There is a significant opportunity for organisations to integrate personal virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, and Apple's Siri into their enterprise systems, according to IT services firm Unisys.

Similar to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement, Unisys is betting that personal virtual assistants will become part of an organisation's IT ecosystem. In fact, in many cases, it will become the access point to an organisation's "automation realm", according to Paul Gleeson, VP and global head of Service Management and SIAM at Unisys.

For example, an employee will be able to ask Siri on their personal iPhone how many days of annual leave they have accumulated, or how many servers are running over 50 percent capacity.

"A lot of millennials are using their private Siris, their private Cortanas, to access things such as the results of their favourite sporting teams, the weather, and indeed, when the next train is going to be available so they can get home," Gleeson told ZDNet.

"These systems are tuned to your moods, your language, your culture, and in some instances, your accent. They're more accurate than anything the company could provide."

In order to kick off the "Bring Your Own Automation" (BYOA) movement, Unisys recently created a proof-of-concept using Amazon Echo, plugging it into an enterprise system to see if both interoperate.

"We were emulating a worker working from a home office and asking to have their passwords set to their default policy approved password," Gleeson explained.

"This is not necessarily following two-part authentication protocols, but as a proof-of-concept, we were able to get it to pass through the Amazon environment back to our facility and actually trigger an event that we set up on our end to receive it."

The proof-of-concept has been demonstrated to two enterprise clients who Gleeson said responded positively. However, they were more enthusiastic about the use of the virtual assistants that are built into smartphones and tablets than smart home devices like the Echo.

"Samsung devices and Apple devices have the thumb print reading capability, as well as voice recognition. So we've got that two-factor authentication," Gleeson added.

When asked whether the addition of virtual assistants would make security harder to manage, Gleeson said "not particularly", as it is still the same device being used to access corporate systems. He did, however, note the importance of updating corporate IT policies to ensure virtual assistants are accounted for.

Unisys is currently considering the implications of corporate data being captured on an individual's personal device.

"You already sign over [access to your data] to your personal assistant provider, whether it's Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, to use those natural language processing capabilities. That's because those providers need to use their machine learning algorithms to fine tune that data to get it where it needs to be," Gleeson said.

"From Unisys' perspective, when an enquiry comes into the corporate environment from a redirection through Amazon or Apple or whatever the natural language processing engine is going to be -- those queries that land are data that's going to be held within the walls of the organisation. So they become data for the enterprise."

While it's still early days, Unisys believes BYOA will resonate the most with organisations that have a large mobile fleet, as it will allow remote workers to multi-task.

"People who are on the road in cars a lot, they can find out what their leave balance is while they're driving down the freeway. They can find out how many emails they've got right now from a particular person. They can say, 'Hey Siri, read me all the emails in my inbox right now from my boss'," Gleeson explained.

That's not to say that BYOA would only work in an isolated setting; Gleeson said it would also work in a shared office setting, noting Unisys tested its proof-of-concept in a noisy call centre environment with multiple people, and the Echo was able to clearly differentiate between voices.

But more importantly, Gleeson said that virtual assistants can be configured to provide audible alerts when, for example, there are servers running at over 80 percent capacity.

"What we're looking at here is figuring out how to use some of the breakthroughs in technology that's ubiquitously available to everyone today, and using that to further enrich the experience, drive productivity, create new capabilities, multitasking, and really just changing the way people are getting and consuming services right now," Gleeson said.

"This is the integrated automation approach that we're looking to bring into the market. We just see the personal assistant as being another system of automation, and one that I think is a little overlooked, but one that has got, from the perspective of an end user or consumer, huge potential.

"It's best to use an automation engine that is attuned to you rather than using something provided by an organisation that has to be tuned to you over a longer period of time."

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Personal virtual assistants will become part of the enterprise IT ... - ZDNet

Coastal Georgia scored a B+ on its final exam for 2016 not exactly honor roll status, but a relatively overall clean bill of health for the vital ecosystems fisheries, wildlife and water quality.

So says the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which did all the data cramming for this test of the coasts ability to maintain ecological health amid its growing demands as a desired destination to live and visit. The DNRs actual score came to 76 percent, just above a middle B on the testing formats grade scale.

Blue crab spawning stock and the American oystercatcher shorebird populations declined in 2016, while red drum fish populations improved significantly and water quality indicators remained steady with respectable A scores, according to the results.

It speaks to our success at balancing development with natural resources protection, said Jan Mackinnon, the DNRs Coastal and Ocean Management Program Manager. We did have things change, as we do every year. But after everything is calculated it all seems to balance out. This report card is a way to provide the public with current information about the overall health of the ecosystem.

Folks can see the report card for themselves online at: http://www.CoastalGaDNR.org/ReportCard. The DNR began grading the Coastal Georgia ecosystem in 2014 as a means of evaluating its mandate to balance a healthy ecosystem with human development and demands on natural resources. The ecosystem earned B+ plus marks also in each of its two previous gradings.

Data is gathered from the DNRs Coastal Resources Division, the Environmental Protection Division and the Wildlife Resources Division at various points throughout the Georgia Coast. Information is entered and computed by a grading system developed by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Mackinnon said. The University of Maryland testing program is used by numerous government environmental and natural resources agencies nationwide, she said.

Georgias Coast scored a 93 percent in the overall human health index. That human health includes a grade of 92 (A) for fecal coliform measurements and 94 (A) for enterococcus measurements. The high scores indicate low content.

Essentially, this means that the water is safe for swimming; also, the regions oysters, shrimp, crab and fish are safe to eat.

The coasts fisheries index scored a low A, at 91 percent, Mackinnon said.

While the red drum fishery jumped from 69 percent (B) in 2015 to 100 percent in 2016, blue crab spawning stock went from 61 percent in 2015 to 47 percent (C) last year. Georgias ongoing drought conditions and subsequent decrease in fresh water to estuaries could have contributed to this drop, Mackinnon said. The shrimp fishery grade scored well at 97 percent (A).

The red drum grade is great news for the fishing community, she said. However, drought can have a significant impact on some of these resources.

The coastal wildlife index scored lowest overall at 53 percent, or a C. A lot of this had to do with the decline in American oystercatchers from 61 percent to 30 percent (D). Right whale populations dipped from 66 percent to 12 percent (F), but this could be due in part to new National Marine Fisheries Services standards for monitoring the species.

The annual report card gives the DNR a way to evaluate its efforts, while providing the public with a transparent view of the job it is doing, Mackinnon said.

It is meant to be an overall health assessment and that is why we selected the indicators that we did, she said. It gives us a snapshot of the health of the ecosystem, the fisheries, the wildlife, human health and water quality.

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DNR: Georgia Coast ecosystem makes the grade - The News (subscription)

By Belinda Ayamgha, GNA

Accra, June 26, GNA - The Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) has started the process of developing an Innovation Ecosystem to power sustainable national development, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, the sector Minister, has said.

Speaking at the Citi FM Innovation Summit, held in Accra as part of the Citi FM Business Festival, the Minister said a team of experts, including the Dean of Engineering at Ashesi University, was thus helping to formulate a strategic Science and Technology Policy towards this endeavour.

The team would also recommend an apex to oversee the development and mainstreaming of Science and Technology; as well as the establishment of a fund for this purpose.

The Minster explained that the Governments allocation for research, which now stood at 0.025 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), would be increased to one per cent of GDP; and increased over time to 2.5 per cent of GDP.

Prof Frimpong Boateng, who is an innovator, explained that Ghana must build an Innovation Ecosystem in order to achieve sustainable development because the development of any nation was dependent on the level of its innovation, especially its capacity to make machines to address its problems.

Prof Frimpong Boateng said to build that ecosystem, it was important to promote Science Education in the schools and then establish and resource research and development institutions.

He explained that it was important for Ghanas educational system to move farther from teaching students only the what to teaching them the why and the how, as these would foster creativity and innovation.

He also urged students and innovators to develop the who of their knowledge, saying networking was very important in connecting them to the right people to push their innovations.

He emphasised that the linkages among academia, knowledge institutions, industry and the government must also be improved for the common good.

Additionally, the right environment for innovation would be created by improving the contracting, company and patenting laws in the country, he noted.

