Major online conference on COVID-19 and economy featuring eminent speakers this Friday – Scottish Legal News

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Published 8 June 2020

A number of eminent figures are set to speak at a conferenceon the current crisis and the global economy.

The full-day webinar hosted by the Corporate and Financial Law Research Group of the University of Glasgow and Edinburgh Law School will explore the impact of COVID-19 on the global economy.

The global pandemic has prompted a series of unprecedented interventions by governments and regulatory agencies around the world. In the medium term COVID-19 might prove the watershed moment of this decade and beyond in a number of contexts.

These include a re-orientation of economic and monetary policy, the future shape of financial markets, debt sustainability and preservation of financial stability, and the development of corporate governance norms to serve social growth and the green economy.

This full-day webinar will examine what these changes might bring. It will specifically focus on the COVID-19 response in Europe (encompassing the eurozone, rest of the EU, and the UK). Eminent speakers and leading experts will consider the economic and legal aspects of the pandemic response, how these challenge todays dominant paradigms in law and the economy, and their implications for the future.

Does the global pandemic signal a paradigm shift in law and the economy? will feature a roster of top speakers including:

For speaker bios and short summaries of the presentations see here.

Register for the event here.

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Major online conference on COVID-19 and economy featuring eminent speakers this Friday - Scottish Legal News

This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 6) – Singularity Hub

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IMPACT

Cant Go Out and Protest? Heres How to Help From HomeDemetria Mosley | WiredWhether youre trying to maintain your social distance or just looking for other ways to speak up, here are some ideas on how to contribute. Not everyone is a front-liner, and thats OK because we need all types of people, says Andra Hudson, an activist and prison reformist based in North Carolina. There are many ways people can help out from their homes, and we need people to do it. We need everyone to show up.'

How to Protest Safely in the Age of SurveillanceAndy Greenberg and Lily Hay Newman | WiredIf youre going out to protestas is your right under the First Amendmentand bringing your smartphone with you, there are some basic steps you should take tosafeguard your privacy. Thesurveillance toolsthat state and federal law enforcement groups have used at protests for years put it at risk right along withyour physical wellbeing.

ARK Invest: AI Training Costs Dropped 100-Fold Between 2017 and 2019Kyle Wiggers | VentureBeatMachine learning systems are cheaper to train now than ever before. Thats the assertion of ARK Invest, which today published ameta-analysisindicating the cost of training is improving at 50 times the pace of Moores law, the principle that computer hardware performance doubles every two years.

All This Chaos Might Be Giving You Crisis FatigueMatt Simon | WiredYou might at this point feel lost or numb, and thats perfectly natural. Psychologists call it crisis fatigue: Your body is well adapted to handle temporary stresses, but it can get overwhelmed by the constant, unrelenting pressures of this horrible year.

Salto Jumping Robot Masters Pinpoint LandingsEvan Ackerman | IEEE SpectrumAs far as we know, the best way of getting Salto to stop jumping without destroying itself has been for someone with exceptional timing to try and snatch it directly out of the air mid-bounce. While amazing at jumping, Salto hasnt been particularly good at not-jumping. That is, at landing. Until now!

Lidar Helps Uncover an Ancient, Kilometer-Long Mayan StructureDevin Coldewey | TechCrunchLidaris fast becoming one of the most influential tools in archaeology, revealing things in a few hours what might have taken months of machete wielding and manual measurements otherwise. The latest such discovery is an enormous Mayan structure, more than a kilometer long, 3,000 years old, and seemingly used for astronomical observations.

The Facebook Groups Where People Pretend the Pandemic Isnt HappeningKaitlyn Tiffany | The AtlanticLosing track of a friend in a packed bar or screaming to be heard over a live band is not something thats happening much in the real world at the moment, but it happens all the time in the 2,100-person Facebook group a group where we all pretend were in the same venue. So does losing shoes and Juul pods, and shouting matches over which bands are the saddest, and therefore the greatest.

Image credit:Lucas Benjamin /Unsplash

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 6) - Singularity Hub

Talks alone will resolve LAC stand-off: MEA – The Tribune India

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 7

India and China would persist with military and diplomatic engagements to resolve the situation and to ensure peace and tranquillity in the border areas, said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) after the latest round of border talks on June 6 between the army commanders ended in a stalemate.

Talks took place in a cordial and positive atmosphere. Both sides agreed to peacefully resolve the situation in the border areas in accordance with various bilateral agreements, it said in a statement released on Sunday.

The MEA indicated that both sides were in for a long haul and that despite bringing in military reinforcements, the accent would be on dialogue. In this respect, it reiterated its earlier stand of May 21 that peace and tranquillity in the India-China border regions are essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.

Also read: Nepal takes umbrage to India-China border talks

Indo-China talks hold promise for Ladakhis

It said the four hours of talks between the army commanders also noted that this year marked the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and agreed that an early resolution would contribute to the further development of the relationship.

While the Indian media has prominently highlighted the stand-off, its Chinese counterparts have refrained from highlighting it. Beijing had, a fortnight back, leaked a video of a May 5 scuffle between the troops of both sides which had garnered over three crore views from the Chinese netizens.

But apart from that, respected media outlets, such as Xinhua, Peoples Daily and CGTN, mentioned India in their commentaries in the global fight against the pandemic but kept the border stand-off away from their web pages.

Global Times, which has the external audience in mind, maintained its psy-ops by uploading a video that supposedly showed a Chinese airborne brigade taking just a few hours to manoeuvre from Central China to northwestern, high-altitude region amid China-India border tensions.

Otherwise, as is the case with the MEA here, the Chinese officials have maintained a low profile on the border tension.

Statements by the Chinese Foreign Office have rejected the US mediation offers and reiterated bilateralism as the fulcrum to resolve the situation.

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Talks alone will resolve LAC stand-off: MEA - The Tribune India

Visions for the Next School Year – Education Week

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(This is the fourth post in a multipart series. You can see Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.)

Today's question is:

What will our schools like look in the fall (or What should they look like)?

Dr. PJ Caposey, a district superintendent, shared his thoughts in Part One.

In Part Two, Lorie Barber, Cathleen Beachboard, Manuel Rustin, and Jeffrey Garrett offered their responses (Manuel and Jeffrey's comments were presented via video from their must-watch video series All Of The Above).

In Part Three, Sarah Said and Holly Spinelli described how they saw the future.

Today, Wendi Pillars, Mary K. Tedrow, Dr. Elvis Epps, and Mike Anderson contribute their commentaries.

You might also be interested in All Classroom Q&A Posts on the Coronavirus Crisis as well as The Best Posts Predicting What Schools Will Look Like In The Fall.

Who will our students be?

Wendi Pillars, NBCT, a 24-year teaching veteran has taught all ages, from kinder to adult, overseas and stateside, in myriad content areas. She believes deeply in the power of visuals to unlock others' creativity and curiosity and to make better decisions. She is the author ofVisual Notetaking for Educators, as well as a 2nd edition of Visual Notetaking to be released thisfall. Find her on Twitter@wendi322:

Rather than ask what schools should look like, what if we asked who our students will be?

Those of you who know me, know my penchant for visualizing. So let's create an actual visual to serve as an anchor for our decisionmaking. I invite you to ask different groups to engage in this activity for even more data: staff PLCs, school administrators, district personnel, business leaders, even parents and students.

Imagine, then actually sketch out, the "ideal student." What do they need to be successful, and crucially, what now constitutes success in 2020? Next, list and draw which steps, resources, mindsets, training, and changes need to be in place in order for this to happen.

Try this visual thinking prompt among groups of your colleagues or within your PLCs and you can literally "see" the different ideas, cultural mores, ideologies, and visions for student success. As a teacher, let alone an administrator or policymaker, the top goal for me is to have a coherent and consistent aim for my work. An agreed-upon vision of success is a critical priority upon which all else rests. Making it visible, even with basic sketches and lists, puts all the cards on the table for everyone to see, prioritize, categorize. This becomes a tangible basis for making decisions and next steps, ensuring all voices are heard while minimizing wasted meeting time.

What comprises a "successful student"? What kinds of supports, direct and indirect, visible and invisible, do they need to succeed in today's intensely evolving world? Whose definition of success matters most?

Now, picture your most challenging student to reach, the one "furthest away" from your definition of successful. What other definitions of success are you missing, ignoring, or downplaying? What do you need to understand better about that student? What will it take to pivot their school and learning experiences? What are their most pressing needs, and how will we know? What role does student input play into your idea of success, and how much do you believe it should?

As you try this exercise with your staff or PLC, note others' interpretations with an open mind. Replace judgment with curiosity and ask them to tell you more about their thoughts. Where do ideas intersect? Diverge? Plateau?

The business world creates avatars to flesh out their ideal customers; we would do well to do the same with our students. Together, immersing ourselves in what others are seeing, hearing, feeling and experiencing in this time of both informational and emotional overwhelm, we can more deeply understand the challenges our students are facing. Through their perspectives, we learn what they need, want, and value, how they are incentivized, and wherein lie the opportunities. For each of us.

This is the perfect time for the educational sector to imagine a better way forward, with intentional steps toward a vision that honors the twin pillars of humility immersed in reality and daring to believe in what might actually be possible. Imagine. Then sketch it out and make it real, with students truly at the center.

"Outside-the-box thinking"

Mary K. Tedrow, an award-winning high school English teacher, now serves as the director of the Shenandoah Valley Writing Project and teaches at Shenandoah and Johns Hopkins Universities. Her book, Write, Think, Learn: Tapping the Power of Daily Student Writing Across the Content Area is available through Routledge:

The current pandemic calls for outside-the-box thinking to engage students in learning and growing throughout the 2020-22 academic years. Major restructuring of the school year and flexible learning spaces are required.

First, shift to year-round instruction, but delay the traditional start to the school year to mid-September 2020.

In the time afforded between now and then, invest in massive professional development so secondary teachers can develop effective cross-curricular, project-based, online, and hybrid teaching beginning with teachers in grades 7 and up. Far-reaching but limited numbers of projects can engage students in literacy, math, science, and problem-solving and subsequently reduce what school looks like in the home setting, reducing online time to uploading of products, research. Wherever possible, incorporate learning into routine household activities. Public and school libraries should have scheduled openings timed to secondary cohort groupings.

Before school starts up in the fall, primary and elementary teachers should receive or revisit professional development in effective literacy instruction (see recent NAEP reading scores and the soon-to-be released writing scores for this justification).

