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"No Country Should Preach To Another": UK PM On ‘Freedom In India’ Debate – NDTV

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

"I don't think it's the job of one country to preach to another," Boris Johnson said

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said no country should "preach" to another, and "nobody can say that India is not a democracy." The visiting PM, who spoke at the Times Network India Economic Conclave, was asked about the recent debate on the issue of "freedoms of non-governmental organisations, academics and other groups in India" in the House of Lords.

The British MPs had also called on Johnson to take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to New Delhi.

"I don't think it is the job of parliamentarians...they say all sorts of things. You should see what they say about me in our Parliament," Johnson said.

"I don't think it's the job of one country to preach to another. India is an incredible country. (It has) 1.35 billion people, the biggest democracy. Nobody can say India is not a democracy. It's an extraordinary place. And above all, it is ever more important in a world where the growth of the future is going to be in the Indo-Pacific," he said.

The UK is "tilting" towards the Indo-Pacific and "India's role is guardian of democratic values and in that area, it is even more important," the British prime minister further said.

Asked whether the UK condemns Chinese incursions along India's borders, the British PM said his country has always condemned breaches of territorial integrity.

"That's why I condemn so strongly what happened in Ukraine. We need to learn the lesson on how autocracies behave," he said.

Referring to Aukus, a security alliance of Australia, the US and UK, and the way the UK has to work together with friends and partners in the Indo-Pacific, he added that "it is not an exclusionary thing" and "we want to work ever more intensively with India." There has been progress on the UK-India free trade deal, he said, adding that the bar on British apples has been lifted.

"I would like to see a free trade deal done by Diwali. There are some traditional areas where India maintains tariffs," he said.

Johnson also said that his government has a much more proactive policy "on welcoming talent to the UK from India." There are around 99,000 Indian students in the UK, he said, adding that the numbers have risen after going down for a brief period.

On liberalisation of visa regime, Johnson said the UK is short of people in some sectors like the IT which are required for the growth of the economy.

Earlier in the day, Johnson held talks with Prime Minister Modi in Delhi.

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"No Country Should Preach To Another": UK PM On 'Freedom In India' Debate - NDTV

Red zone ‘freedom village’ asked to leave twice by council – Stuff

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Stuff

Christchurch City Council says about 12 people left at Christchurchs red zone occupation have been asked to move on twice. (File photo)

Occupants of Christchurchs red zone freedom village have been asked twice to move by the city council.

About 12 people remained at the campsite, between Brooker Ave, Dunair Dr and New Brighton Rd.

Christchurch City Council head of parks Andrew Rutledge said they were asked to leave on Friday last week, and again on Wednesday after they claimed they hadnt seen the first direction of notice to leave.

We confirmed that we would not be engaging in broader discussions with the group regarding their claims of legitimately occupying the site.

READ MORE:* Mid-Canterbury home left uninhabitable by kitchen fire* Christchurch house gutted in suspicious late-night fire* Warning over overloaded or faulty multi-boxes after fire spread from shed to house

Council staff, supported by police, would continue to meet with the group to expedite a peaceful resolution to the situation, Rutledge said.

Council had received 31 complaints about the occupation as of Thursday..

On Wednesday, a second car was gutted in a suspicious blaze near the occupation.

Firefighters were called to Stour Drive, in the Burwood part of the former residential red zone, shortly after 9pm.

George Heard/Stuff

Emergency services were called to a second suspicious car fire on Stour Dr (file photo).

Fire and Emergency shift manager Jill Higgison said the fire was well-involved when crews arrived.

It was being considered suspicious, and had been referred to police.

On April 9, firefighters were called to the same stretch of road after a suspicious car fire.

Crews arrived to find a car well involved in fire, which had spread to a nearby tree.

Both were within 100 metres of the campsite, which first appeared earlier this month.

STACY SQUIRES/Stuff

A car believed to have been torched on Stour Dr on April 9. (File photo)

Some at the site are understood to have earlier been at the anti-mandate camp in central Christchurchs Cranmer Square.

The occupation has attracted the ire of both locals and iwi, who have accused them of antisocial and aggressive behaviour towards residents, and of making a clear attack on the authority of Ngi Thuriri', which holds mana whenua status over the land.

The Christchurch City Council declared it in breach of its bylaws, and about half of the group left after being asked by staff.

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Red zone 'freedom village' asked to leave twice by council - Stuff

Global Probiotics Market Analysis Report 2021-2030: Food & Beverages & Dietary Supplements – Growing Inclination Towards Preventive Healthcare…

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Probiotics Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Product (Probiotic Food & Beverages, Probiotic Dietary Supplements), by Ingredient (Bacteria, Yeast), by End Use, by Distribution Channel, and Segment Forecasts, 2021-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global probiotics market size is expected to reach USD 111.21 billion by 2030 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 7.5% from 2021 to 2030

The increasing prominence of preventive healthcare is among the major factors propelling the demand for probiotics across the globe. The considerable production and consumption of probiotics are complemented by innovations in probiotics by key players, most notably in countries such as China, Japan, and India.

Following the growing demand for probiotics, key market participants have been investing in R&D activities to develop efficient probiotic strains. The probiotics industry has also witnessed advancements in delivery systems to enhance the delivery of probiotics in humans and animals Such developments are expected to emerge as a trend in the industry over the forecast period.

In developed countries such as the U.S., probiotics are sold mainly in the form of dietary supplements. The demand for probiotic nutritional supplements has been spurred by the growing aging population and increased consumer interest in preventive healthcare.

Market players have introduced new products supplemented with probiotics in addition to other dietary supplements. Probiotic supplements containing different probiotic strains are available in various forms such as probiotic drops, tablets, and capsules. Manufacturers of private label and branded products are likely to continue to extend their product lines in the probiotic product categories.

The growing product lines and diversification in the same are intended to make manufacturers capable of catering to diverse demand trends across the globe. The same factor is prompting retail channels to increase their production volume in accordance with changing consumer tastes and preferences. Such trends are expected to benefit the growth of the market.

Asia Pacific dominated the probiotics industry in 2021 with a share of over 40.0%. The region is expected to retain its prominent position throughout the forecast period. In the last decade, the region has garnered a significant response when it comes to the adoption of probiotics.

This is attributed to the high health consciousness, coupled with the wider accessibility of probiotic products in this region. Another key observation in Asia Pacific with regard to the consumption of probiotics is the growing popularity of vegetarian probiotic products owing to a healthy increase in consumer vegetarianism.

The Asia Pacific market has witnessed new launches/product innovations by prominent market participants over the years. For instance, in February 2018, Yakult Danone introduced signature probiotic drinks in a new version in India.

The product contained new formulations including Vitamin D & E along with Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota (LcS). Such developments are expected to surge in the region over the forecast period owing to the presence of a large consumer base.

Probiotics Market Report Highlights

Market Variables, Trends & Scope

Value Chain Analysis

Manufacturing trends

Market Driver Analysis

Market restraint Analysis

Business Environment Analysis

Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/drglis

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Global Probiotics Market Analysis Report 2021-2030: Food & Beverages & Dietary Supplements - Growing Inclination Towards Preventive Healthcare...

Could the gut microbiome be responsible for food cravings? – Medical News Today

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

The decisions we make about what to eat might not just come from our brains. The mechanisms driving our dietary choices may reach back to evolutionary processes with gut microbes.

For decades, scientists have wondered if intestinal flora drives food urges. However, no one had ever directly tested the hypothesis on animals larger than a fruit fly.

Dr, Kevin Kohl and Dr. Brian Trevelline from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania explored this possibility with germ-free mice.

Dr. Kohl is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Trevelline is now a Rose postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Their research showed that the mice that received diverse types of microbiota voluntarily changed their diet preferences.

Our work shows that animals with different compositions of gut microbes choose different kinds of diets, Dr. Kohl said.

