Data is the new oil for modern tech, transforming countless industries and providing invaluable insight as organizations leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. But this data-rich futurewhere information once bound for cold storage becomes an actionable, strategic assetcomes with challenges. More data must be stored safely at reasonable cost over longer time spans, even as enterprises forge a data foundation layer to transform every type of data they own from a liability to be stored and defended into an asset to be leveraged.

Enterprises need the right storage infrastructure to manage this transition and unlock the potential value in their data. In this blog post, we outline how storage has evolved to combat the challenges of AI, ML, and big data and how the new generation of data storage offers a better solution than traditional stacks.

To make a successful data storage layer for AI and ML operations using large amounts of data, your infrastructure must provide:

It is tough to find all of these characteristics in a traditional storage system. In fact, they look incompatible at first glance. Often, we must stack several different technologies to accomplish this:

Rather than create a complicated stack, a new answer has emerged over the last few years: Next-Generation Object Storage. This solution uses all-flash and hybrid (flash and spinning media) object stores to combine the characteristics of traditional object stores with those usually found in block and file storage. The result:

The challenges posed by AI and ML to data infrastructure have been resolved to some extent by the new generation of object stores.

Object storage now offers much more than it did in the past. It can offload several tasks from the rest of the infrastructure. It is faster and can form the data foundation layer for todays capacity needs and tomorrows next-generation and cloud-native applications. Finally, next-generation object stores make it easier to implement new initiatives based on ML and AI workloads. It allows for a quick start with the potential to grow and evolve the infrastructure as required by the business.

Read more from the original source:

The Evolution of ML Infrastructure Gigaom - Gigaom

CHICAGO (July 21, 2020)Evolution Health, a home health, hospice and infusion therapy provider, has selected Dinas new Staff Screening and Check-In solution to automate its employee wellness and health screening process.

Digital health care company Dina is an artificial intelligence-powered care coordination platform that recently expanded its product line to include employee engagement, health screening and remote patient monitoring solutions.

Evolution Healths family of companies has implemented Dinas Staff Screening and Check-In technology to remotely engage and monitor approximately 1,000 clinicians in four states, with plans to expand to the entire organization. Headquartered in Dallas, Evolution operates Guardian Healthcare, Millennium Health Care, Gem City Home Care, Care Connection of Cincinnati, and The Valley Health Home Care.

Developed in response to the spread of COVID-19, Dinas solution helps employers:

Between 10% and 20% of U.S. coronavirus cases are health care workers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These solutions fit with our mission of helping people age in place and stay safe and healthy at home, said Dina CEO Ashish V. Shah. This starts with keeping our professional caregivers healthy. We believe this will be critical well beyond COVID-19, as states introduce mandates for proactive health care worker safety.

Dinas screening and engagement tools are currently operating in 20 states and managing more than 300,000 daily check-ins for hospitals and home health agencies.

Dinas screening solution helps us create a safe work environment and a safe patient-care environment, said Tom Wilken, Evolutions Vice President of Human Resources. The tool automates what was a tedious paper record-keeping process and frees up our clinicians and operators to spend more time on patient care.

Visit dinacare.com for more information.

See the original post:

Evolution Health Partners with Dina for Employee COVID-19 Screening - HomeCare

With food pictures filling the internet, often under the attention-grabbing tagline of #foodporn, future generations will have no trouble knowing what we've been chowing down on in the 21st century.

Yet the trend of admiring food in an artistic context is nothing new. Artists began depicting food in paintings centuries ago. The painting "Obststand" by the Flemish painter Frans Snyders, for example, depicts an abundance of fruit, including apples, grapes, peaches and an unusual-looking half melon with a white interior, which recently caught the attention of researchers.

Researchers David Vergauwen and Ive De Smet look fruit and vegetables on canvas during museum visits in their quest to learn more about the origins of our fruits and vegetables

When art history meets biology

"This is what watermelons must have looked like back then," art historian David Vergauwen conjectured when he saw the painting hanging in the Hermitage art museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. His colleague, Ive De Smet, a professor of molecular biology, was skeptical and countered that perhaps Frans Snyders simply wasn't a particularly good painter. Vergauwen explained that Snyders was one of the best artists of the 17th century.

Intrigued, the researchers decided to investigate. "We agreed that there must be dozens of fruit and vegetable varieties with interesting developmental histories that we do not know in detail," said Vergauwen. They decided to combine their disparate fields of research biology and art history to trace the evolution of plant foods, from their wild beginnings to modern varieties.

Wild bananas with seeds? No, thanks!

Many of the plant-based foods we use in our kitchens today once looked completely different. Once wild, over the years they were domesticated, cultivated and adapted to suit our taste. Scientists have bred larger plants that bear more fruit, even making undesirable characteristics disappear over time by genetic modification. Wild bananas have large seeds, for example, something one will never find in the supermarket variety.

The researchers hope that the interdisciplinary approach will give them a concrete idea of what wild fruit and vegetable varieties might have looked like and how they might have developed over the years. Although tracing DNA can be very helpful in evolutionary research, it does not paint a clear picture of the past. "We may have part of the genetic code for certain ancient plants, but we often don't have well-preserved specimens," explains De Smet, who works at the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology in Ghent, Belgium.

Too abstract: Picasso's "Pitcher and fruit bowl"

This is where art history comes into play. Over the centuries, numerous artists have depicted plant foods, often in detail. With the help of works of art, scientists have gained insights into the domestication and color of carrots, the production of modern wheat, the cultivation of strawberries and the origin of watermelon, according to the journal Trends in Plant Science.

But the method also has its pitfalls. For example, the reliability of depictions in old paintings is questionable, says Vergauwen. "If, for example, we were to study the phenotype of fruits at the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of Pablo Picasso's Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit, we would probably draw false conclusions." Even the Old Masters could be misleading. Although Hieronymus Bosch's work Garten der Lste (The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1503-1515) correctly depicted the strawberry in its shape and color, the size was clearly disproportionate.

In Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" strawberries are sometimes as big as people

It is up to art historians to determine which artists are reliable and why, explains Vergauwen. "If an artist painted a building that still stands today, or a musical instrument that still exists today, it is likely that he or she did the same with perishable food.

A new hashtag

In order to create an extensive database of fruit and vegetable artworks, Vergauwen and De Smet are now counting on the help of museums and art lovers around the world. "It's easy for us to go to European collections like the Louvre in Paris, but there are museums in Asia or Central and South America that could teach us a thing or two," said Vergauwen.

As a result, they have launched the hashtag #ArtGenetics and are calling on people around the world to tag the artworks that depict plant food to help them in their quest.

While it may not be as catchy as the popular #foodporn hashtag, it's sure to provide some appetizing results.

See the rest here:

What works of art can tell us about the evolution of food - DW (English)

Photo credit: JC Gellidon via Unsplash.

Cells and organisms come pre-equipped with repair mechanisms. It takes foresight to make complex tools and procedures that can restore the functions of other tools. A blind process like evolution can only see the immediate present; it would be unconcerned about what happens next. Repair implies something worth saving. The more delicate the product, the more elaborate the maintenance. Life is worth saving and it is delicate. Logically, therefore, the persistence of life presupposes elaborate repair systems are at work. The following research findings show just how complex some of these repair mechanisms are.

Here is a kind of repair strategy that truly would require foresight. A skilled orthopedic surgeon can look at a broken bone and, through years of training, know that before setting it, he needs to make the break worse. In a compound fracture, for instance, bending the bone farther can allow splintered bones to be put back together. Additionally, assistants in the operating room can apply materials or medicines while the surgeon holds the fracture open. Something like that happens in the nucleus or our cells, scientists found at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Sometimes, when something is broken, the first step to fixing it is to break it even more. A molecular machine named XPG could be dubbed an orthogenic surgeon (ortho- meaning straight).

We saw that XPG makes a beeline for discontinuous DNA places where the hydrogen bonds between bases on each strand of the helix have been disrupted and then it very dramatically bends the strand at that exact location, breaking the interface that connects bases stacked on top of each other, said Susan Tsutakawa, a structural biologist in the Biosciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and first author on the work, published this month in PNAS. The bending activity adds to an already impressive arsenal, as XPG was first identified as a DNA chopping enzyme, responsible for cutting out nucleotide bases with chemical and UV radiation damage. [Emphasis added.]