Districts can use the delayed opening to reconfigure student-attendance zones and teacher assignments and make plans to assist and support students who cannot manage online instruction either behaviorally or due to inequities. In the lower grades, teachers will loop with their spring 2020 students to maintain established relationships and speed ahead on instruction.

When schools reopen, prioritize face-to-face learning for the youngest, ages 4 - 11. Students learning to read need teacher expertise and time. Additionally, parents who must work from home (including secondary teachers) will need relief from the intensive home schooling and parenting duties necessary for this age group.

Begin school with rolling opening dates and start/end times with temperature, symptom checking, masks, and hygiene a requirement. Start by orienting older students to the expectations of online instruction in small, consistent cohorts who share a team of core instructors. Include lessons in home and internet safety, first aid, and rudimentary cooking and housekeeping.

Once older students are properly acclimated to the online setting and expectations, return them to their homes. Teachers can monitor "attendance" in their cohorts via online engagement. Students who are not attending will be pulled into traditional spaces for teacher-directed learning as planned for by the district. A beefed-up truancy/counseling team can handle cases referred by teachers.

Then, open every school building, elementary and secondary, to face-to-face learning for the younger students. The additional school buildings will afford the space needed to keep students in smaller student cohorts that will not interminglesingle meal lunches served in the classroom, no large assemblies, staggered gym/recess/start-end times, specials instruction brought into the room. Though young students will have difficulty social distancing within the groups, small groups will contain virus contamination. If the virus spreads, only affected groups need quarantine. These cohorts happened organically in day cares, which remained open through the first shutdown. Limit busing to the 4- to -11-year-olds going to their assigned building in staggered start/end times.

With a year-round schedule, younger students will have two-week breaks every six or nine weeks. During this time period, older students return to a deeply cleaned school building vacated by the younger students for further updates and face-to-face instruction. Parents will not be expected to instruct the young students now at home. A traditional winter, summer, and spring holiday for all can be built into a year-round calendar.

Testing should be limited to diagnostic tests that are quickly scored and used for instruction. No interruptions to instruction should occur to prepare for high-stakes tests. All funding previously earmarked for high-stakes tests will be rerouted to boost student online access, busing, salaries, supplies, and cleaning.

Social-emotional learning

Dr. Elvis Epps is the principal of Lake Worth Community High School in the school district of Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Fla.:

State and school leaders across the nation are facing the challenge of reopening schools in the fall. Some P-12 school districts and universities have already informed their community and stakeholders that they will reopen in the fall. Many of them have not selected a start date as of June 1.

Opening schools across the nation will pose many problems if school and district leaders are not careful. The big question to consider is how many students can be on a school campus all while adhering to the Center for Disease Control guidelines for social distancing and sanitizing areas where students will interact. I am the principal of a large high school where school enrollment exceeds 2,500 students. Allowing students to return without having a viable plan would create more problems than school districts can handle. There are many safety and operational factors to consider; however, some of the most urgent barriers or constraints are

I believe we have our work ahead of us if we plan to reopen schools in the fall. There are many factors to consider before moving ahead with reopening schools. We must keep our teachers and students in mind while planning our strategies. Many school districts cannot afford to cover the costs to professional clean and sanitize a school if a student or staff member tests positive for the COVID-19 virus. The face of school reopening has shifted from an emphasis on academics and teacher recruitment to planning how to keep everyone safe from contracting the COVID-19 virus. This is a task that school, district, and state leaders must collaborate on if schools are to open in the fall.

"What's our why?"

Mike Anderson is an award-winning teacher, a best-selling author, and education consultant. His latest book is What We Say and How We Say It Matter: Teacher Talk that Improves Student Learning and Behavior, and he recently received the 2020 Outstanding Educational Leader Award through New Hampshire ASCD:

There are still so many unknowns that's it's almost impossible to say with certainty, "Here's what we should do and how we should do it" when schools start back up in the fall.

However, there's an important question we can ask ourselves that will guide our what and our how regardless of the specific details we'll be coping with in August: What's our why?

My recommendation is that school leaders tasked with welcoming students and faculty back to school in the fall invest significant time figuring out the most important goals you have for students and faculty. Chances are, they aren't much different from your goals in a normal year. They'll probably have to do with some really basic and fundamental ideas.

Safety: How will you make sure that students and faculty are (and feel) physically safe? How will you support emotional safety and security for students and faculty?

Relationships: How will you support the integration of new faculty with their colleagues while strengthening a sense of schoolwide adult comradery? How will you help faculty develop strong connections with their students and help students connect with each other?

Authentic Engagement: How will you help students feel intrinsic motivation for schoolworktapping into their needs for autonomy, curiosity, fun, belonging, mastery, and purpose?

These are just a few examples, and as school leaders, you'll need to surface your own most important priorities. Notice, however, that this list has nothing to do with the logistics we may or may not encounter. Whether we're back in school as we once were (unlikely in many places), continuing remote learning as we have been (gosh, I hope not), or in some kind of hybrid model (a good bet), our ultimate goals shouldn't change. But if we start planning for what to do or how to do it without being clear about our why, we're likely to drift and wander from haphazard idea to haphazard idea.

So, start with your why. Be clear about what's most important and then figure out how to get there as well as you can given the challenges you face and the resources you have. It may not be perfect (it wasn't before), but you'll have purpose to drive your own motivation and guide your actions.

Thanks to Wendi, Mary, Elvis, and Mike for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at[emailprotected]. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at@Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titledClassroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog viaemailorRSS Reader.And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.

All Classroom Q&A Posts on the Coronavirus Crisis

This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts

Race & Gender Challenges

Classroom-Management Advice

Best Ways to Begin the School Year

Best Ways to End the School Year

Implementing the Common Core

Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning

Teaching Social Studies

Cooperative & Collaborative Learning

Using Tech in the Classroom

Parent Engagement in Schools

Teaching English-Language Learners

Reading Instruction

Writing Instruction

Education Policy Issues

Assessment

Differentiating Instruction

Math Instruction

Science Instruction

Advice for New Teachers

Author Interviews

Entering the Teaching Profession

The Inclusive Classroom

Learning & the Brain

Administrator Leadership

Teacher Leadership

Relationships in Schools

Professional Development

Instructional Strategies

Best of Classroom Q&A

Professional Collaboration

Classroom Organization

Mistakes in Education

Project-Based Learning

I am also creating aTwitter list including all contributors to this column.

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Visions for the Next School Year - Education Week

I hated remote teaching during the Covid-19 lockdown. It should never replace the classroom – The Guardian

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One of my teaching colleagues returned to school recently to discover a student who hadnt submitted any work this term due to not logging in and engaging with the lessons. Its students like this who have suffered during remote teaching. In one week in the classroom, this student has since completed seven weeks of missing work because of his teachers daily support and encouragement. He is once again on track to pass the semester.

In staff rooms my colleagues and I discuss the future of teaching and whether, as the coronavirus lockdowns ease, there will be more of a push to teach remotely. This is not just a fear for teachers concerned for their long-term prospects, but something that is being discussed as a potentially positive move.

But we should keep in mind how varied the experiences of students have been during this period.

It is true that some students thrived under remote teaching. These are the students who are highly self-motivated, highly literate and are working above the standard in the classroom. They are the students who require extension and enrichment as they lightly hopscotch through the curriculum.

Learning from home has also been a positive for some students with social anxiety, who were given a reprieve from the struggles of managing multiple interactions in a day and dealing with fraught exchanges with peers. There are also the individual needs students who are also requiring individualised support based on their academic and social skills. These students too might be happy to be at home completing basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The students who generally work at a standard level are a mixed bag. These students all overwhelmingly wanted to return to school either because of the challenges of remote learning or because they miss the social interactions with their peers. This group should have been able to manage remote learning due to their basic literacy, however they have different points of need. Some of them are able to manage the work after an explanation, some of them struggle and remain mute, suffering in silence and the errors only became apparent when their work was submitted for assessment.

In the classroom these students are more easily supported because I can see from their notebooks as I walk around the classroom who is struggling, or the students themselves would be able to understand the task requirements because they had multiple opportunities for instruction through my modelling and then by viewing the notebooks of their desk mates. In individual digital silos, they lost so much support.

Then there are the students who have poor organisation and work skills. They require a teachers constant reminders and face-to-face interactions in order to complete the work they need to pass the subject.

We make the assumption that young people are literate with technology because of their interaction with various platforms and social media, however their basic digital literacy is quite poor when it comes to downloading files, naming files, accessing files from Google Drives or school platforms, saving and uploading files, inserting photos or other media, using formatting functions such as changing the colour of fonts or highlighting. There is the need to provide multiple explanations and demonstrations constantly.

The students who work at lower levels are the ones eager to return to school and who have found remote learning difficult.

Some of these students have been identified as below standard and have been placed on modified programs. Others have low ability due to concentration and their inability to process multiple instructions at once and need a slow, step-by-step instructional model, which remote teaching does not lend itself to. Flicking up and down a digital document disrupts their ability to process the learning task and they get lost and frustrated.

These students are the ones who are already at risk of falling through the cracks in the classroom and are exposed to many intervention strategies, learning programs and engagement programs in order to support them. They succeed because of the school environment that supports them and the relationships they develop with their teachers, and when this is removed from the equation through the digital learning environment they flail and sink.

Now that I have been remote teaching for seven weeks I know one unequivocal and indisputable truth: remote teaching can never replace the face-to-face model for secondary students. These students need schools in order to succeed and develop their academic and interpersonal skills for life.

And I also know that I hate remote teaching. Remote teaching was all of the bad parts of the job the corrections, the administration follow-up, creating digital lessons that werent executed due to internet issues with none of the good the feeling of satisfaction when a lesson was executed well, helping a student with a problem, and the look on my students faces when they achieve an outcome.

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I hated remote teaching during the Covid-19 lockdown. It should never replace the classroom - The Guardian

What’s it all about? Online learning terms explained – The Irish Times

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The arrival of coronavirus to these shores prompted a swift pivot away from the traditional face-to-face style of teaching most students were familiar with since the first day they attended primary school.

Students nearing the end of their time in college had their finals to look forward to while others had essays, assignments and end-of-year exams to contend with. That all changed with the lockdown.

The move to emergency remote teaching, learning and assessment was a huge challenge, but one which all academic staff engaged in overnight. The response by both the staff and students, to such a dramatic transition to remote online space, was phenomenal, says Dr Mary Fitzpatrick, head of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at University of Limerick (UL).

