The Douglas fir is a tall iconic pine tree in Western North America forming a forest that winds unbroken from the Western spine of British Columbia all the way to the Mexican cordillera. The environmental conditions of Canada and Mexico are obviously very different, but even on much smaller scales say, the top of a mountain compared with a valley below it the rainfall, temperature, soil nutrients and dozens of other factors can vary quite a bit. The Douglas fir grows well in so many of these places that it turns a dramatically varied landscape into one smooth, continuous forest complete with all the species it supports.

I am an ecologist and used to think that the Douglas fir was simply a hardy tree, rarely hemmed in by environmental conditions or other species. But recent research done by my colleagues and me suggests that environmental conditions are not all that determines where plants and animals live in a landscape and the patchwork patterns of those distributions. These spatial patterns are also influenced by evolution.

Over time, species often adapt to local conditions, and these adaptations alter how and where they can live. For example, Douglas fir trees might adapt through evolution to thrive on both a dry mountainside and in a wet valley nearby. But my colleagues and I have taken this idea a step further to explore not just how organisms adapt, but how the process of adaptation itself can have profound effects on the patterns of where organisms live in a landscape.

Without adaptation, you might find a mixed patchwork of where species live a species of insect lives in the valley, but not on the mountains. When Douglas firs adapt to and grow on a dry mountain as well as in the wet valley, they create one continuous forest habitat where two very different landscapes used to exist. The birds, the insects, the deer, the flowers and all the other organisms that live in the forest can also now occupy both the valley and the mountaintop. Adaptation by the Douglas fir created a smoother distribution of species.

Adaptation, it seems, plays a larger role in determining ecological patterns than scientists previously thought.

In 1999, when I was a beginning graduate student in Connecticut, I wanted to understand how a predator called the marbled salamander affected the survival of the smaller yellow-spotted salamander in small temporary ponds. Much like the famous wolves in Yellowstone National Park, the marbled salamander is a keystone predator, and just a few individuals in a pond can determine which other species live there.

I spent months watching these ponds, but however much I tried, the patterns I saw just werent making sense. In one pond, the yellow-spotted salamanders survived alongside the marbled predator. But in the next pond over, under nearly identical conditions, the spotted salamanders were quickly reduced to predator poop. I couldnt find an environmental explanation for this.

To figure out what was driving this unevenness of high and low survival, I collected salamander eggs from ponds where the small salamanders survived alongside the predator, as well as eggs from ponds without predators. I then raised these yellow-spotted salamanders in buckets and looked for differences between them.

I found one surprising difference. The salamanders from ponds with the predatory marbled salamander adapted to the predator by becoming gluttonous eat and get big so you dont get eaten yourself.

In these little New England ponds, local adaptation had created spotted salamander populations with very different behaviors to allow them to survive predation from the marbled salamander. But before I could find out more, I finished my doctorate and found myself driving far away from these salamanders to a new job in California.

Over the next few years, other ecologists were beginning to recognize that evolution could happen very quickly. In one classic experiment, scientists put algae and a microscopic grazer into a tank together. At first, there were cycles of boom and bust, but after only a few weeks, the algae evolved defenses that prevented them from being eaten and stopped the large swings in population numbers.

This was intriguing. My experience with the salamanders had taught me that evolution could happen not just quickly, but also differently in two nearby and otherwise similar ponds. If evolution affected population patterns in time, maybe it could also affect species distribution patterns in space.

I returned to my salamanders after getting a job at the University of Connecticut. This time, I wasnt interested just in how salamanders adapted to their ecosystem, but how their adaptations altered the ecosystem itself. I again raised salamanders from high- and low-predation ponds under the same conditions. But this time, I tracked what happened to other species in the artificial ecosystems I had created.

The predatory marbled salamanders eat small crustaceans. But the yellowspotted salamanders adapted to the predators by eating more of these small crustaceans too. Adaptation by the yellow-spotted salamanders resulted in far fewer crustaceans in the ponds. My experiment showed that this adaptation amplified differences in the numbers of crustaceans between ponds with and without the marbled predator. In this case, adaptation made two ponds more different than they would have been otherwise.

When I compared my experiments with what was happening in the natural ponds, I realized that I had discovered what was driving the perplexing patterns Id seen years before. Local adaptation, not just the environment or other species, was amplifying the differences in these ponds.

I began to wonder: If this effect was happening with salamanders, could local adaptation also amplify or dampen spatial ecological patterns in other species? Was this a widespread effect?

Answering this question would require evidence from creatures all around the world. I recruited a bunch of biologist friends to help me sort through thousands of past studies on everything from bacteria to birds and look for evidence that local adaptation was changing the spatial patterns of these species.

Our team gathered information from 500 studies over the past 100 years. We found that, as with my salamanders, adaptation sometimes makes existing differences between places even greater than expected without evolution.

Adaptation can also create patterns where none existed previously. Widespread plants like goldenrods and aspens often evolve chemical defenses that change which insects can eat them. Adaptation creates new patchwork patterns of insect abundances and diversity across fields and forests where none would exist otherwise.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversations newsletter.]

However, we found that in 85% of cases, adaptation dampened existing ecological spatial patterns. Organisms ranging from the modest apple maggot fly to the grand Douglas fir adapted in ways that reduced the variability of the landscapes in which they lived. Adaptation on small spatial scales smoothed out the patchwork of forests and meadows, populating both hilltops and valleys with the same trees, birds, insects and other organisms. Thanks to adaptation, the world in general is more homogeneous than it would otherwise be.

So next time you find yourself counting down the hours for your car to reach its destination, notice the natural patterns scrolling by your window. Many of these patterns reflect the hidden hand of evolution, which has ironed out the wrinkles and left the world a smoother place.

Go here to read the rest:

Evolution on the smallest of scales smooths out the patchwork patterns of where plants and animals live - The Conversation US

The evolution of organisms and of their environments is inherently linked. Although the understanding that the gene pool is dynamic has shaped much of our understanding of modern biology, its easy to forget that environments are also in flux.

Research has shown that geologically active areas of the planet, especially those with rugged topography, may generate more species diversity. Stokes and Perron investigate the consequences of changes in topography for aquatic organisms and their habitats.

Drainage basins and river paths are constantly changing because of myriad natural phenomena, including tectonic activity, erosion, damming, and glacier retreat. These processes sometimes lead to abrupt alterations of river paths known as river captures. In the new study, the authors create and combine two modelsone that describes macroevolutionary processes of speciation, extinction, and dispersal, and another that simulates river basin changes over timeto investigate how river capture influences the evolution of aquatic organisms.

The results indicate that river capture leads to transient increases in species richness: When the path of a river changes, organisms in the captured regions are introduced into new drainage basins and may become genetically isolated from populations with which they previously could have bred. Over time, these separated populations may diverge sufficiently to become new species.

The authors model also shows that both speciation and extinction events are more likely in river basins undergoing reorganization but that the speciation rate often outpaces the extinction rate, leading to higher diversification overall. When river capture events are frequent and organisms typically disperse and speciate slowly, biodiversity increases. Conversely, in cases where a drainage divide is changing but river capture rates are low, biodiversity drops. (Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF005652, 2020)

David Shultz, Science Writer

Read more:

How River Capture Affects the Evolution of Aquatic Organisms - Eos

BOSTON and NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Evolution Credit Partners Management ("Evolution" or the "Firm"), an alternative credit firm with over $1.6 billion in assets under management, today announced the final close of its inaugural middle-market direct lending fund, Evolution Credit Partners I, L.P. ("ECP I" or the "Fund"). The Fund has approximately $565 million of investable capital, including leverage. Evolution received commitments from a prominent group of domestic and foreign limited partners including insurance companies, endowments and foundations, banks, family offices and high net worth individuals. Since the Firm's spin out from Harvard Management Company in April 2018, ECP I has invested approximately $500 million across 25 private-equity backed portfolio companies.