Natural selection would never do this. First of all, how would XPG recognize a problem that doesnt affect it directly, and how would it know to make a beeline for something elses problem? Then, if by some accident of chance it bent the DNA strand, how would it know how to perform the next surgical step? XPG would be out of a job, rushing toward discontinuous DNA like a blind driver on a demolition derby, breaking genes here and there, killing the organism by a thousand cuts. Instead, look what it does:

An unexpected finding from our imaging data is that the flexible parts of the protein which were previously impossible to examine have the ability to recognize perturbations associated with many different types of DNA damage, said co-author Priscilla Cooper, a biochemist senior scientist in the Biosciences Area. XPG then uses its sculpting properties to bend the DNA in order to recruit and load into place the proteins that can fix that type of damage.

The scientists call this a protein with many jobs that is more like a master sculptor than a demolition crew. Without XPG, a person can incur devastating symptoms of diseases. Some of these fatal syndromes caused by faulty XPG are described in the press release. Often single amino acid substitutions can destabilize the entire protein, they say. If that doesnt clinch the case for design, consider also that the Lawrence Berkeley team found that XPG cooperates with other repair machines like BRCA1 and BRCA2. An entire operating-room team has the foresight to perform orthogenic surgery on DNA. The Darwin-free paper is published in PNAS.1

The brain is busier than a city all the time, even in sleep. Amidst all the clamor, one issue cannot be overlooked: how to dispose of dead cells. A recent article at Evolution News described how the cellular morgue takes care of the problem. In the brain, it is even more vital to quickly eliminate dead cells. A team at Yale School of Medicine heard music inside the skull: they found that astrocytes and microglia perform orchestrated roles and respect phagocytic territories during neuronal corpse removal in the brain. Each player knows its part.

Cell death is prevalent throughout life; however, the coordinated interactions and roles of phagocytes during corpse removal in the live brain are poorly understood. We developed photochemical and viral methodologies to induce death in single cells and combined this with intravital optical imaging. This approach allowed us to track multicellular phagocytic interactions with precise spatiotemporal resolution. Astrocytes and microglia engaged with dying neurons in an orchestrated and synchronized fashion. Each glial cell played specialized roles: Astrocyte processes rapidly polarized and engulfed numerous small dendritic apoptotic bodies, while microglia migrated and engulfed the soma and apical dendrites. The relative involvement and phagocytic specialization of each glial cell was plastic and controlled by the receptor tyrosine kinase Mertk Thus, a precisely orchestrated response and cross-talk between glial cells during corpse removal may be critical for maintaining brain homeostasis.

Their research is published in Science Advances.2 This paper was also Darwin-free except for an opening pinch of incense in the first sentence, Cell death is an evolutionarily conserved and ubiquitous process a useless offering that contributes nothing to the science except to show that evolution was not observed.

Every human life has value, even those with genetic defects (and which human being does not suffer from several?). Whats important to the argument for intelligent design from foresight is how carefully the body practices preventative medicine on the developing embryo. Scientists at Caltech point out,

The first few days of embryonic development are a critical point for determining the failure or success of a pregnancy. Because relatively few cells make up the embryo during this period, the health of each cell is vital to the health of the overall embryo. But often, these young cells have chromosomal aneuploidies meaning, there are too many or too few chromosome copies in the cell. Aneuploid cells lead to the failure of the pregnancy, or cause developmental defects such as Down syndrome later in gestation.

Fortunately, these young embryos perform their own quality control before most genetic abnormalities become established:

Researchers have found that the prevalence of aneuploidy is drastically lower as the embryo grows and develops. Using mouse embryos, scientists from the laboratory of Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Caltechs Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering, now show that this is because embryos are able to rid themselves of abnormal cells just before and soon after implantation into the uterus, thereby keeping the whole embryo healthy.

It is remarkable that embryos can do this, says Zernicka-Goetz. It reflects their plasticity that gives them the power to self-repair.

The scientists found a double-protection mechanism. Not only are aneuploid cells detected and eliminated, but healthy cells are stimulated to proliferate, compensating for the loss of unhealthy cells. The research paper, which also fails to give credit to evolution for this wonderful example of foresight and design, appeared in Nature Communications on June 11.3

Even plants, lacking eyes and brains, know how to repair damage. Plants have a handicap that makes repair more difficult: their repair teams cannot migrate to the site of the injury. Austrian scientists discovered a clever way that a plant can send repair enzymes to the rescue when a stem gets wounded.

Plants are sessile organisms that cannot evade wounding or pathogen attack, and their cells are encapsulated within cell walls, making it impossible to use cell migration for wound healing like animals. Thus, regeneration in plants largely relies on the coordination of targeted cell expansion and oriented cell division. Here we show in the root that the major growth hormone auxin is specifically activated in wound-adjacent cells, regulating cell expansion, cell division rates, and regeneration-involved transcription factor ERF115. These wound responses depend on cell collapse of the eliminated cells presumably perceived by the cell damage-induced changes in cellular pressure. This largely broadens our understanding of how wound responses are coordinated on a cellular level to mediate wound healing and prevent overproliferation.

The research is published in PNAS.4 Its satisfying to say, again, that their paper did not give any credit to evolution. This is one way design wins by default: the repeated failure by Darwinists to show up for the game constitutes abdication.

The concept of repair presupposes foresight.5 How would a blind, unguided process recognize a problem? Even if a working plant or animal were granted a hypothetical existence by evolution, the easiest thing for natural selection to do when a problem occurs is to let the organism die. Uncaring selection owes it no further existence. As these examples show (and there are many, many more), life comes equipped with repair teams that are even more complex than expected. It is remarkable that embryos can do this, Caltech scientists said. Yale scientists watched a precisely orchestrated response to cell death in the brain. Lawrence Berkeley scientists did not expect to see a master sculptor in the nucleus already known to have an impressive arsenal of abilities able to surgically straighten DNA before their eyes. These are the emotional responses of people astonished by design beyond their dreams. If they assume these wonders emerged by evolution, their silence about how it did so speaks volumes.

Continue reading here:

In Cells and Whole Organisms, Repair Mechanisms Imply Foresight, Not Evolution - Discovery Institute

Unsolved Mysteries was made in the opposite style. Its episodes spooled through schlocky reenactments done by actors (including Matthew McConaughey, in his first credited screen role), extracting maximum drama from minimal fact. One segment, building on the eras Satanic Panic, argued that a teenage boys suicide was a Dungeons and Dragonsbased murder plot. By the time home footage became a part of TVs language (Candid Camera, etc.), those who might have watched Unsolved Mysteries were switching to fiction: The X Files scooped up the UFO-enthusiast market as soon as it aired in 1993, and helped mold anti-government conspiracy speculation into its own entertainment genre. Unsolved Mysteriesa show that despite its fantastical mix of genres saw 260 of its featured cases later resolved, sometimes through viewer tips, according to The New York Timessimply didnt feel novel anymore.

Elsewhere on television, a new genre with a different and more compelling spin on blurring fact and fiction would soon undercut the whole mystery genre: reality TV. From Judge Judy to 1992s smash hit The Real World, American entertainment in the 1990s took all that was most engaging about mystery documentary shows (real personalities, real stakes, a constant revolving door of content) and made it personal. Where shows like Unsolved Mysteries or Forensic Files had run on a strange mix of voyeurism and altruism, with the viewer at home playing star witness, reality television would run on voyeurism alonewhile proving easier and less expensive to make than documentaries.

The rise of true crime in recent years makes a lot of sense when you consider how fragmented American nonfiction television programming had become by the end of the 2010s. In 2009, for example, when recession and the prospect of perpetual war were rocking the United States, viewers looking for real life content were offered bafflingly stylized, even surreal shows like Cops, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, and Toddlers and Tiaras. Quality documentary television was rare.

