapulted to fame in 1994, at the age of just 25, with her show at New Yorks Drawing Center, Gone:An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred btween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. The exhibition introduced her signature, paper cut-outs in the style of vintage silhouettes, depictingcartoonish scenes of horror and debauchery from the Antebellum South.

Famously, that work attracted protest from artists including Betye Saar, a veteran of the Black Arts Movement whose letter condemning Walkers work askedAre African Americans being betrayed under the guise of art?.

Kara Walker, Gone, An Historical Romance of Civil War As it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of Young Negress and Her Heart (1994). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.

The new press release preemptively anticipates (or courts) more contemporary criticism, with a tone at once defiant and ironic:

Students of Color will eye her work suspiciously and exercise their free right to Culturally Annihilate her on social media. Parents will cover the eyes of innocent children. School Teachers will reexamine their art history curricula. Prestigious Academic Societies will withdraw their support, former husbands and former lovers will recoil in abject terror. Critics will shake their heads in bemused silence. Gallery Directors will wring their hands at the sight of throngs of the gallery-curious flooding the pavement outside. The Final President of the United States will visibly wince. Empires will fall, although which ones, only time will tell.

Kara Walker, U.S.A. Idioms(2017), detail. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

But the textthen shifts into a more personal and world-weary register in a second section, in which Walker begins by addressing the motivation for the unusual press release itself:

I dont really feel the need to write a statement about a painting show. I know what you all expect from me and I have complied up to a point. But frankly I am tired, tired of standing up, being counted, tired of having a voice or worse being a role model.

Read the full exhibition press release here:

Kara Walker: Sikkema Jenkins and Co. is Compelled to present The most Astounding and Important Painting show of the fall Art Show viewing season! is on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., 530 West 22nd Street, New York, September 7October 14, 2017.

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Personal and Politically Charged, the Press Release for Kara Walker's New Show Is a Work of Art All by Itself - artnet News

Government is keen on establishing a digital economy – Minister – Ghana News Agency

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By Amadu Kamil Sanah, GNA

Accra, Aug. 16, GNA - Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister of Communications, said Government was keen on establishing a digital economy which would improve efficiency of government business.

She said the Ministry of Communications was currently implementing a number of projects under the e-Transform initiative namely e-Immigration, e-Parliament, e-Procurement, Tertiary Institutions Connectivity Programme and e-Justice to achieve that goal.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful who said at the inauguration of the Board of Directors of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) in Accra, urged the Board to be proactive and efficient in its operations to ensure success in their endeavour.

The Board, which is chaired by Dr Mohammed-Sani Abdulai, include, Mr Jeffrey Konadu Addo, NITA Acting Director-General, Mr Gerard Nana Kwakwa Osei-Tutu, Dr Gezer Osei Yeboah-Boateng and Mr Emmanuel Mensah-Bonsu.

Other members are Mr Albert Antwi-Boasiako, Ms Ama Daaku, Mr Kwasi Agyei Tabi, and Mr. Ernest Andam Brown.

Section 9(1)(a) of the NITA Act, Act 771, 2008, enjoins members of the Board to submit to the Agency a written declaration that includes details of their shareholdings, debentures or other interests in a company whether directly or indirectly owned, public or charitable appointments as well as directorships held by the member.

The Act also enjoins members to inform the Agency of any change in respect of that members shareholdings, debentures or other interests in the company whether directly or indirectly owned by the member, and not knowingly make a false declaration.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the successful implementation of the e-Transform initiative depended on the efficient management of NITAs infrastructure and call on Board and management to work to ensure high service level attainments.

She said the Ministry of Communication have set a target to enforce the usage of Government Domain name across all Government Agencies and Department for the transaction of official business and NITA is expected to facilitate the achievement of the target.

The Communications Minister said to be able achieve all these targets, NITA needed to operationalise its regulatory mandate which has not been done since the law was passed in 2008.

She said Governments intended to scale up the use of technology at all levels to facilitate the implementation of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-led socio-economic agenda for which reason, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has constituted the Board to deliver on this mandate guided by the principles in the NITA Act of 2008 (Act 771 and Act 778).

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the President, in constituting this Board, considered the diverse expertise and experience of members and have no doubt that members would implement innovative strategies to resolve the challenges of the Agency and transform it into an effective organization capable of leading the implementation of the Digital Ghana Agenda.

She said Government has made significant investment in building an extensive ICT infrastructure that has been placed in the care of NITA and expected that this will be managed efficiently and profitably.

The Public Services Commission has approved the administrative structure and scheme of Service to enable NITA engage qualified professionals into the Agency. I entreat the Board to support the management in its effort to build the requisite capacity for the agency.