In addition to the close of ECP I, in December 2019, Evolution's contingent credit strategy fund, Evolution Credit Partners Finance I, L.P., had its final close raising $1.1 billion in equity commitments from a concentrated group of limited partners.

About Evolution Credit PartnersEvolution Credit Partners, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, manages approximately $1.6 billion across a range of synergistic credit strategies. Evolution's credit platform provides bespoke financing solutions across the credit spectrum. For more information, please visit evolutioncreditpartners.com or contact [emailprotected].

This press release contains certain statements that may include "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements are based on Evolution's beliefs, assumptions and expectations of future performance, taking into account all information currently available to Evolution, and can change as a result of many possible events or factors, not all of which are known to Evolution or are within its control.

SOURCE Evolution Credit Partners Management, LLC

https://www.evolutioncreditpartners.com/

Link:

Evolution Credit Partners Raises $565 Million in Committed Capital for Inaugural Private Credit Fund; Evolution's Alternative Credit Platform Reaches...

Since 2008, Microsofts Law Firm Diversity Program (LFDP) has been a vehicle for the company to partner with our strategic partner law firms to advance diversity in the legal profession. We report annually on the programs results, spotlight top performances among our law firm participants and provide insight into how we will evolve the program in the next year to drive continued progress.

This year, we are pleased to share that we continue to see diversity gains by our program participants and to announce that Perkins Coie and Latham & Watkins have earned special recognition for their diversity achievements and contributions to our program.

Were also announcing that in this fiscal year, we will expand the program bonus pool and the number of law firms that can participate to drive more and faster progress with a greater focus on African American, Black, Hispanic and Latinx representation in leadership.

Continued progress in 2020

The LFDP is an incentive-based program that rewards participating firms for increasing diversity within the firms, with a specific focus on:

This last fiscal year, participating firms were eligible to earn a full bonus of up to 2 percent of their annual fees by meeting diversity targets in each of these areas. For purposes of the program, we define increases in diversity as greater inclusion of women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and veterans.

For the 12th consecutive year, diversity has increased within the teams working on Microsoft matters from participant firms. This years gains contributed to nearly a 30 pecentage point overall increase in the percentage of hours worked by diverse attorneys on our matters since the program launched. Since we added a focus on diversity in firm leadership to the program in 2015, diverse representation among management committees has increased by 12 percentage points, and diverse partner composition has grown from 33% to over 38%.

This growth represents commitment, innovation and partnership across our partner firms participating in the program. Given the health and economic crises caused by COVID-19 this year, we are especially grateful to our partner firms for their steadfast focus on creating a more diverse and inclusive industry and legal system during this time. Though we celebrate the gains we have made within the program, we have much more work to do as individual organizations and a profession, and it is as important as ever that we do not lose focus.

Our 2020 Law Firm Diversity Program award recipients

This year, as last year, we have two special awards within the program:

We are pleased to share that Perkins Coie is this years Top Performer, and for the second year in a row, Latham & Watkins is our LFDP Most Innovative firm.

Top Performing Law Firm Perkins Coie

In the last five years, Perkins Coie has achieved impressive progress against LFDP program goals, growing diverse attorney hours on Microsoft matters by 12.3 percentage points (from 56.7% to 69%), and a 10.3 point increase in overall diverse partner representation at the firm (from 33.6% to 43.9%). Perkins Coie has also made great progress in diverse representation on its management committee, with over 64% of their committee members identifying as women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities and veterans. Perkins Coies proactive approach earned the firm recognition on Fortunes list of Best Workplaces for Diversity last year and has positioned the firm as a leader for diversity in the profession. We celebrate Perkins Coies efforts and congratulate their earning of this years award.

Most Innovative Law Firm Latham & Watkins

The LFDP Most Innovative award was created last year to incentivize real, meaningful and sustained progress through innovation as a core principle for the LFDP. For the second consecutive year, Latham & Watkins has been recognized by a vote of its peer participants as the LFDP Most Innovative firm. This year, the firm won over its peers with two new initiatives intended to create a culture of allyship at the firm and reward firm timekeepers for investing their time in diversity and inclusion efforts.

Encouraging allyship

Latham & Watkins created an allyship campaign that aims to provide practical stepson how to be an ally,highlight examples ofallyshipat thefirmandfacilitatesafe space opportunities for everyone to engage in meaningful dialogue about diversity and inclusion, and allyship. The firm anticipates the campaigns launch in the coming year.

Earning credit for diversity and inclusion activities

Latham & Watkins launched a program starting this year where associates and counsel can earn up to a certainnumberof bonus-eligible hours working on activities. In this way, Latham & Watkins understands that providing this credit is an incentive that underscores not only the importance of diversity and inclusion contributions, but also helps increase engagement, both of which are key toward making headway in this space.

We believe that innovative ideas and approaches are necessary to move our profession forward. We also believe that when it comes to diversity and inclusion, sharing ideas will help us all to accelerate our progress. We celebrate Latham & Watkinss commitment to innovation and sharing, so that others can learn from their efforts.

Expanding the Law Firm Diversity Program to drive greater progress

While we are grateful for all the progress in the last year and in the last 12 years, we cant lose sight of the fact that there is much progress to still be made. Indeed, the data on this is quite sobering. Numerous reports from the last year find that we are far from the diverse and inclusive profession that we need to be.

For example, though Asian American, African American and Black, Latinx and Hispanic, and Native American people comprise between 35% and 40% of the U.S. population, Law360 reports in its 2019 snapshot that only 10% of partners at the firms it surveyed identified with these communities.

The data also reflects that the pace of change for some demographics has been too slow, particularly in leadership and for African American, Black, Hispanic and Latinx people. The National Association for Law Placement reports that representation of Black or African American partners rose only a quarter of one percentage point in the 10 years between 2009 and 2019, from 1.7% to 1.9%. Similarly, in the same period, representation for Latinx partners grew less than one percentage point, from 1.6% to 2.5%. At this rate of change, reaching proportional representation for these communities will take more than 50 years. We must make faster progress, and that progress must be inclusive of all diverse communities.

With this context in mind, Microsoft is taking three steps to evolve the LFDP this year:

Additionally, this year we worked with our law firm partners in the United Kingdom to pilot a version of the LFDP in that region and they recently announced the law firm winners of their pilot year.

With this latest evolution of the program, we increase our commitment to diversity and inclusion by strengthening our partnership with our law firms to make continued progress together over the next year.

Sources and where to learn more about the journey toward increasing diversity in the legal profession:

The legal profession must not let COVID-19 weaken our commitment to diversity

Left Out and Left Behind on the experiences of women of color in the profession published by the ABA Commission on Women

NALP 2019 Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms

2019 Law360 Diversity Snapshot

Tags: diversity, Law, Law Firm Diversity Program, LFDP

See the original post here:

Microsoft's Law Firm Diversity Program 2020 awards and the next evolution of the program - Microsoft on the Issues - Microsoft

Throughout history, criminals have exploited national emergencies for financial or illicit gain. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, the risk for cyber-enabled fraud exploded in unparalleled scale and scope. Today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and FICO released a Special Report on Cybersecure Remote Working During COVID-19, spotlighting the evolution of cybersecurity threats during the coronavirus pandemic and providing expert insight as to how businesses can enhance their cybersecurity.

COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our livesworking from home, virtual meetings, and digital commerce are becoming our new normaland theres no reason to think that all of this will revert to the old normal once the pandemic wanes. Cybercriminals have taken advantage of this new normal and have been exploiting cyber vulnerabilities among businesses.

How and Where Cybercriminals Are Targeting Businesses

Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro, says in the new report that cybercriminal groups know that humans are often the weakest link in cybersecurity defense, and now they have a highly emotional issue ready to exploit.

COVID is international, it definitely provides another opportunity for these groups to scale their social engineering [psychological manipulation] attacks, Cabrera says. Weve definitely seen an uptick.

Cabrera adds that his company has seen evidence of an increase in a wide range of cyberattacks linked to the pandemic. According to Trend Micro, in the first quarter of this year there were nearly one million spam messages sent, 48,000 hits on malicious URLs, and 737 pieces of malware detectedall tailored with content relevant to COVID-19. Often, these attacks prey on peoples emotions or simply their desire to learn about the pandemic.

"They exploit our trust. The trust we have in the applications we use, the emails that we get, Cabrera says. What theyve done is play on the fear and frustration that everybody feels from having been locked down. They are sending phishing emails using topics like rising COVID hotspots in their area [or] increased death rates. Or any information that relates to school openings or COVID testing results.

This is especially true in phishing (fraudulent email or website scams) attacks, which take advantage of short attention spans and seek to build trust quickly with the recipient.

Certainly, the usage of COVID-19 as a lure for phishing operations has become more prevalent. Thats to be expected when you have something that has universal, global interest, says Luke McNamara, principal analyst at FireEye Mandiant Intelligence. It can be used for campaigns and intrusion targeting around the globe. Many of the campaigns and groups that weve been tracking for some time have now started to roll that into their operations.

The prevalence of videoconferencing in a time of working from home is also something in which malicious attackers are interested. If nothing else, it gives them the opportunity to eavesdrop on confidential communications and gather intelligence.

Another challenge of working from home is changing from centralized, corporate networks to more distributed, home networks.

With the move from a centralized workplace to a distributed one across a variety of home offices, COVID-19 brought new network security challenges to global IT teams, said Doug Clare, vice president, fraud, compliance and security solutions at FICO. As workforces around the world continue to operate remotely with data being exchanged digitally whether by virtual meetings or e-commerce, cybersecurity needs to remain top-of-mind for organizations.

Steps Businesses Can Take to Secure Their Virtual Working Environments

The good news is there are several steps businesses and employees can take to enhance their cybersecurity, especially now as the COVID-19 pandemic altered the work patterns of millions of Americans virtually overnight.

Here are six recommendations included in the report that every business can use:

Americans have enough to worry about with economic uncertainty, health concerns, job losses, and so forth, and we want to ensure business owners have the right tools to increase the security of their virtual working environments, said Christopher D. Roberti, senior vice president for cyber, intelligence, and supply chain security policy at the U.S. Chamber. This Special Report provides recommendations and expert opinions that will help that process.

See the article here:

The Evolution of Cybersecurity Threats During COVID-19 and What You Can Do About It - uschamber.com

(Credit: Jenkins Mitch)

A few months back, it was erroneously reported by several publications (including this one) that soprano Marina Poplavskaya had officially retired from her career.

That was far from the case.

While the Russian mezzo-soprano has not been quite as active as she was at the beginning of the 2010s, she is far from finished as a singer.

I had to find the path for my voice because it had changed, Poplavskaya told OperaWire in a recent interview, clarifying the direction her career had taken since her last Met Opera appearance back in 2014.

The soprano became a household name in the mid-2000s and early 2010s, performing at virtually every major opera house on a weekly basis.

As Poplavskaya describes it, those days were full of non-stop movement from one place to another fueled by a desire to take on every opportunity that came her way.

One really true thing is that I had to always jump in for someone, she stated, emphasizing how some of her greatest moments came in relief of other singers (such as her Royal Opera House debut in 2007 in Don Giovanni in relief of an ailing Anna Netrebko). I was literally jumping into all of these productions because I loved performing. Thats the answer. I loved performing. I didnt dream of what my path would be like children often do. I just performed. I always perform.

Poplavskaya was always performing, as early as five-years-old when she begged her mother to get a violin. By age 10, she was a part of the childrens chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre and she never looked back.

As she matured, the burgeoning soprano worked with several teachers, finally finding some stability with Peter Tarassov. But he noted that Poplavskayas voice was a unique one.

My teacher said that I had a very difficult and strange voice. It had the colors and stretches. But he told me I had to work really hard, Poplavskaya revealed. He didnt know if I was a high mezzo like Stignani or soprano.

Then Poplavskaya fell in love with Maria Callas and realized that she would do what it took to develop her voice to fit the soprano repertory.

I fell in love with Maria Callas. I was willing to sacrifice everything to be a soprano at that point. That was my dream at 19.

As Poplavskaya put it, she just went for it from that point forward.

Between 2001-04, she was performing at the major theaters in Russia, including the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, and the Bolshoi Theatre where she debuted in 2003.

Then came her big international break in 2005, when she was invited to audition for the Royal Opera Houses Young Artists Programme.

At first I thought, Young Artist? I am singing in Bolshoi. Why would I go? Poplavskaya revealed she wondered this upon receiving the invitation.

She ultimately went despite not speaking a word of English. When she got the letter officially inviting her to become a member of the program, she had to ask a friend to translate it for her.

The ensuing years would feature her greatest successes with the soprano performing everywhereNew York, Vienna, London, Munich, Berlin, Los Angeles, Australia, Hamburg, and Salzburg, among many other cities and countries.

I just went for it. Its like you take off the breaks and you just launch yourself. The agent calls you, makes an offer, or lets you know of an opportunity. Before he finished the phrase, I would be ready with When do I go?

On one such occasion, she got an invitation from Daniel Barenboim to sing the Verdi Requiem.

I was super new. Very fresh. I learned Verdis Requiem in two weeks. This was crazy for sure. I am not Angela Meade who was born with that kind of Verdi soprano. I am not Renata ScottoI adored everything she sang. Or Katia Ricciarelli. All the big singers in this piece. I had to teach myself at that point, she noted. If you are invited by Daniel Barenboim to sing Verdis Requiem, you jump in.

She added that before boarding the plane for that engagement, she was asked if she might also jump in for a performance of Beethovens Ninth Symphony.

Who cares if you never sang it? I learned it on the plane which lasted 13 hours, Poplavskaya remarked. In between my travels, I studied like a mad person.

If I tell you my schedule during those years and how much I did and how much I sang, now I look back and ask how I did it all.

Other major career developments for the soprano during that time included her collaboration with famed Italian conductor Riccardo Muti.

She first worked with the demanding maestro on a production of Otello in Salzburg, sandwiched between two productions of Don Carlo.

He is clear and specific. He is forward. He reads you and explains to you what is going on in orchestra and how it combines with the vocal line, Poplavskaya noted, adding that she doesnt buy into the reputation that Muti has as a tyrant. He is not a tyrant. He is a very demanding person. He sees the musical structure so clearly. He has worked so hard for that all of his life. He asks that you reciprocate this intensity in everything you do.