The decades-long progression from reenactments to amateur video footage and reality TV is, in part, a history of what makes on-screen events seem true in U.S. television. But its also, in Netflixs hands, data for an ever-churning algorithma way of predicting the next success. The new Unsolved Mysteries feels precision-engineered for a 2020 audiencelong-form, detailed, and bingeablebut devoid of all the flair and atmosphere that made the original seem untrue and yet interesting to watch.

Now there is no presenter or voiceover, and each hourlong episode focuses on a single, reality-style mystery; more like the chilling, unbelievable truth of The Jinx than the swirling dry ice of The X Files. Of six episodes, five revolve around people whose mysterious deaths were never solved, and one is about a UFO sighting. We meet the families of murder victims, see photos of their lost beloveds, and in one case hear what its like to discover your own brothers body rotting in a rural ditch.

Shawn Levy, who made Arrival, Night at the Museum, and Stranger Thingsalso for Netflix, and also rooted in the genre we could call 1980s paranormalis the shows executive producer. In press notes distributed by Netflix, he wrote that his new program is very loyal to the things we all love about the [Unsolved Mysteries] brand, citing its blend of supernatural with criminal topics and his retention of the old theme tune.

This reference to the shows brand reveals something hollow at the core of the reboot, a kind of cynical nostalgia out of sync with todays sensibilities. The final episode, Missing Witness, for example, is about a young girl whose mother almost certainly killed her. The dead girls sister says to the camera that she will devote her life to bringing her mother to justice. The previous episode was all about a group of people who claim, without much evidence, to have seen an enormous unidentified aircraft in September 1961. That contrastbetween a murdered child and a spaceshipfeels much more jarring than similar contrasts in the original show, in part because this shows new framing is otherwise very serious and intimate. The shows chemistryits balance of light and dark, schlock and the human heartis just plain strange, as if some robot at Netflix HQ were commissioned to create the most engaging possible TV show but had his empathy screw left loose.

Being unable to choose one documentary approach and stick with it, the new Unsolved Mysteries turns out to be a curiously soulless product that will leave viewers suspecting that one of their basest instincts (voyeurism) has been exploited in the name of one of their noblest (the desire to solve crimes, after all, is also an instinct toward justice). Theres nothing more ethical or truthful about this show compared to its predecessorits production is simply truthier in style. Were all smarter, more suspicious consumers of true crime than we were five years ago; we know now that DNA testing is a highly politicized technology, for example, and that Netflix will happily play fast and loose with the facts if it rakes in more viewers. In todays world, where cold case files are more likely to lead to a conversation critiquing the criminal justice system than a tangent on alien abductions, Unsolved Mysteries smacks of yesterdays news.

See the rest here:

Unsolved Mysteries Is a Story of American Television's Evolution - The New Republic

Its been five years since the stateside release of[REC] 4: Apocalypse, the closing entry to a standout franchise in modern horror. Starting with 2007s[REC], this unique quadrilogy shook up the zombie formula and proved just how effective found footage could be at delivering visceral terror; at least at the start.

As with most franchises, each subsequent entry released saw diminishing returns, but that doesnt speak to the creativity or innovative mythology created by filmmakers Jaume Balaguer and Paco Plaza. Looking back, the [REC] series took some daring risks and delivered a cohesive four-film series that evolved in surprising ways.

[REC]

The idea behind 2007s[REC] was born from Balaguer and Plazas desire not just to make a terrifying horror movie but to make the audience an active participant in the fear unfolding on screen. The aim was to attempt to capture the same level of terror fans get from playing a horror video game. So, they decided upon a familiar horror story told through a single camera, treated almost as its if a character itself, relaying the narrative in real-time.

Using that conceit, the film follows reporter ngela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman Pablo, played by unseen actor Pablo Rosso, as they cover the night shift of a local fire station for their television series While Youre Sleeping. What begins as a quiet, dull evening inside turns harrowing when the pair accompany firefighters lex (David Vert) and Manu (Ferrn Terraza) on a call for a domestic disturbance at an apartment building. There they find an incoherent, sickly woman that aggressively attacks an officer, and the event sparks a deadly outbreak that leaves them trapped thanks to an unexpected quarantine.

On paper, that sounds like a generic zombie setup that weve seen countless times before. What transpires, however, thanks to the found footage technique and sense of realism the filmmakers introduce here, is every bit of the visceral thrill ride Balaguer and Plaza intended. The handheld camera provides the necessary limitations not just in the viewers range of sight but in how much of the story we can absorb and when. Balaguer and Plaza envisioned video game levels of unrelenting dread, and they essentially created a rail shooter with the film.

The audience knows about as much as poor ngela knows, and we learn more about whats happening within the building as she does, all while dodging and fleeing from increasingly infected residents. That the infection sets in at different rates for different people gives an unpredictability that keeps everyone on their toes. The sense of realism comes from the naturalistic way these characters interact, talk, and behave. Thats no accident, either. Velasco, who would win a 2007 Goya for her performance, spent years as a TV presenter, which translated seamlessly to her character.

As effective as the scares are, what solidified[REC]as a modern horror classic is that it changes the rules and mythology of the zombie outbreak by way of one unnerving final act. All alone in the penthouse suite, sole survivors ngela and Pablo are desperate for a way out. They soon discover that theyve entered the den of the outbreaks source; an agent of the Vatican brought a possessed girl, Tristana Medeiros, there to isolate the demonic enzyme within her. It mutated and became contagious, so the agent sealed her up in the attic to die. She infects mice, which in turn spreads to a residents pet, and thus the outbreak is unleashed. [REC] concludes with one brilliant payoff, in which a ghoulish Tristana (Javier Botet) descends from the attic and drags a screaming ngela off into the pitch-black darkness.

[REC] 2

How do you top that in a sequel released two years later? By picking up almost immediately where[REC]s end credits began. 2009s[REC] 2, working more like a continuation than a traditional sequel, starts about fifteen minutes after its predecessor, this time following Dr. Hunt (Jonathan Mellor) and a GEO team sent into the quarantined apartment building to control the infection. Concurrently, the father of Jennifer (from the first film) persuades a firefighter to sneak him back into the building from an underground tunnel so he can bring her prescription medication. Curious teens follow them. All characters, at least the surviving ones, eventually converge and stumble upon a miraculously safe but shocked ngela.

This sequel sustains the same level of terror as the first film but expands the demonic mythology in exciting ways. Dr. Owen is secretly a priest sent from the Vatican for a blood sample. The infected are revealed to respond to prayer and crucifixes, like the possessed. More intriguingly is that the infected share a connection with the source demon, Tristana, whos taken up residence in plucky reporter turned survivor ngela. Tristana wants out, to freely spread her demonic contagion.

[REC] 2, stylistically and technically, is more of the same. But the clever ways Balaguer and Plaza expand the mythos and introduce multiple character perspectives keep things feeling fresh. The impressively sustained intensity goes a long way, too. Knowing this format wouldnt work three times in a row, the filmmakers shook up the franchise with big swings that proved polarizing.

[REC] 3: Genesis

For the third and fourth entry, the dynamic duo split custody of their horror baby. Plaza took on the immediate follow-up,[REC] 3: Genesis. In terms of timeline, Genesis overlaps with the first two films, set at a large church for the wedding of Clara (Leticia Dolera) and Koldo (Diego Martin). Among the hundreds attending is an uncle who happened to be the veterinarian of Jennifers infected pet dog referred to in[REC]. It turns out that infected dog bites take a little while to transform a human into a rabid monster, and Clara and Koldo are at least allowed to make it through their ceremony and well into their reception before all hell breaks loose.

The most obvious shift inGenesis is from found footage to traditional film. Its a move that polarized upon release, but its the perfect antidote to the age-old found footage question; why dont they just put down the camera? It makes sense for cameras to be involved at a wedding, to capture the events for memories sake, and interview the guests. Once thats done, the party is in full swing, and when deadly chaos erupts, well, no one attending is going to want to keep filming.

The second most apparent shift is in tone. Genesisbears more in common tonally withEvil Dead 2than[REC]. Its another polarizing move. The gore for an already gory franchise is dialed up to splatstick levels, especially as Clara shreds her dress to wield chainsaws more handily and Koldo dons armor in attempts to hack his way to his bride. Plaza never loses sight of the series mythos, though, including subtle nods like the news footage outside of the original films building in the background of individual shots. More overtly, the priest freezing the infected in place via loudspeaker prayer is a nice touch. All of which to say that this sequel deserves far more credit than it received upon release. Think of it more as a fun sidequel.

