Freedom from fear and the post-MDG agenda

Posted on by

Madagascars security forces are struggling to combat bandits known as dahalo

Organized crime groups, often working with the compliance of governments, present a growing threat to citizens in fragile states. While casualties from armed conflict are reaching a historical low of approximately 50,000 a year according to research in 2012, little has been done to effectively combat the threat of organized crime groups around the world.

As the UN looks past the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015 deadline, many are calling for the inclusion of security and justice targets in the post-2015 agenda and a reframing of the current transnational crime discourse. Human rights organizations argue that freedom from fear and the tackling of organized crime are not just a personal security issue, but a development problem as well.

What is freedom from fear?

Freedom from fear requires a state that has monopoly of legitimate violence, Stephen Ellis, senior researcher at the African Studies Centre, University of Leiden, told IRIN. Its a modern, liberal concept of what a good state really is.

The 1994 Human Development Report broadly defined human security as freedom from fear and freedom from want. Although the phrase has roots going back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this report instigated serious debate about human security and its connections to human development.

In their think piece for the UN system task team on the post-2015 UN development agenda last year, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) argued that a new development paradigm is called for, directed to securing freedom from fear and want for all, without discrimination.

Posing questions about what constitutes fear for whom and in what contexts is likely to sharpen our analytical understanding of the conflicts of interest that generate fear in the first place Adam Edwards, director of the Cardiff University Center for Crime, Law and Justice, told IRIN. This can help to then draft policies to combat these fears.

But not everyone believes that the terminology is suited to meaningful action. In the abstract, its impossible not to have fear, Desmond Arias, associate professor at George Mason University, told IRIN. Even in a relatively safe society, you have fear. Its good to have a modest amount of fear.

Im not sure that its a useful concept, Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told IRIN. Freedom from fear is completely unrealistic, but also very absolutist. Therefore, it is impossible to actually achieve. The phrasing I would like to see is enhancing human security and strengthening the bond between citizens and governments, she said.

Read the original:

Freedom from fear and the post-MDG agenda

Freedom Village residents raise $98,000 toward Windmill Island Future Fund

Posted on by

The residents at downtown Hollands Freedom Village didnt back down when they were challenged. In fact they stepped up, in a big way, to the tune of $98,000.

The residents at Freedom Village were given a two-to-one challenge by local philanthropist Jim Brooks. Brooks would donate $100,000 to the Windmill Island Gardens Future Fund if the residents of Freedom Village could raise $50,000, said Gordon Van Wylen, a resident at the village who has helped with the fundraising campaign and former president of Hope College, who has also been involved in many community projects.

After a presentation from Brooks and city officials, including Mayor Kurt Dykstra, Van Wylen and an ad hoc advisory committee from freedom Village took on the challenge. Letters were written, donation cards and envelopes printed and sent throughout that little community.

Then a second $100,000 donation came in and doubled the challenge.

We were quite sure we could raise $50,000, Van Wylen said. We knew raising $100,000 would be difficult. But here we are, $2,000 away.

The presentation happened in June, and the those at Freedom Village who wanted to give, gave strong and right away. Being a neighbor to the park, the village has sort of adopted it. Its within walking distance. Its their view. And giving to the proposed pedestrian path that could get them out to the park safer was a great idea, Van Wylen said.

But once the village reached about $65,000 to $70,000, the donations dropped off, he said. So he went out in search of boost and found it with Grand Rapids businessman Richard Postma, who stepped in as chairman of Macatawa Bank during the recession, Van Wylen said. Postma donated $15,000, and the bank, which has a branch in Freedom Village, gave $2,500.

That boost got the ball rolling again at the village, and it is only $2,000 away from making the mark. Envelopes are collected Friday, Van Wylen said. Its possible they will make it.

When there was only $10,000 to go, people gave a smaller second gift, Van Wylen said.

He hopes the way Freedom Village stepped up to the challenge will encourage other people and organizations to do the same to support the restoration of Windmill DeZwaan and the future plans at Windmill Island Gardens.

The rest is here:

Freedom Village residents raise $98,000 toward Windmill Island Future Fund

Freedom camping eased up

Posted on by

New rules for freedom campers have been approved by the Dunedin City Council, but without a blunt warning to tourists.

Councillors at Monday's full council meeting opted to approve the council's new ''responsible'' camping policy and bylaw, which eased restrictions across the city introduced before the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

However, Fliss Butcher's push to add a blunt warning about defecating in public to the top of a new freedom camping brochure was defeated, after other councillors turned their nose up at the idea.