In fact, she noted that the conductor is very generous and giving to the singer. He doesnt care what you have to do to produce the best version, but makes sure that the orchestra gives you its best. He is always working with you to get that best version.

She also noted that he was a major guide in terms of vocal technique, adding that she questioned why he never became a singer himself.

When I returned to do the second Don Carlo run, my colleagues immediately told me I was a different singer. They said I was fearless. I said, I just came back from working with Muti. Im not afraid of dying.

Poplavskaya noted that her rapport with Muti was but an extension of her constant desire to learn from all of her colleagues, even those with whom she shared the stage.

Throughout the conversation, she emphasized that when she watched another singer perform, she not only listens to what comes out of their mouth but how it is produced.

When I did Faust with Jonas [Kaufmann] at the Met and Ren [Pape], I was always studying their sounds. I had never heard Pape before in real life until I worked with him in another production. For me, there was this immense vocal culture.

When someone sings, I feel it inside my throat. How that person is singing and speaking. I am driven by the sound. By the physiology of the sound, Poplavskaya added. Thats how I work. So every new role, I learn in this way by listening to others. Someone might say that I sang a role like Gabriella Tucci. But the truth is it might be a hybrid of Tucci, Scotto, and Caball. Thats how I built up my repertory.

She noted that when she learned Traviata ahead of her role debut in 2009 in Los Angeles, she studied the 1982 recording by Muti and Renata Scotto.

I did a surgical analysis of what she did. It was such a challenging role, especially the first act with the very high tessitura, Poplavskaya noted before adding that when she went to Amsterdam to do the opera, she was attuned to a different recording altogether to inform her interpretation.

When we did it in Amsterdam, my ears were tuned on the Licia Albanese and Toscanini version with the original score. And also the Callas recording at La Scala. Thats how I schooled myself.

All the way up until 2014, Poplavskaya was one of the major stars of the opera world. In addition to being a mainstay on the major stages in Europe, she was one of the Met Operas lead sopranos, having debuted three new productions with the company between 2010 and 2013; she was set to take over an opening night production of Le Nozze di Figaro in 2014.

And then it all changed.

In 2014, I got married and decided to settle. I got pregnant and had a daughter, Poplavskaya noted.

But that wasnt all. Her strange voice was changing as well.

My voice had enough with the soprano repertoire, she revealed, noting that in subsequent years of study, she simply could not find the same level of comfort in the extended higher range as she had at her peak a few years earlier. It was super painful, especially when I had to start canceling engagements. For some singers, it is just three months of recovery after pregnancy and some never stop singing. But for me, it was a complete change.

She was afraid of having experienced some damage to her vocal cords, but tests from doctors showed no evidence of that.

She eventually took a break from singing and took on a diverse array of differing interests. She became a licensed and certified interior design specialist and Real Estate specialist, working at Citi Habitats.

But then, in an effort to spend more time at home with her daughter and family, she moved on to pursue teaching. She received a certification in Voice Teaching and Performing Arts and also became a Special Needs Education specialist with a badge in psychological studies.

But she never had the intention of ending her career as a singer. Throughout this time, she kept seeking out help from different vocal teachers, eventually finding the support of Catherine Green, who has also worked with such artists as Ermonela Jaho, Massimo Giordano, and Atalla Ayan.

When I started singing with her, she told me that there was a lot to work on, Poplavskaya narrated. The soprano wasnt coming. I kept telling her. My passaggio feels strange. She also felt the same.

So Green took a chance and asked Poplavskaya to start working on some mezzo-soprano repertory.

They started with Rossinis La Donna del Lago and subsequently Donizettis La Favorite.

Suddenly my voice was singing. And we had no trouble, she enthused.

Since 2018, shes been rebuilding her repertory with a focus on bel canto operas as well as Marina Mnishek in Boris Godunov and Olga in Eugene Onegin (she was an acclaimed Tatiana in 2014).

She did a couple of concerts in late 2019 and recently teamed up with colleagues around the world to record some Brahms songs.

As the world slowly reopens after the COVID-19 crisis, Poplavskaya stated a desire to relaunch her career.

I am ready to do auditions. I dont mind doing auditions at all, she noted. I will travel and sing and go where they call me. If they want me, I am ready. If not, I understand.

But she also noted that, unlike the start of her career where she was ready to jump at any opportunity, she is going to take things slower this time, noting that she wants to make sure she can still be there for her daughter.

She is my life, Poplavskaya emphasized, adding that her daughter, who is now five, has initiated her own musical journey.

At three-years-old, I asked her what she wanted from Santa Claus and she said she wanted to play violin, Poplavskaya enthused. And that she does. She practices for one hour a day. She saved me in a sense. I was running around singing. But thats not life. Its a part of me. But its not life.

Now I have a husband who I absolutely adore and a little daughter who is everything to me. I am very happy.

Follow this link:

A New Direction - Mezzo-Soprano Marina Poplavskaya on the Evolution & Relaunching of Her Career - OperaWire

This post is sponsored and contributed by a Patch Community Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author's own, and the information presented has not been verified by Patch.

Many of us can recall a time where the office was the 9-5, brick and mortar facility where everything was done. For some, it was not long ago, like the 90's.For others, it is a place they have never ventured into or a place they have never seen thanks to technology and change. Combine this with a modern-day pandemic, traditional offices and what they facilitated for many are merely a memory. For others, they are lands and times only told of in stories and on remade versions for television shows.

What does that mean for the typical building and what was "typical office", well simply put; they are being modernized. Not modernized in a way that includes digital whiteboards or the latest in video or virtual meetings, those are common day staples. What is meant in the term is how the traditional office is utilized?

Subscribe

A large majority of office work is work that can or needs to be done by an individual person, whether it is data entry, sales, coding, designing, processing, bookkeeping or online support of a system. These tasks can be done, in most cases, in any place at any time. They no longer require the employee to trek miles from home, via car, bus or train. They no longer must be done during the hours of 9 to 5 or do not require the supervisor to lurk over the employee's shoulder or in an office only feet away.

Technology has given us wings in ways never imaginable. We can communicate virtually, via phone or video, screen sharing is becoming more common place for training or system troubleshooting. Even what was commonly used for generations, actually hands-on training is too a thing of the past. It makes people wonder what the need for a traditional office is.

Subscribe

All of this is creating an evolution of the office, a refit for a different albeit, a better use of the space. Let us be clear, offices will evolve, offices will not go extinct.

So how will offices be used? What will they be used for? People have different ideas and differing opinions, mostly based on the specific business they are in and importantly that company's management style, philosophy and security needs. Most see offices evolving into a touchdown location, a place to gather and to collaborate.

Having a place to go, a place for coworkers to get together to discuss, debate and collaborate is a necessity no matter the business. We are humans and interactions with others are a key ingredient that many need to maintain a balance in their lives. So, what does the office look like? Is it an office full of lounge chairs, maybe a sofa or two, of course some meeting rooms with all the modern-day technology necessities? Perhaps, it is a set of private offices where people go to focus on the task at hand. Maybe it is a team sized room, complete with tables and chairs, a place for them to bond as teammates and accomplish the task of the day?

What is more than likely will be is "D.) All the Above". It will be a place where employees can come and go, have the freedom to get comfortable, to get in the zone and to be a success. But how can a company, large or small accomplish this within a reasonable expense?

Welcome to the Flexible Workspace, the Future of Workspace, welcome to Venture X. Here at Venture X, we combine all the needs for variable sized and styled spaces all under one roof, without leases, without long term commitments. Fully furnished, and plug-and-play ready 24x7 for business, ready for when you want or need to work. No matter the size of the business, small or large, Venture X can make the evolution of the office a hassle-free experience.