[REC] 4: Apocalypse

Balaguer took the reins for the final film,[REC] 4: Apocalypse. Picking up after the second film, Apocalypse opens with a thrilling scene that sees a special ops team rescue ngela and destroy the building. Shortly after, she and the teams survivors, Lucas (Crspulo Cabezas) and Guzman (Paco Manzanedo), wake on board a ship quarantined at sea. The doctors there are determined to find a cure by any means necessary, using ngela as a guinea pig. Naturally, the contagion has followed her, and the vessel descends into a claustrophobic nightmare.

Of all the films in this franchise,Apocalypse fared the worst critically and financially. Balaguer continued where Plaza left off, in terms of traditional filmmaking over handheld found footage, and some less than spectacular effects work Im looking at you, dumb zombie monkeys- left a lot to be desired. That Balaguer tended to shoot high action scenes with shaky camera work frustrated many as well.

The director did play around with expectations in a fun way, though. From the get-go, its expected that ngelas role remains the same as in the previous installment, which is that of a demon using its host to gain freedom. It becomes a waiting game to see precisely when ngela will drop her innocent faade and let Tristana loose. Its not until the final act that it becomes clear our plucky heroine regained her agency from the thrilling opening scene, with Tristana latching on to a more reliable host in Guzman. Its also worth noting that this entry allows ngela to have one of the more fulfilling Final Girl arcs of all time, going from scared bystander to villain to fierce survivor throughout three films.

Apocalypse wraps up with an epic action-heavy spectacle, resulting in ngela finally free from Tristanas hold once and for all. Naturally, it also ends with a tease that the Tristana worm lives on, somewhere in the oceans food chain, with the potential to wind up inside a human again. The box office returns, however, say that no one should expect any follow-up to that dangling thread.

Its hard not to wonder what the reception wouldve been like forApocalypsehad it been a standalone release unaffiliated with the high standard of the[REC]series. Its heavily flawed, but its still a solid effort. At least compared to many other zombie films.

Each installment plays like an experiment for the filmmakers; the first two films are experiments in visceral, unrelenting horror, the third Plaza considered to be his adventure film, and the final movie goes full-throttle on the action. Its worth noting that they manage to be cohesive narratively throughout all the tonal shifts, style changes, and narrative expansions. Whether the latter half of the series works for you or not, I appreciate the risks taken and that Balaguer and Plaza understood they couldnt keep attempting to duplicate the success of the first film every single time.

Its been thirteen years since [REC]shook up horror, and only five since the quadrilogy concluded, but its a series I foresee creating great discussion and analysis for years to come.

Link:

Fear Revisited: The Thrilling Evolution of the '[REC]' Quadrilogy - Bloody Disgusting

To call him financial services Forrest Gump might be a stretch, but Carlos Diez has been behind the scenes of just about every big fund-industry pivot for the past two decades. At the height of the dot-com boom, he saw the business opportunity of a growing consumer class interested in investing, then, a few years later, anticipated the future in indexing.

Hes had some crummy timing, though: It took so long to get his firm, MarketGrader, off the ground that the dot-com bubble popped and the U.S. entered a bear market. Several years later, an asset manager launched a suite of funds based on MarketGrader indexes. That was in October 2007 just as the cracks were starting to form in the global financial system, and at the very peak of that market cycle.

Diez says hes learned from the downs as well as the ups, and hes humble about it: The funds were closed in March 2009, just as the longest bull market in history was starting up. In the following decade, those indexes outperformed their benchmarks, returning 374%, compared to 318% for the S&P 500 SPX, +0.16% .

MarketWatch spoke with Diez about his career starting new things, and then starting again, as well as what hes thinking about now. The interview that follows has been edited for clarity.

MarketWatch: Could you share your biography?

Carlos Diez: I actually started the company right out of college. I went to college in California and graduated in 1999, so I went through all the dot-com experiences as a student. A lot of buddies of mine in college were, quote-unquote, investing in the stock market. I remember teammates on my soccer team would come and say, I bought this or that, and I would say what do they do? They would say I have no idea, but theyre up 30%.

I thought I could build a tool that would help investors understand what theyre buying. That was the genesis of MarketGrader. It took a little bit longer than I thought to get all the pieces together. And there was a big bear market that affected our launch plans. When we launched, in 2003, we started research for some institutions, some sell-side, some investment banks, and in parallel to that we started building our indexes. It was accidental, if you will. We were putting out ratings on companies in the U.S. and Canada and only 15% of companies were a buy, and people said, whats going on here? So we said, lets build a model portfolio of the best companies in MarketGrader. We didnt want to overweight the largest companies because we saw what happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s. So it was the 40 best companies in MarketGrader, equally weighted, and we rebalanced every six months. Dumb luck had it that that happened to be a banner year for stocks, so we did very well. This was well before smart beta and things that are so hot today.

We had built a good relationship with (asset manager) London & Capital and plowed head-on into the ETF space. I had always thought ETFs were going to be the next big thing in the space. We launched our first ETFs in October 2007 at the very top of the market. We rode the 2008-2009 market down and eventually the company (closed the funds). That was a big hit to our business.

Concurrently, we were developing a relationship with Dow Jones. We met the editors of Barrons in 2004. At the time, Barrons online was a novel product. Barrons wanted to find a tool that rated stocks like we did to complement their writers analysis. We built a tool called StockGrader to go alongside the new Barrons.com that launched in 2005. And because we were having success in the index business, we met with Dow Jones Indexes in 2007 and created the Barrons 400. (MarketWatch note: an ETF based on the index, the Barrons 400 ETF BFOR, +0.85% , launched in 2013.)

About six years ago, we really started focusing on building out our company globally. We were particularly focused on Asia, specifically China. I started visiting China in 2004-05, and we built a family of A-share indexes there. CSI (China Securities Index Co.) is owned by the two stock exchanges which are, by extension, owned by the state. We co-created two indexes that they started publishing and eventually we licensed one to VanEck in Australia, which has been doing really well. That was the beginning of our global expansion. VanEck in New York converted two of their ETFs to use MarketGrader benchmarks, one on China and one on India.

Related:The man behind Case-Shiller on why the housing index has no Houston and why thats no problem

MarketWatch: Can we go back to the October 2007 launch, and could you just talk a little about your feelings about being at the mercy of timing?

Diez: A few years ago, that was a big source of frustration for me personally and professionally. I felt like we were on our way and things happened that we couldnt control, not just a huge market event, but the fact that our client decided to exit the business. It was very frustrating. But now in hindsight, it was actually a good experience. I know that might sound masochistic, but we learned a lot. We learned about how to get involved and when not to get involved in the development of products, and how important it is, if someone goes out to offer an investment product to a client, its as important for the provider of that fund to know theres a match between the two as it is for the seller of the fund. If you sell someone a long-term capital appreciation strategy but the client is maybe focused on making money in the next couple of weeks or jumping on a bandwagon that might be doing well, its bound to wind up disappointing the client. We learned a lot about that process. Were not a product provider but weve try to work very closely with them London & Capital, VanEck and ALPS (the distributor of the Barrons 400 ETF.)

From a company-specific perspective, to be honest, in those early years we were doing fairly well and growing organically and thought that could continue, so we never sought a bigger partnership or more capital from a larger institution, we thought we could do it alone. In hindsight that was a mistake. Its important to have the capital and the right partners. We were flying on our own.

MarketWatch: Has that changed?

Diez: We have taken on more capital from our existing investors, not from a larger institution. But thats something that might happen at some point. In China specifically, we are making a concerted effort to find a partner, because for us to have success in China, although were fairly well-known, for us to go it alone in China is very difficult, almost impossible All the negative things you hear about, in terms of access for foreign firms, those are all very real.

MarketWatch: You didnt mention this much, but Ive heard from other people that you were pretty early to the idea of smart beta, even though some other companies, like Research Affiliates, have gotten a lot more attention for their work on it.

