St. Olaf celebrates 50 years of ordaining Lutheran women – Manitou Messenger

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During the first week of March, St. Olaf celebrated the 50-year anniversary of women being ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the 40-year anniversary of women of color being ordained and the 10-year anniversary of LGBTQIA+ individuals serving openly.

The College honored these anniversaries through themed daily chapels and a panel discussion. The anniversary is an opportunity to lament that women have been barred from serving, acknowledge how far women in the ELCA have come and identify what work still needs to be done, according to the Colleges Associate Pastor, Katherine Fick.

The week began with a chapel talk from Kristine Carlson 74, a retired ELCA pastor with nearly 40 years of ministry under her belt. She was one of the first women ordained in the Lutheran tradition, which also meant she was nearly always the first woman to hold any position she had throughout her career. Carlson shared the joys of her time as a pastor, but also the sexism and barriers that came along with it.

Regina Hassanally, the bishop of the Southeastern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA, led chapel on Tuesday. She was the first woman elected as bishop in the synod in which St. Olaf resides and is the youngest person ever elected bishop in the ELCA. She spoke to her vocational story, in which she found empowerment through a non-linear and non-traditional path.

On Wednesday, Fick gave a Lenten Liturgy of the Ordinary talk addressing how it is empowering that from her own personal experience, being a woman pastor is ordinary. Fick also stressed that if we want inclusive leadership not to be the exception, but the norm, we must normalize women of all backgrounds as leaders in the church.

I feel like there are still barriers to women of color, to trans women, to people who dont identify on a gender binary, for people who are gay or lesbian or queer, Fick said. I feel like those identities have not yet been normalized in the church.

Beverly Wallace, an African-American pastor and associate professor of congregational and community care at Luther Seminary, led a chapel talk on Thursday addressing the intersections of being a woman of color and a pastor. She called for the church to continue breaking down enduring structures of racism and sexism. For example, women of color still have longer waiting periods before their first call to serve a congregation than white women.

Thursdays chapel talk was followed by a panel discussion entitled Shes My Pastor: Fifty Years of Ordaining Lutheran Women.

When I think about the future, when we think of pastors, we see this beautiful range of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity represented, and that we can look at all of them, inclusive of identities and say, These are our leaders, Fick said. Thats what I look forward to.

brinke1@stolaf.edu

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St. Olaf celebrates 50 years of ordaining Lutheran women - Manitou Messenger

The ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is Fit for a Pandemic 81 Years Later – Black Girl Nerds

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The movie starts in the black-and-white humdrum existence of Kansas and soon switches to glorious technicolor when our intrepid heroine Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) gets carried away in a tornado, ending up in the magical Land of Oz. Even now with the advent of high definition screens more than eight decades later, The Wizard of Oz and its incredible effects are just as vibrant as they were back then. In fact, maybe even more so, as digital retouching has allowed for the films radiant color palette to shine even brighter.

The Wizard of Oz follows young Dorothy in Kansas where her biggest problems are boredom and the nasty woman Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), who is at war with Dorothys dog Toto. After Toto attacks Miss Gulch one more time, Gulch goes to the police and gets permission to seize the dog, who she plans on euthanizing herself, with gusto. Toto escapes, and, thinking she has no other way to save his life, Dorothy packs a suitcase and runs away from home. But while shes on her journey, a huge tornado makes its way toward her aunt and uncles house. In her efforts to find them, Dorothy, Toto, and the house get swept off into the skies to land with a solid thump in an entirely new world.

In Oz, Dorothy learns she accidentally killed the Wicked Witch of the East by dropping her house on her. Big oops. Vowing revenge, the Wicked Witch of the West (also played by Margaret Hamilton) tries to kill Dorothy, but cannot because the Good Witch Glinda (Billie Burke) has bestowed upon Dorothy the enchanted ruby slippers once worn by the Witch of the East. Dorothy must make the arduous journey through hallucinatory Oz in order to ask its highest ruler, the Wizard (Frank Morgan), to get her home. Because as marvelous as Oz might be, Dorothy cannot stop missing the Kansas she once wanted to escape so badly.