To learn more about Venture X, visit us at http://www.venturex.com or call 508-375-3636 to schedule a tour of the facility.

This is a sponsored post contributed by a Patch Community Partner, a local sponsor. To learn more, click here.

See the article here:

The Evolution of the Office - Patch.com

Monday, 5 October 2020, 11:14 amPress Release: LENS Outdoor

New Zealand-based LENS Outdoor (LENS)launched today with plans to revolutionise audiencemeasurement in the Out-Of-Home Advertising sector both hereand abroad with the launch of the most sophisticatedplatform in the industry.

In a move to drive a newindustry standard, the platform - to be known as LENS willinitially be rolled out by LUMO DigitalOutdoor, with discussions currently underway withseveral Australian and UK-based mediaoperators.

The industry as a whole is waking up tothe fact that historical ways of audience measurement forout-of-home is simply not up to scratch, lacking both theaccuracy and transparency that advertisers are nowdemanding. Its great to have several foundation partnersonboarding LENS and were excited to develop the productalongside our clients. Robin Arnold, LENS ChiefTechnology Officer.

LENS partnered with softwaredeveloper Latch Digital to build the audience measurementplatform, with the aim of delivering world leadingtransparency and accuracy. As digital out-of-home (DOOH)rebounds from the impact of the pandemic and with theintroduction of programmatic trading, LENS comes at theperfect time, allowing for strategic decisions based onreal-time data.

The LENS platform willencompass four key components that inform itsoutputs:

When asked what separates LENS fromother Outdoor providers systems in this space, DavidRoper from Latch Digital commented, LENS presented us abrief to design and develop a client-focused audiencemeasurement platform that delivers real-time transparencyand accountability specifically for roadside DOOH mediaoperators. The priority was on accuracy and relevancy to thedynamic nature of DOOH.

The Covid-19 pandemicexposed a significant weakness in the various datasets thatare used in the OOH sector. Without the ability to collectand report on current audience metrics, the other platformsrely upon modelled data that is outdated, inaccurate, lackstransparency and site specificity.

This dilemma wasresolved by LENS partnering with AXIS and Vaxtor to installa site-based Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)camera network across LUMOs digital billboard portfolio.This site-based camera infrastructure delivers millions ofdatapoints each day which offers the highest degree ofaccuracy and reliability of any roadside OOH measurementsystem in the world.

Agencies and advertisers willaccess an intuitive dashboard which will provide them withweekly, daily and hourly data insights which are live.Primarily used for post-campaign reports and media proposalvalidation, a DOOH media planning feature is underdevelopment and will be introduced soon.

LENS isexcited to have LUMO as their foundation client who are nowactively introducing the platform to theircustomers.

If you are interested in learning more,contact hello@lensoutdoor.nz

LENS leverages theinnovative Kiwi spirit by looking beyond the status quo andanswering the needs of its core client base.

Createdamidst the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, LENS wasdeveloped in New Zealand to specifically account for thedynamic volume, patterns and trends of Digital Out-Of-Home(DOOH) audiences. Its unique use of data and technologyoffers real-time insight, accuracy and transparency, unlikeany currently available in the OOH sector anywhere in theworld.

LENS Outdoor is the inaugural platform thatuses multiple site-based high-resolution cameras,specialised number plate recognition software and anintuitive dashboard to deliver truthful insights of DOOHaudiences as they travel past digital billboards, every hourof everyday.

Scoop Media

Become a member Find out more

Original post:

LENS - The Evolution In Out-Of-Home Analytics - Scoop.co.nz

With travel to meet clients and colleagues a less viable option and many organizations moving to a work from home/hybrid model, we are seeing an increased reliance on high quality sound technologies that enable effective collaboration and communication.

A lot of attention has focused on the platforms and services that are powering our virtual meetings. Names like Zoom that were once niche products of the startup world have become verbs used by your kids teacher or grandparents.

Without these innovative platforms and thehigh speedinfrastructure that they sit on top of, we would be in a much bleaker economic situation. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that its COVID-19 and not COVID-95.

But one area that has received less attention has been the actual hardware that we use to facilitate our business conferencing. The nuts and bolts, or in our case, microphones and speakers.

Hoping to get a better sense of how the industry needs are changing to meet the current challenges,UC Todaycaught up with Stuart Davidson, the Technical Director atKinly. His previous company AVMI was recently acquired by the Amsterdam-based Kinly that provides a wide range of collaboration technology solutions.

He shared his experience as an integrator ofaudio visualtechnologies on the recent shifts in the UC space, and how his work with hardware providers like Shure are altering their approach to serving their customers.

Stuart Davidson

Increasingly, Davidson says that a lot of their work is shifting from the large halls and auditoriums to providing meeting room integrations.

Our customer base is really anyone that uses technology to collaborate as a group, he tellsUC Today, adding that many of their customers are now coming from commercial and financial verticals, as well as education and the military. Within these verticals, he is seeing changes in demand.

While much of the buzz has been on how people are setting up home working solutions, Davidsons team has found a fair amount of their work moving to enabling better communication from offices. As the months have dragged on, in areas where the conditions have permitted it, many organizations have moved to a hybrid working arrangement. This is where not everyone comes to the office all at once, but in capsules or for specific working groups a few times a week.

However, the continued dispersal of people collaborating on projects has meant that offices have had to adapt and adopt better sound configurationsso as toensure clearer communication with those in remote locations.

Weve gone from the integration business to the collaboration business, says Davidson, explaining that many of their recent projects have been in helping organizations set in place a kind of continuity for communication, and less on large scale installations.

What we do nowadays is provide that line between what is on your desktop, and whats in a meeting room so that its one seamless experience, he says.

Providing this experience for their customers means working with technologies that are built for the UC space in mind and hold up to Davidsons standards for quality.

Shure is a strategic partner because they have the same ethos as we do in that, in that the quality comes first, he says, noting that:

We need to make sure that fundamentally we are delivering to the standard that we demand and we demand a gold standard in all of our projects

Shures new steerable microphone arrays are enabling us to provide voice lift functionality from integrated ceiling microphones and speakers, which was historically something weve never been able to do, he says, adding that, Itreally helps us to provide a better experience with the customer.

He points to Shurespartnershipswith both Microsoft and Zoom as playing a role in their success in providing technology that has been designed to natively integrate into his customers UC workflow. These include anumber of productslike Shures MXA910 ceiling array microphone, the Microflex Wireless microphones, and the MXA310 table array.

Throughout my conversation with Davidson, one clear thread continued to pop up throughout. That is the need to provide customers with a quality audio experience that allows them to work without getting in the way.

In a sense, it justhas towork, and its better if we dont notice that its there.

Think of all the virtual meetings youve had in recent months. What percentage of the time did you spend asking the person on the other end of the line to repeat themselves because something was missed or garbled?

It might seem obvious, but it is worth repeating. One of the goals of theaudio visualtechnology providers, and the platforms as well for that matter, should be to interact as naturally as possible under these starkly unnatural conditions. That means sitting in the background, picking up our voices without having to hold a mic in our hands, and letting us talk simply and clearly with one another before remembering that we used to do this in person.

Visit link:

The Evolution of Audio Technology in the Era of Hybrid Working - UC Today

As CGI technologies cheapen and influencer marketing budgets increase, Madeleine Mak, a client development executive for APAC at GroupMs Inca, says the industry can expect the available categories and sizes of virtual influencers to diversify.