Diez: It was partly accidental, but we did feel that it was important to offer investors something different than what was out there, meaning purely market-cap-weighted stocks in indexes. At the time, people thought stock selection in passive strategies was anathema. Theyd say, oh, it goes against our creed. But I thought our process was transparent and it worked well, and you could call it an index because it was not one person selecting stocks. It was just an index that behaved differently.

We had latched on to London & Capital and we were a small company, growing, and they were opening up opportunities for us. Why not ride that opportunity while it lasted? So obviously things played out differently and thats why people dont know about us being in it early. Rafi has a very strong product. Very shrewdly and very smartly, rather than becoming a product company, they said, were going to license this and you can brand them your own thing, whether Pimco or Schwab or whatever. I think that was genius. I attribute a lot of their success as much to that as much as to the methodology.

MarketWatch: One of the biggest issues in the ETF ecosphere has to do with intellectual property. How do you think about that?

Diez: Long and hard. (Laughs.) I think about that often and I think, more than someone taking your idea and replicating it, theres also the risk, especially nowadays, of someone taking your message and taking ownership of it, even if the underlying exposure isnt as good as yours. In the early days of an ETF launch, the perception is just as important as reality. A lot of companies have the resources to go out and blast out a message that maybe might not be as much a part of their DNA as it is yours. At the end of the day, what matters is the perception from investors. Thats the biggest challenge for us, the ability to communicate is what allows people to try you out and test what youre offering.

I spend a lot of my time helping my clients. VanEck is the perfect example. Theyre a very good client to work with, and theres a lot of overlap between our views and theirs, especially on emerging markets and on China. They see the value that MarketGrader brings to the table but theyre big enough that they have the resources to do things their way. But they dont want to have another me-too product out there. Theyd rather have something that they think is unique, and Id like to think thats what they see in us.

MarketWatch: We talked a lot about your interest in China, but whats the next-next thing?

Diez: From a country-regional perspective, I think whats happening in China will continue to be front and center for some time. Weve made a strong case for investors having a good exposure to China, being there for a long time. It would be a mistake not to, in our opinion. But separate from that, based on whats happened geopolitically, theres been a clear separation of economies and markets which will continue. I dont think there is going to be a full disengagement between the U.S. and China, but were starting to see some countries pushing back on some of the things China has done. India (which just banned dozens of Chinese mobile apps), for example. The U.K. announced Huawei (will be excluded from its 5G wireless network).

That will have repercussions for investors. I think there will be an opportunity to build exposures around those themes. I feel strongly about growth in some Asian countries besides China, and I think investors may choose to invest in those. I think the indexes and products out there still leave room for companies like us to build products that are differentiated.

Read next:Coronavirus was the perfect storm for tech innovation, and this fund manager made out

The rest is here:

Meet the man whos been behind nearly every evolution of the fund industry for two decades - MarketWatch

The global Solid Inkjet Printer market focuses on encompassing major statistical evidence for the Solid Inkjet Printer industry as it offers our readers a value addition on guiding them in encountering the obstacles surrounding the market. A comprehensive addition of several factors such as global distribution, manufacturers, market size, and market factors that affect the global contributions are reported in the study. In addition the Solid Inkjet Printer study also shifts its attention with an in-depth competitive landscape, defined growth opportunities, market share coupled with product type and applications, key companies responsible for the production, and utilized strategies are also marked.

This intelligence and 2026 forecasts Solid Inkjet Printer industry report further exhibits a pattern of analyzing previous data sources gathered from reliable sources and sets a precedented growth trajectory for the Solid Inkjet Printer market. The report also focuses on a comprehensive market revenue streams along with growth patterns, analytics focused on market trends, and the overall volume of the market.

Download PDF Sample of Solid Inkjet Printer Market report @ https://hongchunresearch.com/request-a-sample/36559

The study covers the following key players:Hewlett-PackardCanon U.S.A., Inc. (US)Agfa-Gevaert Group (Belgium)Eastman Kodak Company (US)Brother International Corporation (US)Electronics for Imaging, Inc. (US)Durst Phototechnik AG (Italy)Dell, Inc. (US)FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan)

Moreover, the Solid Inkjet Printer report describes the market division based on various parameters and attributes that are based on geographical distribution, product types, applications, etc. The market segmentation clarifies further regional distribution for the Solid Inkjet Printer market, business trends, potential revenue sources, and upcoming market opportunities.

Market segment by type, the Solid Inkjet Printer market can be split into,Type 1Type 2Type 3

Market segment by applications, the Solid Inkjet Printer market can be split into,Application 1Application 2Application 3

The Solid Inkjet Printer market study further highlights the segmentation of the Solid Inkjet Printer industry on a global distribution. The report focuses on regions of North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World in terms of developing business trends, preferred market channels, investment feasibility, long term investments, and environmental analysis. The Solid Inkjet Printer report also calls attention to investigate product capacity, product price, profit streams, supply to demand ratio, production and market growth rate, and a projected growth forecast.

In addition, the Solid Inkjet Printer market study also covers several factors such as market status, key market trends, growth forecast, and growth opportunities. Furthermore, we analyze the challenges faced by the Solid Inkjet Printer market in terms of global and regional basis. The study also encompasses a number of opportunities and emerging trends which are considered by considering their impact on the global scale in acquiring a majority of the market share.

The study encompasses a variety of analytical resources such as SWOT analysis and Porters Five Forces analysis coupled with primary and secondary research methodologies. It covers all the bases surrounding the Solid Inkjet Printer industry as it explores the competitive nature of the market complete with a regional analysis.

Brief about Solid Inkjet Printer Market Report with [emailprotected] https://hongchunresearch.com/report/solid-inkjet-printer-market-36559

Some Point of Table of Content:

Chapter One: Solid Inkjet Printer Market Overview

Chapter Two: Global Solid Inkjet Printer Market Landscape by Player

Chapter Three: Players Profiles

Chapter Four: Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type

Chapter Five: Global Solid Inkjet Printer Market Analysis by Application

Chapter Six: Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2014-2019)

Chapter Seven: Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2014-2019)

Chapter Eight: Solid Inkjet Printer Manufacturing Analysis

Chapter Nine: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers

Chapter Ten: Market Dynamics

Chapter Eleven: Global Solid Inkjet Printer Market Forecast (2019-2026)

Chapter Twelve: Research Findings and Conclusion

Chapter Thirteen: Appendix continued

Check [emailprotected] https://hongchunresearch.com/check-discount/36559

List of tablesList of Tables and FiguresFigure Solid Inkjet Printer Product PictureTable Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by TypeTable Profile of Type 1Table Profile of Type 2Table Profile of Type 3Table Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2014-2026)Table Profile of Application 1Table Profile of Application 2Table Profile of Application 3Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) (2014-2026)Figure United States Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Europe Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Germany Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure UK Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure France Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Italy Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Spain Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Russia Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Poland Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure China Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Japan Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure India Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Southeast Asia Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Malaysia Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Singapore Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Philippines Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Indonesia Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Thailand Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Vietnam Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Central and South America Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Brazil Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Mexico Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Colombia Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Middle East and Africa Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Saudi Arabia Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure United Arab Emirates Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Turkey Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Egypt Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure South Africa Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Nigeria Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2026)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Status and Outlook (2014-2026)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production by Player (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Share by Player (2014-2019)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Share by Player in 2018Table Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue by Player (2014-2019)Table Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue Market Share by Player (2014-2019)Table Solid Inkjet Printer Price by Player (2014-2019)Table Solid Inkjet Printer Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales Area by PlayerTable Solid Inkjet Printer Product Type by PlayerTable Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion PlansTable Hewlett-Packard ProfileTable Hewlett-Packard Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Canon U.S.A., Inc. (US) ProfileTable Canon U.S.A., Inc. (US) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Agfa-Gevaert Group (Belgium) ProfileTable Agfa-Gevaert Group (Belgium) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Eastman Kodak Company (US) ProfileTable Eastman Kodak Company (US) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Brother International Corporation (US) ProfileTable Brother International Corporation (US) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Electronics for Imaging, Inc. (US) ProfileTable Electronics for Imaging, Inc. (US) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Durst Phototechnik AG (Italy) ProfileTable Durst Phototechnik AG (Italy) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Dell, Inc. (US) ProfileTable Dell, Inc. (US) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan) ProfileTable FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan) Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production by Type (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Market Share by Type (2014-2019)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Market Share by Type in 2018Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue by Type (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue Market Share by Type (2014-2019)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Revenue Market Share by Type in 2018Table Solid Inkjet Printer Price by Type (2014-2019)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Growth Rate of Type 1 (2014-2019)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Growth Rate of Type 2 (2014-2019)Figure Global Solid Inkjet Printer Production Growth Rate of Type 3 (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption by Application (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption Market Share by Application (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption of Application 1 (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption of Application 2 (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption of Application 3 (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption by Region (2014-2019)Table Global Solid Inkjet Printer Consumption Market Share by Region (2014-2019)Table United States Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019)Table Europe Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019)Table China Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019)Table Japan Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019)Table India Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019)Table Southeast Asia Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019)Table Central and South America Solid Inkjet Printer Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2014-2019) continued

About HongChun Research:HongChun Research main aim is to assist our clients in order to give a detailed perspective on the current market trends and build long-lasting connections with our clientele. Our studies are designed to provide solid quantitative facts combined with strategic industrial insights that are acquired from proprietary sources and an in-house model.