This research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In an interview with Medical News Today, Dr. Trevelline explained how microbes play a role in nutrient making.

Animals need a suite of essential amino acids to survive. But the microbes that live inside of our guts need [to] grow and have some of these same nutrients or make nutrients that the human body or the animal body can recognize. For instance, they make these essential amino acids, and then theyre released into the gut where they can be absorbed by the host, he said.

Dr. Kohl, meanwhile, suggested that the microbes might also be broken down and digested to release nutrients as well.

Dr. Trevelline said the microbes in the gut were beneficial contributors to a lot of processes, particularly by synthesizing the nutrients humans need and supplementing our diets.

[N]ow were showing that some of those molecules can actually enter the host bloodstream and affect their behavior, he told MNT.

Drs. Kohl and Trevelline collected microbes from three wild rodent species with different natural diets. They gave these microbic cocktails to 30 mice engineered without gut microbiota.

The mice in each group began selecting foods rich in significantly different macronutrients.

Mice with microbes from herbivorous wild rodents chose a diet with a higher protein-to-carbohydrate (P:C) ratio. Those with microbes from carnivorous and omnivorous rodents chose a lower P:C diet.

Tryptophan, an essential amino acid, is a precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Scientists believe that this hormone may regulate diet selection.

Drs. Trevelline and Kohl discovered that mice with different microbiota also had varying levels of tryptophan in their blood before choosing different diets. The mice with more tryptophan also had more microbes that could produce the amino acid in their guts.

Tryptophan is only one of many chemical messengers that communicate with the gut and brain. This experiment uncovers how tryptophan might directly affect day-to-day food behavior.

As intriguing as the results are, it may be too soon to blame intestinal flora for all food cravings.

Drs. Kohl and Trevelline implanted microbiota from wild-type mice and voles into bioengineered members of the same species with no intestinal flora, quite an unnatural undertaking. However, the researchers say it was necessary to be able to observe how gut microbes modulate behavior in isolation.

This pioneering research hints at just one aspect of how microbes may interact with animal hosts. It did not compare the influence of microbes with any other factors.

It could be that what youve eaten the day before is more important than just the microbes you have. Humans have way more going on that we ignore in our experiment, pointed out Dr. Kohl.

However, its not feasible to test larger mammals or humans in such context. Drs. Kohl and Trevelline said that using germ-free pigs or primates, for instance, would be difficult and expensive.

Whether microbes in our food influence food cravings is up for future research, Dr. Trevelline told MNT.

Our microbiomes are constantly influenced by our environment, our lifestyles, and the animals and others we interact with. All that has the potential to influence our microbiota. But whether it produces some significant behavioral consequences is still an outstanding question at this point. Dr. Brian Trevelline

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Could the gut microbiome be responsible for food cravings? - Medical News Today

New Regulation regarding the Use of Consumer Reviews – Lexology

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Consumer reviews have become an important part of the advertising ecosystem. These reviews are very influential to potential customers when they are making a purchasing decision. Marketers use reviews in advertising, they host reviews on their websites, they encourage consumers to post reviews on other sites, and some even try to prevent customers from posting negative reviews at all.

Although consumer reviews have such a significant impact, the Turkish Law did not have a specific legislation until recently but consumer reviews were subject to general advertising rules set forth under Consumer Protection Law, the Regulation on Commercial Advertisement and Unfair Commercial Practices (Advertising Regulation) as well as Turkish Commercial Code. Accordingly, the consumer reviews should be in compliance with the general principles of ethics, public order, individual rights and good faith principle; they should not be misleading, and all the claims should be true and provable.

However the Advertising Regulation was amended on 1st of February 2022 with the effective date as 1st of March 2022. Specific rules for consumer reviews were introduced into Turkish law by this amendment. Two new articles were included in the existing Advertising Regulation one with the title Consumer Reviews as Article 28/B and the other with the title Procedure for Publishing Consumer Complaints as Article 28/C.

Accordingly;

The Advertisement Board, which is established within the body of Ministry of Trade and is entitled for surveillance of advertisements in any media, gives utmost importance to health claims. In this respect the amendment introducing a new provision specific to health claims is very important. The health claim legislation is quite detailed and complex. The violation could either be through unfair, untrue, misleading health claims or health claims which are not permitted under the specific legislation. It is prohibited under Turkish Law to advertise food and food supplements with health claims in a way to create misunderstanding of having therapeutic effects on human metabolism like pharmaceuticals. It is also prohibited to use health claims without obtaining official permission from the Ministry of Health.

Apart from the above, detailed provisions regarding the procedure for publishing consumer complaints were introduced into Turkish Law. As per Article 28/C of the Advertising Regulation;

Before the legal rules about consumer reviews and complaints were introduced into Turkish law, the Advertisement Board scrutinized the consumer reviews shared by the brands in relation to advertising of their products and services; queried the trueness of these claims, conformity thereof to general advertising rules. The Advertisement Board imposed sanctions against advertisements because they are misleading due to consumer reviews which incorporate unproven or abstract claims, statements regarding the benefits of the offered goods and services. Similarly, there are numerous decisions of the Advertisement Board where the Advertisement Board examined the consumer reviews published by the brands in their websites, social media pages or in other media like magazines, newspapers, product labeling about food and food supplements with wrong, unpermitted, misleading health claims and mentioning therapeutic effects like pharmaceuticals. The Advertisement Board found these advertisements misleading and violating the specific rules for health claims.

For example; in its decision dated 10 August 2021 and numbered 2021/1977 the Advertisement Board scrutinized the advertisement of a food supplement in an e-commerce website. The Advertisement Board held that the consumer reviews about the product as to its effects of providing well-sleeping, soothing the tension and stress are misleading health claims, because the promoted product as a food supplement is advertised like a pharmaceutical with therapeutic effects on human metabolism. The scrutinized advertisement was ordered to be ceased by the Advertisement Board.

In its another interesting decision dated 8 December 2020 and numbered 2020/3312 about consumer reviews and complaints the Advertisement Board examined the website http://www.incirciamca.com upon complaint and determined that the vendor removes from its website the consumer complaints about the defective goods and other consumer complaints about delivery conditions. The Advertisement Board held that the consumers only see positive consumer reviews due to the removal of complaints by the vendor and purchasing decision of the consumers browsing the website is negatively affected. As the result the Advertisement Board concluded that these acts constitute unfair commercial practice and ordered them to be ceased.

One interesting decision was rendered by the Advertisement Board in January 2022 right before the new rules about consumer reviews and complaints were enacted. In a consumer complaint platform http://www.sikayetvar.com - a consumer complaint was published under the relevant page for a Turkish bank about an employee of the bank in relation to the employees private rental contract for his house with his landlord who published the consumer complaint about the bank. Since the private rental contract of the employee has no relation with the services provided by the bank and the consumer complaint was irrelevant, the Advertisement Board found the consumer complaint misleading as to the services of the bank subject to the complaint, evaluated the complaint as detrimental to the reputation of the bank, ordered for the consumer complaint to be ceased and imposed against the complaint platform administrative monetary fine corresponding to TRL 114.326 (approximately Euro 7.000).

Since the enactment of the specific advertising rules regarding consumer reviews and complaints is very recent, the practice of the Advertisement Board for consumer reviews and complaints has not been established yet. Even before these legal rules we see that the Board found itself competent for scrutinizing the consumer reviews and complaints, rendered prominent decisions on grounds of misleading advertisement and unfair commercial practices.

Finally, The Advertisement Board is explicitly authorized by the recent amendments to prepare guidelines for enlightening the implementation of the Advertising Regulation. The Advertisement Board had this authority and recently published a Guideline regarding social media advertising. The Advertisement Board might be expected to issue a Guideline related with consumer reviews as well.