As colleges began moving their programmes online for the final semester, educational priorities quickly changed. Gone, all of a sudden, were the classes, lectures, tutorials, trips to the library and group-work meetings.

In came video conferencing, online quizzes, virtual learning platforms, specialised simulations, asynchronous and synchronous teaching.

The shift to online does have its benefits.

Some of the benefits of course delivery online include flexibility: students can work at their own pace, supporting independent and self-directed learning, and allowing them to fit learning around the rest of their lives; and unlimited access to practice and revision resources, says Dr Alison Hood, dean of teaching and learning at Maynooth University.

Many will be unfamiliar with some of the terms associated with distance learning, blended learning and remote learning but this is likely to change in the coming months and years as these learning strategies grow in popularity. Many of these concepts are interrelated and they all involve learning but what do they mean individually and how do they relate to each other?

A 1960s Australian childrens television series might not be the first thing that springs to mind when we consider the merits of distance learning. Yet for many, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is where they first came across the practice.

The series told the story of a young boy called Sonny and his adventures with his pet kangaroo friend Skippy. Sonny lived in a remote national park and had to use a two-way radio to connect with his teachers in order to receive his education. Thanks to the development of internet technology, distance learning has advanced quite a bit since then. The tools and methods traditionally associated with it such as correspondence courses, educational television and, in the case of Sonny, two-way radios, have now largely been replaced by online learning platforms. In many cases, the interactive online learning environment used to deliver distance learning courses is now the very same platform used by students who attend the face-to-face courses traditionally associated with third-level education.

Colleges and universities have improved their ability to deliver distance learning programmes while at the same time offering comprehensive support for students. In short, distance learning is when students dont attend classroom lessons in person. Instead, they receive instruction, and learn and study from home.

Classes are usually conducted over the internet and students can submit assignments remotely. As distance learning offers students the flexibility and convenience of not having to be physically present in the learning institution, the advantages are numerous. Students can access class resources from a single location, they can save substantially on transport and fees as courses offered through distance learning are usually significantly cheaper than traditional classroom-based pedagogy.

Blended or hybrid learningThis is where the traditional form of face-to-face learning converges with the newer methods of remote and online instruction. Blended learning uses technology to improve the learning process and is the model most likely to be adopted by third-level institutions as ongoing social distancing requirements limit the possibility of traditional in-person lectures taking place in the medium term.

Blended learning is customisable and, as a result, a wide range of approaches to the method means the balance between in-class teaching and the use of technology varies from programme to programme. Advocates say it offers the best of both worlds. The curriculum is usually delivered through a combination of classroom-based lectures, online lectures and the use of other online resources. Ideally, these course components complement each other to strengthen the overall outcome.

Blended learning also offers students the benefits of in-class engagement with instructors with the flexibility of online learning. The degree to which the course is blended depends on the course programme and the institution in question. Most Irish colleges and universities offer a suite of blended learning courses across undergraduate, graduate and professional level categories. This is likely to continue even when social distancing measures are in place.

eLearningShort for electronic learning, eLearning is a term that essentially means learning with the aid of digital tools. It has its roots in distance learning. The internet has contributed greatly to a marked growth in the use of technology for the delivery of education over the past decade and has helped the development of new models of teaching, improved instruction methods and the possibility of better student outcomes.

Technology is at the centre of eLearning and without it the programme could not be delivered. Students use computer and internet technology to access the curriculum from outside the traditional classroom.

It is widely seen as a flexible and efficient way of delivering the curriculum as most people with a stable internet connection can access these tools and participate in some form of online learning.

It is also efficient. Students no longer have to worry about attending a lecture or class at a set time, they can review lecture videos as often as they like, there is no commute time and it can help develop time-management skills. Unsurprisingly, it is often the preferred option for students who are working or who have other constraints on their time.

This form of learning is also used in a wider context. In recent years we have seen a sharp growth in demand for online digital courses. Courses called Moocs (Massive Open Online Courses) first appeared in the late 2000s and were seen as a disruptor which would widen access and lower the costs associated with traditional modes of learning.

Critics sometimes cite poor student engagement as one of the greatest drawbacks of eLearning. In traditional classroom settings, students can raise their hand and engage in face-to-face interaction with their instructor but it is not as easy to raise the hand digitally in an eLearning environment.

The very nature of the approach means students will invariably spend a lot of time on their own in front of the computer screen and the lack of social interaction can lead to a sense of isolation.

Tools do exist to facilitate better communication however and the development of video software now means students can interact directly with instructors through video-link. Depending on the type of course undertaken, practical assessments can be difficult to cater for well.

Not to be confused with distance learning or online learning, emergency remote teaching is a measure that is adopted in response to a crisis where the curriculum has to be rapidly moved to a virtual online setting.

The unintended consequences of emergency remote teaching can include a failure to meet the expectations that students had at the outset of the course. Simply broadcasting a lecture with the aid of a video conferencing tool or uploading a presentation to a virtual learning environment is not the same as presenting course content that has been planned, developed and designed for delivery via a framework that best enables learning to take place.

The sudden change in delivery model can mean a change to how course material is absorbed by students and it can also mean a change to the assessment model which can be disruptive for those students who had prepared for another format entirely over a lengthy period of time.

The needs of all students might not be met by sudden change, and unexpected barriers such as the digital divide and other inequities can arise. There is also the danger that in the absence of a coherent emergency plan that teaching objectives can shift from the achievement of pre-defined learning goals to enacting a crisis management approach instead.

While the process of moving from an established teaching method to an unfamiliar new platform can be difficult, emergency remote teaching can be a useful learning experience as instructors quickly learn to apply what works and discard what doesnt.

Synchronous learning is a term used to describe a method where students engage in learning at the same time but not in the same place. Synchronous learning usually involves the use of online tools such as chat and videoconferencing where students and teachers can interact in real-time during class. Class activities typically take place through the use of dedicated virtual learning environments (also known as learning management systems) such as Brightspace, Moodle or Canvas.

Asynchronous learning is a term used to describe a method where students engage in learning at different times and locations. Asynchronous learning often utilises elements such as email, pre-recorded video and other tools such as online discussion forums that facilitate the sharing of information.

Sometimes referred to as virtual learning environment or virtual learning platforms, learning management systems are web-based software platforms which facilitate the delivery of course content. Platforms provide teaching tools and supports but also allow course instructors to track student performance over time.

Multiple formats such as video, audio and text are catered for and students can be assessed through tools such as online quizzes and questionnaires.

They are in widespread use at third level and can be used to deliver asynchronous or synchronous-based courses. Systems such as Brightspace, Canvas, Moodle and Blackboard have built-in tools that allow instructors to deliver lectures by video or audio, facilitate discussions and even track student performance.

A virtual classroom is an online learning environment where students interact in real time with the instructor and with each other. Usually delivered via videoconferencing tools, virtual classrooms are also a feature of learning management systems. Students can also usually interact and ask or answer questions by using a chat window. Presentation tools such as PowerPoint or whiteboard tools can usually be utilised by the teacher during class. It is also possible during a class or lecture to operate break-out rooms where students can work together or where the instructor can interact directly with an individual student.

A webinar is a class in which participants view the same screen at the same time. Very useful in a classroom setting, the instructor controls proceedings and participants can communicate through the use of interactive features such as chatrooms, polls and quizzes.

This is usually a reference to materials such as PDFs, slideshow, spreadsheets, presentations, images or text documents. These tools are usually found as a feature within the learning management systems.

A feature of some blended learning approaches where lectures are replaced by classes or tutorial-type settings. Students consume content perhaps by viewing a lecture video or completing an assignment at home before engaging in analysis and discussion in the live class setting. The practice results in more face-to-face time and affords the instructor greater flexibility in being able to engage directly with students during class, and it can help increase student engagement as they are required to prepare material ahead of the class.

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What's it all about? Online learning terms explained - The Irish Times

Learning in times of crisis – Daily Pioneer

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The COVID pandemic has impacted education the most, compelling nations to embrace e-learning. India needs to invest in infrastructure and put right policies in place

Nations across the world have taken different yet significant measures to limit the spread of COVID-19. The most immediate one taken by almost all countries was to cancel physical face-to-face teaching in schools and higher education institutions. All kinds of social and religious gatherings and public events, too, were banned. With a sudden shift from the classroom to e-learning, many wondered whether the adoption of online education would continue to persist post-pandemic and how such a shift would impact the education market.

Indeed, in India, too, physical classrooms have replaced online classes. The transition has mostly been smooth in private universities though public institutions are yet to adapt to the changes. This has led to widespread debates on the future course of classes whether they should be conducted online or not. Realising the long-term impact of COVID-19, faculty members, too, are finding it hard to conduct online classes with ease. On the other hand, students have been left clinging on to their mobile phones, laptops and computer screens. What, however, is certain is that a post-COVID world must gear itself to adapt to some changes. Being physically present in a classroom may not be the only learning option anymore not with the rise of the internet and new technologies, at least. As long as there is access to a computer with a robust internet connection, students can attend live sessions or watch pre-recorded classes. Does this mean that online education will soon replace classroom education? It should be kept in mind that even though there have been huge technological advancements, they arent flawless. E-learning comes with its own set of challenges.

Challenges and possibilities: In the case of traditional classrooms, lack of engagement is problematic for teachers and students alike. Unlike online education, here, they cannot pause or rewind the classes in case they miss out certain chapters. On the other hand, online education is not as easy as speaking into the microphone at the one end and connecting a laptop or phone and listening on the other. There are other challenges with this form of education that have to be faced by both faculty as well as students. While the former will have to put in extra labour to generate lectures, it will be difficult for the latter to make sense of it online. Then, how will this form of education compensate for the academic loss suffered by students? Practically speaking, there is no alternative to classroom activities.

Most important of all, even after so much digitisation, rural India will face unprecedented challenges due to poor connectivity and frequent power cuts that would affect the productivity of the classroom. Talking about access to electricity, according to Mission Antyodaya, a nationwide survey of villages conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development in 2017-18, 16 per cent of Indias households received one to eight hours of electricity daily, 33 per cent received 9-12 hours and only 47 per cent received more than 12 hours a day. Further, according to data collected by the National Sample Survey as part of the Survey on Education (2014), only 27 per cent of households in India have some member with access to internet. Access to internet does not necessarily mean that a household actually has internet at home.