Contact Details:Jennifer GrayManager Global Sales+ 852 8170 0792[emailprotected]

More:

Global Solid Inkjet Printer Market Predicted to Witness Sustainable Evolution in Years to Come - Cole of Duty

The basic principle of the IT industry is closely similar to how the rest of the world functions; things change after some time, new advancements and technologies are flown in along with a plethora of ideas and innovations. The past few months have changed how we deal with technology.

It has now become the backbone for business continuity and is mandatory for conventional businesses, data centres (DC) to adopt and be adept to the new norms and technology. As businesses run virtually and screen time of individuals increases, the real pressure is on data centres to be efficient than ever before.

While it is appalling, reality is to normalise the new normal. As per a recent CBRE report, Indias data centre market is set to grow in 2020 with rising demand and supply.

It further stated that with growing digital consumption patterns such as online gaming, education, streaming, ecommerce, data centre operators are expected to see a huge demand for data centre space.

As this data surge increases, traditional data centres will become bogged down. However, making the right investments in conjunction with Machine Learning (ML) can help these data centres drive operational efficiency and reduce costs.

Physical servers and storage equipment are the two key entities of any data centre. While their maintenance is not only time consuming but a potentially expensive task, if not done right, it can be a cause of the downfall of any conventional data centre.

Fortunately, AI-based predictive analysis has proven to be efficient for data centre managers to successfully distribute workloads across different servers.

A proper workload distribution allows each server to operate at its full potential, while also enabling to easily predict and manage data centre workload.

AI making services smarter is precisely why it has emerged as a priority.

ML has always been a blessing for IT professionals, having a unique capability to reduce human effort in daily IT monitoring tasks. ML solutions incorporate large amounts of data to accurately predict when a machine is close to its breaking point.

An intelligent rack power distribution unit enables a DC manager to monitor power distribution at a Power Distribution Unit (PDU) as well as the individual output level. It is also designed to give user-defined performance threshold alerts.

These notifications allow DC managers to effectively monitor the entire data centre without being physically present. This presents a huge opportunity in the current frame of business operation with social distancing being the new norm.

These intelligent PDUs give managers more real-time control of the DC operations turning a device on or off, managing if a device gets overheated, etc. Intelligence is the new progressive way to manage a data centre.

For data centre managers to redeem greater financial benefits and higher efficiency, ML and AI must be carefully infused with right data centre tools. This means that data centre managers must watch the AI and ML space carefully as they try to distinguish better approaches to improve traditional data centres.

Here again, a smart PDU proposition offers an edge clubbed with ML solutions. Data centre managers can effectively allocate resources when provided with insights to better manage power distribution, energy saving, and ensuring reduced server crashes.

For that, it is essential to accurately identify opportunities for improvement, analyse risks and implement solutions before the next evolution cycle takes place.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

Want to make your startup journey smooth? YS Education brings a comprehensive Funding Course, where you also get a chance to pitch your business plan to top investors. Click here to know more.

View original post here:

How the data centre evolved to suit modern needs and new technology - YourStory

There is an old saying, to err is human. But what about machines? Is humanity imposing double standards on artificial intelligence?

Introduction

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc of magnitude proportion across the globe, not even machines had been spared of its ramifications.

This is exemplified by an incident back in April 2020 when traders attempted to sell off Mays oil future contracts which resulted in a futures oil prices nosedive into negative digits (Note: these are crude oil we are speaking of, so normal consumers will have little use for such oil you cannot store it in your backyard either).

On 20 April 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate futures contracts traded to as low as negative $40.32 per barrel.

Dangers of Machine Reliance

Investors trading on the algorithmic trading platform Interactive Brokers were among those who took a major hit that day, but for a slightly unusual and peculiar reason.

In a nutshell, the brokerage firms platform was NOT programmed to trade on negative price. Its users mistakenly placed and were consequently locked up with positive bids while the price went below zero with insufficient equity in their accounts to satisfy the maintenance margin. The technical blip had caused Interactive Brokers to suffer US$88Million as it accepted responsibility for any loss suffered by its users while futures price went negative.

This costly oversight raises an interesting issue on how the law allocates loss occasioned by erroneously executed automated contracts.

But under existing laws, should Interactive Brokers be obliged to accept responsibility?

The Singaporean Decision

In the B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd [2019] SGHC(I) 03, [2020] SGCA(I) 02 the question of machine liability was explored by the Singaporean Courts.

Quoine operates an algorithmic virtual currencies trading platform (Platform) programmed to place and close orders without human intervention. B2C2 is an electronic market maker, which trades virtual currencies on exchange platforms with the aid of its algorithmic trading software (Trading Software).

In April 2017, B2C2, through its Trading Software, placed orders on the Platform to sell Ethereum for Bitcoins. As a result of several technical errors on the Platform, it erroneously sold Bitcoins held by its two margin traders (Margin Traders) to B2C2 at a significant undervalue in favour of B2C2 (Transactions). The Platform automatically credited the proceeds of the Transactions to and debited the corresponding Ethereum from B2C2s account. Upon discovery of the error, Quoine reversed the Transactions.

B2C2 commenced proceedings against Quoine at the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC), claiming reversal of the Transactions amounted to a breach of contract and trust by Quoine, and the matters went to the Singapore Court of Appeal (SGCA).

We will focus on the courts deliberation on the issues of implied term and unilateral mistake.

No Implied Term Allowing Operator to Unravel for Technical Error

The platform agreement between Quoine and B2C2 contains a clause that once the order is completed on the Platform it is irreversible.

The SICC held, and the SGCA concurred, that no terms can be implied allowing Quoine to reverse any transaction whatever the circumstance. It reasoned that the implication of such a term undermined the very certainty that the agreement sought to instil in algorithmic trading on the Platform.

Knowledge in Unilateral Mistake if Computer Programme is Responsible

Quoine argued the Transactions should be void for unilateral mistake on the part of the Margin Traders under common law and equity. To find a unilateral mistake, Quoine must show that there was a fundamental mistake on the terms of the contract and B2C2 in seeking to enforce the Transactions must have knowledge of the mistake.

In the context of algorithmic trading, SICC held that algorithmic programmes have no mind of their own and likened them to a kitchen blender relieving a cook of the manual act of mixing ingredients. Further ruling that the intention or knowledge underlying the mode of operation of a robot or trading software would be that of the person who was responsible for causing it to work in the way it did, in other words, the programmer, at the time when the programme was written.

SICC held that B2C2s programmer who designed the Trading Software did not have actual knowledge (to invoke unilateral mistake under common law), nor constructive knowledge (to invoke unilateral mistake under equity) of such mistaken belief.

The SGCA further found that the Margin Traders were not under a mistaken belief as to the term of the contract, but had mistakenly assumed that the Platform would not fail, which was not an actionable mistake under common law.

The defence of unilateral mistake at common law raised by Quoine therefore fails.

So the question comes again, was Interactive Brokers obliged to accept responsibility under existing laws?