In view of the urgency of attracting and retaining requisite skilled manpower to manage government IT assets, I urge the Board to reengage the Public Service Commission to improve upon the conditions of service of your staff, she said.

The Minister said, her outfit have informed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to seek NITAs input before acquiring any IT solution, application, platform or device to ensure the interoperability of the government IT architecture to end the culture of working in silos.

She urged the board to expedite work to ensure effective discharge of its mandate by Setting the standards for all IT applications, systems, devices procured by MMDAS, Enhance your regulatory functions as soon as possible by passing and implementing the requisite LIs and Establish Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to ensure secure online transactions, enhance delivery of online services and enhance e-government implementation, mindful of the ongoing work in this regard.

They are also to Establish an effective customer complaints unit to address complaints from the public and MDAs on the quality of its service, develop an effective marketing strategy for use of the National Data Centre as a secure and safe infrastructure for data storage, Manage Governments broadband infrastructure effectively to provide efficient services to its client and Recover subscription fees and charges for the supply of Bandwidth to MDAs.

Dr Abdulai assured the Minister of the Boards commitment to re-position NITA by building its human resource based to promote the government digital economy agenda.

He said the Board recognised the importance of ICT in a growing economy and that the responsibility of building a quality service delivery would be achieved through revisiting NITAs business strategy and leverage the Community Information Centres to become learning centres of its various locations.

NITA was set up under the National Information Technology Act (Act 771) of 2008 and mandated to regulate the deployment of ICT, Promote standards in technology applications and ensure high quality of technology service among government agencies at the national, regional and local levels in a harmonized manner.

It is also to Promote private sector partnership in ICT deployment, ensure security of networks at all times, advise the Ministry on policy review in the ICT sector and Investigate, resolve disputes between license holders under the Electronic Transactions Act referred to the Agency by license holders and to certify all agencies established under the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772).

GNA

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After lifting minimum wage, NDP government prepares to consult public about reducing poverty – Straight.com

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The B.C. NDP government hopes to have a poverty-reduction strategy in place by next year.

Thats according to Social Development and Poverty Reduction Minister Shane Simpson.

At this month's Vancouver Pride parade, Simpson told the Straightthat the province has had "flat wage growth" for well over a decade.

He also said that about 500,000 British Columbians are living in povertyand theyre not all on income assistance or disability benefits.

Half of those people are the working poor, Simpson stated. Theyve got a full-time paycheque coming into the house.

The government plans to address this by increasing the minimum wage in the hope that it will encourage employers to raise their workers pay.

Others have taken the trickle-down approach to economic benefits being distributed, Simpson noted, referring to the Gordon Campbell governments decision to cut everyones income tax by 25 percent when it took power in 2001. Were going to push it from the bottom up.

On August 15, Premier John Horgan announced that the minimum wage would increase by 50 cents an hour next month to $11.35 per hour.

He's also promised to boost it to $15 per hour by the end of the NDP government's first term in office.

One of the Horgan governments earliest moves was increasing income-assistance rates by $100 per month.

Meanwhile, Simpson said there will soon be a public-consultation process in advance of introducing legislation on a poverty-reduction strategy.

The objective, according to Simpson, is to involve all ministries that can play a role, including those that oversee housing, childcare, income assistance, and education.

Well bring them all together and, hopefully, be able to develop some strategies working with people in the community to start to break the cycle of poverty that captures people and captures families, he said. Its incredibly hard for them to break that. It tends to go on for generations.

Simpson stressed the importance of providing meaningful opportunities for poor people to participate in government consultations.

Were going to craft a way to do that, Simpson promised.

He also said that the NDP government is committed to creating and measuring the results of a basic-income pilot project in B.C.

The minister suggested it might take three years to generate sufficient data for the government to draw conclusions.

Theres a similar pilot under way in Ontario. But one of the challenges is how to deal with public pensions, which fall under federal jurisdiction.

Advocates of a basic-income guarantee say it will provide everyone with sufficient money to meet basic needs and live in dignity, regardless of their employment status.

Some people are quite supportive of it, others are a little more skeptical about whether it can work, Simpson said. Im not certain one way or the other, but I think its worth a look.

When he was an opposition MLA, Simpson often made the case for a provincial poverty-reduction plan.

His private member's bill on this issue in 2011 called for a minister responsible for poverty reduction to publish an annual report detailing the state of poverty in B.C.

In addition, the bill called for independent comment from an advisory committee, and reporting on the progress toward implementing a strategy, the attainment of goals and specific objectives and performance measures, and recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the strategy.

It also included a section requiring consultation with B.C. residents living in poverty, as well as with other levels of government, First Nations, nonprofit groups, the business community, academics, and the trade-union community.