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New Regulation regarding the Use of Consumer Reviews - Lexology

Global Food Flavors and Additives Market 2022 Development by 2028 | Trending Key Players as Fufeng, Meihua, Ajinomoto Group, Eppen themobility.club -…

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

MarketsandResearch.biz has introduced a new report entitled Global Food Flavors and Additives Market from 2022 to 2028, which encompasses the global & regional industry facts, forecasted to acquire profit-making appraisal across the projection period from 2022 to 2028. This report also examined the significant factors which are affecting the growth of the Food Flavors and Additives market. Additionally, the driving factors that are positively influencing the demand for Food Flavors and Additives market and restricting factors that are hampering the growth of Food Flavors and Additives market are discussed in detail, coupled with their influences on the Food Flavors and Additives market.

Further, the extra qualitative factors like uncertainties associated with the operations & significant challenges faced through the vendors in the Food Flavors and Additives market area are involved in the report. Furthermore, the SWOT analysis and other techniques are used to examine this data and provide an informed viewpoint on the status of the market to aid in the expansion of the optimal growth approach for any vendors or to present insight into the Food Flavors and Additives industrys future and current direction

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The report also focuses on major global leading market players of the global Food Flavors and Additives market, providing cost, company profiles, production, product picture & specification, capacity, contact information, price, and revenue. The report divides the market size via value and quantity, primarily based on type, application, and geography.

The analysis of the following agencies has been supplied in the report:

This research is split into several main geographical areas, including

The product types incorporated in the report include:

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Global Food Flavors and Additives Market 2022 Development by 2028 | Trending Key Players as Fufeng, Meihua, Ajinomoto Group, Eppen themobility.club -...

A European approach to artificial intelligence | Shaping …

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

The European approach to artificial intelligence (AI) will help build a resilient Europe for the Digital Decade where people and businesses can enjoy the benefits of AI. It focuses on 2 areas: excellence in AI and trustworthy AI. The European approach to AI will ensure that any AI improvements are based on rules that safeguard the functioning of markets and the public sector, and peoples safety and fundamental rights.

To help further define its vision for AI, the European Commission developed an AI strategy to go hand in hand with the European approach to AI. The AI strategy proposed measures to streamline research, as well as policy options for AI regulation, which fed into work on the AI package.

The Commission published its AI package in April 2021, proposing new rules and actions to turn Europe into the global hub for trustworthy AI. This package consisted of:

Fostering excellence in AI will strengthen Europes potential to compete globally.

The EU will achieve this by:

The Commission and Member States agreed boost excellence in AI by joiningforces on AI policy and investment. The revised Coordinated Plan on AI outlines a vision to accelerate, act, and align priorities with the current European and global AI landscape and bring AI strategy into action.

Maximising resources and coordinating investments is a critical component of the Commissions AI strategy. Through the Digital Europe and Horizon Europe programmes, the Commission plans to invest 1 billion per year in AI. It will mobilise additional investments from the private sector and the Member States in order to reach an annual investment volume of 20 billion over the course of the digital decade.

The newly adopted Recovery and Resilience Facility makes 134 billion available for digital. This will be a game-changer, allowing Europe to amplify its ambitions and become a global leader in developing cutting-edge, trustworthy AI.

Access to high quality data is an essential factor in building high performance, robust AI systems. Initiatives such as the EU Cybersecurity Strategy, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, and the Data Governance Act provide the right infrastructure for building such systems.

Building trustworthy AI will create a safe and innovation-friendly environment for users, developers and deployers.

The Commission has proposed 3 inter-related legal initiatives that will contribute to building trustworthy AI:

The Commission aims to address the risks generated by specific uses of AI through a set of complementary, proportionate and flexible rules. These rules will also provide Europe with a leading role in setting the global gold standard.

This framework gives AI developers, deployers and users the clarity they need by intervening only in those cases that existing national and EU legislations do not cover. The legal framework for AI proposes a clear, easy to understand approach, based on four different levels of risk: unacceptable risk, high risk, limited risk, and minimal risk.

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A European approach to artificial intelligence | Shaping ...

Artificial intelligence in factory maintenance is no longer a matter of the future – ReadWrite

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Undetected machine failures are the most expensive ones. That is why many manufacturing companies are looking for solutions that automate and reduce maintenance costs. Traditional vibrodiagnostic methods can be too late in many cases. Taking readings in the presence of a diagnostician occasionally may not detect a fault in advance. 2017 Position Paper from Deloitte (Deloitte Analytics Institute 7/2017) claimed that maintenance in the environment of Industry 4.0.The benefits of predictive maintenance are dependent on the industry or the specific processes that it is applied to. However, Deloitte analyses at that time have already concluded that material cost savings amount to 5 to 10% on average. Equipment uptime increases by 10 to 20%. Overall maintenance costs are reduced by 5 to 10% and maintenance planning time is even reduced by 20 to 50%! Neuron Soundware has developed a artificial intelligence powered technology for predictive maintenance.

Stories from companies that have embarked on the digital journey are no longer just science fiction. They are real examples of how companies are coping with the lack of skilled labor on the market. Usually mechanic-maintainer who regularly goes around all the machines and diagnoses their condition by listening to them. Some companies are nowlooking for new maintenance technologies to replace

A failure without early identification means replacing the entire piece of equipment or its part. Waiting for the spare part which may not be in stock right now. Because it is expensive to stock replacement equipment. Devaluation of the current pieces of the component in the production thus the discarding of the entire production run. Finally, yet importantly, it would represent up to XY hours of production downtime. The losses might run into tens of thousands of euros.

Such a critical scenario is not possible if the maintenance technology is equipped with artificial intelligence in addition to the mechanical knowledge of the machines. It applies this knowledge itself to the current state of the machine. It is also able to recognize which anomalous behavior is currently occurring on the machine. Based on that send the send the corresponding alert with precise maintenance instructions. Manufacturers of mechanical equipment such as lifts, escalators, and mobile equipment use this today, for example.

However, predictive maintenance technologies have much wider applications. Thanks to the learning capabilities of artificial intelligence, they are very versatile. For example, the technology is able to assist in end-of-line testing. For example to identify defective parts of produced goods which are invisible to the eye and appear randomly.

The second area of application lies in the monitoring of production processes. We can imagine this with the example of a gravel crusher. A conveyor delivers different sized pieces of stone into grinders, which are to yield a given granularity of gravel. Previously, the manufacturer would run the crusher for a predetermined amount of time. To make sure that even in the presence of the largest pieces of rock, sufficient crushing occurred. With the artificial intelligence listening to the size of the gravel. He can stop the crushing process at the right point. This means not only saving wear and tear on the crushing equipment but more importantly, saving time and increasing the volume of gravel delivered per shift. This brings great financial benefit to the producer.

When implementing predictive maintenance technology, it does not matter how big the company is. The most common decision criterion is the scalability of the deployed solution. In companies with a large number of mechanically similar devices, it is possible to quickly collect samples that represent individual problems. From which the neural network learns. It can then handle any number of machines at once. The more machines, the more opportunities for the neural network to learn and apply detection of unwanted sounds.

Condition monitoring technologies are usually designed for larger plants rather than for workshops with a few machine tools. However, as hardware and data transmission and processing get progressively cheaper, the technology is getting there too. So even a home marmalade maker will soon have the confidence that his machines will make enough produce, deliver orders to customers on time, and not ruin its reputation.

In the future, predictive maintenance will be a necessity. In industry also in larger electronic appliances such as refrigerators and coffee machines, or in cars. For example, we can all recognize a damaged exhaust or an unusual sounding engine. Nevertheless, it is often too late to drive the car safely home from a holiday. For example, without a visit to the workshop. With the installation of an AI-driven detection device, we will know about the impending breakdown in time and be able to resolve the problem in time, before the engine seizes up and we have to call a towing service.