While acknowledging the challenges that innovators faced in the country, the Minister, however, expressed optimism of bright prospects for innovators in the coming days, explaining that the Ministry was addressing the basic problem for innovation: the weak Science and Technology Education framework.

Under the theme Creating our Future, panellists at the Summit interrogated the core issues affecting innovation in the Ghana, including mainstreaming innovation, monetising innovations, and leadership for innovation.

Mr Michael Quarshie, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Persol Systems Limited, urged innovators to find ways to bring their innovations to the market to monetise them.

He said they should, therefore, find ways of locking their innovations by patenting them and finding the value, identifying the market and pitching them.

He urged Ghanaians to celebrate local innovators and bring their ideas and innovations to light for the benefit of society.

Ms Estelle Akofio-Sowah, the Country Manager for Google Ghana, buttressed that point, and urged innovators to identify big problems and find big solutions to them instead of limiting themselves to micro-scale ideas.

It is difficult, but we dont have a choice; its our country and we must innovate to solve the problems, she stated.

Prof Fred McBagonluri, the Dean of the Department of Engineering at the Ashesi University, expressed optimism for innovation, saying those showcased at the Summit, which provided solutions for some of the most critical challenges faced in Energy, Sanitation, were testimonies.

He said there was the need for a clear national policy for Science, Technology and Innovation and a visionary leadership to drive the innovation agenda.

The best time to be alive is now; We have so many unique challenges as a nationwe are at the right point in history where we can innovate to develop our country and all I see is nothing but a sea of opportunities, he stated.

Mr Bright Simons, the Founder and President of mPedigree, however, was not very optimistic about the state of innovation in Ghana.

He said innovation had still not been mainstreamed and innovators had to justify their work to those whose problems they solved.

He condemned the lack of urgency to innovate, explaining that innovation was mostly seen from a consumer perspective instead of from a creative one.

Sometimes, only pessimism would create the urgency needed to solve the problem, he maintained.

The Summit highlighted the work of three innovators: Sesinam Dagadu of SnooCode, Dr Mark Amo-Boateng of the University of Energy and Natural Resources and Raymond Ategbi Okrofu of Safi Sana Ghana Limited.

GNA

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Experts working out clear policy on Innovation Ecosystem Minister - Ghana News Agency

TheAdLedger Consortiumhas been launched to transform the advertising industry with blockchain-powered solutions.Its inaugural meeting was held today on June 26th, 2017 in New York City. The consortium will be comprised of advertising and publishing executives committed to exploring the use of blockchain technology to bring increased transparency and data security to the ad tech supply chain.

IBM iX Executive Partner of Global Marketing, Babs Rangaiah, said:

We at IBM believe that blockchain will do for transactions what the Internet did for communications. We are particularly interested in blockchains potential to solve many of the issues facing Programmatic buying today.

Prospective AdLedger members from both the buy and sell side will be part of the conversation, all with the understanding that the greatest potential benefit of blockchain technology is achieved through collaboration.

The overarching goal of AdLedger will be to harness the potential of a real-time, blockchain-based, peer-to-peer network to lower costs for publishers while increasing transparency and ROI for advertisers. Specifically, the network will validate placements and transactions to ensure brand safety through greater transparency, enable data portability using multi-signature wallets and cryptographic keys for unduplicated campaign execution and measurement.

The network will aim to remove layers of inefficiency in technology stacks to address the issue of the disappearing ad dollar, introduce cross-network identity management and attribution reporting, and establish a protocol around a decentralized peer-to-peer data sharing solution. Based on existing industry standards, AdLedger will also determine rules and standards for the protocol that would apply to audience segments, regulatory compliance, data uploads, encryption via keys, and a universal language for smart contracts.

Jim Wilson, President of Premion, a division of TEGNA said:

Blockchain technology is well-suited to address many of the advertising industrys requirements and to fix the issues of frequency capping, attribution and data quality with Advanced TV. Participation by advertisers, agencies, and publishers is essential for building a network that meets the needs of all players in the ecosystem.

Currently, a combination of fraud and supply chain weakness costs the advertising industry an average of $8.2B per year, according to an industry-wide study conducted by the IAB. The supply chain describes all data transfers between industry players starting with creative and ending with the consumers browser. By leveraging a blockchain-powered network, the consortium will be able to increase the security and efficiency of data exchanges throughout the supply chain.

AdLedger will use open source code to develop its blockchain-protocol. By making the project open-sourced, the organization enables consensus-driven workflows and cryptography to ensure security and reliability. Open source code for blockchain protocol will be made available for peer review and the organization will release an API specification.

AdLedgers mission is to bring together advertising industry players to collaborate on creating technology and protocol to the end of improving transparency and streamlining the supply chain.

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AdLedger Consortium launches to explore ad tech ecosystem on blockchain - CryptoNinjas

NARRAGANSETT The ocean off Rhode Island has warmed 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1959, when the University of Rhode Island began conducting bottom trawls.

The trawls, which are conducted weekly throughout the year, involve dragging nets along the ocean floor and collecting fish and other sea life to determine what is living in Narragansett Bay.

Joe Langan, a Ph.D candidate at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, told the audience at a June 22 seminar that the weekly trawls, one of the longest-running data-collection initiatives in the world, had also revealed dramatic changes in the populations of fish and crustaceans that live in the bay.

Langan and fellow Ph.D student Ali Johnson were presenting the first in the new Bay Informed discussion series. Sponsored by Rhode Island Sea Grant, the free talks, which encourage members of the public to ask questions, will take place once a month.

Me and a couple of other grad students here, we were the founders, Johnson said. We came up with the idea and we all came together and created this event.

Johnson said she hoped that people attending the talks would come away with a better understanding of the ocean research taking place at URI. The lectures also give students opportunities to hone their communication skills.

I hope people are going to come away with a broader knowledge of some of the basic research that we do here, she said.

Johnson, who is studying physical oceanography, focused her presentation on the science-based evidence of climate change and included a tutorial on how ocean currents circulate around the globe.

In order to understand how these processes are going to change, its really important that we first understand whats going on, she told the audience. We know very, very little about the ocean. We know basics compared to some of the other science thats out there. It is so important that we learn what these physical processes are in order for us to better predict how these processes are going to change with increasing sea-surface temperatures and increasing air temperatures.

Langan is working on a Ph.D in biological oceanography and a masters in statistics.

My research is in quantitative fisheries ecology, which is just a fancy way of saying I like to do math about fish, he said.

Langan described Rhode Island as being on an ecosystem knife edge between the cold waters of the Gulf of Maine to the North and to the South, the Mid-Atlantic Bight. Traditional fish-migration patterns involved southern species coming to Rhode Island in the summer and northern species moving here for a period during the winter. Those patterns, which scientists refer to as residence times, have changed in recent years, because warm-water species are staying longer and species that prefer colder water arrive in Rhode Island later and leave sooner.

This is summer flounder, Langan said, pointing to a graph illustrating fish populations. Their residence time has changed by about five months. This is a very aggressive predator thats also a bit of a bully on the sea floor. It pushes other species out of different habitats. A five-month difference of how long a species spends in Narragansett Bay is a tremendous difference in the ecosystem. Theyre going to be eating a lot more. Theyre going to be out-competing other species. This is a massive ecological difference.

Winter flounder, on the other hand, have all but disappeared from Rhode Island waters, with a population decline of 99 percent. This population crash is also attributed to warming seas. Langan explained that predatory sand shrimp are now active earlier in the season, devouring winter flounder larvae.

They would show up when winter flounder were too big to eat, and maybe hide and defend themselves, but spring warming happens faster, and now these shrimp show up when winter flounder are mostly still larvae, and they eat them all, Langan said.

Winter flounder also face competition from scup. The population of scup in the bay has exploded in recent years, leaving less for the flounder to eat.

These and other changes, Langan said, show how seemingly minor temperature differences can affect an entire ecosystem.

When we think about climate change and ecosystems, its all about an interconnected web, where you dont have to change much, Langan said. If you change a little bit of seasonality for one species, it can have a huge ripple effect.

cdrummond@thewesterlysun.com

@cynthiadrummon4

Originally posted here:

Warmer ocean brings changes to R.I., wreaks havoc on state's ... - The Westerly Sun

Knowledge Transfer Ireland (KTI), the countrys national office that helps companies access research at domestic universities, has released its Annual Knowledge Transfer Survey (AKTS) 2016, providing an insight into the ecosystem.