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After lifting minimum wage, NDP government prepares to consult public about reducing poverty - Straight.com

Automation may take our jobsbut it’ll restore our humanity – Quartz

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For humans to survive the automation revolution, we need to double down on our humanity.

The argument goes like this: Artificial intelligence is getting better and better at automating things that humans do. Not just repetitive tasks like assembling parts in a factory, but complex tasks that have traditionally been the domain of humans. Pretty soon, these machine agents will take all the jobs. Humans need not apply.

Weve seen this movie play out beforeand after a gritty fight, we won. The advent of agriculture put hunters and gathers out of business. Then industrial farming put farmers out of business. But each time technology ate one type of jobs, new ones appeared to take their place. Human ingenuity did its thing, we adapted, and we survived to live (and work) another century.

But, say the naysayers, this time is different. Were not talking about dumb machines programmed to do very specific taskswere talking about AIs that learn and get better by watching us and parsing our data for patterns. Globally networked AIs that learn and cooperate with each other will be very powerful, according to author and futurist Yuval Harari. In order to replace most humans, he says, the AI wont have to do very spectacular things.

I do not buy into that version of the future, and here are some reasons why.

AI is smart, but it really isnt as smart as we think. Its true that AI is getting better at tackling complex problems, but its equally true that AI is still not very good at doing many of the things associated with human jobs.

Automation will take away the parts of our jobs we dont like and leave room for more meaningful work.AIs have gotten pretty good at a believable facsimile of humanity in tightly controlled situationslike scheduling meetings. But a general-purpose AI that truly understands you and can respond with creativity and empathy, like the android Ava from Ex Machina? Not so much. AI isnt very good at jobs that require creativity, empathy, critical thinking, leadership, artistic expression, and a whole host of other qualities we traditionally think of as human. Which is why, according to Michael Chui of the McKinsey Global Institute, entire jobs or industries wont often be automated away.

Rather, automation will release humans from the need to perform specific tasks. Those will mostly be non-creative and non-personal tasks that can be broken down into relatively predictable parts. These are chores you didnt want to do to begin with. A lot of people arent hired to schedule meetings, submit receipts for reimbursements, or book flights, anywayfor a lot of folks, theyre just a dreadful set of tasks that came along with your otherwise pretty exciting job.

As venture capitalist Marc Andreessen points out, theres a subtext to the-robots-are-taking-our-jobs argument that is rarely discussed: It presupposes that humans are not smart enough to think up new industries and jobs.

But when industrialization killed the agriculture jobs that employed almost three quarters of the population, people dreamed up new ways to keep fellow humans working. We crisscrossed the country with highways. We took to the skies in flying machines. We built computers. We birthed entire industries around entertainment, healthcare, and education.

I have more faith in humans, and I have yet to see any real evidence to support the pessimism. As Andreessen says, people 100 years ago would marvel at the jobs we do today. The optimist in me finds it difficult to imagine why it will be any different 100 years from now.

AI can seem dystopian because its easier to describe existing jobs disappearing than to imagine industries that never existed appearing, tweeted Box CEO Aaron Levie. Hes right. Theres just no compelling reason to bet against humans when the past 200 years of history shows that were pretty damn good at adapting to technological change.

Not only havent we reached our full potential, but AI can help us reach higher. The debate between artificial intelligence (machines replace us) vs intelligence augmentation (machines help us) has been raging for decades. One side wants to engineer humans out of the equation, while the other thinks the role of machines is to help people perform better.

AI will make us better at our jobs, and better at being human.But that debate misses the point. The two ideas arent mutually exclusive. Its true that AI can do certain things far better than humansIve staked my entrepreneurial future on that. But its also true that when AI starts doing those things, it will make us better at our jobs, and better at being human.

Take a job in sales, for example. Right now, a sales assistant likely spends a lot of time doing things that could be automated: prospecting for and qualifying leads, sending follow-up emails, updating Salesforce, building reports, etc. Once all thats taken over by intelligent machine agents, whats left for you as a salesperson? Its the emotional and creative stuff. Youll spend your day building relationships and serving your clients with creative solutions to their problems. By freeing you from the mundane tasks you used to have to do, often grudgingly, AI will let you focus on things that form the core of your job: the stuff that only you, a human, can do.

This is already happening. Lets stick with the sales example. My companys AI assistant, Amy, removes the tedious task of scheduling meetings from your plate. A sales-specific assistant like Tact automatically captures sales data, reducing administrative load, and then Troops.ai automates the process of organizing it in Salesforce. When it comes time to communicate with leads, Crystal builds personality profiles based on social-media use and suggests ways to personalize your messages. These AI assistants are helping salespeople today by augmenting their existing skills and allowing them to focus on the human side of the job.