On her way down the Yellow Brick Road, she collects a strange coterie of friends: the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), who also have requests from the Wizard. After more wild hijinks that include Dorothy killing the Witch of the East, she discovers that the power to get back to Kansas was with her all along. Theres no place like home, Dorothy Gale says once she finally returns home after a whirlwind adventure to the Land of Oz. Im not going to leave here ever again! Dorothy promises her family and friends.

While The Wizard of Oz closes with a message of personal empowerment and realizing how much power we have in ourselves if we would access it, it also includes a disturbing nativist lesson of not straying too far from your own back yard a concept that resonates with the MAGA America First crowd which also continues to hold strong eight decades later. In these years, and in particular, since 2016, we have seen the US government exit historic international treaties such as the Paris Agreement, NAFTA, UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, NATO, and even the G7 in the guise of making America stronger, but this withdrawal has only painfully damaged Americas participation in global politics as well as necessary international oversight, especially with regards to issues of human rights violations and climate change. This nativism has led to increased attacks on immigrants of color where the racist phrase Go home to your country is used against even generations of American-born immigrants. For many of those, the only home they have known is the United States. And with these assaults, the idea of there is no place like home takes on an even more disturbing spin.

But with the current COVID19 global pandemic 81 years later, The Wizard of Ozs notion of theres no place like home has certainly taken on a new meaning as quarantine and stay-at-home orders dominate our lives in the battle to stop the exponential contagion of this viral pathogen. For some, the idea of no other place like home in the midst of a global crisis is a positive one that signifies protection, health, and safety. For many others, though, home has become a new prison as domestic violence reports have spiked dramatically since the first stay-at-home orders were announced.

Theres also a tragic irony in the message of no place like home today: We have thousands of homeless folks who have no place to shelter. Thanks to the toxic capitalism that drives America, they remain homeless and at risk. The city of Las Vegas drew social distancing markers in an empty parking lot as temporary shelters where homeless folks can sleep instead of opening even one of their now-empty hotels for this vulnerable segment of American society. And, just as horrifying, in America 2020 we have concentration camps at the southern border where asylum seekers and refugees are being held with no home to go back or forward to, who are also particularly at risk for coronavirus infection thanks to the degrading conditions theyve been left in. Theres no place like home indeed.

Home isnt just a place, as Dorothy finds out in The Wizard of Oz. It is also the social networks that keep that place thriving and supporting everyone who lives in it. Home is also where we feel we belong, whether that be a country, community, or something else entirely that gives us a sense of connection and can even contribute to our identity. At the same time, the physical shelter of a home, literally speaking, is also vital to our survival and good health. For segments of vulnerable Americans across the spectrum of economics, race, gender, and immigration status, unfortunately, the idea of having no place like home has become a messy notion steeped in many levels of uncertainty. Eighty-one years after The Wizard of Oz first enchanted audiences with its escapist fantasy, theres no place like home has become a multilayered statement for our current times.

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The 'The Wizard of Oz' is Fit for a Pandemic 81 Years Later - Black Girl Nerds

OUR LOCAL NONPROFITS NEED YOUR HELP | Business – Yes! Weekly

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GREENSBORO, April 9th, 2020 -- The Annual Human Race event has always been about fundraising, but it has now become a platform for local non-profit organizations to raise the funds needed to aid their missions and the vulnerable populations they serve during this pandemic. The Volunteer Center has a collective goal to raise $157,500 before June 20th, 2020. Over 75 local nonprofits have signed up with teams of fundraisers that can easily be supported online. Several for-profit companies have also created fundraising teams to raise money for nonprofits that align with their values. These organizations are still fundraising and now is more important than ever.

On a regular day, these organizations are serving food to those that are hungry, freeing dogs from heavy chains, empowering the next generation, building homes for those without, showing support for those who need it, gathering resources for veterans, supporting those with disabilities, educating children at every level, offering health and wellness to all, and more. With the effects of the pandemic, fundraising for many of them has completely stopped or reduced significantly. Many have small teams that are trying to reach the masses with small volunteer crews. The number of people knocking on the doors of these organizations has doubled in some cases as more are out of work and in need of resources.