The report, published with the support of the Higher Education Authority, makes several heartening observations, chief among them that 28 new spinouts were formed last year and that by the end of December a total of 119 spinouts continued to thrive at least three years after incorporation employing an estimated 1,080 staff.

Furthermore, a total of 1,243 collaborative agreements were inked between industry and research organisations, including universities, institutes of technology and other publicly-funded research agencies.

If that figure is impressive on its own, it is worth considering that of the corporates, 78% were already based in Ireland. Counting only small and medium-sized enterprises, that number rises further to 94%.

KTI counted 186licences, options and assignments to intellectual property last year. New patent applications stood at 116 and invention disclosures reached 461, for a research expenditure of 535m ($600m).

The success comes despite KTI counting only 34 registered tech transfer professionals a fraction of the number of tech transfer office employees that a single institution such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has more than 80 team members.

Established in 2014 by state-owned export credit agency Enterprise Ireland, KTI appears to have many reasons to celebrate on its third anniversary. Still supported by Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Universities Association, KTI is accountable to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the presidents of domestic universities.

And if news reports in January 2017 are to go by, that department and those presidents are very happy with KTIs performance. Enterprise Ireland allocated another 34.5m to KTI for the Technology Transfer Strengthening Initiative (TTSI), a program that actually predates KTI.

Launched in 2007, the TTSI aims to bolster research commercialisation and deepen the engagement between public research institutions and industry. KTI previously managed the 28.5m in TTSI funding before securing the recent capital boost.

To date, the TTSI has led to the creation of 31 spinouts, the signing of 748 research agreements and the creation of 206 licensing deals.

The numbers are good news for Enterprise Ireland as well. The agency has been busy trying to prepare the domestic ecosystem for a dreaded Brexit shock the Irish economy is heavily dependent on trade with its neighbour.

The agency has been organising a Brexit roadshow, holding regional discussions to support struggling businesses as some have already been suffering due to the collapse of sterling. It also offers a grant, dubbed Be Prepared, of up to 5,000 to domestic businesses to help them generate an action plan for coping with the potential loss of access to the UK market.

KTI is not the only organisation aiming to support the Irish innovation landscape. In June 2016, University College Cork, University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin partnered growth equity fund Atlantic Bridge to create a 60m fund for spinouts.

Enterprise Ireland also backed the University Bridge Fund, underlining the governments keenness on spinouts. Other limited partners included the EU-owned European Investment Fund, which has begun pulling out of its UK commitments, and financial services firms AIB and Bank of Ireland.

Alison Campbell, director of KTI said: Part of our role at KTI is to help drive capacity and capability for commercialisation within the research base.

The results of this years Annual Knowledge Transfer Survey shows consistent performance in the level of engagement with industry and a steady growth in the maturation of spinout companies.

The outputs leveraged from the amount of public research funding are impressive and recognise not only the focus on innovation within the Irish research base but the impact of the investment in technology transfer through the Enterprise Ireland TTSI program.

Graham Love, chief executive of the Higher Education Authority, said: Knowledge transfer and commercialisation of research are now firmly embedded within the Irish higher education sector and the AKTS 2016 results show that.

The Higher Education Authority is pleased to work with KTI to ensure the provision of robust system data. The AKTS is a longitudinal study that enables us to understand and analyse successful outputs over time.

The full annual report can be found on KTIs website here.

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Big deal: Ireland's ecosystem thrives - Global University Venturing

Last week was an interesting one for Indian defence manufacturing. On Monday, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd and US plane-maker Lockheed Martin Corp. signed an agreement at the Paris Air Show to produce F-16 fighter jets in India. On Tuesday, in Delhi, Reliance Defence entered into a strategic partnership with Serbias Yugoimport for ammunition manufacturing in India. On Wednesday, back in Paris, Reliance Defence joined hands with Frances Thales to set up a joint venture that will develop Indian capabilities in radars and high-tech airborne electronics.

In Moscow, on Friday, defence minister Arun Jaitley and his Russian counterpart signed off on a road map for strengthening bilateral military ties. Meanwhile, at home in India, the army rejected, for the second year in a row, an indigenously-built assault rifle after it failed field testsa pointed reminder of how the countrys sub-par defence industry continues to damage the militarys operational preparedness.

For the most part, India has sought to make up for that failing at home with imports from abroad. Between 2012 and 2016, India was the worlds largest importer of major arms, accounting for 13% of the global total and increasing its arms imports by 43% from the 2007-11 period, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

That being said, in recent years there has been a greater focus on developing indigenous capabilities through technology transfers and joint production projects with international partners. The Narendra Modi government has also put defence at the core of its flagship domestic manufacturing programme, Make in India. It has opened up the still largely state-run sector to private players and foreign firms in an effort to build a defence industrial ecosystem that will not only support the countrys military requirements but also emerge as an important economic levergenerating exports, creating jobs, and spurring innovation.

The target is to source about 70% of Indias military needs from domestic sources by 2020. This is an ambitious planthats approximately how much India imports at the momentbut it is one that has been in the works for quite some time now. Notably, the defence manufacturing industry has been open to the private sector for well over a decade, and several foreign firms are involved in the joint production of weapons systems in India.

Yet the defence industrial ecosystem hasnt quite taken off. The Indian military is still heavily reliant on foreign imports and state-owned defence firms are still the dominant force in the market. Private firms, though growing in number, have struggled to find their feet. It is too early to say if the incumbent administrations efforts will bring better results, but much will depend on how its strategic partnership model, released late May, plays out on the ground.

Conceptualized by the Dhirendra Singh committee in 2015, this model has the defence ministry identifying a few Indian private companies as strategic partners (SPs) to tie up with a few foreign original equipment manufacturers to produce some big-ticket military platforms. In the process, the SPs are expected to help catalyse the countrys defence industrial ecosystem. This has already led to some concern about the ministry of defence (MoD), often criticized for not offering a level playing field to the private sector, picking favourites.

As Laxman Behera from the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (Idsa) notes, Time and again, the MoD has deviated from its own promise of fair play in award of contracts and handed over large orders to DPSUs (defence public sector undertakings) and OFs (ordnance factories) on nomination.

Moreover, the MoD also prohibits its strategic partners from working in more than one segment. This is supposed to ensure that the SPs keep their focus but, as Richard Heald at the UK India Business Council points out, this ring-fencing of six strategic platforms is problematic because many of the six named domestic champions have already invested in defence verticals that may be different from those they are selected to focus on. Then, questions are being raised as to whether mechanisms will be put in place to achieve value for money once the sector has been awarded to a strategic partner on an exclusive basis.

Yet another issue is that of how small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) will respond to this model. SMEs are crucial to building a vibrant and robust ecosystem. In particular, they do a much better job of absorbing, developing and commercializing niche technology, which is key in the defence sector. But while the government acknowledges their role and importance, it is unclear if its policy supports that vision.

Outside of policy design, the biggest challenge to developing Indias defence industry ecosystem is undoubtedly human resource and skill development. The Dhirendra Singh committee report deals with this issue at length, noting that India at present does not have a structured framework and a robust system to prepare its human resources to address all issues connected with building and sustaining defence systems. The report recommends several measures to bridge this skills gapfrom changes to academic curriculum to setting up institutions that specialize in defence and security to raising a new generation of system integration managers. The government must consider these carefully.

How do you think India can build its defence industrial ecosystem? Tell us at views@livemint.com

First Published: Tue, Jun 27 2017. 12 10 AM IST

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In his role to develop disruptive start-ups culture in Karnataka, Priyank Kharge, Minister of State, IT, BT and Tourism, Government of Karnataka, has been much more than an ordinary minister. Apart from announcing start-up friendly policies, he is directly in contact with all the ventures the government had supported over the years. A peoples person is what Kharge can be called, as he approaches the start-ups by asking for updates just like a regular venture capitalist or fund. Heres the new-age minister with the attitude of an investor and mindset of a leader.