While increasing ethernet connectivity should be the larger goal, in the short term, data on mobile phones must be subsidised. Device ownership, too, is a problem and for this, the Government must provide for cheap smartphones for students to get on with the business of teaching. Organisations such as the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), IGNOU and other such bodies offering distance education as well as the Government must assess current and future infrastructure requirements for digital age and bridge the gap.

But what if e-learning becomes the way of life for education? What would be the major issues and areas that require introspection? And what does this mean for the students going forward?

Most universities are now offering web-based file-sharing services to their faculty members and research communities. However, there are several other ways to make multimedia resources accessible over the internet. Certainly, the most familiar one is YouTube, which though ubiquitous and easy-to-use, does present challenges to classroom use that must not be ignored. The most glaring one is the comments section. The instructor can take it for granted that some comments will not be suitable for projection on a classroom screen.

Similarly, advertisements found lining the video could be a problem, too. Regardless of the product being promoted, the classroom need not be turned to a search service in order to access multimedia resources. To avoid this, a number of web browser extensions are available that provide for an unsullied viewing experience, hiding comments, menu side bus and advertisements from the view. A number of cloud-based tools, too, are available that allow files to be stored and shared across a remote host, which at the very least offer the instructor the flexibility to adapt. Foremost among these are Dropbox, which is a file hosting service that offers free data storage across several operating platforms. Amazon cloud drive offers 5 GB of free storage and provides a straight forward web-based interface for uploading and retrieval of files. Similarly, GoogleDocs allows for the uploading of entire folders to the cloud, making remote storage of a set of organised files quite easy.

Make the digital transition: Technological prospects for classrooms have evolved in remarkable ways since the COVID-19 pandemic. We have witnessed the successful introduction of smartphones that are capable of running audio-visual clips and interactive language drills; tablets are now replacing the laptop as an essential classroom gear; and there has been a rich array of online dictionaries. Further, news media and unicode blogs are now searchable in original scripts; a sea of websites are dedicated towards the study and dissemination of literature. The worldwide popularity of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google classroom, Zoom, Cisco Webex and the user-centred design of web has addressed concerns of language use. Even mini tablets are now equipped with built-in digital camera. In fact, they allow students to use audio and video editing software immediately upon recording. All of these advancements offer promising ways for the students to do their homework, going far beyond just a paper and pen.

The time has come for us to adapt to new and innovative teaching methods. So, what next? Most experts and researchers across academic institutions agree that there is a need to create standardised online education platforms. Besides students and teachers must be trained to get accustomed to using digital technologies. Others highlight the necessity to introspect on the nature of these platforms and how students must be taught using different online tools and methods while keeping accessibility and the challenges in mind.

To look for possibilities, there is lack of clarity among teachers and researchers about the plan of action, especially with respect to teaching, examination, results, internships and placements. Challenges are many that need to be overcome. Some students without reliable internet access and technology struggle to participate in digital learning. This gap is seen across countries. Education is going to be digital in the foreseeable future. We will be better prepared to handle it only with the right kind of infrastructure and policies in place. The Government must pay heed.

(The writer is a linguist, author and columnist)

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Learning in times of crisis - Daily Pioneer

What Is PEXA And Why Are The Students Of Manipal Institution Of Technology Protesting Against It? – ED Times

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Today, I opened Twitter out of sheer boredom just to see what is going on in the world. To my surprise, my newsfeed was flooded with the #BoycottPEXA and #usecommonsensemit.

In fact, #BoycottPexa is one of the top trending hashtags in India today. So, what happened, and why are students of Manipal Institute of Technology protesting online?

I doubt that there is anyone in our country who is oblivious to the online protests conducted by various students organizations such as ABVP or NSUI against the online examinations that are due to be conducted by the college administrations.

Keeping in mind the prevailing conditions, many colleges have canceled the exams while a few others are planning to conduct online examinations for their students, especially those in their final years.

A similar scenario has emerged in the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) also where the students have been asked to appear for their online exams from June 8th. For this purpose, they are supposed to install a lightweight exam software called PEXA Lite. This software would be used by them to get the question paper, type answers, and upload images wherever required.

The students of MIT are opposing this decision and they have taken to online platforms such as Twitter to raise their concerns.

For starters, many students have moved back to their hometowns having heavy connectivity issues. They are concerned as to how they would be able to write their exam with no or limited internet access.

This is a major issue that is affecting all the students from various educational institutions in India.

But, the plight of MIT students does not end here. The software, PEXA Lite, that the students have been asked to install has become the center of suspicion among them.

The students have been asked to turn off any Firewall or Antivirus in their devices before downloading this software. They have been advised to ignore any alerts that pop up regarding Trojans or Malware. This is sure to jeopardize the safety of the devices and the privacy of the students.

Reportedly, passwords have also been shared with a third party software without the consent of students. Sharing of Aadhar number, bank account details, and phone number has also been reported. This is clearly a security breach and violation of the right to privacy of the aggrieved students.

The software is supported only on Windows Operating System. So, if anyone has MacOS or any other operating system, then it would not be compatible with it.

There are reports of laptops crashing because of this software. Due to this, the other students are scared to install this application on their devices.

The resolution of images clicked via PEXA is also very bad. As a response to this major issue, students have been asked to only type the answers rather than uploading pictures.

This has created stress among them, as many questions require diagrams or charts for the explanation which can only be drawn and not typed.

The software size is around 220MB. A software or file of this size can only be downloaded at high internet speed. This is truly insensitive to those who are hailing from areas with poor network connectivity.

While students and their parents are naturally raising their concerns about the pertaining issue, the administration is ignoring their responsibility by blocking their numbers.

MIT is constantly assuring the students through notices and circulars, saying that the said software is safe to install while blatantly ignoring the students questions and concerns. This has caused outrage among the students.

We cannot ignore the need of the administration to go ahead with exams but all safety measures should be undertaken and the concerns of the students should be kept in mind. We hope that the administration takes suitable action in favor of everyone.

Image Sources: Twitter, Google Images

Sources: The Quint, Twitter

Find The Blogger At: @TinaGarg18

This post is tagged under: university exams, protests, online exams, DU, Delhi university, Mumbai university, Manipal Institute of Technology, MIT, Manipal exams, online, connectivity, download software, safety, crashing, privacy, data, share with 3rd party, aadhar, bank account details, light, pexa lite software, #boycottpexa, #usecommonsensemit

Students Cry Out As IPU Releases Datesheet For Physical Exams From 22nd June

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What Is PEXA And Why Are The Students Of Manipal Institution Of Technology Protesting Against It? - ED Times

Every single life is a precious one – Gulf Today

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George Floyd. File

If you check on some of your black friends and ask them how they are this week, theres a chance they might reply Im tired. Its been an exhausting fortnight for BAME people, watching the brutal killing of George Floyd, the subsequent protests and the endless discussions and debates on television and social media about racism in 2020.

Despite living in black skin which means witnessing and experiencing discrimination on a daily basis I wasnt prepared for the fallout of this debate, and the unexpected ways it has caused division between myself and some of my white friends.

The atmosphere in the wake of George Floyds death seems different to any other of the many deaths in police custody where race played a role. Im amazed by the level of engagement by some of my white friends who have been horrified by what they see, to the point of either actively supporting the Black Lives Matter movement or simply asked me questions to gain more knowledge. However, there have sadly been some exceptions.

I dont expect white people to fully understand my experience; they are not black. I appreciate that in any circumstances it is very difficult to fully comprehend anothers experience of discrimination. But what I would have hoped to see from white people I know, through our friendship or familiarity, is their support and an understanding, a knowing, that this movement means so much to me.

Earlier this week as I scrolled through my private Facebook account, I saw a highly inflammatory meme posted by a white family friend of mine regarding the protests and riots in America. I was left bewildered, shocked and disappointed that someone Ive known for so long could post something like and in full knowledge that I and other black people they know would see it.

I expressed my disappointment. I encouraged them to watch the video by activist Tamika Mallory, who gave a powerful speech in Minneapolis. For me, her words encapsulated the rage that black people have been feeling for hundreds of years in relation to the discrimination we experience.

I suspect my family friend has not, to this day, watched this video or poised to consider my perspective. Nevertheless, they slammed back with the phrase All Lives Matter. Despite my desperate attempts, and those of other black and some mutual white friends to explain, there was just no reasonable debate or informed discussion to be had. Their mind had been made up.

What upset me the most was not that I could not win them over, but rather that an opportunity to educate themselves about an alternative worldview and experience mine had been slapped away. They were disregarding the personal experiences of someone theyve known for years. Their uninformed opinions and biases overrode any personal familiarity and warmth we have, any empathy our relationship might have produced had we been debating on another matter.

All Lives Matter is such an incredibly distasteful response to the Black Lives Matter movement. It seeks not only to diminish but to quench the fire of black people who are simply asking not to be killed, to be treated like a human being. It does not mean Black lives are more important than any other; on the contrary, its merely asking for a level playing field. The use of the term All Lives Matter indicates that you are either wilfully ignorant or, worse, wilfully racist.

Racism in 2020 is real. Its brilliant that finally it appears the BAME community is being listened to. An atmosphere has been created in which we feel comfortable to speak and share our experiences. Its shameful that it took an on-camera death to raise this level of awareness. As Will Smith famously said: Racism isnt getting worse; its getting filmed.

Black people dont need inactionable pity, nor a social media performance by uploading a black square on Instagram. What we need is for people to believe us when we describe our everyday lives. Know that were not exaggerating. Know that what we feel isnt a theory born out of paranoia, but as tangible as the skin we live in.

Race relations cannot be fought and won by the black community in isolation. Everyone the oppressed, the oppressor and everyone in between must be on board and commit to stamping it out. Governments and corporate companies have a wider responsibility to tackle racism, but even this starts with the individual. So imagine how it feels when an individual relatively close to you, someone youve known for a long time, just does not seem to understand and, worst of all, simply does not want to. What hope is there for social change?

The sad fact is not every one of our white friends will understand or support us and thats a painful reality to experience. Nevertheless, we cannot allow the disintegration of personal relationships to dim our beliefs.

The fight for equality is bigger than any friendship. Its for the hope for a future where such friendships wont even need to have such discussions that potentially end them.

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Every single life is a precious one - Gulf Today

The best NAS drive in 2020: store ALL your images, and access them from anywhere – Digital Camera World

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Want help finding the best NAS drive? This guide will help you choose the right one, and show you the best prices. But, first, what is a NAS drive?