It-girl Lil Miquela, or Miquela Sousa, has changed the game. Entering the scene in 2016, Miquela has since amassed over 2.5 million Instagram followers and released 15 Spotify singles. The face of Prada and Samsung campaigns, Miquela has also starred alongside supermodel Bella Hadid for Calvin Klein.

You may be wondering, what makes Miquela so special? Multi-talented, edgy, and outspoken, more intriguingly, Miquela is not real. In fact, she is just one of many virtual influencers that continue to make waves on social media. Defined as AI-generated digital personas, virtual influencers have been shown to be three times more engaging than human influencers. A product of innovative AI companies and bold independent artists, much discussion around virtual influencers question what makes them so fascinating to us digital audiences. Whether they serve as forms of cultural commentary or uniquely challenge our perceptions of fantasy and reality, it is clear that brands are catching on, and they are catching on fast.

Fashion brands were the first to embrace this virtual influencer trend. For its fall 2018 collection, French luxury fashion house Balmain featured three virtual models as part of its Balmain Army. Earlier this year, Puma partnered with virtual influencer Maya as its South East Asia brand ambassador. Brands across a broader range of verticals are now following suit. In 2019 for example, popular fast-food chain KFC created a virtual Colonel Sanders who engaged with other famous virtual influencers across its social channels. The World Health Organization (WHO) also partnered with health and wellness virtual influencer Knox Frost to promote social distancing practices amid the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Apart from the novelty, what else allures brands to the virtual influencer? Unlike real influencers, every aspect of a virtual influencers creative and copy is controlled and intentionally produced by its creators. This guarantees a heightened level of brand safety in an industry at-risk of influencer PR scandals and unprofessionalism. Similarly, using virtual influencers may be cost-effective. This is especially pertinent to brands in tourism and hospitality who usually incur additional costs to execute influencer campaigns.

As CGI technologies cheapen and influencer marketing budgets increase, we expect the available categories and sizes of virtual influencers to diversify. Compared to the industry average engagement rate benchmark of 0.7%, Lil Miquela has an impressive 2.7%. The potential for niche virtual nano- and micro-influencers is exciting.

We can also expect movement towards more dynamic, real-time virtual influencers. Currently, a majority are CGI, restricting audience engagement to static social posts or video. As AI technology such as robotics develop, virtual influencers will be able to break the third wall and engage in live Q&As and events. This will elevate and refreshen the possibilities for brands to engage with target audiences.

At the forefront of these innovations is Inca, GroupMs brand-safe influencer marketing solution, who announced its partnership with Sophia, the worlds most advanced human-like robot on 26 August 2020. Created by Hanson Robotics, an AI and robotics company dedicated to creating socially intelligent machines and enriching lives, Sophia is a celebrity and disruptor capable of generating facial expressions, mirroring peoples postures, and discerning emotions from tone of voice. While she has worked with multinational brands in the past, Sophias first-ever ambassadorship with an agency is groundbreaking for marketers, brands, and the AI industry alike.

Incas partnership with Sophia showcases how the use of technology can bridge human connections with brands. With Incas AI solution for data-powered influencer selection and content creation, the partnership will intuitively match Sophia with brands to create unique and engaging bite-sized content to connect with brand audiences across various social media platforms.

While we see changes in how consumers are influenced by multiple sources, we are confident that this is the right time to introduce a new influencer into our network that exemplifies humanity as well as the technological achievements of our time. As we collaborate with Sophia, we are in awe of how technology can showcase the marvels of artificial intelligence (AI) in a humanoid form, Atique Kazi, Inca APAC Lead said.

Virtual influencers are an evolving and greatly untapped opportunity for both brands and marketers to innovatively engage and stir up conversation within digital audiences. Clearly, virtual influencers are not just a trend.

Madeleine Mak is a client development executive for APAC at GroupMs Inca.

See the article here:

The evolution of the virtual influencer: no longer just a trend - The Drum

Dutch artist Theo Janssen creates amazing kinetic sculptures that have spread across social media. His Strandbeest are large surreal animal skeletons that walk by themselves across beaches, powered by wind. He talked to Kim Hill.

Janssen has been making the Strandbeest by hand from things like PVC pipes and ski poles for the past 30 years. He's even trying to get them to 'evolve', by sharing the open source instructions of how to make them, with the world.

He says that while he is essential to the process, the design of the beasts arise from something greater and he's more of a catalyst.

"At the moment I'm working on... an extension of the leg system, sort of puppet legs that imitate the legs on the front of the beast, and it seems that you can make this tail of legs as long as you wish.

"And they can carry extra things like a power wing, which pumps air in the plastic bottles to store the wind, so I think it's a new possibility for carrying things.

"The power wing is a wing that waves into the wind, and there are little pumps connected with that wing that go up and down, just like a bicycle pump. And they pump air into soda bottles to high pressure, and the animals can use this pressure in case the wind falls away, because they can drive other pumps and then the animal can walk or do other things.

"You have in fact the principal of a muscle. Muscles turn out to be very handy if you want to survive on beaches."

Janssen says he turns the power wing on when needed.

"But in the future they could get sensors for the wind, the wind power and wind direction, and they can open the animal when to open the valve to start or stop pumping.

"There's no computer in the beast, it's all mechanical. It's a sort of yin yang between complexity and simpleness.

"It can't be too complex, because I can't make a mechanical computer of 100 megabytes or something. So it has to be a very simple switching system which only works with 1 byte; 8 bits. It's digital but not electronic, but you can also switch digital on mechanical pumps.

"It's binary, you have this on-off function, and these nerve cells in the animal work on compressed air and can be either one or zero, in the same way a computer works, but it's only mechanical. So if you have a series of zeroes and ones, you can build a sort of brain, which takes the decisions for the animal based on the outer information coming from the sensors.

"So the wind is very important, also the hardness of the sand, also if there's water about - this information goes into a sort of brain and then the animal takes action. But I must say I help the animals a lot."

Janssen's work was heavily influenced by Richard Dawkins' work The Blind Watchmakers.

"What I'm doing on the beaches; I try mutations. Most mutations don't work - most of my ideas don't work, but sometimes there's some hope and then I build on that, and then something succeeds sometimes.

"And if you keep on working long enough you get a real evolutionary process, which I couldn't think of in the beginning - how the animals are evolving.

"The path is very capricious you could say - you cannot predict what the development of the beast will be.

"People see me as an intelligent designer, like there's a hand of God, but it's an overestimated intelligence because usually my ideas don't work. It's just the ideas of reality that you bounce on when you're working and playing with the beast, those are better than my ideas."

View post:

Kinetic artist Theo Janssen: the evolution of Strandbeests - RNZ

Keeping patients at the center of the drug design process can be a formidable challenge. However, it is important to optimizing development outcomes.

Outsourcing-Pharma (OSP) recently spoke with Tim McLeroy (TM), executive director of marketing and patient services at Noble, an Aptar Pharma company, about his scheduled CPhI Festival of Pharma keynote address, Future of Drug Delivery (with co-presenters Nicholas Brooke, executive director of The Synergist; and Anne-Lise Ducournau Lichtenberg, pharmacist and independent expert). McLeroy offered a preview of his presentation and advice on increasing patient-centricity along the way.

OSP: What do we mean when we talk about patient-focused drug design?