Last year when we had you at our Entrepreneur India event, several initiatives were announced by you, how far is the government on all those fronts?

Last year when I was here I spoke a lot on policy. This year, it was more about how we are implementing those policies. We have come a long way and there are a lot of learnings as well. Now we are figuring out how we can accelerate the start-up growth. Last year when I was here, only 27 start-ups had registered with the government. But, today the count is more than 2,500. Moreover, we are looking for opportunities to provide much more - whether it is idea validation or mentorship, grants, subsidies, networking opportunities. This is something we have managed to build over the last year.

The way you interact with entrepreneurs, its very much involved. How do you get to the right connect?

Its a part of my job to be involved in their business. I have to know whats happening and the best way to structure policies or programs is by spending a lot of time with people and the stakeholders. Everyday is a new learning for us especially when I spend time with startups, SMEs and corporates.

When these policies are structured, how much the people in the ecosystem have a say in it?

Every scheme or policy that has been announced by the government always involves people from the ecosystem. We have a bio-tech vision group with Kiran Mazumdar and another group where Kris Gopalakrishnan is directly involved. On the other hand, there is a start-up council vision group, an IT vision group and an AVGC vision group. The entire process is driven by the ecosystem.

The easy way to get support is to register with the start-up cell and askfor an open house,showcasing your product to a committee of experts, If it passes their verdict, then you can get a grant of up to Rs 50 lakh, saysPriyank Kharge,Minister of State, IT, Bio-Technologyand Tourism, Government of Karnataka.

Karnataka is the first state to introduce a start-up policy and other states came with such policies much later. What competitive advantage does Karnataka have?

We are the only state in the country that gives you a complete 360 degree ecosystem. Right from ideation, innovation, investment and everything that you can think of is done here. We have a skillset and that is something that cannot be easily taken away. So any state which comes with a policy, have a lot of catching up to be done.

The focus has always been on the tech space. Is it now moving towards manufacturing?

I think we have matured as an IT services industry. And we have thought leaders in the emerging technologies whether it is manufacturing, electronics, artificial intelligence, big data, space, aerospace, cyber security. We have leaders in it all. Defense and electronics manufacturing is huge. So we have hardware accelerators. Grants have already been announced. A big validation was when Apple chose us for their phase I as partner state.

A lot of support is given at a start-up stage, they start well with this cushioning but only one out of 10 succeed. How would you make sure that they go to the next level of growth?

Start-ups are not looking at GoK only for money, we give ideas, tell them if their ideas are valid. Does it have the potential to grow in the long run? We try to reduce the number of start-ups, 95 per cent of them fail. We give them networking opportunities to meet people, get mentoring and they get validation whether their idea will be successful or not.

The main start-ups have come up only from biotech, tourism and IT, whats the mix right now?

We have a bio-venture fund so they got funded heavily. Our policy allows us to look at companies right from aerospace to agriculture, AI, manufacturing, healthcare, urban planning. We are funding as long as they are playing a role of disrupter in the ecosystem. We are helping them everyway.

Is there a benchmark to support any number of start-ups?

Policy envisages is to have a target of 20,000 start-ups in next five years out of which there would be 6,000 product start-ups. And for 20,000 we need to look at two lakh start-ups.

(This article was first published in the Juneissue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, clickhere)

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Providing an Ecosystem for Ideation - Entrepreneur

June 23, 2017 Acacia longifolia. Credit: Christine Hellmann

Acacia longifolia, which is native to Australia, is a species which was cultivated in Portugal primarily to stabilize dunes and as an ornamental plant; now it has spread out uncontrollably in Portugal and into many ecosystems around the world. This has varying effects on native species. Because of a symbiosis with bacteria at its roots, Acacia longifolia can use atmospheric nitrogen from the air; it also grows fast and produces a lot of biomass. This means it adds nitrogen to the otherwise low-nutrient dune ecosystem, giving it unintended fertilizer. The acacia also uses more water than the native species. A team of researchers headed by the ecologists Professor Christiane Werner and Christine Hellmann, in collaboration with scientists at the Universities of Mnster and Hamburg, has worked out a new approach to determine the extent to which the physical surroundings influence the acacia's interaction with other plants.

Their findings have been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The researchers developed a concept which could also incorporate background information such as soil type, the availability of nutrients, light intensity, wind, and soil moisture. Such models could help to better understand the interaction of acacias and other plants and improve planning of management strategies for the acacia.

The interaction between plants and their biotic and abiotic surroundings have a key influence on the structure and function of ecosystems. In order to determine the strength and spatial influence of such interactions, the team uses stable isotopes - heavy, non-radioactive forms of elements. How often these occur in materials in relation to the much more prevalent light isotopes can vary depending on the location. Measuring the isotopic ratio can therefore provide information on where and how the material came to be.

Isoscapes - from "isotope" and "landscape" - are maps which indicate how isotopes are distributed across the landscape. The team applied isoscapes on the basis of leaf material from native species to show where the proportion of nitrogen introduced by the acacia is high, and where the introduced species influences the growth of other species - either positively by adding nitrogen, or negatively by competing for water. Up to now, researchers had only considered the plant species and their proximity to one another. But because this, according to the scientists, does not adequately represent the heterogeneity of an ecosystem, they have now included other influences such as remotely sensed topographic data.

The results show that the interaction between the acacia and native plants depends not only on the species but also on the location. In order to make each effect measurable, the nitrogen isotope ratio is used as a tracer. That means that the number of different nitrogen isotopes in plant leaves is determined. The isotopic ratio provides information on where the nitrogen came from - whether it was introduced by an acacia or originated from the uninfluenced system. The model presented by the researchers has so far only been used on Acacia longifolia in Portugal, but could be transferred to other plants in other regions in the future. Approaches like this can increase the ability to describe, explain, and understand the complex interrelationships and dynamics in natural ecosystems.

Explore further: How invasive plants influence an ecosystem

More information: Christine Hellmann et al, Heterogeneous environments shape invader impacts: integrating environmental, structural and functional effects by isoscapes and remote sensing, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04480-4

Acacia longifolia, a species of acacia from the Fabacean family that is native to Australia, was initially cultivated in Portugal as a means of securing sand dunes and is now spreading uncontrollably - with varying impact ...

They can estimate whether native plants in the neighbourhood of invasive species incorporate the nitrogen fixed by the latter. The biologists examined the Sydney Golden Wattle (Acacia longifolia), an Australian shrub that ...

The legume Acacia dealbata, also known as mimosa, is one of the most aggressive invasive tree species in the world. In the northwest of the peninsula its propagation is an increasingly serious problem since it is penetrating ...

A native parasitic plant found commonly throughout south-eastern Australia, is showing great promise as a potential biological control agent against introduced weeds that cost millions of dollars every year to control.

Researchers at Chapman University and Columbia University have published a study in Nature Plants this month, called "Diversity of nitrogen fixation strategies in Mediterranean legumes." The recently published research focuses ...

Researchers in the Biological Station of Doana (CSIC) have studied the extent to which alien invasive plants benefit from fires in Mediterranean regions. Their results indicate that many grasses and certain trees are spread ...

Marine seismic surveys used in petroleum exploration could cause a two to three-fold increase in mortality of adult and larval zooplankton, new research published in leading science journal Nature Ecology and Evolution has ...

Dramatic differences in chimp societies, discovered by researchers at the University of St Andrews, reveal variations in social status and sharing food, as seen in human cultures.

Sometimes, when a science experiment doesn't work out, unexpected opportunities open up.

Plants adopt different strategies to survive the changing temperatures of their natural environments. This is most evident in temperate regions where forest trees shed their leaves to conserve energy during the cold season. ...

A host of proteins and other molecules sit on the strands of our DNA, controlling which genes are read out and used by cells and which remain silent. This aggregation of genetic material and controlling molecules, called ...

Scientists at the University of York have used florescent proteins from jellyfish to help shed new light on how DNA replicates.

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Dune ecosystem modelling - Phys.Org

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On Thursday, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke officially removed Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears from the federal Endangered Species Act.

Grizzly Bear recovery Coordinator Hilary Cooley said from her office at the University of Montana that the delisting could have happened back in 2007, but a court challenge left the bears with endangered species protections for another decade. Today, the population has rebounded from as few as 136 bears in 1975 to an estimated 700 today and meets all the criteria for delisting.