Cr Butcher, a member of the hearings subcommittee, told her colleagues some tourists were ''pooing on Otago'' while on their travels.

Submitters had expressed concern, including one Macandrew Bay resident who discovered a tourist defecating in his garden one morning, and Cr Butcher said a blunt message should be sent.

She wanted the words ''Don't poo on Otago'' added to the top of the brochure as a ''radical, in-your-face way of saying 'stop doing it'.''

''This is a real problem. It's not going to go away by just pretending it's not happening. It is happening.''

Other councillors began to chortle as Kate Wilson expressed concern at the wording and declined to be the resolution's seconder.

Mayor Dave Cull couldn't resist: ''You don't want poo in your motion?'' he inquired casually.

As Cr Wilson shook her head, Neil Collins suggested a more diplomatic use of the word ''defecate'' instead, but also got nowhere.

Read the rest here:

Freedom camping eased up

Fuel Freedom Refuels the Fight Against Poverty

Posted on by

IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 24, 2013) - The Fuel Freedom Foundation (FFF), in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), sponsored a topic breakfast, entitled "Refueling the Fight Against Poverty," in conjunction with the annual meeting at CGI. The breakfast was held on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013.

The discussion was led by John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton, and current Chair at The Center for American Progress. The panel featured Yossie Hollander, Fuel Freedom Foundation Chairman and co-founder; David R. Lee, Professor at Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management Cornell University; and Radha Muthiah, Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

Fuel Freedom Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is working to reduce the cost of driving your existing car or truck by opening the market to cheaper fuel choices at the pump. Achieving fuel freedom will mean accelerated economic growth, greater energy security, reduced air pollution, lower greenhouse gas emissions and improved health.

The scarcity of cheap, clean fuels is one of the greatest challenges facing much of the global population, and this especially affects the world's poorest three billion people. The shortage and lack of access to affordable fuels in the developing world negatively impacts food security, health and national security. The breakfast explored how the world can transform the traditional view and understanding of fuels today; and investigated alternatives to fuels commonly used for transportation, cooking, electricity, lighting and fertilizers. Rethinking low-cost and clean fuels will have a global impact in the fight against poverty.

About Fuel Freedom: Fuel Freedom Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to breaking our oil addiction by enabling the transportation fuels market to open so our cars and trucks can run on cheaper, cleaner, healthier American replacement fuels. Consumers could easily convert their cars to run on replacement fuels, but outdated regulations and entrenched commercial interests stand in the way. The Fuel Freedom campaign aims to remove barriers to competition so that natural gas, methanol, ethanol and electricity can compete on equal footing with gasoline at the pump and at the dealership. Achieving Fuel Freedom will lower fuel prices, create jobs, spur economic growth, reduce pollution, and improve national and global security. For more information visit us at http://www.fuelfreedom.org.

Read more:

Fuel Freedom Refuels the Fight Against Poverty

Cyborg Astrobiologist Put Through its Paces in West Virginian Coalfields

Posted on by

Astrobiologists are overwhelmed by the huge volume of images from other planets. Now they have help in the form of a system that automatically identifies objects of interest in geological images

The search for life on other planets is hotting up. The seemingly endless train of Mars rovers have found convincing evidence of a warmer and wetter climate on Mars. The Huygens and Cassini spacecraft have found lakes, beaches, rivers and rain on Titan (albeit of the the oily variety). And Europas dark, warm ocean looks increasingly inviting for astrobiologists.

Then there are the ever-increasing hordes of exoplanets in the habitable zones around other stars.Its never been a better time to be an astrobiologist.

One problem that this new breed of scientist faces is data overload. Each image from Mars has to be pored over by a human expert before the rovers next move can be planned and executed.

And since these images are increasingly numerous, this is a time consuming task. So a way to automate the classification of these images, at least partially, would be hugely useful.

Step forward Patrick McGuire at the Freie Universitt in Berlin, Germany and a few pals who have built and tested an automated system that does just this. They call their new system the cyborg astrobiologist.

The new system is relatively simple. It consists of a Samsung Propel smartphone, which has a camera capable of taking 1280 x 960 pixel images, connected by bluetooth to a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop. For the moment, it requires a human helper to carry and point the camera but its not hard to imagine how the system could be fitted to an autonomous rover.

The phone takes photos of the terrain as it moves around, sending them it to the laptop for analysis. This where the clever part takes place.

The laptop analyses each photo by comparing it earlier images it has received and looking for similarities between them. It analyses the colour of the scene and the texture to calculate a similarity score.