TM: My interpretation of the patient-focused drug design would be starting the design process already firmly grounded in an understanding of the patient experience, patient population, and environment in which the patient or caregiver is using your product.or in essence, start with the end in mind. These insights can make significant changes to a product, especially if you understand the limitations of a patient demographic and what challenges they face.

An easy example is when a product is being developed for patients with arthritis, but not understanding the dexterity or hand impairment issues that they face. How do you make the product and its support materials useful and easy to use? Design for it.

OSP: How do pharma firms and their development partners usually tackle patient input?

TM: Usually patient insights are gathered through market research, human factors studies, or work with advocacy groups when possible. Its best to gain these insights as early as possible to prevent going down a path with a solution where there might not be a problem, or the where the perceived solution may not work for the intended population.

OSP: Please feel free to share your perspective on current approaches to engaging patients, and any faults with those approaches.

TM: Direct engagement is always best, say through ethnographies or discussions with advocacy groups. Social listening is now a tool that is being used to understand what is being bantered around in the digital space.

It is good to get both qualitative and quantitative date when possible, although I like to always take it back to an N:1. I like to get to know patients well enough that I can put myself in their shoes and look at what I am working on from that perspective.

OSP: At what stages of drug development should pharma and research professionals engage patients, and how?

TM: There has been a push lately to even get patients input into clinical trial design. As patients have greater access to information than they ever have had, it is now believed that their level of engagement and retention will be higher if they are active participants in the treatment protocols; this is especially true in the rare disease space as patient populations are smaller and more specialized in their care.

OSP: What methods work best for patient engagement?

TM: The best thing for patient engagement is so simple but is easily overlooked: listening is still the best method. Not rushing in with a preconceived idea that you want validated by someone, but actually listening to the need and tailoring a solution to meet that need. Sounds too easy, but its harder than it looks.

OSP: I understand you plan on discussing which methods and strategies have been most effective in advancing design/developmentcan you give a preview of your thoughts?

TM: At Noble, we have built our business on helping companies with their patient engagements once they were close to bringing a product to market or optimizing adherence strategies post marketing. What we are doing now is moving earlier in that development process by engaging in human factors work that will give us greater insights into patient interactions with products; this way our prelaunch planning and patient onboarding strategies can be further rooted in understanding of patients and what needs they have when it comes to new products.

McLeroys keynote, Future of Drug Delivery, is scheduled October 5, 11-12 CET, during the virtual CPhI Festival of Pharma event is scheduled October 5-9 and October 12-16. For more information about the sessions, exhibits and other programming, visit bit.ly/345ksGE.

See the rest here:

Noble to address drug delivery evolution at CPhI - OutSourcing-Pharma.com

As the energy industry balances a traditional focus with emerging technologies and solutions during its transition into a digital ecosystem, many companies are evaluating which approach to take into the future. Oil and gas companies are employing a range of enablers, ranging from increased automation, integration, and remote monitoring to newly emerging technologies.

In a panel discussion during the ENGenious Online Symposium and Exhibition for Energy Innovation, speakers highlighted projects taking advantage of the digital ecosystem, along with hurdles they face in achieving digital transformation and how they are measuring success.

We are going through an era known as compounded disruption, which means the oil and gas industry is being impacted by several factors, said Satyam Priyadarshy, Halliburtons technology fellow and chief data scientist.

If you look at daily life, we use three technologies commonly: search, face recognition, and mobile, said Priyadarshy. We cant live without them, they are very mature technologies.

Priyadarshy said adopting technology has been slow in the industry and noted there isnt a standard well-developed search engine for the industry such as Google and utilizing industry workflows on mobile applications remains a struggle.

The transition is further complicated as the industry moves from its current state of data comprising ownership, silos, provenance, and multiplicity, to advanced technologies consisting of Cloud-based networks, drones, robots and immersive reality.

Targeting Transition

Oil major BP recently said it aims to shed its reputation as an international oil company andconstruct a new one as an integrated energy companythat will spend $5 billion annually on low-carbon technologies while also setting a target to reduce its overall oil and gas production by 40% by 2030.

It recently launched a partnership with Microsoft to bolster efforts to drive forward the digital transformation while also meeting their respective carbon-emission goals.

Were undergoing probably the biggest transformation in our 112-year history, said Patricia Rangel, BPs chief product owner, upstream digital.

Rangel said BPs digital transformation is the key enabler for its plan, combining new ways of working with advanced digital solutions. Best practices that have enabled include moving to end-to-end value chains, focusing on an integrated business transformation, and finding agile ways to work.

BP introduced its Global Collaboration Centre in 2017, which enables experts with access to real-time data digital solutions to deliver value to its global operations. The global collaboration concept is being expanded to other parts of BPs business.

From a technology perspective, BP also introduced its Apex and Vertex digital twin production solution, which has delivered significant value to the company.

Another BP digital application is Skybox, which supports materials management and work preparation, particularly for offshore work through an Amazon-like user experience. The app was developed and deployed globally to all of BPs offshore sites in less than a year.

BP is also working with Cognite on an offset well analyzer, a digital system used to visualize offset wells data across the business.

Engineering and supply chain companies are also working on projects.

Subsea engineering and technology company Oceaneering launched its OceanSMART Cargo Logistics and Maritime Technology business in June, which aims to eliminate waste and increase transparency within the bulk commodity cargo logistics industry.

Company CEO Roderick Larson said OceanSMART collects data around port efficiency to plan trips to avoid traffic and avoid demerge cost.

Oceaneering is also working with remote piloting and autonomous vehicles to help de-man rigs and subsea resident vehicles, where a vehicle is left behind to communicate via transponder beacon.

Cognite CEO John Lervik said the world needs industrial digitalization solutions, both for environmental reasons as well as global economic development.

The artificial intelligence (AI) software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider is working on a maintenance planning project, which reduced risk and time, and a hybrid AI solution, which can help integrate production optimization.

Ananya Roy, co-founder of geoscience data company EarthPeel, said to truly be part of the digital ecosystem, the industry must be more radically open, which means learning to look beyond its industry.

EarthPeel is building a digital twin of the earth designing itself for the modern web and building on established open-source libraries. The companys tools are open-sourced and it welcomes community contributions

Although countless projects are underway, key challenges remain.

Barriers to Transition

Oceaneerings Larson said among the key barriers his company faces is inadequate security infrastructure/protocols on existing systems which were built without adequate security features and switching costs.

I think there is a technology debt out there, our infrastructure is catching up to the modern uses that we want to apply, Larson said. So, weve got a lot of expense yet to be incurred to get up to where we can deploy.

Larson adds another key challenge is a poorly articulated value proposition.

If we all believed in the value and understood the value of reducing carbon and the value of the safety of not sending people offshore on helicopters If we were able to articulate that well, I think we would be able to get past spending money on a security infrastructure and incurring those switching costs and the redundancy we need to get past those fears, Larson said.

From a software perspective, EarthPeels Roy sees issues like closed-source software and limited data-sharing as major hurdles.

Closed-source software is like an old castle with a moat around it, Roy said. No one can see inside, and it keeps good people and ideas out. One difference is that the software built on smartphones uses open-source software.

Roy added open-source software means making the same coding choices that companies such as Google make, which focuses efforts on building something new instead of duplicating what already exists. It also means more people use the software on different apps, facilitating rapid testing and community contributions for improvement. Opening data to everyone will be key to seeing value from tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning, she added.

Cognite sees similar issues with legacy data formats and application lock-ins. Unfortunately, we still have lock-ins that prevent the industry from taking full advantage of digital, said Lervik.