Network attached storage (also know as NAS) allows your entire photo and video collection to be stored in one physical location in your home or studio, just like a conventional external hard drive.

But the beauty of NAS is that this drive also has a network connection, allowing it to be linked via your internet router to your home network and the web. NAS drives are also loaded with a simple computer operating system, allowing you to browse their file contents, view photos and videos, all from a remote location.

Of course security is paramount with such an accessible device, so you'll need your own login details in order to access the drive remotely, but these credentials can be given to trusted friends and family members if you want to share certain photos and videos.

With cloud storage becoming ever cheaper and more capacious, you may be wondering why you'd choose NAS drive over online file storage. Well, NAS can be more cost-effective over the long term, especially if you need more than 2TB of storage. Then there's the issue of uploading large files to cloud storage, which can be tediously slow on some ADSL internet connections. And of course, with a NAS drive, there are no monthly cloud storage fees to worry about.

Like the sound of a NAS drive? There's just one - rather important - thing you should know. NAS drives are often sold without any actual hard disks inside. The idea is you fit your own so you can choose the right amount of storage space to suit your needs and budget. We recommend forking a bit more for heavy duty hard drives specifically targeted at NAS storage, such as Seagate's IronWolf range and WD's Red drives, as these are built to handle continuous use.

NAS storage made simple - the perfect choice for photographers

Capacity: 4TB, 8TB, 12TB, 16TB | Interface: Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 | Features: Remote file access, RAID features, My Cloud OS 3 software

Dual core CPU

Dual bay for RAID setups

Operating system is simplistic

Lack of app support

Some NAS drives can be intimidating if you're new to the NAS game, filled with advanced features you'll likely never need. The beauty of the WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra is how easy it is to set up and use, with no unnecessary or confusing initial settings to navigate.

The My Cloud EX2 Ultra is already equipped with hard drives, so there are no unpleasant extra costs to be incurred. The deals we've got are for the base 4TB capacity, which is plenty for most users, but you can spec up to 16TB of space if you're a heavy user.

If you do want to get more techy, the drive also boasts RAID capabilities. This allows you to configure the two hard disks within to operate in parallel, so two copies of your files are automatically stored, one copy on each disk. That means in the unlikely event of one hard disk failing, the other still has a copy of all your files.

Accessing and storing files from a remote location is also no problem as the built-in software allows you to use the drive as an FTP server, and the drive can be set to make automatic backups.

NAS (network attached storage) made as simple as possible

Capacity: 2TB, 3TB 4TB, 6TB, 8TB | Interface: USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet | Features: Remote file access, DLNA, iTunes Server

Easy to set up

Very good price

No RAID options

'Only' 8TB max capacity

WD has realized that NAS storage certainly doesn't have to be a gadget for geeks and computer tech guys, as the My Cloud Home is as effortlessly easy to get up and running as you could wish for. Just link it to your home Wi-Fi and you've got a centralized storage drive accessible from computers, laptops and smart devices around your home, or from anywhere with an internet connection.

The drive can be configured so multiple trusted users can have there own private storage space, and you can stream videos from the drive using Google Chromecast, Sonos and Plex.

Capacities vary from 2TB to 8TB, and all options are very competitively priced. The single hard drive configuration also results in a slim, space-saving design that'll easily sit on your desk, taking up little more room than a conventional external hard drive. The only downside with this single-drive solution is there are no RAID features for duplicating files across two hard disks for extra safety in the event of drive failure.

A NAS drive with extra media server features

Capacity: Enclosure only (2 drive bays) | Interface: 2x USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet | Features: Remote file access, DLNA, media server, hardware encryption, hardware media transcoding

Extensive media streaming capabilities

Generous processing hardware spec

Wide device compatiblity

Expensive once you add hard disks

Synology has a reputation for producing top quality, pro-level NAS devices more suited to business use than in the home, but the DiskStation DS218play is a much more accessible option for amateur photographers. While offering typical NAS options, it's also a versatile home media hub that's able to stream images and video to computers and mobile devices, as well as Samsung TVs, Apple TV, Chromecast and DLNA devices. The versatile built-in multimedia players - Video Station, Photo Station, and Audio Station, each of which having a companion mobile app - make it effortlessly easy to access and view your media files.

Though pricier than some entry-level NAS devices on this list, the DS218play adds value with a generous 1GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, RAID capability and hardware data encryption.

Just bear in mind that you'll need to factor in the extra cost of two hard disks to make the DS218play operational.

Simple and well-priced dual-drive NAS - it's a bit of a bargain

Capacity: 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB | Interface: USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet | Features: Remote file access, DLNA, iTunes Server, built-in BitTorrent client

Dual drives for extra peace of mind

Competitive pricing

BitTorrent downloading feature

USB connection is USB 2.0, not 3.x

Buffalo's dual-drive LinkStation 220 will cost you little more than a more basic single-drive NAS, but with two drives inside comes options for RAID drive mirroring, giving you extra data security in the unlikely event of hard disk failure.

And the features don't stop there. There's easy automatic backup for PCs and Apple Time Machine compatibility, and the drive is DLNA Certifiedso it can be used as an iTunes media server. But the standout feature is its built-in BitTorrent client that'll allow you to download and upload without needing to use your computer.

2TB, 4TB, 6TB and 8TB capacities are available, with the 8TB model making the most sense for long-term storage, and it's the best value.

A serious NAS device for professionals

Capacity: N/A | Interface: 2 x Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 | Features: Remote file access, HDMI out, 4K media transcoding, DLNA

Powerful hardware

Loads of features

Does not come with hard drives installed

Cost of hard drives adds to cost

If youre after a feature-rich NAS storage solution that will do a brilliant job of safely storing your photos and videos, while also allowing you to access and share them online, then the QNAP TS-251+ NAS drive is a great investment. It comes with two drive bays to allow you to use dual hard drives in a RAID array of your choice, and theres loads of apps available to make use of its features.

You can access your photos from the QNAP TS-251+ NAS drive on your smartphone using the QPhotos app, and you can easily set it up so that your PC or Mac sees the QNAP TS-251+ NAS drive as if it was a hard drive installed in the PC itself which makes saving and editing your photos direct from this NAS device incredibly easy.

This drive doesnt come with hard drives installed, however. Its easy enough to add your own and means you can pick drives that suit your needs and budget but youll need to factor in the additional cost.

For professional photographers with huge amounts of photos

Capacity: Up to 80TB (16TB drive x5), 160TB with expansion unit | Interface: 2 x 1GbE LAN, 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x eSATA | Features: Quad-Core CPU, Up to 10 drives with expansion units

High-end performance

Feature-packed

Huge potential capacity

Can be daunting for novice users

Expensive

Drives are extra cost (though sometimes included in a bundle)

If youre a professional photographer that runs a studio or business and you hold a lot and we mean a lot of photographs or videos for clients, then the Synology DiskStation DS1019+ NAS drive is an ideal investment. Its a powerful and fast NAS device that will allow you to store and edit photographs remotely.

It has loads of expandability options and can hold up to 160TB of data with an expansion unit, so you can grow the Synology DiskStation DS1019+ alongside your business.

While its impressive specs are good for pro users, if youre a casual photographer, this is likely overkill.

Some of the NAS drives above will not come supplied with the actual 3.5in hard drives that you need. We'd recommend using heavy-duty models, designed specifically for NAS use. These are the top two options we'd consider, offering a good combination of robustness and value

Available capacities: 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, 14TB

Transfer rate upto 150Mb/s

3-year warranty

Available capacities: 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, 14TB, 16GB

Transfer rate up to 210Mb/s

3-year warranty

Read more:The best photo-editing laptopsThe best budget laptopsThe best portable SSDsThe best desktop computers for photo editingThe best monitors for photographersThe 50 best camera accessoriesThe best photo-editing softwareThe best graphics tablets for photo editing

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The best NAS drive in 2020: store ALL your images, and access them from anywhere - Digital Camera World

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Down $2.13 On 4 Hour Chart; Moves Up For the 2nd Day In A Row – CFDTrading

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Bitcoin Cash 4 Hour Price Update

Updated June 09, 2020 03:20 AM GMT (11:20 PM EST)

The back and forth price flow continues for Bitcoin Cash, which started the current 4 hour candle off at 253.29 US dollars, down 0.83% ($2.13) from the previous 4 hours. Out of the 5 instruments in the Top Cryptos asset class, Bitcoin Cash ended up ranking 2nd for the four-hour candle in terms of price change relative to the previous 4 hours.

Bitcoin Cash came into today up 0.65% ($1.65) from the open of the previous day, marking the 2nd day in a row it has gone up. This move happened on lower volume, as yesterdays volume was down 38.89% from the day before and down 13.03% from the same day the week before. Relative to other instruments in the Top Cryptos asset class, Bitcoin Cash ranked 2nd since the previous day in terms of percentage price change. The daily price chart of Bitcoin Cash below illustrates.

The first thing we should note is that the current price of Bitcoin Cash is sitting close to its 200 day moving averages; moving average crosses often indicate a change in momentum, so this may be worth keeping an eye on. The clearest trend exists on the 14 day timeframe, which shows price moving up over that time. For additional context, note that price has gone up 8 out of the past 14 days.

Behold! Here are the top tweets related to Bitcoin Cash:

@CoinCornerDanny BTC is soft-forked into a crippled coin that you can just buy hoping to sell it for more fiat later. Bitcoin Cash BCH is becoming the peer to peer electronic cash system for the world. I still have some of the BCH I mined in 2011. This is why I Like BCH and dislike BTC.

You being good at cooking does not make you a chef.Being good at cooking means that youre a good cook.Being a chef is about managing a kitchen in a restaurant.Calling yourself a chef when youre a home cook is like Bitcoin Cash calling itself Bitcoin. Fight me.

$3,351,403#bitcoin SHORT @ $9,507.66 [07/06/20 13:10:35] :BitMEX | : $XBTUSDIts NOT BCASH, its Bitcoin Cash! Raging Roger Ver

In terms of news links for Bitcoin Cash heres one to try:

Bitcoin Cash nears breakout at $260-mark AMBCrypto

Published on By After breaching the psychological level, Bitcoin Cash was being traded at $253, at press time.Bitcoin Cash [BCH] Hourly Chart: Source: BCH/USD on TradingView Bitcoin Cash has followed a steady upward trend.