Takeaways

Courts in B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd adopted an incremental approach to develop the law in novel context and confined their legal discussion to deterministic programmes, thus leaving open contracts formed between more sophisticated artificial intelligence which may be said to have a mind of their own.

Given that the law is still at its embryonic stage, institutions and platform operators of algorithmic trading are encouraged to make adequate provisions for risk allocation in the event of technical glitch or abnormal trades in their service contracts, and implement robust monitoring to identify and contain any technical glitch in time. Hong Kong Monetary Authority's recent circular titled Sound risk management practices for algorithmic trading published on 6 March 2020 may provide some helpful guidance.

This article first appeared in Hong Kong Lawyer.

Link:

The Evolution of Contract Law in the Age of Technology - Lexology

Dinosaurs were the dominant group of animals on Earth for over 150 million years. Long-necked, plant-eating sauropods such as Brontosaurus, Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus are probably among the most famous dinosaurs, in part thanks to their huge size and strange body shape (consisting of a long neck, long tail, round body and columnar limbs). Some of the largest sauropods measured up to 37 metres long.

But less well known is that they descended from much smaller, two-legged, omnivorous or plant-eating creatures called sauropodomorphs. My colleagues and I recently identified a new dinosaur species that represents the oldest known evolutionary step between early sauropodomorphs and sauropods, from about 225 million years ago.

The sauropodomorphs were among the first dinosaurs to exist during the late Triassic period, from about 230 million years ago. During this time, dinosaurs werent yet the dominant group of animals on Earth and had to share the world with, among others, crocodile-like reptiles called phytosaurs and mammal-like reptiles, such as Morganucodon.

Towards the end of the Triassic and in the earliest Jurassic, environmental changes led to the evolution of larger, more immediate predecessors of sauropods. These dinosaurs were larger, had longer necks, ate only plants and, more importantly, walked on all fours due to their size. These transitional species include Pulanesaura from around 190 million years ago in what is now South Africa, and Leonerasaurus from a similar time in what is now South America.

Our new dinosaur, which we have named Schleitheimia, falls into this category. Some of its bones were first found in Switzerland as early as 1915. Others had been found in Hallau, near Zurich, in the 1940s, and others from the same geological layer had been discovered in Schleitheim, also near Zurich, in the 1950s. But for years, these fossils were thought to belong to an earlier, sauropodomorph species.

In 1986, palaeontologist Peter Galton identified this set of fossilised dinosaur remains, kept at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, as belonging to a common sauropodomorph known as Plateosaurus. Plateosaurus had quite a long neck, but did not walk on all fours all the time.

However, when Munich palaeontologist Oliver Rauhut examined the bones more recently, he noticed odd features on them, which made it impossible for them to belong to Plateosaurus. So in 2015, he and I visited the Zurich Palaeontological Museum and examined the bones thoroughly. We discovered several sauropod-like adaptations on the dorsal vertebrae (backbones), the femur (leg bone) and the pelvic or hip area.

All these adaptations suggest the dinosaur was heavier and mainly walked on all fours, so it couldnt be a Plateosaurus. It had to be something else, and indeed, it turned out to be something new.

We ran a phylogenetic analysis, which compares anatomical traits between different animals and calculates how many evolutionary steps are necessary to make them related to one another. This suggested our new dinosaur, Schleitheimia, was actually an intermediate type between sauropodomorphs such as Plateosaurus and true sauropods such as Brontosaurus.

This makes Schleitheimia special in two ways. First, it is a lot older than the other known transitional types of dinosaur between sauropodomorphs and sauropods. And second, it is the first transitional form known from Europe.

What is even more interesting, is that some of the Schleitheimia fossils were found in the same quarry as an actual Plateosaurus. This means that both the ancestral sauropodomorphs and the transitional forms shared the same habitat for a time. Eventually, however, the true sauropods took over the environment.

Perhaps their size and longer necks helped them forage for food, we arent sure. But what we do know is that by the early Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago, sauropods were already living around the world from China to Argentina. Schleitheimia provides one more piece of the puzzle as to what happened in the sauropods very early history on Earth.

The next steps here will be to look at other material from roughly the same age from Switzerland. The original, historic pit where Schleitheimia was found, has been reopened to see whether there is more material.

We want to know if there were more intermediate sauropodiforms around, such as Schleitheimia, or just more sauropodomorphs? And how did the early sauropods diversify and spread out in the early Jurassic? The fact that we can still find new dinosaur species, even in historical museum collections, gives us hope of answering these questions.

Original post:

New dinosaur discovery in Switzerland fills a gap in evolutionary history of sauropods - The Conversation UK

Its always like this. When a new cycle begins, theres always this betwixt and between period when a team teases its future. Arsenal are there at the moment. Theyre in a something good, something bad world, with two fantastic performances against Liverpool and Manchester City to follow that bizarre loss to Tottenham, and now another ugly setback.

At Villa Park they reverted. The kind way to describe the Trezeguet goal which won the game would be to praise the strike. The fairer observation, however, would be to note how he was able to loiter alone at the back of the box. And then how easily the ball reached him. And then just how much time and space he had to volley his side into a lead that they would never really look like losing.

It was dispiriting in being such an obvious step back. Arsenal defended outstandingly well at Wembley. They had this defiant spirit to them in the FA Cup semi-final a palpable determination not to allow their concentration to waiver. On Tuesday night, that new resolve seemed like it had been illusory. The mistakes were back, so were the gaps and the chances given up.

But this is the way of things and it probably will be for a while. That isnt to say that a brighter dawn is definitely on its way, but that those clubs that have been led into a new era have always suffered through this kind of scenario to get there. Pochettinos Spurs, Guardiolas City, Klopps Liverpool; read through the early chapters of those tales to find the same inconsistency and the same calls back to what made revolution necessary in the first place.

Generally speaking, thats been because those coaches didnt just inherit a muddle on the pitch, but imbalanced squads with critical shortages. On this evidence, Arteta is very much in the same position.

Stylistically, this was a different challenge to the previous two games. Being able to sit deep and snap onto the counter-attack is a virtue, but trying to break down a more cautious opponent is another matter entirely. As during that game at White Hart Lane, Arsenal played with plenty of the ball 64% in the first half but without really creating opportunities. Or even situations from which opportunities may develop.

Its suggestive of where they are in their evolution. The improvements that Arteta has instituted are still dependent on certain conditions to be relevant, and thats because he remains short of the players needed to cure that problem. Arsenal have pace up front and in wide positions, but they still lack credible balance in midfield and, as this evening showed, their defenders can only be relied upon when the mood takes them. Theyre an attractive team round the edges, but brittle and limited where it counts.

That showed on Tuesday night in a few different ways. Firstly, in Villa looking more dangerous than they have for many, many weeks. Secondly, in Jack Grealish doing more or less as he wished with the ball at his feet and giving his best performance of 2020. And, finally, in Arteta being able to send out Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and later Nicolas Pepe against the Premier Leagues second-worst defence statistically, but not getting a shot on target in return.

Its instructive, because that tranche of issues shows where the problems lie. Most importantly, it demonstrates how little creativity there is in this side. For all their hold on possession, in the absence of Mesut Ozil there isnt an Arsenal player capable of using it to find a clever angle or a dangerous pass.

That doesnt seem like a coaching point, either. Its not a problem which can be cured on the training ground or by convincing players to think or act in a different way. Instead, it requires a different set of attributes. Either Arsenal import someone capable of unlocking the heavy doors in a low block, or Artetas improvements are going to be limited in their effect. The passing will have a certain rhythm, but it wont necessarily go anywhere.

The defence is the defence and the midfield is the midfield. Those are tired issues which have needed a solution for years. But the lack of a playmaker will be the real stumbling block here; if it continues to be so, it will also separate what Arsenal are from what Arteta is trying to turn them into. And what a waste that would be.

There are excuses, because Saturdays game was probably a draining experience and Arsenal rotated in response to that. This was also an excellent, committed Villa performance which got what it deserved and was long overdue. Dean Smith got his approach right and among others Grealish, Tyrone Mings and Douglas Luiz were all excellent.

Still, in the subtext lies a pre-emptive message for those above and around Arteta: either hes given what he needs to convert this early promise to something more permanent, or these types of evenings will become more common.