Read more:

Cyborg Astrobiologist Put Through its Paces in West Virginian Coalfields

Autumn clean-up on the beaches

Posted on by

Autumn clean-up on the beaches

1:00pm Tuesday 24th September 2013 in News By Emma Walker

VOLUNTEERS took to the beaches over the weekend to give them an autumn clean.

After a busy summer on the Dorset coast, when sun-seekers flocked to the area, teams headed to the seashore armed with bin bags and litter pickers for the Great Dorset Beach Clean.

Lyn Cooch of the Dorset Countryside coastal ranger team helped out on Chesil Beach.

She said: We have been conducting a survey of a 100-metre area on the beach to record what litter is being picked up.

The litter from these areas will then be weighed before the data is sent off.

It is a great initiative to keep our beaches clean after a busy summer.

Fishing nets, barbecues and plastic items made up a lot of the waste, with details of rubbish picked up sent to the Marine Conservation Society to add to its annual report on beach litter.

The clean-ups are organised by Dorset County Councils Country-side Ranger Service.

More here:

Autumn clean-up on the beaches

Changing Coastline: Beaches on the move

Posted on by

This article is the first in a three-part series taking a close look at erosion along the Massachusetts coastline. Staff at our WickedLocal papers up and down the coast from Cape Cod to Cape Ann are talking to experts, residents and scientists to determine if our coast is eroding away and what, if anything, can be done to stop it.

The good news: The drive to the beach may be shorter in coming years.

The bad news weve already seen. Especially last winter. Homes falling into the ocean. Beaches scoured of sand. Seawalls and jetties degraded or destroyed. Roads washed out or buried in sand and debris.

Its difficult to say if last winters damage was a seasonal fluctuation or a definite, long-term trend, say experts. Coastlines, by their nature, change. Storm patterns, too, vary.

But experts agree on one point: Sea levels are rising, increasing the likelihood of long-term coastal flooding, erosion and storm damage.

Last winter may be an outlier. Four major noreasters rocked Massachusetts from October to March. From year to year, storms vary in severity and impact. Because the commonwealths coast suffered through a severe winter last year, doesnt necessarily mean this winter will be equally severe.

At the same time, barrier beaches can be very dynamic. They can narrow and shrink for a number of years. And then they can suddenly blossom again and widen. One beach can lose significant sand, while another, not far away, can gain.

There are areas where weve seen significant erosion and others where weve seen accretion, said Bruce Carlisle, director of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. Between 2001 and 2008, where weve done the actual mapping, within that small decade, the shoreline has moved up and back a little bit.

Its important to distinguish between the loss of a beach and the migration of a beach or barrier island, when an entire system can respond by changing its location, said Rob Thieler, a research geologist with United States Geological Survey in Woods Hole. Sometimes coastal changes are asymmetric. There can be narrowing for a decade or two, followed by widening, depending on how the overall system is changing.

Hurricanes cause some damage, said Bill Sargent, a NOVA consultant and author of numerous books about the environment and science including Beach Wars: 10,000 Years on a Barrier Beach and The View From Strawberry Hill: Reflections on the Hottest Year on Record, but Sargent argues noreasters can actually do more damage because theyll hang around for three or four days. They linger over far more high tides than a hurricane would and thats when you get a cumulative effect.

Here is the original post:

Changing Coastline: Beaches on the move

RVCC Planetarium to celebrate Astronomy Day with activities for entire family

Posted on by

The Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) Planetarium will offer a day of programs for the entire family in celebration of Astronomy Day, Saturday, Oct. 12, from 3-9 p.m.

Visitors will be introduced to the Planetariums newly opened 3M Observatory for solar observing during the day, or will get a chance to take peeks of the Moon and other celestial objects in the evening sky.

Some of the activities will include viewing a scale model of the solar system or using ones body to tell time on a sundial. A light pollution demonstration also is planned. The event is appropriate for families with children ages six and older.

During the event, participants may want to view any of the four Planetarium shows scheduled: Fall Skies, 3 p.m.

Explore the night sky under the Planetarium dome with an expert guide. Learn what stars, planets and constellations are visible in tonights sky, including Venus. The constellations Andromeda, Pegasus and Cassiopeia are easy to find as well. Find out the status of the Sun-grazer Comet, ISON.

Laser Light Waves, 4 p.m. Enjoy a laser light show featuring such songs as Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae, and Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf.

Fall Skies, 7 p.m. Explore the night sky under the Planetarium dome with an expert guide. Learn what stars, planets and constellations are visible in tonights sky, including Venus. The constellations Andromeda, Pegasus and Cassiopeia are easy to find as well. Find out the status of the Sun-grazer Comet, ISON.