One implication of all this is that for humans to succeed in the AI-powered future, we need to double down on our humanity. Technical skills will no doubt remain important in the future of work, but as AI allows us to automate repetitive tasks across many industries, these will in many cases take a back seat to soft skills. Communication, emotional intelligence, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and cognitive flexibility will become the most sought-after abilities. To prepare for that future, we need to emphasize developing higher-order thinking and emotional skills.

While our formal education system catches up to the shifting definition of human intelligence, here are three basic ideas for improving your prospects in the future of work.

I see a bright future for humans. In fact, I believe there will be plenty of challenging work for humans because of AI, not in spite of it. I build AI agents for a living, but when it comes to creativity and innovation, Ill continue to bet on humans. Well come through with new ideas, new industries, and new ways to keep ourselves busy and productive, this time buttressed by AI helpers. Our imagination will carry us forward. It always does.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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Automation may take our jobsbut it'll restore our humanity - Quartz

Raising the minimum wage spurs these companies to replace workers with automation – MarketWatch

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Raising the minimum wage may be one of the biggest factors in creating more automated jobs.

A sharp minimum wage increase in the U.S. will most severely impact low-skilled workers, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey data from 1980 to 2015 by economists Grace Lordan from the London School of Economics and David Neumark from the University of California at Irvine. The findings imply that groups often ignored in the minimum wage literature are in fact quite vulnerable to employment changes and job loss because of automation following a minimum wage increase, the paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. concluded.

The highest concentration of industrial robots occurs in the Midwest and Upper South of the U.S., according to data released this week by the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. More than half of the nations 233,305 industrial robots are burning welds, painting cars, assembling products, handling materials, or packaging things in 10 Midwestern and Southern states, led by Michigan (28,000 robots or 12% of total number), Ohio (20,400 or 8.7%), and Indiana (19,400 or 8.3%). The entire West accounts for just 13% of the nations industrial robots.

Increases in minimum wage give firms incentives to adopt new technologies that replace workers. Their increased payroll costs effectively cause them to make investments in new technologies that they hope will save them money. While these adoptions undoubtedly lead to some new jobs, there are workers who will be displaced that do not have the skills to do the new tasks. While roughly half are under the age of 24, minimum-wage workers represent 15% of the overall workforce, Neumark said. This vulnerability among minimum-wage workers is greater for older workers, he said. For a 50-year-old, the opportunities and likelihood of retraining are a lot harder.

The political debate between Democrats and Republicans over the impact of the minimum wage has been raging for decades. One side says it puts pressure on small (and large) businesses, while the other argues that raising the minimum wage helps lift people out of poverty. The national minimum wage has risen only 116% over the last three decades, from $3.35 an hour to $7.25. But some 19 states have minimum wages that are higher than the federal rate. (Since 1985, Wall Street bonuses soared 890%, seven times the rise in the federal minimum wage, according to recent data by the New York State Comptroller released in March.)

Dont miss: When Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg sound the same dire warning about jobs, its time to listen

Many of these automation-heavy states voted for President Donald Trump in Novembers election. We know that many of the voters who propelled Donald Trump to victory were in rural areas, says Mark Hamrick, Washington, D.C. bureau chief at personal finance website Bankrate.com. Generally, these are areas of the country, like my own hometown in Kansas, which have seen declining population precisely because of a lack of economic opportunity. By contrast, people are attracted to areas where jobs are available or even plentiful, which tends to reinforce the cycle.

Robots are expected to create 15 million new jobs in the U.S. over the next 10 years, equivalent to 10% of the workforce, Forrester Research found. The downside: Robotics will also kill 25 million jobs over the same period. And the better a job pays, the less likely it is to be replaced by automation: Theres an 83% chance that automation will replace a job that pays $20 per hour, a White House report released last year concluded. That falls to 31% for a job that pays between $30 and $40 per hour, and only a 4% chance for a job that pays $40 per hour or more.

U.S. wages have been flat. The average CEO of an S&P 500 company made 347 times more money than the average worker, according to separate data released in May by Executive Pay Watch, a report conducted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Last year, CEOs were paid 335 times the average worker who has seen his/her pay rise 3% per year. The average production and non-supervisory worker earned $37,600 annually in 2016. When adjusted for inflation, the average wage has remained stagnant for 50 years, the report concluded.

Lordan and Neumark did find that hikes in the minimum wage had a more positive effect on females in higher-wage jobs. This suggests that employment prospects for some workers in higher-wage occupations are boosted by minimum wage increases, consistent with a story in which some jobs are lost to automation, while others are created. Those that are created are for higher-wage workers among the lower-skilled workers, and perhaps given that result emerges for women among jobs less likely to involve manual or physically demanding labor.