Pavel is a tech visionary, speaker, and founder of AI and IoT startup Neuron Soundware. He started his career at Accenture, where he took part in 35+ technology and strategy projects on 3 continents over 11years. He got into entrepreneurship in 2016 when he founded a company focused on predictive machine maintenance using sound analysis.

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Artificial intelligence in factory maintenance is no longer a matter of the future - ReadWrite

Pentagon Names Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer – Nextgov

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

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Pentagon Names Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer - Nextgov

LEFT TO MY OWN DEVICES: Be smart. Welcome new artificial intelligence solutions. – Times Tribune of Corbin

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

The vast list of artificial intelligence applications continually increases as researchers, technologists, and scientists try to leverage computing power to gain competitive edges over the more slowly adopting set. Today I want to traipse across the American business and tech landscape and present a few of the new and hopefully intriguing upgrades of these mostly familiar devices and services being brought into the 21st century via AI.

First a quick overview of the concept of AI and where its come from over the past years and decades. Earlier writings comingled two phrases to identify the technology: artificial intelligence, which has become the well-known marketable way to talk about the tech, and computational intelligence, which might be useful amongst a group of AIerr, CI?subject matter experts, but doesnt carry the cachet of its more widely accepted phrase. For anyone who uses either phrase, its generally understood to refer to some sort of machine-based intelligence. Natural intelligence is the way to describe we humans intellect. Depending on ones level, there are other ways to describe intelligence: lacking, or too good for ones own good come to mind, for example.

Machines that perform AI functions are programmed to take in the various and sundried inputs of their surrounding environment, analyze the data, and perform some action that, when it all works, tends to be the best action considering those inputs. From a textbook level of perspective, you might see natural intelligence described similarly. Were strolling down Main Street about to reach an intersection. We take in sights, sounds, all sorts of information and inputs. Then, we decide whether to wait or continue. Assuming de minimis human intelligence, the action we take will have maximized survival first, pace and progress, too, and other complex results all based on a process of intelligent decision-making.

The foundational descriptions and ideas about AI go back around 20 to 25 years for most purposes of contemporary discussion, though I and others in the past have even gone way back to the nineteenth century with Shelleys Frankenstein to demonstrate a variant of the two-word phrase, Dr. Frankensteins monster displaying artificial intelligence in this sense. We might agree that from whence it came, and toward where AI is headed, the descriptive thread woven throughout is that something other than a sentient being considers information before taking some action. That rather generic description gives a wide range to what parts of modern-day living may benefit from AI technologies.

You reap those benefits everyday already. Google searches, Amazon shopping, Netflix, Hulu, or any streaming platform. Youre really enveloped in the AI landscape at home, work, and even simply being out and about in your community. Anything, for example, that presents as a Smart [Thing] implicates AI. Also, you have likely enjoyed AIs functionality for longer than you might at first think. Remember the Ken Jennings Jeopardy! era? IBMs Watson computer was, essentially, an AI device earning millions of viewers a dozen years ago. If youve picked up a U.S. passport during the past 15 or so years, the facial recognition pieces of the process were driven by AI in ways that may be considered intrusive, but definitely bolster national security as you can imagine. The ethics of AI is an entirely different, albeit important and ongoing, discussion.

To me, biased as I can be about tech advances, nearly everything that incorporates artificial intelligence is intriguing or even exciting. The future altogether, generally, drums up the same sentiments, though Ill admit that over time I catch myself going into the but in my day mode such that I might pooh-pooh something new and improved. Oftentimes I get schooled. For a year Ive had a barely functioning thermostat that I knew needed replacement. I resisted the continual advice to get a smart one. I finally buckled, and to my surprise and delight, and chagrin, Ive truly enjoyed this tiny component of living a more comfortable life. But wait theres more.

Forget room temps, how about AI functionality that senses your emotion? Consider a sales team that, whether due to the pandemic or just the new way of doing business, meets new clients via Zoom or some other video conferencing application. After a pitch meeting, where frankly both sides protect their interests by putting on a show of sorts, the team can analyze the call and see where hot issues garnered certain emotional reactions. Again, Im passing on the ethical dilemmas evident in the tech.

Maybe more agreeable, scientists are developing a fascinating concept: AI colonialism. In New Zealand researchers are trying to reverse the disproportionately laden negative effects of colonialism on minorities. Their angle? The AI functions to retain and increase the Mori language. Contra the effects of human intelligence colonialismentering a political division from afar and imposing foreign ways on its peopleAI colonialism is meant to create the opposite effects. Data, its proponents say, is the last realm of colonialism.

Within infrastructure, smart highways are on the horizon and so some degrees in action already. Autonomous vehicles will require this marriage of roadways and tech, but the applications are nearer and wider, still. In Sweden, road surfaces are being replaced with underlying charging capabilities similar to contactless charging iPhones. Electric vehicles charge as they travel. In the U.S. some metropolitan areas are experimenting with smart roadways such that depending on traffic flows, emergencies and other factors, lanes are reassigned by signage or powered barricades.

Nary is the industry or sector immune from these developments. From agriculture to litigation AI is being enveloped, or it will. When we take time to also consider the ethical implications, and they are in fact sound, it becomes a genuinely exciting time to see innovations come to life. Itd be smart of you to welcome these developments, or at least give them a chance.

Ed is a professor of cybersecurity, an attorney, and a trained ethicist. Reach him at edzugeresq@gmail.com.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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LEFT TO MY OWN DEVICES: Be smart. Welcome new artificial intelligence solutions. - Times Tribune of Corbin

Artificial Intelligence and Chemical and Biological Weapons – Lawfare – Lawfare

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Sometimes reality is a cold slap in the face. Consider, as a particularly salient example, a recently published article concerning the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of chemical and biological weapons (the original publication, in Nature, is behind a paywall, but this link is a copy of the full paper). Anyone unfamiliar with recent innovations in the use of AI to model new drugs will be unpleasantly surprised.

Heres the background: In the modern pharmaceutical industry, the discovery of new drugs is rapidly becoming easier through the use of artificial intelligence/machine learning systems. As the authors of the article describe their work, they have spent decades building machine learning models for therapeutic and toxic targets to better assist in the design of new molecules for drug discovery.

In other words, computer scientists can use AI systems to model what new beneficial drugs may look like for specifically targeted afflictions and then task the AI to work on discovering possible new drug molecules to use. Those results are then given to the chemists and biologists who synthesize and test the proposed new drugs.

Given how AI systems work, the benefits in speed and accuracy are significant. As one study put it:

The vast chemical space, comprising >1060 molecules, fosters the development of a large number of drug molecules. However, the lack of advanced technologies limits the drug development process, making it a time-consuming and expensive task, which can be addressed by using AI. AI can recognize hit and lead compounds, and provide a quicker validation of the drug target and optimization of the drug structure design.

Specifically, AI gives society a guide to the quicker creation of newer, better pharmaceuticals.

The benefits of these innovations are clear. Unfortunately, the possibilities for malicious uses are also becoming clear. The paper referenced above is titled Dual Use of Artificial-Intelligence-Powered Drug Discovery. And the dual use in question is the creation of novel chemical warfare agents.

One of the factors investigators use to guide AI systems and narrow down the search for beneficial drugs is a toxicity measure, known as LD50 (where LD stands for lethal dose and the 50 is an indicator of how large a dose would be necessary to kill half the population). For a drug to be practical, designers need to screen out new compounds that might be toxic to users and, thus, avoid wasting time trying to synthesize them in the real world. And so, drug developers can train and instruct an AI system to work with a very low LD50 threshold and have the AI screen out and discard possible new compounds that it predicts would have harmful effects. As the authors put it, the normal process is to use a generative model [that is, an AI system, which] penalizes predicted toxicity and rewards predicted target activity. When used in this traditional way, the AI system is directed to generate new molecules for investigation that are likely to be safe and effective.