Laser Classic Rock, 8 p.m. Enjoy a laser light show featuring such songs as You Aint Seen Nothing Yet by Bachman Turner Overdrive, Rebel Rebel by David Bowie, and Another One Bites the Dust by Queen.

All of the Astronomy Day activities are free of charge, but there is a cost for the star shows and laser concerts. Tickets cost $7 for one show or $12 for two shows. Reservations for the shows are strongly suggested.

For additional information about Astronomy Day or to make reservations, call 908-231-8805 or visit raritanval.edu/planetarium.

See the article here:

RVCC Planetarium to celebrate Astronomy Day with activities for entire family

Pursuit my passion "Artificial Intelligence": Noha Khater at TEDxTantaU – Video

Posted on by


Pursuit my passion "Artificial Intelligence": Noha Khater at TEDxTantaU
??? ????? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ??????? ?? ??????? ????????? ???????? ? ????? ?? ???? ?????????. ???? ???????? ??????????? ?? ???? ????????? ? ?? ?????...

By: TEDxTalks

Go here to see the original:

Pursuit my passion "Artificial Intelligence": Noha Khater at TEDxTantaU - Video

Nobody panic! Facebook’s artificial intelligence just wants to know how you’re feeling

Posted on by

Facebook may soon understand you as well as someone from your Close Friends list. And by Facebook, I dont mean Mark Zuckerberg or another employee I mean the actual website. The social network formed an eight person research group to develop an artificial intelligence system in order to better understand its users. According to the MIT Technology Review, Facebooks team is assembling an AI using something called deep learning. AI that uses deep learning will process data using simulated neural networks. These networks will interpret and react to data using the same methods a human brain uses, so instead of superficial interpretations of information (like the kind of understanding Siri can glean from your voice commands) the AI will grasp the deeper meaning of actions on the social network.

Deep learning is an endeavor to create a system so sophisticated it can mimic the way a human mind functions in its totality if it works, androids so smart they make IBMs Watson look like a drunk numbskull could be a real possibility. And if it goes awry, well have, um, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but lets not think about that.

Most particulars of the project remain secret, but heres what we know:

The idea of an artificial intelligence smart enough to intuit which updates readers want to see sounds Skyrim scary. But Facebooks not doing anything new. Google already plunged into this research field with its Google Brain project, an attempt to develop an AI that functions on the same level as a human brain. Googles project is the most ambitious deep learning endeavor thus far, but Microsoft has already dipped its toes in as well, using the theory to develop a real-time English-Mandarin translator. And Facebook needs to hurry, because Chinas dominant online company Baidu just established a research center devoted to the same thing in Silicon Valley and researchers in Japan are using neural networks to control robots.

A basic diagram of how an AI network works, mimicking the human brain.

Since the company is tardy to the tea party on deep leaning, Facebook poached some team members from places with more experience. MarcAurelio Ranzato joined the team from Googles Brain project, and hes an expert on deep learning. And Yaniv Taigman, the co-founder of Face.com (which Facebook owns), is on board, which may speak to plans to fold facial recognition advances into this deep learning project. Lubomir Bourdev is another team member with a background in facial detection, again suggesting that Facebooks AI will begreat at remembering faces.

News Feed continues to suckat the moment. It uses conventional machine learning to show users what it thinks we want to see, and it does a terrible job. Although Facebook continues to tweak its formula to surface updates, what you see on your feed often bears little resemblance to what youd find most interesting on Facebook. Facebooks chief technology officerMike Schroepfer confirmed that this artificial intelligence would aim to help the News Feed improve.The company hasnt figured out a way to make News Feed more utilitarian or interesting, which is why the AI will focus on improving the platforms ability to pull out relevant information from the data barrage.

Although fixing Newsfeed will be a major priority for Facebooks AI, it wont be the only goal. Schroepfer told the MIT Technology Review that the AI might be used to help people manage their photos which makes sense, considering the facial recognition experts on the team. Part of this could be to show certain photos to certain people; i.e. your Cabo photos might not show up in your parents feeds, but will in your college roommates (we can only hope, right?). The Facebook AI will also work on a variety of apps to improve Facebook and projects meant to benefit the general public.

This past year, Facebook started asking you more than just what you were doing or thinking about in the status update box; it also wanted to know how you were feeling. The AI Facebook is developing will take this a step further, because the site wants to be able to know what the inflection and emotion behind your posts is; things like sarcasm are hard (for a computer and some people) to read, and funny-sarcastic post that gets 20 comments and likes might not initially get the right News Feed treatment because Facebook just didnt get it.