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Raising the minimum wage spurs these companies to replace workers with automation - MarketWatch

Ag automation the theme at Future Farm Expo – East Oregonian (subscription)

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The Future Farm Expo kicked off Tuesday with talks on drones, smartphone apps and how automation will save farming.

Staff photo by George Plaven

Austin Hawkins, right, territory manager for Intelligent Ag, discusses wireless blockage monitoring technology for tillers and seeders Tuesday with Tom Jackson during the Future Farm Expo in Pendleton.

Staff photo by George Plaven

John Church, professor of precision ranching at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Canada, flies a drone as part of a presentation on managing cattle Tuesday during the Future Farm Expo.

George Kellerman has four predictions for the future of farm technology.

Speaking before a crowd of several hundred registered guests at the Happy Canyon Arena, Kellerman said he expects all farm equipment will be eventually be connected to the Internet, rigged with sensors, capable of artificial intelligence and able to operate autonomously in the field.

The future is now, Kellerman said. If we build the right kinds of vehicles, equipment and technology, I think its doable.

Not only is it doable, but Kellerman insisted it will become imperative as farm industries contend with a growing labor shortage.

A lot of people think robots are going to take jobs in agriculture, Kellerman said. Its just the opposite.

Kellerman, a founding member and chief operations officer of Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, delivered the keynote address Tuesday morning at the Future Farm Expo in Pendleton, where he discussed how robotics and automation will save farming in the 21st century.

With that in mind, the Future Farm Expo serves as a forum where high-tech innovators from around the world can rub elbows with Eastern Oregon growers and explain how the latest developments from drones to smartphone apps will boost efficiency and production of local crops.

More than 250 people registered for the three-day conference. Jeff Lorton, who manages the Oregon UAS Future Farm program in Pendleton, said the goal is to build connections that can ultimately unlock the potential of agricultural technology.

The Columbia Basin is one of the worlds most productive agricultural areas, Lorton added, with a farm gate value of $20 billion.

This is the perfect place for the creation of a future farm, he said.

Day one of the three-day expo featured presentations about precision agriculture and how technology is steering farms from automation to autonomy. John Church, professor of precision ranching at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Canada, provided a live indoor demonstration of drones he uses to manage livestock from the sky.

Drones can be used on the ranch to find lost cattle, map pastures and take livestock inventory using multi-spectral cameras, Church said.

We can not only manage the cattle, but the pasture these cattle are on with these (unmanned aerial vehicles), he said.

The final panel of the day brought together industry experts who fielded questions about where they see farm technology heading in the next five to 10 years.

Mel Torrie, founder and CEO of Autonomous Systems Inc., said adoption of any new technology boils down to trust.

I think the route is going to be just greater and greater automation until that trust catches up to the technology, Torrie said.

The Future Farm Expo continues Wednesday, including UAV field demonstrations at Echo West Vineyard. The conference wraps up Thursday with a pancake summit back at the Pendleton Convention Center.

Contact George Plaven at gplaven@eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0825.

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Ag automation the theme at Future Farm Expo - East Oregonian (subscription)

Global Float Switch Market 2017-2021 – Increasing Need for Process Automation is Driving the Market – PR Newswire (press release)

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The global float switch market to grow at a CAGR of 3.48% during the period 2017-2021

Global Float Switch Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market. To calculate the market size, the report considers new installations, retrofit, replacement, aftermarket, and services market.

One trend in the market is increasing use of automated wireless pump control products. Vendors have introduced automated wireless pump control products to improve the efficiency of pump control. These products can be connected to float and mechanical switches. These devices help in remotely controlling the functions of the pumps, such as the flow of liquids and speed of the motor.

According to the report, one driver in the market is increasing need for process automation. Many end-user industries are upgrading their existing manufacturing facilities to improve the efficiency of the plants and reduce the operating costs. With the help of automation and robotic solutions, manufacturing facilities can improve the quality of their production, thereby improving the efficiency. With the help of IIoT, these manufacturing facilities can collect data, which can be used for analytics and strategic decision making. With the help of automation, the precision and quality of work can be maintained, which helps in improving the output of the products.

Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is premature failure of float switches. Certain models of float switches are not suitable for certain applications, which causes float switch failure. Failure may occur due to the temperature of the liquid, which could affect the functioning of the switches, corrosion of float switches of due to exposure of these switches to various viscous liquids, and improper installations. These factors can damage the float switches and raise the need for their replacement on a frequent basis. The lack of awareness during the selection of float switches is the major reason for the premature failure.