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Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Down $2.13 On 4 Hour Chart; Moves Up For the 2nd Day In A Row - CFDTrading

Global Solidarity & Effective Cooperation in the Face of COVID-19 – Inter Press Service

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Aid, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Featured, Global, Headlines, Human Rights, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Charlotte Petri Gornitzka is Assistant Secretary-General and UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Partnerships; Robert Piper is Assistant Secretary-General, Director of Development Coordination Office; and Ulrika Moder is Assistant Administrator of UNDP & Director of Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy.

Coronavirus pandemic threatens crises-ravaged communities as UN appeals for global support. Credit: United Nations

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2020 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic upended almost every aspects of life as we know it. Even those countries that are supposed to have the means to manage the spread and mitigate the effects are struggling.

Besides the $5 trillion stimulus package that the G20 economies agreed to deal with the pandemic, individual countries are also devising various measures to shore up their health care systems, stabilize their economies, and assist affected workers and businesses.

Even before the full brunt of the coronavirus outbreak reached some of the poorest countries, the economic impacts are already being felt. With declining global demand for raw materials, breakdown of global supply chain, and mounting debt burden, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to exceed $220 billion.

The urgent shouldnt crowd out the important

With greater uncertainty and fear of global recession looming large, governments are looking for resources needed to lessen the socio-economic pains of the crisis. In this process, official development assistance (ODA) wont be spared and could come under increased scrutiny.

Decisions made now will have potentially devastating or transformative impact for years to come. Despite the economic and political pressure, we must protect ODA, which is needed more than ever.

The spread of COVID-19, especially in places with weak governance and health infrastructures, is expected to be overwhelming if the international community does not act now.

For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, many countries have the lowest number of physicians per capita in the world while some experience ongoing conflicts, making it difficult to fight the virus.

Credit: UNFPA

The collateral impact of COVID-19 on health, education and nutrition systems will be extremely damaging, and in many cases irreversible, for children and society at large. And when the world opens up again, the resilience of the weakest health systems will dictate how well we do against future threats.

The UN Secretary General argued that this human crisis demands coordinated, decisive, inclusive and innovative policy actionand maximum financial and technical support for the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries.

It is critical for the international community to fulfil the humanitarian appeal for COVID-19 response while protecting existing commitments to long-term development and other silent emergencies.

Doing so will help protect the most vulnerable people from being exposed to the effects of COVID-19 and preserve hard-earned development gains in fighting global poverty and expanding basic services.

Left to their own devises, fragile nations may risk the breakdown of socio-political order, civil unrest and state collapse, further exacerbating the dire situation.

Flexible funding key to tackling COVID-19

COVID-19 is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also a development crisis. Development agencies are supporting countries to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the crisis.

The effectiveness of their response to certain degree depends on the flexibility afforded to them in funding and operational procedures.

To tackle this uniquely complex health and development crisis, the adequacy and flexibility of funding to development agencies are pivotal. Flexible core funding is already making a difference in the COVID-19 response to reach people in need faster, empower local actors, deploy essential supplies to the frontline, and protect the most vulnerable children, refugees, women.

This enabled the affected communities to practice due diligence and self-driven discretion to immediately respond to threats of the pandemic, while waiting for the pledged assistance to arrive. For instance, in Nigeria, funding flexibility allowed UNICEF to come up with an innovative solution to fight misinformation around COVID-19 while UNDP was able to support the government double the ventilator capacity in the country.

Collaboration, not competition

The COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating crisis in history. But it also posits an opportunity to remind the global community why multilateralism is vital to securing the worlds peace, security, and prosperity.

We witness how the health crisis of todays globalized world interlinks global economy, geopolitics, and social values. Our effective response to the public health crisis should be seen as key to resolving the ensuing economic, humanitarian, and development challenges.

Understanding this interlinked and complex reality of COVID-19, governments need to work together closely to take coordinated actions and share scientific information, resources and expertise.

It is this strong motion for collaboration that underpins the UN agencies commitment to reinforce the humanitarian-development nexus to jointly respond to the COVID-19 crisis, working closely through the UN Crisis team, humanitarian response plan, UN Response and Recovery Fund for COVID-19.

For example, in Guinea-Bissau, WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, and IOM joined hands to help build isolation facilities and triage space, and procure necessary equipment for COVID-19, both for the national hospital as well as for the re-modelling of the UN clinic.

With strong solidarity and effective cooperation, the international community will not only arrest COVID-19, but also use the emergency to build back better health systems and a more inclusive and sustainable economy.

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Global Solidarity & Effective Cooperation in the Face of COVID-19 - Inter Press Service

Stem Cell Therapy Designed To Treat Severely Ill Coronavirus Patients Being Tested In Maryland – CBS Baltimore

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BALTIMORE (WJZ) A stem cell therapy trial for the most critically ill coronavirus patients is underway in Maryland.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine are trying to save the maximum number of patients who are significantly sickened by the virus and reduce the mortality rate.

Thanks to a sponsorship by Australian regenerative medicine company Mesoblast, the stem cell therapy trial is underway at several sites across the U.S., including in Maryland.

The therapy involves 300 people hospitalized with COVID-19 with moderate to severe acute respiratory distress syndrome.

These are patients that are intubated, requiring great support for their lung function, Dr. Sunjay Kaushal with the University of Maryland said.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES:

COVID-19 patients often become very ill from an escalated immune response referred to as a cytokine storm, which creates high levels of inflammation that can be fatal. The experimental stem cell therapy called remestemcel-L, which has been developed for various inflammatory conditions like what is being seen with the coronavirus, aims to block or mitigate that response, Kaushal said.

Were trying to extrapolate from what they have been shown to be efficacious in trying to treat before and trying to use that type of therapy now for COVID-19 patients, he said.

Once the final results from the trial are available, which could take between six and eight months, researchers hope to reach even more patients.

Were excited, weve seen some early signs that these cells may be efficacious, Kaushal said.

Ultimately, their hope is to provide a new treatment for those suffering from the worst cases of COVID-19.

Were hoping we can save a lot of patients lives, Kaushal said.

For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Departments website or call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.

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Stem Cell Therapy Designed To Treat Severely Ill Coronavirus Patients Being Tested In Maryland - CBS Baltimore

R3 International Offering New Stem Cell Therapy Program for Kidney Disease in Mexico – PR Web

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Stem Cell Therapy for Kidney Disease (888) 988-0515

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R3 Stem Cell International, the leading regenerative clinic in Mexico, announced a new stem cell program for kidney disease. The program involves upwards of 200 million live stem cells and starts at only $8975.

R3's world renowned center has helped hundreds of patients over the past years for such conditions as kidney failure, autoimmune disease, COPD, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, ALS, MS and many more ailments. While stem cell therapy for kidney disease in Mexico works fantastic on a single visit, the new program provides significantly increased cell counts.

According to R3 International Medical Director Ramon De La Puerta MD, "We have seen so many patients avoid dialysis and get back to desired activities with our newest protocol. The key is the large numbers of quality stem cells and exosomes provided during treatment, and it's extremely affordable!"

The two options for the kidney failure stem cell treatment in Mexico include several therapies in a five day visit or four visits over a one year period. The total stem cell counts for either option range from 150 to 200 million.

The treatment programs start at only $8975, with interested patients starting with a free phone consultation. The experienced, licensed, stem cell doctor will review any medical records and provide a recommendation.

According to R3 CEO David Greene, MD, MBA, "Achieving treatment in the US with this many stem cells would be prohibitively expensive. So I created R3 International where treatment is not only affordable, but amazingly safe and effective. The biologics our Center uses undergo quality assurance testing that actually exceeds FDA standards in the US!"

R3 Stem Cell International assists patients with travel logistics, and offers concierge escorted transportation from San Diego to the treatment center. Phone consultations are free, and the stem cell biologics have a perfect safety record. Call (888) 988-0515 to set up the consultation, and visit https://stemcelltreatmentclinic.com/the-process/ to see how the process works to receive treatment.

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Evera, A Harvard Consumer Biotech Company, Brings Stem Cell Banking To You – Forbes

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Throughout the past decade, consumer biology tests have been all the rage. Companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry DNA have made their test kits accessible to every day Americans. One can screen for anomalies in their genetic code or identify their lineage. With recent advances in stem cell research, a new opportunity within the consumer biology market has appeared. Nabeel Quryshi, Michael Chen and Zeel Patel are three Harvard undergraduates who observed the unmet, rising demand of control over ones stem cells. They worked together to create Evera, the first at-home stem cell banking company. The three Harvard students are joined by the schools world-renowned biology professor, Dr. George Church. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company was incubated at the Harvard Innovation Lab, and has former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly as a investor.

Evera cofounders from left to right: Nabeel Quryshi, Michael Chen and Zeel Patel.

Kelly says, "I did a lot of my independent research, consulted with NASA physicians and scientists, and experts in the stem cell for cancer treatment fields. All those discussions and research indicated that this technology has merit."

Frederick Daso: What led you and your team to identify that stem cells could be potentially used to prevent neurodegenerative disease?

Nabeel Quryshi: I wouldn't single out a focus on neurodegenerative diseases. However, over the last decade, there has been a flurry of research around the use of stem cells to treat conditions such as Parkinson's, Dementia, Alzheimer's, etc. People are working on prevention, but there are two main use cases of stem cells currently. One is for treatment (replacement of damaged or lost cells), and the other is disease modeling (being able to model diseases and test the effects of new drugs completely in vitro without having to get a biopsy).

Daso: In the same ways that blood banks function, how did you manage to apply that concept to the storage of stem cells over a long time?

Quryshi: Cord blood banks and academic stem cell banks that use standardized cryopreservation protocols have been around for a while. The main innovation behind Evera was developing technology around the collection and preservation of urine-derived cells.

Daso: Why don't more mothers store their children's cord blood in stem cell banks? Is it mostly due to a price issue, or is there some other factor at play?

Quryshi: From the countless interviews we've done, it seems to be a price issue. Additionally, it's hard to make a sale around the time of birth as families have countless other things to worry about that are more immediate to the birth of a child.

Daso: What would be driving the growth of this market both now and in the future?