More here:

Nobody panic! Facebook’s artificial intelligence just wants to know how you’re feeling

Ask Me Anything: Having a Forced Conversation with an Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by

In the early 1960s, Hanna-Barbera conceived an animated TV sitcom that imagined a typical American family in 2062: Dad commutes to work in a flying saucer; young Elroy putters to school by pushing buttons on his jet-pack; the women (ahem) shop futuristically. But the real stars of this Jetsonian utopia are the robots. They clean houses, repair appliances, and help raise kids. Others dispense advice. If the creators' predictions come to pass, then we're just 49 years removed from a world in which human minds are virtually indistinguishable from anthropomorphic machines.

If only it were that easy, says Richard Wallace, a computer scientist who has worked in artificial intelligence since the 1990s, when most robots were just inexpensive computers with simple sensors. Back then, Roomba vacuum cleaners were the gold standard. A minimalist gadget that could clean a house by itself was about as much as humans could expect from their technology.

That was around the time Wallace got fixated on the idea of making a robot with a personality and language skills. He'd read a New York Times article about the Loebner Contest, an annual competition launched in 1990 by Hugh Loebner American inventor, prostitution activist, and pariah among scientists (in 1995, MIT professor Marvin Minsky famously offered a $100 "Minsky prize" to anyone who could persuade Loebner to terminate his contest and "spare us the horror of this obnoxious and unproductive publicity campaign.") Loebner has scoured the world for machines that could pass as humans, or that at least have enough comprehension of human language to answer such questions as, "How many plums can you fit in my shoe?" He's a disciple of 20th-century mathematician Alan Turing, whose eponymous Turing Test required a judge to hold conversations with a computer and a human simultaneously, in order to compare the two. A machine could only pass if its responses were indistinguishable from a human's. Loebner's version of the test amounts to a lengthy interrogation conducted via instant-messaging.

But it seems his notion of a truly conversant "chatbot" is still a pipe dream. To this day, Loebner has never handed out a gold or silver medal, because no contender has even come close. But Wallace thinks that he and a small menagerie of Bay Area programmers have a shot. Barring that, they see huge commercial potential in chatbot software, in everything from smartphone language tutorials to entertainment apps to voice-activated "personal assistants" that compete with Siri. For Wallace and his ilk, bots are both an artistic muse and a line of products, and Loebner's contest is a vehicle to help develop them.

Wallace's East Bay company, Pandorabots, runs an open-source web service that allows anyone to create his or her own chatbot by cloning a primitive software language called AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language). Wallace used it to create his own chatbot, called Alice, in the '90s, modeling it on a primitive pattern-recognition program that breaks English down into key words and canned phrases. He used Alice to clinch the Loebner bronze medal in 2000, 2001, and 2004, and now he's offering the prototype out to all fledgling programmers, and encouraging them to give it their own spin.

Ideally, each Pandorabot should have its own personality and backstory (a sassy alien, a nubile teenage girl, Siri if you gave her a pack of cigarettes and the voice of Julie Kavner). The good ones should be adept at making small talk and answering yes-no questions, which account for the majority of what we say to each other, Wallace says. "Humans aren't as original with language as we like to think we are," he says. The better bots should know how to take a theme and expound upon it.

Theoretically, you could create a chatbot to monologue exclusively about its cousin's Bar Mitzvah or its new balsa-wood boat. But you could also program it to know Shakespeare, or provide the entire exegesis of 20-century UK pop music, or dazzle users with SAT vocabulary words. Perhaps it's no surprise that English majors design the best chatbots, according to experts.

Pandorabots holds a "Diva Bots" pageant every March to cherry-pick its protgs, many of which go on to the Loebner finals; this year, three of the four Loebner finalists, including the winner, were on the Pandorabots team. The real contest happens every year in Ireland, and from Wallace's description, it's a kind of artificial intelligence version of Miss America, albeit with a lot of "aggressive questioning." Four judges cross-examine each bot, and its human designer, on a split-screen computer, and try to distinguish which is which. Bots are scored on their ability to speak naturally and exhibit "human" intelligence. Only one ever fooled the judges, and that was because its human confederate tried to cheat by acting as robotic as possible.

This year's (bronze) winner, a big-eyed 'tween 'bot named Mitsuku, seemed only as lifelike as her middle-aged handler, Steve Worswick. Nonetheless, we were intrigued. We decided to visit Mitsuku at her web page to try a little cross-examining of our own. Here's what resulted:

Human: My name is Arlo

Read more:

Ask Me Anything: Having a Forced Conversation with an Artificial Intelligence