Key Vendors

Other Prominent Vendors

Key Topics Covered:

Part 01: Executive Summary

Part 02: Scope Of The Report

Part 03: Research Methodology

Part 04: Introduction

Part 05: Market Landscape

Part 06: Market Segmentation By Product Type

Part 07: Market Segmentation By End-User

Part 08: Geographical Segmentation

Part 09: Decision Framework

Part 10: Drivers And Challenges

Part 11: Market Trends

Part 12: Vendor Landscape

Part 13: Key Vendor Analysis

Part 14: Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/wrl8cx/global_float

Media Contact:

Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com

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View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-float-switch-market-2017-2021---increasing-need-for-process-automation-is-driving-the-market-300505194.html

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Global Float Switch Market 2017-2021 - Increasing Need for Process Automation is Driving the Market - PR Newswire (press release)

Modern Slavery: alive and well in the UK – Lexology (registration)

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Speaking about the problem of modern slavery in the UK last Thursday, Will Kerr of the National Crime Agency (NCA) told a group of journalists:

The more we look for modern slavery, the more we find evidence of the widespread abuse of the vulnerable. The growing body of evidence we are collecting points to the scale being far larger than anyone had previously thought.

The following day, the news broke that 11 members of a Lincolnshire family had been convicted of a series of modern slavery offences after forcing at least 18 individuals, including homeless people and those with learning disabilities, to work for little or no pay and live in squalid conditions.

Apparently, the Rooney family had told their victims that they would offer them work and accommodation but once the individuals accepted, they were allocated dilapidated caravans, mostly with no heating, water or toilet facilities.

Its clear, then, that modern slavery is far from leaving our UK shores; its prevalence, instead, seems to be ever increasing.

So what counts as modern slavery?

It is often discussed in relation to sexual slavery and the exploitation of predominately young women and girls, but its important that discourse accounts for the diversity amongst the victims as well as the types of exploitation.

The Government has estimated that there are up to 13,000 people living in slavery in Britain today. Of this estimated total, far fewer are referred through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) which was set up for this purpose. In 2016, there were 3,805 referrals made (a number which has risen from 1,745 in 2013). 2,527 of the referrals were adults and, of those, 44% were subject to labour exploitation, 38% to sexual exploitation and 13% to domestic servitude.

Unsurprisingly, there were a far greater number of females referred in relation to sexual exploitation and domestic servitude (93% and 79% respectively) and there were far more males referred in relation to labour exploitation (84%). However, the split in terms of men and women referred to the NRM is relatively even; 1,936 females and 1,864 males.

Those referred to the NRM in 2016 had also originally come from 108 different counties; the seven most common countries being Albania, Vietnam, the UK, Nigeria, China, Romania and Poland.

With incidences of labour exploitation being reported in the beauty industry, catering, agriculture and amongst cleaners, care workers and couriers to name only a few, there can be no set image of what someone who is being exploited looks like. Ethnicities, ages, nationalities and levels of education can all vary. Vulnerability, alone, remains a constant.

Its important too that we are open about the fact that there are differing severities of exploitation. Some victims may be paid a wage, work in a customer-facing role and have at least some freedom in respect of their lives and activities. All this is possible, while they are still being paid well below the national minimum wage, working under coercion and living in fear of one form or another.

The precise reason it is important to have these discussions is so modern slavery can be tackled effectively. We might encounter victims at car washes and nail bars; victims might be delivering our pizzas or cleaning our houses.

With this in mind, Will Kerrs comments come as the NCA launch an advertising campaign to try and raise awareness about the signs of slavery in modern day life. Some signs could be that an individual is looking distressed and unkempt with dirty or very old clothing, they might be injured, either visibly or moving in a way that indicates pain or it may be apparent that someone else is controlling them, perhaps by not allowing them to speak for themselves or visibly guiding what they say or do.

The truth is that although its important for members of the public to be vigilant, identifying victims is difficult and not always going to be possible.

So what, then, can be done?

Unfortunately, substantial change will only occur at a governmental level. The introduction of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was a step in the right direction and has focussed attention and resources on modern slavery. Arguably, however, its focus is too heavily on law enforcement and it doesnt go far enough to protect victims, particularly domestic workers, who are still expected to challenge their abuser in order to then seek protection, which then leaves them undocumented and therefore potentially criminalised.

Crucially, modern slavery, trafficking and labour exploitation cannot be isolated from each other and need to be viewed holistically. Moreover, they are firmly part of a worsening refugee crisis and a UK workforce that is becoming increasingly unregulated.

Yes, its helpful to hear Will Kerr talk about the scale of the problem in the UK and its important that prosecutions continue to be reported, but the Government will have to address these crises of modern Britain together in order to stand a hope of tackling modern slavery head on.