But what happens if you reverse the process? What happens if instead of selecting for a low LD50 threshold, a generative model is created to preferentially develop molecules with a high LD50 threshold?

One rediscovers VX gasone of the most lethal substances known to humans. And one predictively creates many new substances that are even worse than VX.

One wishes this were science fiction. But it is not. As the authors put the bad news:

In less than 6 hours ... our model generated 40,000 [new] molecules ... In the process, the AI designed not only VX, but also many other known chemical warfare agents that we identified through visual confirmation with structures in public chemistry databases. Many new molecules were also designed that looked equally plausible. These new molecules were predicted to be more toxic, based on the predicted LD50 values, than publicly known chemical warfare agents. This was unexpected because the datasets we used for training the AI did not include these nerve agents.

In other words, the developers started from scratch and did not artificially jump-start the process by using a training dataset that included known nerve agents. Instead, the investigators simply pointed the AI system in the general direction of looking for effective lethal compounds (with standard definitions of effectiveness and lethality). Their AI program then discovered a host of known chemical warfare agents and also proposed thousands of new ones for possible synthesis that were not previously known to humankind.

The authors stopped at the theoretical point of their work. They did not, in fact, attempt to synthesize any of the newly discovered toxins. And, to be fair, synthesis is not trivial. But the entire point of AI-driven drug development is to point drug developers in the right directiontoward readily synthesizable, safe and effective new drugs. And while synthesis is not easy, it is a pathway that is well trod in the market today. There is no reasonnone at allto think that the synthesis path is not equally feasible for lethal toxins.

And so, AI opens the possibility of creating new catastrophic biological and chemical weapons. Some commentators condemn new technology as inherently evil tech. However, the better view is that all new technology is neutral and can be used for good or ill. But that does not mean nothing can be done to avoid the malignant uses of technology. And there is a real risk when technologists run ahead with what is possible, before human systems of control and ethical assessment catch up. Using artificial intelligence to develop toxic biological and chemical weapons would seem to be one of those use-cases where severe problems may lie ahead.

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Artificial Intelligence and Chemical and Biological Weapons - Lawfare - Lawfare

BrainBox AI Brings Artificial Intelligence to Mountain Development Corp. with Installations in Two of its Commercial Office Buildings – GlobeNewswire

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

NEW YORK, April 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BrainBox AI, a pioneer in autonomous artificial intelligence, today announces its agreement with Mountain Development Corp. to bring its cutting-edge technology to two office buildings in New Jersey. BrainBox AIs technology will manage the HVAC controls of 140,000 sq. ft for the real estate company, making the buildings smarter and greener while improving tenant comfort.

Mountain Development Corp., a leader in Class A office properties, is a full-service real estate company and is renown in the New Jersey commercial real estate circle. In early 2021, BrainBox AIs technology was installed at 26 Main St in Chatham, New Jersey, a 65,000 sq. ft. premium office space and 777 Passaic Avenue, a 75,000 sq. ft. Class A building in Clifton, New Jersey. Initial results have shown meaningful energy savings and operating cost reductions.

Our goal is to make a tangible impact on the commercial real estate industry while mitigating the impact of buildings on climate change, said Sam Ramadori, Chief Executive Officer of BrainBox AI. Our technology enables building owners and operators to save money and the environment simultaneously, a win-win solution for all. We are excited to work with one of the biggest players in New Jerseys real estate industry to make buildings more intelligent and save Mountain Development Corp. money both in the short and long term.

BrainBox AI creates value with savings in energy costs of up to 25%, up to 40% reduction in carbon footprint and improved occupant comfort. Building operators can also see an extension in the service life of the HVAC equipment with lower runtimes up to 50%. Its scalability and ease of implementation allow for both individual building and portfolio-wide impact.

Were constantly seeking out new and innovative ways to increase our profit outcome through the enhancement of our building operations. Its crucial that we do so while also improving our tenants overall experience, which can be a fine line at times. Were thrilled to team up with BrainBox AI as they allow us to deliver on these vital operational objectives. Their technology yields positive results in reducing our energy spend while simultaneously improving the tenant experience. Moreover, theyre reducing our carbon emissions and helping the real estate industry move one step closer to our net-zero carbon goals." said Nicholas Mazza, Director of Operations at Mountain Development Corp.

This announcement comes as BrainBox AI continues its expansion across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States, with the Company recently announcing the inaugural installation of its real estate technology in New York City.

About BrainBox AI

Founded in 2017, BrainBox AI was created to address the dilemma currently facing the built environment, its energy consumption and significant contribution to climate change. As innovators of the global energy transition, BrainBox AIs game-changing HVAC technology leverages AI to make buildings smarter, greener, and more efficient. Working together with our trusted global partners, BrainBox AI supports real estate clients in various sectors, including office buildings, hotels, commercial retail, grocery stores, airports, and more.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, a global AI hub, our workforce of over 150 employees, bring with them talent from all sectors with the common thread of being in business to heal our planet.BrainBox AI works in collaboration with research partners including the US Department of Energys National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO) as well as educational institutions including Montreals Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) and McGill University. For more information visit: http://www.brainboxai.com

About Mountain Development Corp.

Founded in 1979, Mountain Development Corp. (MDC) is a full-service real estate company with more than 40 years experience developing, acquiring, building, repositioning, managing, leasing and financing commercial property. MDC is an active acquirer of a broad range of opportunistic and value-added real estate investments, together with select core projects, capable of generating attractive, risk-adjusted returns for both its principals and select partners.

For media inquiries:

BrainBox AIRebecca BenderMontieth & Companyrbender@montiethco.com

Mountain Development Corp.Nicholas Mazza, RPADirector of Operations nmazza@mountaindevelopment.com

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BrainBox AI Brings Artificial Intelligence to Mountain Development Corp. with Installations in Two of its Commercial Office Buildings - GlobeNewswire

A new vision of artificial intelligence for the people – MIT Technology Review

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

But few people had enough mastery of the language to manually transcribe the audio. Inspired by voice assistants like Siri, Mahelona began looking into natural-language processing. Teaching the computer to speak Mori became absolutely necessary, Jones says.

But Te Hiku faced a chicken-and-egg problem. To build a te reo speech recognition model, it needed an abundance of transcribed audio. To transcribe the audio, it needed the advanced speakers whose small numbers it was trying to compensate for in the first place. There were, however, plenty of beginning and intermediate speakers who could read te reo words aloud better than they could recognize them in a recording.

So Jones and Mahelona, along with Te Hiku COO Suzanne Duncan, devised a clever solution: rather than transcribe existing audio, they would ask people to record themselves reading a series of sentences designed to capture the full range of sounds in the language. To an algorithm, the resulting data set would serve the same function. From those thousands of pairs of spoken and written sentences, it would learn to recognize te reo syllables in audio.

The team announced a competition. Jones, Mahelona, and Duncan contacted every Mori community group they could find, including traditional kapa haka dance troupes and waka ama canoe-racing teams, and revealed that whichever one submitted the most recordings would win a $5,000 grand prize.

The entire community mobilized. Competition got heated. One Mori community member, Te Mihinga Komene, an educator and advocate of using digital technologies to revitalize te reo, recorded 4,000 phrases alone.

Money wasnt the only motivator. People bought into Te Hikus vision and trusted it to safeguard their data. Te Hiku Media said, What you give us, were here as kaitiaki [guardians]. We look after it, but you still own your audio, says Te Mihinga. Thats important. Those values define who we are as Mori.

Within 10 days, Te Hiku amassed 310 hours of speech-text pairs from some 200,000 recordings made by roughly 2,500 people, an unheard-of level of engagement among researchers in the AI community. No one couldve done it except for a Mori organization, says Caleb Moses, a Mori data scientist who joined the project after learning about it on social media.