Quryshi: The growth of new cutting edge cell therapies is certainly further demonstrating the need for personal cell biobanking. Furthermore, the success of the direct to consumer genetic testing industry (23andMe, Ancestry, etc.) is a significant driver of growth. From the research we've conducted and the customers we have spoken to, individuals who have already taken 23andMe or another genetic test and know what they are at risk for genetically are looking for ways to take tangible action. Evera is that next step. Instead of just understanding what your future genetic risk is, Evera allows you to make a real biological investment in your future health and wellbeing. While knowing you're at risk for saying Parkinson's is excellent, being able to set aside your youngest cells so that one day you may be able to combat the effects of such a disease is terrific.

However, one should note that although the growth and technology coming from the cell therapy and stem cell therapy industry is astonishing, these are still projections. We have yet to see a fully FDA approved therapy that utilizes the specific types of stem cells we use (induced pluripotent stem cells). Nevertheless, by the time such treatments make it to the clinic, your cells will have aged significantly, and thus it makes sense to save them away now.

Daso: Could you walk me through the thought process of figuring out how to extract stem cells from urine? (From what I know, stem cells usually come from other parts of your body!)

Quryshi: Until around 2011/2012, you would have been right. However, utilizing the fantastic technology that comprised Dr. Yamanaka's 2006 Nobel Prize, scientists have been able to convert any cell in the human body to a kind of stem cell called an induced pluripotent stem cell. This cell has the capability of being able to differentiate into any cell type in the human body. We have advanced tech around the conversation of urine-derived cells to these iPSCs.

Daso: How have you designed your D2C service to ensure that a customer's DNA and associated data are not at risk?

Quryshi: We take data and privacy extremely seriously. We are well aware of the concerns people already have to D2C genetics products. To ensure the confidentiality and privacy of your data and sample, we separate your personally identifiable information from sample information and simultaneously use multiple layers of encryption and cryptography. Your sample and associated data cannot be associated with you individually. Furthermore, our facility is monitored 24/7 with top of the line security measures. We believe that your sample is your property.

Daso: What was the turning point during your undergrad to pursue this idea?

Quryshi: Having worked at 23andMe, I was able to get the lucky opportunity to be a part of arguably the world's most successful consumer genetics company. I saw first hand the benefits of providing customers with their genetic risk. Yet, I discovered that merely providing such risk predictions may not be enough led me to found Evera on the notion that tangibly investing in one's future health and wellbeing through cell banking will propel us into the age of personalized medicine.

Daso: How do you leverage your advisory board to navigate regulations and moral hazards in this space?

Quryshi: We have assembled a dream team consisting of experts in stem cell banking and cell therapy. Our co-founders and advisors comprise of professors from Harvard and Stanford, executives from companies such as Verily as well as top grad students and postdocs in stem cell biology from Harvard and Stanford. We work collaboratively to make sure we adhere to all regulations and ensure the secure preservation of our customer's cells.

If you enjoyed this article, feel free to check out my other work onLinkedInand my personal website,frederickdaso.com. Follow me on Twitter@fredsoda, on Medium@fredsoda, and on Instagram@fred_soda.

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Evera, A Harvard Consumer Biotech Company, Brings Stem Cell Banking To You - Forbes

Here’s Why Fate Therapeutics Rose 18.4% in May – Motley Fool

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What happened

Shares of Fate Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FATE) gained over 18% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Most of the stock's gains in May can be traced to a single announcement by the cell-therapy developer.

On May 20, the development-stage company announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared a new drug candidate to begin clinical trials. Identified as FT538, the drug candidate is the first cell therapy that has been both engineered with CRISPR gene-editing tools and derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). The combination could lead to safer, more effective, and significantly lower-cost drug products.

Investors cheered the latest sign of progress for the early stage pipeline -- and the momentum hasn't waned. In fact, a public offering of common stock on June 9 triggered additional gains for the pharma stock. Apparently, investors are content with dilution so long as Fate Therapeutics maintains a well-funded balance sheet.

Image source: Getty Images.

Fate Therapeutics has one of the most ambitious pipelines in cell therapy, spanning 13 unique programs and multiple cell types. Until recently, investors had few tangibles to analyze, but promising (very) early-stage data and a multi-billion-dollar partnership with Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen have de-risked the stock.

It might be a bit silly to get excited about a preclinical asset moving to clinical trials, but FT538 could prove to be an important bellwether for Fate Therapeutics. If researchers prove that gene-editing tools can be used with reproducible results on cells grown from master cell lines, such as iPSCs, then it would be a big step forward for the field of cell therapy. The capabilities would enable the relatively quick engineering of cell therapies, both for efficacy and safety, and allow living drug products to be manufactured at scales and costs simply not possible today.

Including cash on hand at the end of March and the expected proceeds from the stock offering on June 9, Fate Therapeutics should begin the second half of 2020 with at least $350 million in cash. That should be enough to generate results from a handful of ongoing clinical trials, but investors shouldn't forget that the company's ambitious pipeline will require many hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.

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Here's Why Fate Therapeutics Rose 18.4% in May - Motley Fool

Animal Stem Cell Therapy Sales Market 2019 Break Down by Top Companies, Countries, Applications, Challenges, Opportunities and Forecast 2026 – Cole of…

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A new market report by Market Research Intellect on the Animal Stem Cell Therapy Sales Market has been released with reliable information and accurate forecasts for a better understanding of the current and future market scenarios. The report offers an in-depth analysis of the global market, including qualitative and quantitative insights, historical data, and estimated projections about the market size and share in the forecast period. The forecasts mentioned in the report have been acquired by using proven research assumptions and methodologies. Hence, this research study serves as an important depository of the information for every market landscape. The report is segmented on the basis of types, end-users, applications, and regional markets.

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Who’s to blame? These three scientists are at the heart of the Surgisphere COVID-19 scandal – Science Magazine

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By Charles PillerJun. 8, 2020 , 7:00 PM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Three unlikely collaborators are at the heart of the fast-moving COVID-19 research scandal, which led to retractions last week by The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and the withdrawal of an online preprint, after the trove of patient data they all relied on was challenged. The three physician-scientists never were at the same institution nor had they ever before written together, but they are the only authors in common on the disputed papers, and the other co-authors all have ties to at least one of them. Their partnership, which seized a high-impact role during a global public health crisis, has now ended disastrously.

The first author for both retracted papers was cardiac surgeon Mandeep Mehra, an eminent Harvard University professor who works at Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) and is known internationally for cardiovascular medicine and heart transplants. He provided the kind of gravitas that can fast-track papers to leading journals. In a statement provided by BWH, Mehra said he had met another of the trio, cardiac surgeon Amit Patel, in academic and medical circles, and that Patel had introduced him to Sapan Desai, a vascular surgeon and founder of Surgisphere, the tiny company that supplied the data. Journal disclosures, however, also indicate Mehra received compensation from Triple-Gene, a gene therapy company Patel co-founded to develop cardiovascular treatments.

Desai publicly aspired to combine big data and artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that he said can replace randomized controlled clinical trials. For a brief moment, it seemed that Surgispheres enticing data set, said to include nearly 100,000 detailed patient records from about 700 hospitals on six continents, would settle questions about the possible benefits of various drugsincluding the controversial antimalarial hydroxychloroquinefor COVID-19 patients.

Patel once apparently headed cardiac surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. A university press release announcing his arrival in 2016 is no longer posted on the university website, however, and the school has not confirmed his job duties there. More recently, he has been a volunteer adjunct professor at the University of Utah. But, as STAT first reported yesterday, Patel tweeted on Friday that he had severed his relationship with the university, which a school spokesperson confirmed. In recent years Patel has developed and commercialized experimental stem cell therapies purported to cure heart problems, reverse aging, or treat sexual dysfunction. He is also part of a network of physicians that just launched a trial to use stem cells from umbilical cord blood to treat COVID-19 patients.

Normally co-authors of high-profile papers share subject area expertise or have clear professional ties, says Jerome Kassirer, chief editor ofNEJMduring the 1990s. He calls the collaboration of the apparently disparate individuals completely bizarre, and a red flag that the studies warranted intensive scrutiny that the journals failed to provide.

None of the three co-authors responded to requests for comment. Patel spoke with aSciencereporter initially but said he wanted to wait for audits of the Surgisphere data to comment, and Desais spokesperson stopped communicating after the retractions. Still, interviews with former colleagues and a long paper trail shed some light on each of them.

Desai had a history of convincing respected researchers of his skill and integrity. One of them, Gilbert Upchurch, department of surgery chair at the University of Florida, wrote last year in a journal commentary that he had never met Desai but had nonetheless mentored him remotely and developed an online friendship with him. Upchurch placed the scientist in a group of amazing and talented young vascular surgeons.

Illinois court records show Desai is facing two medical malpractice lawsuits filed last year. He told The Scientist that he deems any lawsuit naming him to be unfounded.

Desai has a history of big aspirations and entrepreneurial venturessome short-lived. His science-fiction blog, corewardfront.com, was meant to find the most parsimonious route for mankind to establish a meaningful presence in space. In 2009, he wrote that the site would publish fiction grounded in facts and reality, adding, the scientific method must be followed religiously. The blog is no longer published.

As a student, Desai won several small National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants for studies of the vestibular system. He started Surgisphere in 2007, when he was a medical resident at Duke University. Surgispheres initial products were medical guides and textbooks, although Desai has said he was working on big data projects for the company from its birth. In 2010, under the firms auspices, he founded the Journal of Surgical Radiologywhose editors included researchers with well-established publishing records. It folded in January 2013. Articles from the journal were cited only 29 times in its history, according to Scimago, a journal rating service. Yet an undated Surgisphere web page, no longer accessible online, said the online-only publication had 50,000 subscribers and nearly 1 million page views monthlywhich would have placed it in elite company in academic publishing.

Surgisphere appears over time to have shifted its efforts into developing a database of hospital records that could be used for research. When the pandemic erupted, Desai declared that his data set could answer key questions about the efficacy and safety of treatments. Speaking about the finding that hydroxychloroquine increases mortality in COVID-19 patients, the main finding from the now retracted Lancet paper, he told a Turkish TV reporter, with data like this, do we even need a randomized controlled trial? Soon after, the World Health Organization temporarily suspended enrolling patients for its COVID-19 trial of the drug.

Immediately after the Lancet and NEJM studies appeared, however, critics identified anomalies in the data. And they doubted that a tiny firmwith a scant public track record in AI, few employees, and no publicly named scientific boardcould convince hundreds of unidentified hospitals in dozens of nations to share complex, protected, and legally fraught patient data. Ultimately, despite Desai promising repeatedly to allow an independent audit of Surgisphere, the firm refused to release the raw patient data and agreements with hospitals for an audit, so no one could validate the authenticity of its database.