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Modern Slavery: alive and well in the UK - Lexology (registration)

Uzbekistan To Abolish Exit Visa System In 2019 – RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

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Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has signed a decree that will enable citizens to travel abroad from the state without permission as of January 1, 2019.

The decree, published by state media outlets on August 16, orders the introduction of biometric passports and the abolition of the exit visa requirement.

The decree says the new rules for foreign travel are designed to "rule out bureaucratic hurdles and instances of corruption" linked to the system under which Uzbeks must seek government approval to leave the country.

A draft decree posted on a government website in January included a clause scrapping the long-standing exit-visa requirement, but officials at the time suggested the change was not imminent.

The system inherited from the Soviet era has been a major barrier for Uzbeks seeking to leave the country, and a source of illegal income for officials who expedite the process in exchange for bribes.

Many people in the Central Asian country of some 30 million travel to Russia to find work and send remittances home.

Mirziyoev has taken steps to decrease Uzbekistan's isolation since he came to power in September 2016, after the death of autocratic longtime leader Islam Karimov.

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Uzbekistan To Abolish Exit Visa System In 2019 - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Confederate statues don’t just promote white supremacy. They erase those who dared to revolt. – Vox

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Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays.

This July, I traveled to Barbados to unwind and get away. I didnt know Id encounter a monument that would help me understand how America processes our history.

Heading into town from the airport, we circled a statue situated in one of the most prominent intersections in town. It depicts a black man, Bussa, breaking the chains that bound his hands in slavery. In 1816, Bussa, an enslaved African, organized enslaved black people across every major plantation to stage a nationwide revolt in what is now known as Bussas Rebellion. His actions were instrumental in bringing about the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies.

As someone who grew up in Florida, I had never seen anything like it. For me, a racial justice activist, it communicated viscerally what no study or analysis ever could. It helped me imagine a landscape of liberation.

That night, I tweeted an image of the statue. People began tweeting back pictures of others just like it. Statues in Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Jamaica, Saint Martin, Haiti, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Curaao all of black men and women who organized, fought, and risked their lives for emancipation. Free. Fearless. Empowering by design.

These statues represented a reality I did not experience growing up. The monuments in my hometown celebrated the men who fought to keep those who look like me enslaved, not those who fought for freedom. A monument in downtown Orlando where I grew up depicted a Confederate soldier, rifle over his shoulder and towering above his surroundings. At its base was a plaque celebrating the heroic courage and unselfish patriotism of their cause. A few miles down the road, children spent their days learning in the classrooms of Robert E. Lee Middle School.

More than 700 monuments to these white supremacists dot the landscape of the United States not just across the South. Theres a Confederate Memorial Fountain in Montana, Jefferson Davis Park in Washington state, and Stonewall Jackson Drive located on an Army base in Brooklyn. These are symbols designed to empower hateful ideology and disempower those who continue to be oppressed by it. As we saw last week in Charlottesville, they have become rallying points for todays white supremacists.

When I was growing up, the Confederate statue seemed to blend into the landscape of the city. It loomed over us as we walked to recess in middle school. But it wasnt until I was older that I began to comprehend its significance. I'll never forget the anger I felt reading the words it used to describe the Confederates. Heroic courage. Unselfish patriotism.

These monuments are not benign markers of Southern heritage. They unequivocally celebrate a tradition of white supremacy. Look no further than Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, who declared the Confederacy to be founded upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.

The reason these statues were built has its roots in oppression. Most of these monuments were constructed in the early 1900s as the South was imposing Jim Crow segregation and racial terrorism on black communities. In fact, many were a direct reaction to the perceived threat of racial progress, as with the surge in schools being named after Confederates following the Brown v. Board of Education decision on school integration.

This concerted effort to resurrect the symbolism of the Confederacy so long after losing the war is without precedent. For instance, there are no statues of Hitler in Germany today. Swastikas and other Nazi emblems are banned throughout the country. Rather, the German government has chosen to shut down symbols of its nations history of hate and devote resources to commemorate the people who were victimized.

In 1739, an enslaved Central African man named Jemmy led the Stono Rebellion the largest slave uprising in colonial American history. Starting in South Carolina, Jemmy recruited, organized, and armed up to 100 freedom fighters. Together, they marched toward refuge in Florida carrying banners and chanting, Liberty! lukango in their native language Kikongo. They burned six plantations and fought off white militias for a week before the rebellion was ended. Jemmy was killed, but some of his followers are thought to have made it to Florida.