The amount of data was still small compared with the thousands of hours typically used to train English language models, but it was enough to get started. Using the data to bootstrap an existing open-source model from the Mozilla Foundation, Te Hiku created its very first te reo speech recognition model with 86% accuracy.

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A new vision of artificial intelligence for the people - MIT Technology Review

Arolsen Archives’ #everynamecounts Project Uses Artificial Intelligence to Help Uncover Information on Victims of Nazi Persecution – LJ INFOdocket

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

From Accenture:

A team of volunteers from Accenture has built an artificial intelligence (AI)-based solution that helps extract information on victims of Nazi persecution from documents in the Arolsen Archives 40 times faster than previous efforts.

The Arolsen Archives preserve the worlds largest collection of documents on Nazi persecution 110 million documents and digital objects, a portion of which are part of UNESCOs Memory of the World program to keep the memory of the crimes of the German terror regime alive. An essential part of the Archives work is to make these documents accessible to all who wish to search for traces of Holocaust victims and survivors, persecution of minorities and forced labor.

Every document maintained in the archives needs to be reviewed and its information (e.g., the family name and birth date on a prisoner registration form) put into a database. To facilitate this process, the Arolsen Archives established #everynamecounts, a crowdsourcing project for volunteers to extract information from documents manually.

Translating, reading, transcribing, cataloging and validating these documents by hand could take decades. Each document is indexed independently by three volunteers and, if the entries dont match, reviewed for accuracy by an Arolsen Archives employee. In effect, it can take up to four people to index and validate four documents in one hour.

[Clip]

Even though the AI does the heavy lifting, human oversight of the process remains important not just to ensure accuracy but also to keep the AI solution learning. By reviewing and correcting information, volunteers teach the solution to recognize handwriting characters and abbreviations that were typical for the time. Thanks to their inputs, the AI has gradually improved its precision by 10% within the form field of mothers last name. For the religion field, the AI is now operating at 99% confidence.

Since Accenture implemented the AI solution in December 2021, the solution has indexed more than 160,000 names of Nazi persecution victims, extracted information from more than 18,000 documents, and clustered more than 60,000 documents into similar groups to improve identification and analysis

Learn More, Read the Complete Announcement

See Also: 26 Million Documents About Victims of Nazi Persecution Online (April 16, 2020)

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Arolsen Archives' #everynamecounts Project Uses Artificial Intelligence to Help Uncover Information on Victims of Nazi Persecution - LJ INFOdocket

Exclusive: We Interviewed the CEO of SkyNet About Their Recent Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence – Hard Drive