Seb Stafford-Bloor is on Twitter

We could not keep away from the camera for long so we made a Football365 Isolation Show. Watch it, subscribe and share until we get back in the studio/pub and produce something a little slicker

See original here:

The real stumbling block in Arsenal's evolution is there to see - Football365.com

Automated Bagging Machines Market (2018) Report Provides an in-depth summary of Automated Bagging Machines Market Status as well as Product Specification, Technology Development, and Key Manufacturers. The Report Gives Detail Analysis on Market concern Like Automated Bagging Machines Market share, CAGR Status, Market demand and up to date Market Trends with key Market segments.

The latest report about the Automated Bagging Machines market provides a detailed evaluation of the business vertical in question, alongside a brief overview of the industry segments. An exceptionally workable estimation of the present industry scenario has been delivered in the study, and the Automated Bagging Machines market size with regards to the revenue and volume have also been mentioned. In general, the research report is a compilation of key data with regards to the competitive landscape of this vertical and the multiple regions where the business has successfully established its position.

Get PDF Sample Copy of this Report to understand the structure of the complete report: (Including Full TOC, List of Tables & Figures, Chart) @ https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=2692716&source=atm

Scope of The Automated Bagging Machines Market Report:

This research report for Automated Bagging Machines Market explores different topics such as product scope, product market by end users or application, product market by region, the market size for the specific product Type, sales and revenue by region forecast the Market size for various segments. The Report provides detailed information regarding the Major factors (drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges) influencing the growth of the Automated Bagging Machines market. The Automated Bagging Machines Market Report analyzes opportunities in the overall Automated Bagging Machines market for stakeholders by identifying the high-growth segments.

The following manufacturers are covered in this report:Fuji MachineryOmori MachineryConcettiTokyo Automatic Machinery WorksAll-FillSTATEC BINDERHassia-RedatronRenncoE-Pak MachineryAutomated Bagging Machines Breakdown Data by TypeHorizontal Bagging MachinesVertical Bagging MachinesAutomated Bagging Machines Breakdown Data by ApplicationFood and Beverage IndustriesPharmaceuticals IndustryFeed IndustryChemical IndustryOthers

Do You Have Any Query Or Specific Requirement? Ask to Our Industry [emailprotected] https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=2692716&source=atm

A detailed overview of the geographical and competitive sphere of the Automated Bagging Machines market:

You can Buy This Report from Here @ https://www.marketresearchhub.com/checkout?rep_id=2692716&licType=S&source=atm

Table of Content of The Report

Chapter 1- Automated Bagging Machines Industry Overview:

1.1 Definition of Automated Bagging Machines

1.2 Brief Introduction of Major Classifications

1.3 Brief Introduction of Major Applications

1.4 Brief Introduction of Major Regions

Chapter 2- Production Market Analysis:

2.1 Global Production Market Analysis

2.1.1 Global Capacity, Production, Capacity Utilization Rate, Ex-Factory Price, Revenue, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis

2.1.2 Major Manufacturers Performance and Market Share

2.2 Regional Production Market Analysis

Chapter 3- Sales Market Analysis:

3.1 Global Sales Market Analysis

3.2 Regional Sales Market Analysis

Chapter 4- Consumption Market Analysis:

4.1 Global Consumption Market Analysis

4.2 Regional Consumption Market Analysis

Chapter 5- Production, Sales and Consumption Market Comparison Analysis

Chapter 6- Major Manufacturers Production and Sales Market Comparison Analysis

Chapter 7- Major Classification Analysis

Chapter 8- Major Application Analysis

Chapter 9- Industry Chain Analysis:

9.1 Up Stream Industries Analysis

9.2 Manufacturing Analysis

Chapter 10- Global and Regional Market Forecast:

10.1 Production Market Forecast

10.2 Sales Market Forecast

10.3 Consumption Market Forecast

Chapter 11- Major Manufacturers Analysis:

11.1.1 Company Introduction

11.1.2 Product Specification and Major Types Analysis

11.1.3 Production Market Performance

11.1.4 Sales Market Performance

11.1.5 Contact Information

11.2.1 Company Introduction

11.2.2 Product Specification and Major Types Analysis

11.2.3 Production Market Performance

11.2.4 Sales Market Performance

11.2.5 Contact Information

Chapter 12- New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis:

12.1 New Project SWOT Analysis

12.2 New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis

Continued

Original post:

Automated Bagging Machines Market Size, Growth Evolution, Trends, Demand, Analysis, Segment and Forecasts Report, 2026 - Cole of Duty

PORT ROYAL, Pa. Toting his HANS device and a look of frustration, Brent Marks stormed out of his car and into his massive hauler, through the glass sliding doors in the very back.

He and crew chief Barry Jackson went into debrief, a confidential conversation on what they couldve possibly deployed to fight back and not become the latest victim of a Kyle Larson victory attack.

Honestly, I dont know, Marks said after finishing second to Larson on Saturday in night one of the Bob Weikert Memorial at Port Royal Speedway. We were just as fast. He was just able to work his way around me.

Were really good right now and its a little frustrating.

This is, quite simply, a snippet of the aftermath over these last few weeks in central Pennsylvania.

On the very weekend that happens to honor legendary car owner Weikert, as well as his storied drivers like Doug Wolfgang, Larson and Paul Silva are pressuring teams to evolve, or at least act similarly to what Weikert and Wolfgang did all those years ago.

While the paths are incomparable, the streaks and win percentages are. In 1985, Weikert and Wolfgang won 53 races together in more than 100 races, with some guy named Davey Brown as crew chief.

On Saturday night, with a pair of Weikert trophies in hand, Larson won his 19th race in his past 32 starts. Thats roughly 50 percent versus 59 percent, with Larson as the latter.

Larsons doled plenty of exhilaration and headaches since his first stop in Pennsylvania on June 24, and Marks hasnt been the only one left vexed in this wake.

On Friday at Williams Grove Speedway, Anthony Macri had everything go his way until Larson rushed in like a bat out of hell. Two weeks before that, Larson started his Pennsylvania Speedweek title runaway by blitzing Freddie Rahmer at Grandview, his home track, prompting Rahmers accomplished father to say, Son, you need to match that.

Larson then denied Lance Dewease of win No. 100 at Williams Grove, flipping the script for his first victory at the speedway. He capped it all off by bettering one of the Posses finest in Danny Dietrich by 323 points in the final Pennsylvania Speedweek standings.

I watched Doug Wolfgang come in and changed the way people did things, Fred Rahmer said in a recent phone interview. Now, style wise, it looks to me like Kyle Larson is doing it again.

Weikert, Wolfgang, and Brown forged their place in sprint car racing royalty through unmatched grit and their revolutionary mechanical approach.

Larson, however, is as distant as one could be from having such knowledge.

While Silva and crew toil away at the race car in between on-track moments, Larson sits inside the trailer, on a bench behind one of the black cabinets, hunched over and watching maintenance from afar.

Hes not burdened with the knowledge of what it takes to fix the car if its not right, Fred Rahmer said. He just finds a way to drive it.

In a way, its probably one of the reasons behind this dominant run, that Larson has simply made do with what hes been given.

Wolfgang, according to his mechanic Davey Brown, built everything and anything behind Weikerts race shop walls, often housed with cars that were lighter than most and engines more powerful than any other team around.

We were just ahead of everyone else, Brown said. But Kyle, I wish he wouldve stayed in NASCAR.

Brown laughed, and then carried on with his assessment.

Hes hard to beat, he said. Hes a heck of a driver. Theres nobody that cant be beat, but well have to try a little harder. Everyones trying harder to catch him, I guess.

Thirty some years later, after competitors relentlessly chased Brown, Weikert, and Wolfgang, everyone else, including Brown in a way, is now chasing Larson and Silva in an age where sprint cars seem so equal to one another.

Its pretty impressive when in a time people say, You cant have a dominant car, Fred Rahmer said. Yeah, well somebody tell him. Hopefully a group of us will learn from it.

To continue reading, advance to the next page.

Read the original:

Larson Sparking An Evolution In Sprint Car Racing - SPEED SPORT