We have more data now, and grizzly bears today still meet the recovery criteria, we have adequate regulatory mechanisms in place, and we have been working closely with the states that if they do choose to allow hunting of the bears, those safeguards will be in effect and we have a really good monitoring plan in place, Cooley said. Our job as stewards of the Endangered Species Act is to get the species recovered and then remove them from the list.

Cooley said the Yellowstone ecosystem is approximately three times larger than Yellowstone National Park itself.

It encompasses parts of all three states, she said. Wyoming mostly, but also parts of Montana and Idaho. Those states will individually decide if grizzly bear hunting will take place by sticking to some mortality limits, and thats any human-caused mortality, whether its being hit by a truck or a management removal, or if the states do have a hunt, that mortality limit would apply.

Cooley said the fact that President Donald Trump chose Ryan Zinke to be the Interior Secretary had nothing to do with the delisting announcement on Thursday.

That had nothing to do with it, she said. This has been a long, long process. As I said, we tried to delist in 2007. Along with this listing, its paired with a conservation strategy and we had prepared a draft of that several years ago, so its a multi-year process and you have to start way ahead, so we were going to recommend delisting no matter who was secretary, because they had met their recovery goals.

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Yellowstone Ecosystem Grizzly Bears Removed From Endangered Species Protection - Newstalkkgvo

Things are looking quite good for the Litecoin ecosystem right now. It appears some new developments are on the horizon. That is great news for anyone involved in Litecoin. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the LTC price moving forward. An accelerated rate of development will do wonders for Litecoin, that much is evident.

BitGo, the worlds leading multi-signature technology service provider, now supports Litecoin. For the longest time, BitGo only supported Bitcoin, hence the company name. Now that Litecoin is also supported, things will get very interesting moving forward. BitGo is in the process of providing security services for Litecoin and its related service providers. This is quite good news for anyone involved in Litecoin, to say the least.

Considering how BitGo processes large amounts of Bitcoin transactions, it is expected they will do the same for Litecoin. More specifically, Bitcoin has been able to grow thanks to companies such as BitGO. It is certainly possible Litecoin will move in the same direction. A lot of exchanges rely on their services, and enabling LTC support will certainly help in this regard. A lot of exchanges have Litecoin trading enabled, and secure solutions are always in high demand.

Moreover, there is the recent news of Charlie Lee leaving Coinbase. Lee will now focus on Litecoin development full-time. That is a major development for Litecoin as well, even though it remains to be seen what he is working on. Bitstamp has also finally enabled LTC trading after a very long wait. The company integrated BitGos Litecoin multisig security solution as well. Things are slowly falling into place for the LTC ecosystem, that much is evident.

One thing is certain: a lot of people feel Litecoin could be the dark horse in cryptocurrency right now. More specifically, Bitcoin could see a chain split on August 1st. Ethereum has scaling issues and a clogged up network. Litecoin has the scaling solution most Bitcoin users want in the first place. This will not necessarily warrant an LTC price explosion all of a sudden. Then again, Litecoin is slowly regaining its market position, and things are looking very positive for the future.

Header image courtesy of Shutterstock

About JP Buntinx

JP is a freelance copywriter and SEO writer who is passionate about various topics. The majority of his work focuses on Bitcoin, blockchain, and financial technology. He is contributing to major news sites all over the world, including NewsBTC, The Merkle, Samsung Insights, and TransferGo.

View all posts by JP Buntinx

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BitGo is now Working on Security Solutions for the Litecoin Ecosystem - Live Bitcoin News

Ecosystem diversity deals with the variations in ecosystems within a geographical location and its overall impact on human existence and the environment.

Ecological diversity is a type of biodiversity. It is the variation in the ecosystems found in a region or the variation in ecosystems over the whole planet. Ecological diversity includes the variation in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Ecological diversity can also take into account the variation in the complexity of a biological community, including the number of different niches, the number of trophic levels and other ecological processes. An example of ecological diversity on a global scale would be the variation in ecosystems, such as deserts, forests, grasslands, wetlands and oceans. Ecological diversity is the largest scale of biodiversity, and within each ecosystem, there is a great deal of both species and genetic diversity.[1][2][3][4]

Diversity in the ecosystem is significant to human existence for a variety of reasons. Ecosystem diversity boosts the availability of oxygen via the process of photosynthesis amongst plant organisms domiciled in the habitat. Diversity In an aquatic environment helps in the purification of water by plant varieties for use by humans. Diversity increases plant varieties which serves as a good source for medicines and herbs for human use. A lack of diversity in the ecosystem produces an opposite result.

Some examples of ecosystems that are rich in diversity are:

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Ecosystem diversity - Wikipedia

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Fast zombies. Slow zombies. Cursed zombies. Virus-infected zombies. Its safe to say were all used to walking corpses by now. Featuring them in a game in an entirely new way is becoming increasingly difficult. Left 4 Dead gives us the Infected who absolutely sprint towards us, The Last of Us has the feral fungus zombies, and Resident Evil is home to the grossly-mutated T-Virus victims. It seems like all the bases are covered. And they probably are. Yet Days Gone has decided to not focus on how their zombies look or were created, but how they behave as part of their very own undead ecosystem.

Us humans are at the top of the food chain. Except, that is, in the world of Days Gone, where most of the human race has been infected by an unknown virus and turned into feral, flesh-hungry zombies - sorry, Freakers - with razor-sharp hearing. But were not the only ones affected by the viral outbreak. Whether its an airborne virus or some sort of curse, its relatively rare to see zombie apocalypses that have affected animals. There are some examples where reanimated animals have reared their not-so-furry heads, such as Resident Evils famous zombie Dobermans (plus who can forget the zombie elephant in Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2?). Days Gone is bucking that trend, and is welcoming zombie mammals with open, slightly-decaying arms.

Because of course the virus hasnt just affected humans. Its somehow spread to animals too, including the grizzly bear (now Rager Bear), and wolves (called Runners as they can outrun Deacons bike). What does all this mean? In short, Bend Studio has created an ecosystem. Consisting of various interacting organisms - yeah, thats right, I looked up the definition - this ecosystem is a blend of animal and human zombies, each with a defined role to play. Relieving human Freakers from following the same structure as say, Left 4 Dead, this small tweak allows Bend Studio to emphasise their behavioural quirks rather than physical ones. You see, the stumbling, lurching infected in Valves multiplayer masterpiece occupy various strategic roles and are physically defined by them. The rotund Boomer distracts the survivors with its horde-attracting bile attack, the Smoker breaks up the group by dragging one away using a grossly long tongue, and the bulky Tank (and the emaciated Witch, to a lesser degree) are boss encounters. In Days Gone some of these roles are delegated to animals. Runners act as disruptors while Rager Bears are mini boss encounters. Freakers are kept relatively simple. There are newts (adolescent freakers who have a penchant for ambushing), swarms, and hordes, but by the looks of it theres not the array of zombie archetypes were used to seeing in Dead Island, Dead Rising, Resident Evil, or Dying Light.

Ordinarily this might make it look like the Freakers are simpler. In a way they are, and in another way they most certainly are not. Sure, theyre in the same vein of infected humans we know from Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil. They all look mostly similar with the usual array of ripped clothing and blistering sores. But they have rules. And whats more, the survivors in Days Gone understand these rules and have built their lives around manipulating them. Gnashing their teeth and emitting various whoops and growls, the Freakers are tenacious. Theyre attracted to meat (even if its dead), so the meat wall that borders the scavenger camp is to distract any ambling Freakers that wander their way. Theyre stronger when its cold, which isnt determined by different levels of the game but rather depends on Days Gones dynamic weather system, which will alter randomly to vary your encounters. Most obviously, they are incredibly sensitive to sound.

Us humans are part of this ecosystem too. Deacon and his fellow survivors (both good and bad) dont just kill Freakers - they manipulate them. Freakers have become so synonymous with the world of Days Gone (well, with whats left of it) and humans have become to used to them that a chunk of the fear has gone, being replaced by the knowledge that these emaciated infected are a weaponizable force. Hung upside down from trees to catch anyone who walks by, or attracted by the sound of an explosion to gnaw on the massive group of bandits you couldnt handle alone, Freakers are far from being solely an enemy. They have the same moral indifference as wild animals, with their lack of intelligence an odd kind of benefit for you.