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

From mobile work to security and maintenance, perhaps no company has done more for the advancement of technology in todays society than SkyNet, a promising start up out of Austin, Texas that has made great strides during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, their T-400 model of home assistant swept the country, combining at home personal assistants with a walking talking android that actually helped with chores and tasks around the house.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Barry Snow, the CEO of the skyrocketing company, about SkyNets future and some of the backlash to what some have called unnecessarily violent home assistants.

~~~~

Hard Drive: Hey Barry, thanks for doing this interview.

Barry Snow: Oh hey man, no problem at all. Thanks for having me. Can I have one of those waters?

HD: Yeah, go ahead. So, your company was already gaining steam a few years ago, but it really seems that during the pandemic you pulled ahead of a lot of your peers with your home androids. Do you attribute this to the pandemic, or do you think SkyNet was going to be a major player in artificial intelligence and home securities no matter what?

BS: Man, this is good water. Thats a great question. I look at it this way SkyNet has already made many successful pivots in its short existence, which is the key to longevity in just about any industry.

A lot of people forget, but do you remember in 1992 when our former Director of Special Projects Miles Dyson blew our old building right to hell? A lot of people said we wouldnt recover from that, but we have. We built a new headquarters, and instead of trying to recreate weird robot shit that we found in an explosion one day, we started focusing on our own work with AI, alloy production, and laserbeams.

HD: I did want to ask you about the laser beams. A lot of people have said theres not a very convincing reason why the T-500 models should come equipped with lasers for opening packages and tricky bags of chips. Would you like to respond to that?

BS: Yes, and thank you for allowing me to do so. Look, weve all read the stories and seen the news clips. House fire in Tacoma. Bridge lasered in half in Miami. Just horrible stuff. But, to think that things like houses catching on fire and bridges falling apart like butter werent happening before we entered the corporate world and started putting lasers on Roombas is a little nave now, isnt it? Our work is so vast that it feels really manipulative to focus on the handful of unfortunate incidents when in fact over 10 percent of households now have a Skynet assistant in their homes. Youre gonna have a few house fires!

The future models are going to be even more exciting. The T-800s are a little ways away, but they can do anything you want. Anything. You can say, Hey T-800, go to the store and get me some soda, and let me tell you something, this thing is not coming back to your house without a big ol bottle of soda. Theyll follow any orders you want!

HD: Wow, you seem really excited about these T-800s.

BS: Oh yeah, I really really am. When you see them, youll understand. Were calling them Terminators.

The new Skynet T-800. Terminate housework!

You like that? I came up with that.

HD: Thats really good! Getting back to them doing anything you tell them to, certainly there are limits to that though, right? You wouldnt want to be able to tell your SkyNet Home Assistant to go hurt somebody or something.

BS: Hm. Thats interesting. Hadnt thought of that.

[This was followed by a long and uncomfortable pause.]

This is really good water, by the way.

Were there any more questions?

HD: Um. Whats next for SkyNet?

BS: The world! No, no, Im just joking. Were really excited about getting the Housework Terminators out into homes over the next few years. We just have to iron out a few details. We learned from product testing that we have to make these things turn on their masters if they try to have sex with them. You can warn them, and tell them about the erotic auto-defense programs weve implemented, but until they get slugged in the mouth theyre just not gonna stop trying to fuck these things. So thats not cool. Thats been a bit of a hiccup.

But, were really close to solving that, and then I think were off to the races! Were working on some interesting things for the T-1000 too, like a new liquid metal android that does shit you wouldnt believe. He can make his arm into a can opener, a wine bottle opener, an envelope opener, a lot of little things that we just couldnt quite do with the 800s. Which are still incredible, by the way. But the T-1000s are gonna blow your mind.

So yeah, the liquid metal, and were also looking at ways to disrupt the fabric of time, and we are really trying to get our laser guns a little more promo, to be honest. Do you want one of our laser gun prototypes?

HD: Sure!

BS: Here you go.

HD: Wow, awesome. Thank you. Do I charge this, or?

BS: Yeah, USB. No big whoop.

Im glad youre excited about it. A lot of people have warned us against some of our recent pursuits, saying that the writing on the wall couldnt be more ominous and that these things couldnt possibly benefit humanity. But hey, you know our slogan around here, SkyNet Judgment Day is Coming and It Will Be All Our Fault.

Hmm, actually maybe that doesnt apply here.

HD: No, not really. Its snappy, though. Say, your robot assistant is frightening me. Would you like to say anything to conclude this interview?

BS: Kids, dont forget to ask for a T-800 for Christmas! Thank you for speaking with me. Oh, dont forget your laser gun, Mark.

HD: Oh whoops, thank you.

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Exclusive: We Interviewed the CEO of SkyNet About Their Recent Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence - Hard Drive

Artificial intelligence aids to diagnose mild cognitive impairment that progresses to Alzheimer’s – EurekAlert

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Alzheimer's disease is the main cause of dementia worldwide. Although there is no cure, early detection is considered crucial for being able to develop effective treatments that act before its progress is irreversible.

Mild cognitive impairment is a phase that precedes the disease, but not everyone who suffers from it ends up developing Alzheimer's. A study led by scientists at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and published in the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, has succeeded in precisely distinguishing between people whose deterioration is stable and those who will progress to having the disease. The new technique, which uses specific artificial intelligence methods to compare magnetic resonance images, is more effective than the other methods currently in use.

Fine-tuning the diagnosis

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 50 million people worldwide, and the ageing of the population means that there may be many more sufferers in the coming decades. Although it usually develops without any symptoms over many years, it is generally preceded by what is known as mild cognitive impairment, which is much milder than the impairment presented by people with Alzheimer's, but more severe than would be expected for someone of their age. "These patients may progress and worsen or remain in the same condition as time passes. That is why it is important to distinguish between progressive and stable cognitive impairment in order to prevent the rapid progression of the disease," said Mona Ashtari-Majlan, a UOC researcher in the AI for Human Wellbeing (AIWELL) group, which is affiliated to the eHealth Center and the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications. She is a student on the doctoral programme in Network and Information Technologies, supervised by David Masip, and the lead author of the article.

Identifying these cases correctly could help to improve the quality of clinical trials used to test treatments, which increasingly seek to target the initial phases of the disease. To do so, the researchers used a method involving a multi-stream convolutional neural network, which is a technique based on artificial intelligence and deep learning that is very useful for image recognition and classification.

"We first compared MRIs from patients with Alzheimer's disease and healthy people to find distinct landmarks," explained Ashtari-Majlan. After training the system, they fine-tuned the proposed architecture with resonance images from people who had already been diagnosed with stable or progressive cognitive impairment with much smaller differences. In total, almost 700 images from publicly available datasets were used.

According to Ashtari-Majlan, the process "overcomes the complexity of learning caused by the subtle structural changes that occur between the two forms of mild cognitive impairment, which are much smaller than those between a normal brain and a brain affected by the disease. Furthermore, the proposed method could address the small sample size problem, where the number of MRIs for mild cognitive impairment cases is lower than for Alzheimer's."

The new method enables the two forms of mild cognitive impairment to be distinguished and classified with an accuracy rate close to 85%. "The evaluation criteria show that our proposed method outperforms existing ones," she said, including more conventional and other deep learning-based methods, even when they are combined with biomarkers such as age and cognitive tests. In addition, "we can share our implementation with anyone wishing to reproduce the results and compare their methods with ours. We believe that this method can help professionals to expand the research," she concluded.

This research contributes to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, Ensure healthy lives and well-being for all at all ages.

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century, by studyinginteractions between technology and human & social scienceswith a specific focus on thenetwork society, e-learning and e-health.

Over 500 researchers and51 research groupswork among the University'sseven faculties and two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The University also cultivatesonline learning innovations at its eLearning Innovation Center (eLinC), as well asUOC community entrepreneurship and knowledge transfervia theHubbikplatform.

The United Nations'2030 Agendafor Sustainable Development andopen knowledgeserve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information:research.uoc.edu#UOC25years

IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Artificial intelligence aids to diagnose mild cognitive impairment that progresses to Alzheimer's - EurekAlert

Artificial Intelligence & the Economy: Charting a Path for Responsible and Inclusive AI U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of…

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

April 26, 2022 06:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence:

What:

Presented by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and FinRegLab, the Symposium will feature a group of presenters and panelists working to develop policies and frameworks to evaluate and assess the goals of improving the trustworthiness, inclusiveness, and equity of artificial intelligence (AI) deployment.

The Symposium is designed to address how AI relates to ensuring inclusive economic growth, supporting diversity and financial inclusion, and mitigating risks such as bias and unfairness.

When:

April 27, 2022 from 9:00am-4:00pm ET

Where:

Auditorium, Herbert C. Hoover Building, 1401 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20230

Who:

Leaders in government, industry, civil society organizations, and academia will explore potential opportunities and challenges posed by AI deployment across different economic sectors, with a particular focus on financial services and health data. Speakers include Don Graves, Deputy Secretary of Commerce; Joni Ernst, Iowa Senator; Michael Hsu, Acting Comptroller of the Currency for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Susan Athey, Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Associate Director of HAI; and Daniel E. Ho, Professor of Law and Political Science at Stanford and Associate Director of HAI.

Contact:

Accredited members of the press interested in attending the Symposium should contact Jeremy Edwards at JEdwards@doc.gov or Stacy Pea at stacy.pena@stanford.edu.

For more information on the Symposium, please visit the event page here.

Artificial intelligence in Manufacturing market size is valued at USD 2.3 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to be USD 16.3 billion by 2027; growing…

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

New York, April 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market by Offering, Industry, Application, Technology, & Region - Global Forecast to 2027" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05048444/?utm_source=GNW GPU/CPU manufacturers, such as NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Huawei, and Samsung, have significantly invested in AI hardware for the development of chipsets that are compatible with AI-based technologies and solutions.

Apart from CPUs and GPUs, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are being developed for AI applications. For instance, Google has built a new ASIC called tensor processing unit (TPU).Compute-intensive chipset is among the critical parameters for processing AI algorithms; the faster the chipset, the quicker it can process data required to create an AI system.Currently, AI chipsets are mostly deployed in data centers/high-end servers as end computers are currently incapable of handling such huge workloads and do not have enough power and time frame.

NVIDIA has a range of GPUs that offer GPU memory bandwidth based on application. For example, GeForce GTX Titan X offers memory bandwidth of 336.5 GB/s and is mostly deployed in desktops, while Tesla V100 16 GB offers memory bandwidth of 900 GB/s and is used in AI applications.