He added, As a result, many operators still need to concern themselves with file formats instead of focusing on data access via modern application programming interfaces (APIs). On top of that, operators are also locked-in with the vendors proprietary applications which do not allow for inoperability between systems applications.

Lervik believes the industry should focus on providing data via open APIs and open specifications, which allows for operators and suppliers to compete for best in class rather than being locked in by older applications.

Data quality and security is also a key success factor, especially when it comes to scale.

Many people dont really talk about scale because they talk about individual single applications where you can fix it in a spreadsheet or manually. But if you are going to scale digitalization, you also need to scale the handling of the easy.

Lervik said the industry needs organizational maturity when to it comes to procuring and driving adoption of SaaS. He explained the industry has a focus on one-off projects that work well and deliver software, which may not deliver continuously over time. SaaS, however, is constantly being updated to deliver over time.

We need to move from project-based to product-based software, said Lervik.

Measuring Success

Technology must be built to evolve, said Larson. It must be able to scale, upgrade, and adopt the latest, best-in-class methods, data services, and hardware.

Larson offered a cautionary observation about adding more technology than is needed.

Dont pollute the minimally viable product with low-value bells and whistles, he said. When we get excited about all these things we can pile on, it slows the development process, it clouds the value that youre trying to deliver, it confuses the user. If we really wanted to be agile, we need to keep it clean to make it easy to determine the value and deliver the value quickly.

Larvik agreed success lies with the ability to scale digital solutions across assets with minimal effort and focusing on concrete, quantifiable value. He adds success also lies with moving away from proofs of concept to operationalized solutions.

Another measure of success, said Roy, is when the industry can expect the same speed from its data that the public expects from its phones. Can every researcher at an oil company instantly access their own seismic data? Or do they have to call people to find out what data exist and where they can find it?

Visit link:

Digital Evolution in Oil and Gas: Barriers, Successes, and the Future - Oil and Gas Facilities

Intelligent Transport looks at how the next generation of electric roads plots a path to the future of electrified transportation, with specific focus on Swedens Evolution Road project, including contributions from Lund Universitys Mats Alakla and Elonroad ABs Karin Ebbinghaus.

As recently as 20 years ago, there was a perception that electric cars, buses and trucks were inferior to fuel-powered vehicles, both in terms of performance and driving range. Since then, battery technology has evolved and we have learned that both electric cars and more recently heavy-duty electric vehicles can match or even better the performance of fuel-powered vehicles, with sufficient range carrying rechargeable on-board batteries. Using battery technology, it seems that we can electrify almost all road vehicles, but is that the end of the problem?

As appealing as it sounds, it isnt that simple; large batteries, the likes of which are needed to power these vehicles, come with implications such as weight, cost, and environmental impact.

At the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University, professor of Industrial Electrical Engineering, Mats Alakla, has been involved in the research and development of electric road systems (ERS) for more than a decade.

With a charging infrastructure built on overnight charging and fast charging stations en route, vehicles need large, heavy and expensive batteries to reach acceptable driving ranges. This is especially troublesome for commercial vehicles like heavy trucks and buses that make money on payload. We need to look for solutions that make it possible to operate vehicles fully-electrically but at the same time reduce the amount of batteries needed, says Alakla.

The idea of modern ERS emerged 20 years ago, inspired by the benefits of continuous energy supply in trolleybuses. The next generation of ERS can supply energy to almost all types of road vehicles like cars, buses and trucks. It is smart enough to distinguish the consumption between different vehicles, help the vehicles plan ERS charging and distribute the power selectively between different vehicles, and manage billing and other services.

ERS enables battery size to be reduced by up to 80 per cent, which increases the capacity for payload of passengers and goods, and reduces the negative battery-related impact on the environment. The ERS infrastructure is applicable to existing roads; the technology in the Evolution Road project uses a thin rail applied to the top of the asphalt, making it exceptionally easy to install. Furthermore, the rail contains advanced technology that essentially upgrades the road to a smart and digital network, providing communication benefits in addition to energy supply.

Lund Universitys Mats Alakla estimates that the cost of implementing an ERS network on the major road system (defined as all European e-road designated and national roads) in Sweden, is less than half the cost of implementing a charging station network and larger batteries in EVs across the country.

An implementation like this would mean the distance from any point outside of the ERS network to an ERS road would be less than 50km in most parts of the country, thus reducing the need for significant battery range.

Implementing ERS within a city for public transportation brings benefits for all kinds of vehicles, such as cars and commercial vehicles, that can make use of the same charging infrastructure as the public transportation system. This makes it a cost efficient and environmentally-friendly solution for the city as a whole. Modern ERS also enables smart city services that bring numerous benefits for cities and their citizens.

As an example, the Swedish city of Lund with a population of 90,000 has 10 bus lines. One solution to electrify the fleet of buses would be to charge them at their end stations. At Lund University, calculations show that 10 bus lines would require 20 end station chargers. In order to supply power to those 10 bus lines while driving in the city, only 10 per cent of the total route length of all bus lines needs to be covered with ERS, as the bus lines partly share the same routes. The cost of the ERS, including related equipment installed on the buses, would be approximately the same as the end charger stations, but many other kinds of vehicles could then share the ERS charging infrastructure.

Comparison of the cost for ERS vs charging station network implementation in Sweden

With an ERS implemented, EVs can benefit from extended range and usage without large batteries, making less expensive EVs more attractive for consumers. Seamless charging when vehicles are in motion or even parked throughout cities removes some of the hurdles and extra planning that comes with many EVs today.

Why should we stop to recharge when its not needed and more importantly carry the weight of heavy batteries as we drive? With ERS you have seamless charging, that is, you simply charge while you drive, or even while youre parked, says Karin Ebbinghaus, CEO of Elonroad AB a partner in the Swedish ERS project.

Sweden is a pioneer when it comes to ERS, with four different test sites on public roads. The next step on the Swedish ERS roadmap is to build a25-30km pilot the countrys first permanent ERS. The projects are primarily funded by the Swedish Transport Administration as one of thepossible solutions to the governments goals toreduce greenhouse gas emissions from domestictransportation by 70 per cent by 2030.

The Evolution Road project has been commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration to build a demonstration site for electric roads on a public road in the city of Lund, Sweden. The goal is to test and gain more knowledge about ERS, a climate-smart technology that allows electric vehicles to be charged from the road while driving, using fewer batteries.

Evolution Road is a private-public partnership with partners from industry, academia and the public sector. The technology is developed by the Swedish company Elonroad AB together with the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University. Other partners are Innovation Skne AB, Kraftringen Energi AB, Lund municipality, Ramboll, Sknetrafiken, Solaris Sverige AB and the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, VTI. The Evolution Road project started in 2019 andwill continue until 2022.

Karin Ebbinghaus is the CEO of Elonroad AB and has a Masters in Law from Lund University. She has worked in M&A cross-border transactions for more than 15 years. After an executive MBA from Stockholm School of Economics in 2015, Karin has focused on investments in cleantech startups with a focus on reducing CO2.

Mats Alakla has been a Professor of Industrial Electrical Engineering at Lund University for 25years. Since 2007 he has also worked part time as a Scientific Advisor in electric vehicle technology at one of Swedens largest vehicle companies. From2007 to 2019, he was a Research Leader in electric drive and charging systems at the Swedish Electromobility Centre. Hehas worked in electric road system development since 2009 in collaboration with several of the companies in the ERS industry.

View original post here:

Electric road systems and the Swedish evolution - Intelligent Transport