No hospitals have come forward to acknowledge working with Surgisphere. Indeed, NHS Scotland, which is mentioned as a case study on the companys website, says none of its hospitals worked with Surgisphere and that it would ask the firm to remove an image of a Glasgow hospital from its website.

Science contacted several of Desais current or former employees or colleagues. Most would not comment. But Fred Rahimi, an Illinois podiatrist and co-author of a paper with Desai, praises the surgeon as highly capable for salvaging limbs, and easy to work with. Through his publicist, Desai cited Mark Melin, a University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, vascular surgeon, as a supporter. Before the retractions, Melin called Desai a gentleman of the highest integrity who has nothing to cover up.

But one physician-scientist who worked closely with Desai several years ago, says, Just about everyone who knew him would say: I just didnt have a good feeling about him. After theyd been with him, most people dissociated themselves from him, the scientist says, declining to be named to avoid personal and institutional embarrassment.

In the decade since completing his medical residency, Desai moved from job to jobat Duke, the University of Texas, Southern Illinois University, and two private Illinois hospitals, according to his LinkedIn profile. You might say we should have stopped him, which now seems obvious, Desais former colleague says. We should have found a way to get together and say, Whats going on here? rather than allowing him to move from place to place. We should have done better as a medical community. We looked the other way.

Before and after his stint at the University of Miami, which appears to have started in late 2016 or early 2017, Patels academic home was the University of Utah. He started as a full-time faculty member at Utah in 2008 and kept that position until he left for Miami. The website for Foldax, a heart valve company that he serves as medical adviser, describes him as a Tenured Professor of Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Director of Clinical Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering at the University of Utah.

The university confirmed Patel had tenure there, but says the directorship was an unofficial title. And among more than 100 publications listed on his University of Utah profile, nearly two-thirds were actually co-authored by other scientists who share the same surname. The page was removed from the university website after inquiries from Science. A university spokesperson said the timing, late Friday last week, was when Patel and the school agreed to separate.

According to the NIH database, Patel has never received funding from the agency. Before the recent COVID-19 papers, one of his most notable publications was a 2016 paper in The Lancet, which reported that extracting stem cells from the bone marrow of a person with end-stage heart failure and then reinjecting them could reduce the number of cardiac events that produced deaths or hospital admissions by 37%. The 126 patient, 31-site, phase II trial was billed in a press release, now not available on the University of Utah website but stored elsewhere, as the largest cell therapy trial for heart failure to date. Despite the apparent positive results, the sponsoring company Vericel no longer is developing stem cells for heart disease and, according to its webpage, is focused on advanced cell therapies for the sports medicine and severe burn care markets.

Patel left Miami under unclear circumstances, but has retained ties with Camillo Ricordi, an influential stem cell researcher at the University of Miami School of Medicine who is also the founder of a nonprofit called the Cure Alliance. The alliance previously focused on testing whether stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood could treat diabetes or Alzheimers, but has now pivoted to fighting COVID-19, according to its website. Ricordi is the principal investigator on a multisite trial to see whether the stem cells can treat lung inflammation in severe COVID-19 patients and Patel is listed in various references to the trial as a key contributor or coprincipal investigator. Ricordi says Patel is an upaid collaborater on the trial and praises Patel's work in regenerative medicine.

Patel recently tweeted that he is related to Dr. Desai by marriage but called that old news and added, Despite this I still do not have the information of what happened at Surgisphere. In addition to apparently connecting Mehra and Desai, Patel had prior connections with other authors of the NEJM paper and the preprint. David Grainger, co-author of the preprint, is a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Utah and also works with Foldax. Grainger declined to comment.

Timothy Henry, a cardiovascular clinician and scientist at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati and a co-author on the NEJM article, has written several scholarly articles with Patel, including the 2016 Lancet paper. Henry, who also declined to comment, advises Patels Triple-Gene, which develops cardiovascular gene therapy treatments. Henry and Patel adviseand Patel is a board member ofCreative Medical Technology Holdings, a Phoenix company that develops and markets stem cell therapies, including treatments purported to reverse aging and cure sexual disfunction.

Creative Medicals CaverStem and FemCelz kits are distributed to physicians who use them to extract stem cells from a patients bone marrow, then inject the cells into the penis or clitoral area to stimulate blood flow, according to a statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (As of the market close Friday, the publicly traded firms shares were valued at one-third of 1 cent.) The CaverStem treatments are advertised by the company as successful in more than 80% of patients, based on a 40-person phase I clinical trial that was not randomized or controlled, and on observations of 100 other patients. Phase I trials typically measure safety, not health benefits of a potential treatment.

Science contacted multiple colleagues or co-authors of Patel. None would comment. Before the retractions, two high-profile researchersDeepak Bhatt, who directs interventional cardiovascular programs at BWH; and Peter Gruber, a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at Yale Universityendorsed Patel on his LinkedIn page. Bhatt says he doesnt know Patel and attempted to remove his endorsement after being contacted by Science. Gruber says he overlapped with Patel at the University of Utah about a decade ago, but doesnt know his work in detail.

In contrast, Mehraauthor of more than 200 scholarly articles, editor ofThe Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, and head of the cardiology division of theUniversity of Maryland before moving to BWH in 2012enjoys considerable support even after the unraveling of the recent studies. Obviously, you dont rise to the position hes risen to without being ambitious, but Ive never had any indication whatsoever that he would do anything unethical, says Keith Aaronson, a cardiologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who collaborated with Mehra on several studies, including a clinical trial of a mechanical pump for heart failure patients.

Mehra, the first author on both retracted papers, was the only one to issue a personal statement of apology, for failing to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. BWH and Harvard declined to say whether further investigation of Mehras roles in the papers would occur. (Mehra has written papers recently with another co-author of the Lancet paper, Frank Ruschitzka of University Hospital Zrich.)

I think he just fell into thisperhaps a little navely, says another former collaborator, cardiothoracic surgeon Daniel Goldstein of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Given the amount of data that was in the [Surgisphere] database, its just hard to believe someone would [fabricate] something like this.

Kassirer offers a harsher view: If youre a scientist and youre going to sign on to a project, by God you should know what the data are.

With reporting by Kelly Servick and John Travis.

This story was supported by theScienceFund for Investigative Reporting.

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Who's to blame? These three scientists are at the heart of the Surgisphere COVID-19 scandal - Science Magazine

Stem Cell Therapy Market Size, Share 2020 Globally Industry Demand, Trends, Regional Overview, Top Manufacture, Business Growth and Forecast to 2025 -…

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Global Stem Cell Therapy Market 2020-2025 is one of the most comprehensive and important additions to Adroit Market Research archive of market research studies. It offers detailed research and analysis of key aspects of the global market. The market analysts authoring this report have provided in-depth information on leading growth drivers, restraints, challenges, trends, and opportunities to offer a complete analysis of the global Stem Cell Therapy market. The report also analyzes factors such as drivers, restraints, opportunities, and trends affecting the market growth. It evaluates the opportunities and challenges in the market for stakeholders and provides particulars of the competitive landscape for market leaders.

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Stem Cell Therapy market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Stem Cell Therapy Market global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2020-2025.

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The report includes a detailed segmentation study of the global Stem Cell Therapy market, where all of the segments are analyzed in terms of market growth, share, growth rate, and other vital factors. It also provides the attractiveness index of segments so that players can be informed about lucrative revenue pockets of the global Stem Cell Therapy market. The extensive evaluation of segments provided in the report will help you to direct your investments, strategies, and teams to focus on the right areas of the global Stem Cell Therapy market.

Global Stem Cell Therapy market is segmented based by type, application and region.

Based on Type, the market has been segmented into:

Based on cell source, the market has been segmented into,

Adipose Tissue-Derived Mesenchymal SCsBone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal SCsEmbryonic SCsOther Sources

Based on application, the market has been segmented into:

Based on therapeutic application, the market has been segmented into,

Musculoskeletal DisordersWounds & InjuriesCardiovascular DiseasesGastrointestinal DiseasesImmune System DiseasesOther Applications

Geographically, global Stem Cell Therapy market is segmented into five major regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa region. Among these regions, North America has been the dominating region the global Stem Cell Therapy market with highest percentage share. Further, North America region is expected to witness a robust growth during the forecast period. Moreover, Asia Pacific region is anticipated to be fastest growing market for Stem Cell Therapy during the forecast period.

Finally, researchers throw light on the pinpoint analysis of Global Stem Cell Therapy market dynamics. It also measures the sustainable trends and platforms which are the basic roots behind the market growth. The degree of competition is also measured in the research report. With the help of SWOT and Porters five analysis, the market has been deeply analyzed. It also helps to address the risk and challenges in front of the businesses. Furthermore, it offers extensive research on sales approaches.

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Stem Cell Therapy Market Size, Share 2020 Globally Industry Demand, Trends, Regional Overview, Top Manufacture, Business Growth and Forecast to 2025 -...

Using big data approaches to develop cell therapies – Drug Target Review

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An area where stem cell biology and medicine are combining effectively is the establishment of new cell therapies. However, current therapies are limited to a narrow set of cell types that can be isolated or created and expanded in vitro. Dr Owen Rackham discusses how utilising computational approaches will further enhance applications of stem-cell-derived therapies in the future.

For decades (or perhaps centuries) the approach in cell biology has remained relatively unchanged. We isolate cells and with our confined knowledge of their endogenous conditions, begin to experiment until we can sustain them in vitro. Once established, we can conduct further investigation to assess a cells response to different conditions, changes over time or response to manipulation. This is especially true of stem cell biology, established from tireless efforts to incrementally improve culture conditions or differentiation protocols based on fragmented knowledge of developmental processes. Despite this, the promise of stem-cell therapies is already being realised in the clinic, but the breadth of cell types being used is still relatively narrow. Recent technological advances in the field have been focused on the safe and scalable manufacture of therapies. While these are revolutionary breakthroughs, the applications are largely limited to T cells, haematopoietic- and pluripotent-stem cells (HSCs and PSCs), a small fraction in the grand heterogeneity of cell types. Consequently, the lack of cell source diversity prevents cell therapy from fulfilling its clinical potential, pointing to the need for new means to isolate or generate source cells.

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Using big data approaches to develop cell therapies - Drug Target Review