Even when they start to run after any humans who mistakenly enter their line of sight, they have rules. Taking the quickest possible route to grab those tasty fleshy bodies, they dont really take the time to stop and consider strategy. Which bandits and survivors know very well, building their camp on stilts because the Freakers cant climb particularly well. Especially if there are humans below to distract them. The way NPCs have built their lives around manipulating Freakers (and avoiding their animal friends), around interacting with these different undead not only to avoid their bite but also to use them tactically, is astounding. And thats all thanks to this carefully-crafted ecosystem thats as deadly as it is exploitable. Days Gone is sure to get hearts racing, just remember - if you use them right, the Freakers are your friends.

See more here:

Days Gone's zombies are part of a ravenous, lethal ecosystem - but they're better behaved than you might think - GamesRadar

Since their introduction to Newfoundland in the early 1900s, moose have had a tremendous impact on the islands forests.

Moose no longer have natural predators, such as wolves, to keep their population in check.

Photo: Benjamin Ojolek

In coastal areas, in particular, intensive browsing (or feeding) on balsam fir one of the foundation species of Terra Nova National Parks boreal forest has created spruce-moose meadows.

These are large areas of the park where black spruce trees have taken over with grass under the trees rather than the usual mossy ground, making it difficult for the fir trees to regenerate.

Over the past few years, experimental restoration to support Parks Canada Ecological Integrity targets in Terra Nova National Park was implemented by Dr. Luise Hermanutz,Department of Biology, and her graduate student, Louis Charron, with the support of park staff.

Their work is key in determining which park management actions are likely to be effective.

Due to shading, the canopy trees, made up of predominately balsam fir, usually prevent native grass from getting enough light to grow.

But, with most of the balsam fir becoming lunch for hungry moose in the park, the grass acts as an invasive species growing fast and irreversibly changing the ground vegetation.

The problem? The fir trees cant penetrate the thick root mat and regrow; hence the need for restoration.

Working with Janet Feltham and Kirby Tulk, Terra Nova National Park staff members, the researchers carried out experiments to determine if balsam fir would regenerate in the park without assistance or if it was necessary to replant them in the black spruce savannahs.

And, if seedlings were planted, did they require specialized treatments to give them a better survival rate?

Photo: Benjamin Ojolek

Seedlings were used for the restoration project instead of seeds because, based on previous Memorial University student research, it was discovered that various seed predators small mammals like the introduced red-backed vole, birds and slugs would eat the seeds before they germinated.

We started looking at where in the park we should focus and what experimental planting treatment we should implement, knowing that financial and staff resources were limited, said Mr. Charron.

We also looked at different treatments to see if experimental removal of surrounding plants was needed to lower the competition and provide more light or if decompressing the soil would allow the fir seedlings to better survive and grow.

Seedling plantings were carried out across a number of sites within the park using various ground preparation treatments. Seedling performance indicators, such as survival, growth and browsing occurrence, was monitored over a two-year period.

The seedlings were provided by the teams forestry partners at the Wooddale Provincial Tree Nursery.

We would certainly need to look at the results in 10-20 years to see if, in the long-term, our results are consistent. Louis Charron

What we saw during the first two years is the planted balsam fir seedlings had a pretty high survival rate, over 90 per cent in all treatments, said Mr. Charron.

We only looked at the first two growing seasons to see if the plants could establish themselves, and we would certainly need to look at the results in 10-20 years to see if, in the long-term, our results are consistent. But the first two years have been successful, so thats a good start.

They found that cutting surrounding vegetation and plowing the ground was a lot of work and didnt do much to help the seedlings. In fact, in areas larger than five hectares, the ground was so open that the drying of the soil caused seedlings to die, regardless of the ground treatment.

Photo: Benjamin Ojolek

Considering that no substantial biological benefits were detected following ground treatments, which were costly and time-consuming to implement, the team determined that active restoration in boreal forests can be implemented using standard forestry planting protocols, without ground preparation.

You dont need to rely on black spruce, and other species that have been used in past restorations. Louis Charron

Planting seedlings directly into the vegetation without any preparation actually saw better survival rates with lower browsing intensity from moose, and was much less expensive to implement a win-win situation.

More work isnt always the best solution, said Mr. Charron.

Now we know that you can plant balsam fir and it will survive and grow. You dont need to rely on black spruce, and other species that have been used in past restorations. We know that balsam fir can be a good option for forest restoration too.

The researchers feel that, despite little research previously being done on balsam fir, it is a key species.

It acts as an architect, helping to acidify the soil, provide necessary shade and provide food and shelter for the many species of plants and animals that use the balsam fir forest, such as rare lichens and cross-bill birds.

For a park in a natural area, its not just about having the structure of a forest back, said Mr. Charron.

Its also about having the right elements. Diversity at the end of the day is also important. In a national park you arent looking into the fastest growing trees for financial benefit, you just want to have the best ecosystem possible.

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'Best ecosystem possible' - Gazette

Australias fintech industry body today released its first member ecosystem map, which helps build domestic and international understanding of the nations fintech strengths and diversity, particularly in wealth generation and lending.

The map is arguably the best visual representation yet of our fintech industry, which is the largest startup sub-sector in Australia according to the most recent Startup Muster survey, said FinTech Australia CEO Danielle Szetho.

Click for larger.

The broad range, depth and quality of fintechs on this map shows just how far Australias fintech environment has come in less than two years.

Given that FinTech Australia represents about a quarter of all fintech companies operating in Australia, it is in fact arguable that Australia has a greater number of fintech companies than Hong Kong and is on par with or close behind Singapore.

The ecosystem map shows that wealth and investment, and consumer and business lending, are Australias two largest fintech sub-sectors - an outcome that is consistent with findings from last years EY FinTech Australia Census.

The strong focus on wealth and investment to some extent reflects the fact that, in 2016, Australia had Asias largest pool of funds under management - and the 6th largest in the world.

In addition, Australias US$1.6 trillion largest superannuation (also known as pension) market is the fourth largest in the world.

Ms Szetho said fintechs operating in the consumer-facing wealth and investment space have already made major penetrations into the Australian market. For instance, budgeting fintech Pocketbook already has more than 300,000 users, while micro-savings fintech Acorns has well over 200,000 users.

Many of our fintechs in the wealth and investment area are run by highly experienced financial services executives, who have left large corporate institutions to begin their own innovative startup companies that are unencumbered by large legacy systems, Ms Szetho said.

In addition, the map shows that Australias fintech lenders are rapidly filling market gaps in both consumer and business lending.

For instance, in regard to business lending, a recent survey found that one in five small-to- medium enterprises are now planning to use non-bank financing, compared to just one in ten in 2014.

Our business lenders are typically using in-house or third party technology to analyse the financial information of small businesses, so they can then offer the best and fastest possible deals, Ms Szetho said.

They are able to operate in spaces that banks traditionally found hard to service, and are now playing a valuable role helping our small businesses to grow.

Other strong areas of Australias lending space include invoice financing, peer-to-peer personal loans and also home loan marketplaces that are empowering consumers to get a better mortgage deal on their most valuable assets.

Ms Szetho said the map also showed the many other growing areas of the Australian fintech ecosystem, including payments, wallets and wearables, blockchain/distributed ledger, regtech, insurtech, data aggregators and cybersecurity.

The map also takes a unique approach to laying out the fintech ecosystem by seeking to show where there are overlaps between different sub-sectors.

For instance, the map shows lending and wealth and investment products that rely on marketplace style solutions along with wallets, payments and wearables companies which rely on distributed ledger solutions.

FinTech Australia plans to update the map at least once every six months. The map is available at http://www.fintechaustralia.org.au Download the document now 3.8 mb (JPEG image)

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FinTech Australia releases fintech ecosystem map - Finextra - Finextra

By Elizabeth PennisiJun. 19, 2017 , 3:00 PM

Its one of the iconic sights of Africa: hundreds of thousands of wildebeest thundering across the Serengeti in an annual mass migration. But when the animals come to the Mara River, the scene can turn deadly. Unable to scramble up steep banks, thousands drown in a mass panic or get picked off by crocodiles. It turns out, however, that whats bad for the wildebeest is good for the ecosystem, say Amanda Subalusky and Emma Rosi, ecologists at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York.