Today there is a lone sign propped up amid the grassy fields of South Carolina to bear witness to the Stono Rebellion. It does not mention Jemmy by name. Why are there so many monuments in America celebrating traitors like Jefferson Davis and so few celebrating heroes like Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, and Jemmy? Even the US Capitol has at least three times as many statues of Confederate figures as it does of black people. Confederate statues celebrate racism, but the ideology of white supremacy not only venerates oppressors it also erases the stories and sacrifices of those who dared to resist.

It erases the stories of enslaved black people who, despite the most oppressive circumstances, managed to lead as many as 313 rebellions. It tells us that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not that 200,000 black soldiers many formerly enslaved fought to make emancipation a reality. This erasure robs us of a rich legacy of resistance to draw upon when confronting the oppression of today.

It doesnt have to be this way. Following persistent pressure from local activists, that statue in Orlando was relocated and Robert E. Lee Middle School renamed. This week, officials in Charlottesville, Louisville, and Baltimore began to remove those cities Confederate statues. In Durham, students tore down a Confederate statue whose odious presence in front of the courthouse could not be endured any longer. Progress is being made.

Yes, each Confederate statue should be removed, each Confederate school and street renamed. But the fact that the national debate still centers on whether pro-slavery monuments should be taken down, not on how many anti-racist monuments should be built, speaks volumes. Why isn't the idea of building statues like Bussas being considered prominently in this national conversation? Why does it seem so hard for this nation to imagine a world where black freedom fighters are celebrated instead of their oppressors?

At a time when white supremacists pose a growing threat, local leaders, artists, and activists should work together to build symbols that unequivocally reject this hateful ideology: monuments that give voice to the truths unheard, celebrate the heroes untaught, and inspire the next generation to join the necessary work of perfecting our union. We deserve to look up to freedom fighters like Bussa, not continue to be looked down upon by our historys cruelest oppressors.

We deserve more statues that depict our liberation.

Samuel Sinyangwe is an activist and data scientist who co-founded Campaign Zero, a policy platform focused on ending racism and police violence in America.

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

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Confederate statues don't just promote white supremacy. They erase those who dared to revolt. - Vox

Views Taking action on HR technology – Employee Benefit News (registration)

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More than $2 billion in investment capital was raised for HR technology in 2015. The HR function is inundated with technology options to help automate, secure and streamline internal processes. These advancements encompass everything from benefits, enrollment, compliance, reporting, payroll, wellness, to employee engagement and more.

In 2016, Deloittes Global Human Capital Trends survey found that 75% of respondents believed digital HR support to be a strong priority, yet only 38% of companies are even thinking about digitizing their HR tools and only 9% are fully on board with digital HR systems.

Why? These companies are thinking short term when they need to be evaluating the long-term impact that intuitive software programs could have on their bottom line. Streamlining and automating HR processes reduces cost redundancies and eliminates unnecessary errors by offering an easier way to track, report and maintain important company records.

Another important consideration is the emerging workforce in which millennials will make up about 50% of the U.S. working population by 2020. This cohort has a very different viewpoint on technology and how they interact with it often to improve the efficiency and quality of their lives. If you want the millennial generation to be as engaged and loyal as previous generations have been before them, your company needs to be evolving right alongside the new digitized era of healthcare technology.

Benefits technology and new innovations in healthcare delivery have made it easier for employees to access and interact with their employer-sponsored health programs, allowing for more engagement when it comes to selecting their benefits, practicing preventive care and even saving for the future.

Healthcare tech integration can seem complex, considering the amount of sensitive data that must be distributed to various stakeholders. However, according to a recent Aflac Report on Workforce Open Enrollment, employees are increasingly going online to enroll in their benefits, as opposed to manually filling out paper forms or going through a call center. Additionally, these employees are expected to carry a greater percentage of their healthcare costs, so they expect advanced decision-making tools and online calculators for support in the process of selecting the coverage that best fits their needs.

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ADP, Deloitte and Maestro Health are just a few of the providers offering employers advanced software and service that promise to improve worker engagement and productivity.

The benefit of these HR technology systems doesnt just support employees. They streamline HR tasks and allow managers to take care of multiple jobs at once via a single online platform. And they provide countless opportunities to increase productivity, eliminate common errors, and free up time for HR functions to focus on more important goals such as recruiting and hiring. Data quality can also increase with the use of technology and you can gain greater insight into your employees, rather than trying to guess when they need you and how best to employ your staff to help them.

Key considerations for adopting a new HR platform:

These days even small to mid-size employers must be adopting new, advanced HR technology platforms to keep them compliant and align them with the needs of their employees. Its not enough to take a wait and see approach because that will put any company behind the curve, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent.

Durkin is director of sales and business development at benefitsContinuum.

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