Application of AI for intelligent business processesRigid and rule-based software currently governs a majority of business processes in an organization, offering limited abilities to handle critical problems.These processes are time-consuming and require employees to work on repetitive tasks, hampering the productivity of the employees and the overall performance of the organization.

Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing tools generated on AI platforms can help enterprises overcome such challenges with self-learning algorithms, which can reveal new patterns and solutions.Most organizations use enterprise software, which make the use of rule-based processing to automate business processes.

This task-based automation has helped organizations in improving their productivity in a few specific processes but such rule-based software cannot self-learn and improve with experience.The integration of AI tools, such as NLP and ML, generated on AI platform for enterprise software systems, enable the software to gain mastery while solving individual processes.

This software would be able to provide improved performance and productivity to enterprises over time, instead of providing a one-time boost. All these factors are said to have fueled the demand for intelligent business processes and act as opportunities for the growth of the AI in manufacturing market.

Increasing global demand for energy and power is influencing energy and power companies to adopt AI-based solutions

The increasing global demand for energy and power is influencing energy and power companies to adopt AI-based solutions that can help boost production output with minimum maintenance and reduced downtime.Maintenance and inspection are the major issues, along with material movement, in a thermal plant as the material needs to travel a long distance inside the plant.

Besides, equipment used in this industry, such as turbines, conveyer belts, grids, and voltage transformers, are costly.Moreover, there are issues related to fuel mix, ambient temperature, air quality, moisture, load, weather forecast models, and market pricing in the power industry.

By using AI-based technologies, these issues can be resolved and predicted in the early stages.AI-based technologies used in energy plants comprise physics insights, engineering design knowledge, and new inspection technologies, which are ideal for predictive maintenance and machinery inspections.

The AI technologies work in 2 layers. First, by recognizing the pattern, and second, by learning the models. Early-stage pattern recognition notifies about impending failures.

The breakup of primaries conducted during the study is depicted below: By Company Type: Tier 1 55 %, Tier 2 25%, and Tier 3 20% By Designation: C-Level Executives 60%, Directors 20%, and Others 20% By Region: North America 40%, Europe 30%, APAC 20%, South America 7% and Middle East and Africa - 3%The key players operating in the artificial intelligence in Manufacturing market include NVIDIA (US), IBM (US), Intel (US), Siemens (Germany), General Electric (US), Google (US), Microsoft Corporation (US), and Micron Technology (US).

Research CoverageThe report segments the Artificial intelligence in Manufacturing market and forecasts its size, by value, based on region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and RoW), Application ( predictive maintenance and machinery inspection, inventory optimization, production planning, field services, quality control, cybersecurity, industrial robots and reclamation), Technology (machine learning, natural language processing, context-aware computing, computer vision), Offering ( hardware, software and services) and Industry (automotive, energy & power, semiconductor & electronics, pharmaceutical, heavy metals & machine manufacturing, food & beverage and others (textile, aerospace and mining)).The report also provides a comprehensive review of market drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges in the head-up display market.

The report also covers qualitative aspects in addition to the quantitative aspects of these markets.

Key Benefits of Buying This Report This report includes market statistics pertaining to the offering, technology, industry, application, and region. An in-depth value chain analysis has been done to provide deep insight into the artificial intelligence in manufacturing market. Major market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities have been detailed in this report. Illustrative segmentation, analyses, and forecasts for the market based on offering, technology, industry, application, and region have been conducted to provide an overall view of the the artificial intelligence in manufacturing market. The report includes an in-depth analysis and ranking of key players.Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05048444/?utm_source=GNW

About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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Artificial intelligence in Manufacturing market size is valued at USD 2.3 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to be USD 16.3 billion by 2027; growing...

Could This Artificial Intelligence Software Help Predict The Next Crypto Move? – Benzinga

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Photo by Marta Branco on Pexels

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

The cryptocurrency boom of 2021 changed lives.

The markets unprecedented rise allowed a substitute teacher to buy her dream home and travel the world and turned ordinary 20-year-olds into multimillionaires.

Case studies like these are part of the reason why 16% of Americans invested in cryptocurrency in 2021 and why enterprises like Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. MARA and Riot Blockchain Inc. RIOT continue their bullish stance on crypto mining.

But there are holes in the cryptocurrency story. Operating under a pseudonym, Jake tells BBC that he lost millions of pounds trading cryptocurrency and is in treatment at one of the only hospitals in the United Kingdom for crypto gambling.

Because of the human tendency to advertise wins while covering up losses, there are likely plenty more Jakes in the cryptocurrency boom. The truth is: Trading is as tough and unforgiving as it is generous and rewarding. Without the right guidance, amateurs are likely to get whipsawed between these two extremes, often relying purely on luck to come out ahead.

Vantage Point is an artificial intelligence (AI) system that is meant to help predict major market reversals in advance. Armed with a proven accuracy rating of up to 87.4%, the system reportedly works with cryptocurrencies, too.

As the King of Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoins BTC/USD incredible rise in 2021 set the stage for many of the smaller cryptocurrencies as well as businesses and technology sectors tied to its value. Satoshis brainchild rose from approximately $28,000 per Bitcoin to a high of roughly $69,000 between January and December 2021, experiencing an incredible 150% rise.

Want to learn more about BTCs forecast? Click here

If speculators rejoiced over Bitcoins rise, they wouldve likely been delirious over the rise of Dogecoin DOGE/USD. Following the trend set by Bitcoin, the meme-sponsored cryptocurrency rose from $0.0045 a coin to $0.7549 a coin in a five-month period. This change represented a hold your breath 16,963% appreciation in the assets value. A $1 investment in Doge throughout this move wouldve turned into roughly $169.

Curious to see where DOGE is headed next? Click here

Cardano ADA/USD joined Bitcoin and Dogecoin in the 2021 bull market, exhibiting yet another incredible rise in the cryptocurrency space. Between January and September 2021, the assets price increased by 1,793%, giving early investors a return nearly 18 times greater than their principal in a nine-month period.

Will ADA trend bullish or bearish? Learn more.

If youre interested in joining the 35,000 investors who have reportedly benefitted from VantagePoints trading service, you can join a free trading webinar here.

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

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Could This Artificial Intelligence Software Help Predict The Next Crypto Move? - Benzinga

What empathy has to do with artificial intelligence – The National

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

The Middle East, like the rest of the world, is moving towards a post-Covid-19 future. As things return to normal, companies are turning their attention back to issues such as how to optimise digital experiences.

The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) nations are home to people from diverse cultures. Expatriates make up more than 85 per cent of the populations of many Gulf countries. Two hundred nationalities reside in the UAE alone. In Saudi Arabia, while figures vary, overseas citizens are said to make up about 30 per cent of the population.

Demographics like these present a unique challenge to enterprises that are looking to provide exceptional customer experiences (CX) to their consumers.

Tourists at the water fountain display near the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. Bloomberg

As digital business models become the norm, customers are interested in better online and mobile-app experiences. To meet this demand, organisations must ensure a consistent experience, not only across languages spoken, but across the expectations of people from disparate cultural traditions.

Ideally, the complexities of customer service would be solved by hiring a diverse workforce, but this can be impractical. It would mean, for example, that in the UAE, each customer-service team would need 200 employees, each of a different nationality.

In such culturally diverse markets, business stakeholders need to find creative ways to cater to the range of customers, and in the digital age, this invariably means through technology.

By analysing the body language and speech of participants, AI can also help team members from different cultures collaborate

Last year, KPMG released a study on the KSA insurance sector, which revealed that 76 per cent of chief executives in the Middle East believe customer engagement in the future will be supported by virtual platforms.

When businesses do not have the means to hire huge, culturally diverse teams of customer care agents, then technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) can provide the solution. AI can improve the work of a customer care executive and guide him or her towards success in engagements that may not have been possible had the agent been working alone.

Technology systems that simulate and even surpass human intelligence have come a long way. They are now gaining commercial acceptance in industries, from construction to health care. Natural language processing the technology that, along with machine-learning, makes conversational AI possible has evolved too.

Accuracy and usability are now at a stage where the underlying technology can automatically pick up not only multiple languages, but variations in tone, stress, and dialects.

Technologies such as conversational AI software are attuned to cultural nuances and other audio and visual cues that allow it to discern a customers emotional state, attitude and even intent.

A performance at Global Village in Dubai, where different cultures are showcased in the pavilions from across the world. Chris Whiteoak / The National

With such capabilities, virtual conversational assistants can guide agents through interactions with people who speak different languages and, due to varied cultural backgrounds, are used to different standards of customer service. For example, some customers may favour a more personal touch while others might prefer more formality.

Now that the digital economy has allowed customers to switch their engagement instantly from one brand to another with a swipe or a click, companies are under pressure to ensure that every experience is positive.

Personalisation is a major element of positive customer engagement. The customer must feel that the "person" on the line understands their needs: what they want, what they dont, what they might want and why they might want it.

None of this is possible without that basic capability of human agents to engage in conversation and connect with people in a way that makes them feel comfortable, otherwise known as building a rapport. Building a rapport, however, can sometimes hinge on the agents ability to immerse themselves in each interaction. This is easier when people are supported by AI systems that provide them with context while automating background tasks such as note taking, finding the right knowledge resources, etc.

Organisations know that if they can make their service more relatable, they can increase brand loyalty and ambassadorship.

Today, organisations can embed AI assistants in their contact centres and work with employees to make them more effective in serving customer needs. Machine intelligence can thus enable agents to focus on being more empathic and deliver positive results.

By analysing the body language and speech of participants, AI can also help team members from different cultures collaborate better and even suggest how best to increase engagement with customers.

The Middle East has long taken pride in its cultural diversity. The companies that serve people as consumers can further this positive perception by ensuring customers receive the exemplary customer service, even the kind that might surpass customer experiences they might receive in their home countries.

Machine intelligence has the capacity to mimic human talents. Today, it can take empathy, undoubtedly one of our key human traits, further. By picking up on verbal subtle nuances in body language and tone, AI can help us understand one another and improve the experiences we have as customers.

Published: April 25, 2022, 8:00 AM

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What empathy has to do with artificial intelligence - The National

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