For the past 6 years, Subalusky and her husband, Christopher Dutton, also at the Cary Institute, have studied the scale and effects of this mass carnage. They have taken stock of the pileup of carcasses, surveyed the parade of scavengers assisting in their decomposition, and tracked where nutrients from the dead animals wind up in the food chain. Its a pulse of nutrients, but then you have a legacy of bones, which are acting as a slow release fertilizer with multiple effects downstream, Subalusky says. The sheer amount of organic matter that is made available is astonishing, says deep-sea ecologist Paulo Y. G. Sumida at the University of So Paulo in So Paulo, Brazil, who studies the ecological role of whale carcasses. It is likely to make a big difference for the whole trophic web and for animals as well.

The wildebeest migration is the worlds most massive animal movement: 1.2 million animals cross the savanna in an 1800-kilometer circuit between Kenya and Tanzania as they follow the rains. They consume more than 4500 tons of grass every day and deposit heaps of dung, transforming the landscapes they cross. The migration affects every single process in this ecosystem, says J. Grant Hopcraft, a landscape ecologist at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom who has studied wildebeest for decades. But the impact on the Mara River had not been as closely assessed.

Subalusky, then a Yale University graduate student working with David Post, decided to take a closer look when she first saw the aftermath of the mass drownings: massive flocks of vultures and storks picking over the smelly carcasses. She checked the historical records and in 2011 began surveying the Mara River annually, measuring the carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen content of carcasses; counting the numbers of scavengers; testing water quality; and capturing fish for chemical analyses of the sources of their nutrients.

As Subalusky and her colleagues report in this weeks issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, about 6500 animals drown each year, dumping 10 blue whales worth of meat into the river. The fresh carcasses, which accumulate at bends and in the shallows, feed crocodiles and provide up to 50% of the diet of local fish. As they decay, they annually add about 13 tons of phosphorus, 25 tons of nitrogen, and 107 tons of carbon to the ecosystem in half a dozen pulses that each last about a month. During those weeks some nutrient levels can quadruple temporarily.

Wildebeest carcasses and bones release carbon, nitrogen,and phosphorus at different rates, fueling many kinds of plant, animal, and microbial growth locally and downstream.

Credits: (Graphic) G. Grulln, C. Baek, and K. Sutliff/Science; (Data) A. Subalusky et al., PNAS (2017)

The bones, which make up half the biomass, are the last to decay, taking 7 years. Along the way they support a film of microbes that in turn become food for fish and other river-dwellers.

I am stunned by the extent of the annual mass wildebeest drownings and their large contribution of [carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus] to the energy budget of the Mara River, says Gary Lamberti, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Norte Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The boon likely extends beyond the river, as vultures and storks move wildebeest-derived nutrients tens of kilometers inland.

The study, which was quite challenging and dangerous to do, adds to a growing body of evidence that mass mortality can have ecosystem impacts. Researchers like Sumida have found, for example, that dead whales provide a pulse of food to nutrient-starved ocean floors, enabling a specialized ecosystem to flourish on the decaying carcasses. Others have tracked how salmon that die after they finish their final upstream journey to spawn add nutrients to river ecosystems. The impact of the wildebeest appears to be larger, however; they contribute four times more biomass to the Mara than dying salmon add to British Columbias rivers, Subalusky notes.

These phenomena highlight the multiple pathwaysnutrients, direct consumption, food web transfersby which animal tissue can influence food webs, Lamberti says.

On a broader scale, the [wildebeest] findings have implications for understanding the ecological role of past and present animal migrations, says David Janetski, an aquatic ecologist at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. The bison in North America, the saiga antelope in central Asia, and many caribou in the Arctic once migrated by the millions, sustaining ecosystems in the rivers they crossed. When the migrations dwindled, the organisms that relied on the carcasses of animals that came to grief may have declined or vanished, he says.

On the positive side, the wildebeest drownings kill only about 0.7% of the total herd each year. Illegal harvesting, starvation, and predation kill many more. Although drowning events are horrendous and graphic, they should not be our primary concern for the long-term sustainability of this population, Hopcraft says. If anything, he says, the Serengeti shows us what an ecosystem should look like.

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Every year, thousands of drowned wildebeest feed this African ecosystem - Science Magazine

When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life. Everyone knows that classic line from Disney's "The Lion King". Kids and parents might have been slightly less charmed by this variation: The wildebeest must cross the river to eat, and a whole bunch of them die in the process. And then everything in the river gets to feast on their rotting remains. Oh, and their bones continue to leech nutrients into the water even after fish and insects have devoured their flesh. Other organisms also eats the algae that grows on the bones. Basically, some wildebeest need to die, Simba.

But that's reality in Africa's Mara River. According to a study published this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, frequent mass wildebeest drownings are crucial to the health of the Serengeti plains.

Around 1.2 million wildebeest travel through East Africa each year during their migration. The movethe largest overland migration on the planetis necessary for their survival, helping them keep up with moving rainfall and find plentiful patches of tall grass. But their route takes them back and forth over the Mara river dozens of times, and not everyone makes it.

"They don't move as a single 1.2 million wildebeest herd, they're moving in packs of hundreds or thousands," explains lead author Amanda Subalusky. "So at multiple river sites, on any given day, you have these huge packs crossing." When conditions are particularly hazardous, an entire group can get swept up and drown en masse.

"A relatively small percentage of those crossings end in mass drownings, maybe one percent of the whole herd," Subalusky says. "But that's over 6,000 wildebeest every single year."

That's the equivalent of 10 blue whale carcasses getting dumped into a river that averages around 150 feet wide and is often only three or four feet deep. Pile-ups are quite common: Bodies bottleneck in the water and are left rotting in the sun. Obviously, that huge annual influx of fresh meat must have some effect on the local ecosystem. But Subalusky and her colleagues wanted to quantify it. After coming up with a formal estimate for the annual drowningsa trying task that required "counting as many carcasses as possible"the team worked on puzzling together what all that meat meant.

"What does every carcass that goes in equal? What does it give to the river? We went after fresh bodiesones that weren't already attended by a crocodile or what have youand dissected all the parts to figure out what nutrients they'd provide to the river, essentially rebuilding a wildebeest carcass piece by piece," Subalusky says. Then, they tried to account for all of those nutrients in the river's ecosystem. Where did all that wildebeest go?

Unsurprisingly, they saw plenty of scavenger activity. Animals traveled more than 60 miles to feast upon the remains, and generally came so quickly that it was difficult to catch an untouched carcass on the game cameras they set up. They also saw boosts in nutrient levels downstream, but not as much as they expected.

"They weren't just rotting and releasing all their nutrients, letting them flow downriver," Subalusky says. "Something was missing."

They checked to make sure the nutrients weren't getting caught up in microbial conglomerates known as biofilms and algae growths upstream, but the river's generally high nutrient content didn't leave a lot of room for hungry microbes to snatch up wildebeest remains.

The final piece of the puzzle came when the team looked at fish: Right after the mass drownings, fish were filling a full half of their diet with delicious wildebeest meat.

"It's not super surprising," Subalusky says. "You basically just threw a bunch of steaks in the river."

Even months after the carcasses were gone, the researchers found signatures of wildebeest inside fish in the river. The swimmers were snacking on biofilms that only grow on bones. "The bones were like organic rocks, providing a medium for all these biofilms," Subalusky says. Meanwhile, the bones continue to slowly leak nutrients like phosphorous into the water, giving just a little bit more back to the Earth long after the herd had succumbed. "It looks like a short lived pulse of nutrients in the system from the outside, but they're actually lingering."

To Subalusky, the big takeaway is that this kind of macabre was probably once incredibly common. "It's kind of a window in time to when there were millions of bison and un-dammed rivers across the United States," she says. "And a lot of our largest dinosaur beds have been linked to mass drownings. Understanding the role they play in shaping ecosystems is important in understanding how rivers that have lost their mass migrations might have been affected."

And unfortunately, the Mara isn't necessarily safe from that same fate.

"Over the years, so many people have worked to protect the entire migration corridor, crossing all sorts of borders and boundaries, which is a huge conservation success story," Subalusky says. But there will always be threats to that: Discussions of a highway connecting western Tanzania to the coast have started to pick up again, along with talk of building hydropower dams to create more water storage for agriculture as climate change makes rain less predictable.

"It's the age old balance of development and natural resources," she says, adding that these infrastructure changes could obviously benefit the people who live in the region. It's not as if all development can be halted forever.

"But youre talking about huge changes in the sediment and natural flow regime of that river," she says. "The migration really shapes every component of that ecosystem, so youd likely see a domino of expected and unexpected effects. I guess we'll just have to see."

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This river ecosystem hinges on thousands of drowned, rotting ... - Popular Science

As promised, Nokia has officially launched its suite of consumer digital health tools that formerly lived under the Withings name. Along with the connected scale, blood pressure monitor, thermometer and activity tracker, Nokia has also released a digital program for chronic condition management called the Patient Care Platform and an updated version of the Health Mate app.

The technology company has moved relatively quickly into the digital health market, and he launch comes just four months after Nokia first revealed it would be offering a connected health ecosystem. Nokia announced it was interested in the space a little over a year ago, and acquired Withings a few weeks later. And while digital health is just the companys latest iteration, consumers seem ready for it.

What is very striking for us as we ran our latest research is 80 percent of the consumers we surveyed already think Nokia is carrying digital health products, Cedric Hutchings, Nokias vice president of digital health told MobiHealthNews. This let us know that this is the perfect time to offer our full products portfolio under the Nokia brand. For us, it is a very important week.

The full product line is available on the companys website and major retailers including Best Buy, Amazon, Bed, Bath and Beyond. In a few months, the devices will be available in physical locations of CVS stores, Target, Babies R Us and Apple stores.

The products arent entirely new, of course. The company launched theconnected scaleand asmart, FDA-cleared thermometerunder Withings last June, and also indicated they would look beyond the direct to consumer space with the announcement of aproject with Helsinki University Hospitalto develop remote patient monitoring solutions.

The Health Mate app connects Nokias entire digital health offering, pulling together data to create detailed reports on activity, sleep, weight and blood pressure.

The app also hascoaching, which is a big new feature for us,"said Hutchings. "It can be used to set multi-week goals and use the content-based coaching to drive actionable insights, and it's really breaking the gap between patient and doctor and making sure they use their devices."

While Hutchings wouldnt reveal the extent of how the coaching worked (such as the degree of human or AI components) he did say Nokia plans to continue building out the app to incorporate findings from collaborations with major medical institutions involved in the development of the new devices, including Scripps, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford MedX.

Parallel to the consumer device launch, Nokia has been testing the Patient Care Platform in Europe, which integrates the full Nokia portfolio of devices to provide near-real time data to patients and their care team to help support diagnosis, manage or prevent chronic illness and, ultimately, deliver targeted care.

Eventually, we will be expanding what the app and our devices can do, by linking with more programs to empower patient care, but now we are focusing on the consumers and patient first, said Hutchings. Part of the vision here is to enable much more prevention, earlier in treatment, by meeting much more of human beings needs when it comes to taking control of their health and having a long-term impact.

Nokias foray into consumer digital health products is reminiscent of Philips Healthcares launch of clinically-validated health-monitored devices last summer. The device and platform are similar, as is the approach to early-stage health management. While Philips has a deep reach into the clinical space with a range of remote monitoring and telemedicine delivery products, Nokia isnt quite venturing that far yet.

Weve been working on this initial transition for a months, and the complexity of making a change this way means its just part of the equation to do it in a sound way before we transition to another phase, said Hutchings. "We had this very intense period of preparation, this whole global swap of products, and we're excited to be back in the consumer market, back into consumer hands and, in a broader sense for Nokia, into consumer health."

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No longer under the Withings name, Nokia's connected health ecosystem hits market - MobiHealthNews

Enabling an out-of-control work culture has led to Travis Kalanicks downfall. Will the Indian ecosystem stop turning a blind eye to the bad behaviour of the top dogs, described by Ariana Huffington as brilliant jerks?

Travis Kalanicks resignation has added a new twist to the recent sordid tales coming out of Uber, the worlds most popular cab-hailing app, which has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons. According to an explosive story by The New York Times in February this year, Uber was found to have a poor work culture, enabled by the top team.

New employees were encouraged to focus on meritocracy, with the core idea being that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means pushing out others to get there.

While this killer spirit did help Uber become one of Silicon Valleys biggest success stories, several current and former employees describe an inappropriate work environment at the company, in which employees thrive on unhealthy competition and the management turns a blind eye to infractions from top performers.

One Uber manager, who was later fired, is said to have groped several female co-workers at a company retreat in Las Vegas. Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employees head in with a baseball bat. At a global all-hands meet in Las Vegas in 2015, where the company hired Beyonc to perform, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms.

The final nail in the coffin was ex-Uber engineer Susan Fowlers scathing blog post which described systemic sexism and harassment at Ubers San Francisco headquarters, as well as refusal by the companys human resources department to address her concerns.Her story went viral.

Due to the media pressure, Travis had openedan internal investigationinto the accusations and fired several managers who were found guilty of misconduct. He also brought in board member Arianna Huffington and former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. to look into the harassment issues. Huffington had said during an all-hands meet that there would no longer be hiring of brilliant jerks.

Ubers story seems to be a turning point in an ecosystem which thrives on bro culture and where the misdeeds of rich and powerful men are easily forgiven. That somebody as powerful as Travis had to step down despite not being directly accused of sexual impropriety is interesting and promising. The world seems to be acknowledging that the founder/CEO has a moral culpability towards the culture created in his or her organisation.

Will Indian firms learn from Uber?

In India, however, even CEOs who have been directly accused of sexual misconduct have got off the hook rather lightly.

Arunabh Kumar, Founder-CEO of TVF, had resigned from his position months after several allegations of sexual harassment first came out against him. Initially, Arunabh had arrogantly told the media that he was only complimenting women by referring to them as sexy. He was reported as saying, I am a heterosexual, single man and when I find a woman sexy, I tell her shes sexy. I compliment women. Is that wrong? Having said that, I am very particular about my behaviour.

It was only after pressure from investors, following months of severe financial losses and tarnished reputation of the brand that Arunabh decided to step down. In his farewell tweet, Arunabh had mentioned that though he was no longer associated with TVF in an official capacity, he was willing to mentor the content team for upcoming shows. However, recently there has been news that he is expected to return by the end of this year to reprise his role of Yogi in Pitchers 2 as the heat around the issue is also likely to cool down by then.

It was the inept handling of a sexual harassment case that was one of the factors that eventually led to Cyrus Mistrys ouster from Tata Sons. Rakesh Sarna, Indian Hotels CEO, had been one of Indias highest- paid executives at Rs 18 crore, and ironically remained a member of the companys prevention of sexual harassment (POSH) committee while investigation was pending against him.

The woman, who complained of Sarnas inappropriate behaviour, had initially been shifted to another department and had finally quit. She had mentioned in her resignation letter, During my seven months employment at Taj I was subjected to repeated unwanted sexual advances from Mr Sarna. When I ignored or tried to rebuff them the environment turned hostile.

There are strict rules governing cases of sexual harassment.The womanhas to be given a choice. Its her option to decide if she wants to move out from her current role and not the other way around. Until the probe is completeSection 11 of the Sexual Harassment of Women in Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal Act 2013) stipulates inquiry into the complaint has to be completed in 90 daysthe accused should not be in a position to influence the inquiry and should be in a different office from the complainant. If he is the CEO, he should be asked to proceed on leave for a few days pending the inquiry so that it is impartial and unbiased.

It is heartening that CEOs are paying a price for poor behaviour, whether their own or of someone from the core team. However, a more empathetic and ethical attitude would go a long way in making workplaces safer for women and help deal with such unpleasant situations in a more professional and just manner.

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Is the tech ecosystem waking up to founders' moral responsibility towards work culture? - YourStory.com