We need your help. Just $25 could feed a family, replenish supplies, pay for gas needed to deliver medications to those in need, and more. You can choose an organization or team to donate to HERE or you can donate to the overall cause HERE.

Participating Non-Profit Organizations include American Cancer Society, After Gateway, Animal Rescue and Foster Program, Break of Life Church, BackPack Beginnings, Beautiful Butterflies, Bingo Pet Hospice, Black Child Development Institute, Break the Chain Kennel Kru, Ronald McDonald House, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Greater Greensboro, Chosen Generation Connection, Church World Service Greensboro, Combat Female Veterans Families United, Communication Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Community Housing Solutions, Corporation of Guardianship, CreateME, Empowered Girls of North Carolina, Epilepsy Alliance NC, FaithAction International House, Feral Cat Assistance Program, Future Hope Single Parents Ministry, GCS American Indian Education, GMCPD, Grandmas Handz, Greensboro Bar Association, Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, Guilford Green Foundation, Hand In Hand Water Safety Awareness, Haynes-Inman Education Center PTA, Helping Hands of High Point, Herald Charters, Herbin-Metz Education Center PTA, Authoracare (formerly Hospice and Palliative Care of Greensboro), Interactive Resource Center, Kellin Foundation Smiles 4 Miles, Keris Crusade for ALS,

maCares, Manasseh Baptist Church, Mental Health Greensboro, National MS Society, MBCC Foundation, NC African Service Coalition, Nehemiah Community Empowerment Center, One Step Further, Operation Xcel, People to People Liason, Resources for Artful Living, Ruff Love Rescue, Senior Resources of Guilford, SHIELD Mentor Program, Singing Dog Farm, The Sparrows Nest and Black Suit Initiative, TC Mens Ministry, The Arc of Greensboro, The Circle Foundation NC, The Servant Center, The Volunteer Center, This is My Sexy, Tiny House Community Development, Triad Golden Retriever Rescue, Triad Health Project, Triangle Beagle Trotters, United Way of Greater Greensboro, Victory Junction, and the Womens Resource Center.

You can donate to any of these teams HERE. Non-profits not listed above can still create fundraising teams. Contact jordan@volunteergso.org for more information.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC OR NCDHHS. The state also has a special hotline set up where you can call 866-462-3821 for more information on the coronavirus. You can also submit questions online at ncpoisoncontrol.org or select chat to talk with someone about the virus.

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Thank you to our sponsors:

Bank of America has sponsored since 2001 and has been the presenting 5k sponsor since 2004 and is returning for this 26th annual Human Race. They also participate as fundraisers for 12 different nonprofit organizations and have been the top company fundraisers ever year.

Additional repeat sponsors are Dicks Broadcasting, WFMY News 2, Arch Mortgage Insurance, Jimmys Plumbing, American National Bank, Griswold Home Care, Zos Kitchen, Kneaded Energy, Little Guys Movers, and Palmetto Equity Group.

New this year, we have support and sponsorship from Novant Health, Renewal By Andersen, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Sequoia Services, Right Fit Storage, Smoothie King, Joy Squad, Shift, YES! Weekly, Hand in Hand Water Safety, Good Health Chiropractic, and Biscuitville.

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Registration for timed runners is $35. Day of registrations are $40. Walkers and those utilizing the short-route turnaround will not be timed, and can register at no cost but are encouraged to make a donation at registration. All registrants receive a link for personal fundraising pages as well as a link for the fundraising page for the team they join. These links offer a way for people everywhere to donate and support the cause whether they are near or far, participating or not.

Awards include best times for the top three individuals in each age group and gender, top ten fundraising individuals and teams, most spirited team awards, and more.

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About The Volunteer Center

The mission of The Volunteer Center is to strengthen our community by creating meaningful volunteer connections. We connect people, promote volunteerism, support nonprofits, and build partnerships. For more information about TVC, please visit http://www.volunteergso.org

Follow us on Facebook here and here, as well as on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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OUR LOCAL NONPROFITS NEED YOUR HELP | Business - Yes! Weekly

National policy on skill acquisition for youths Part 3 – Guardian

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Continued from yesterday

With their proficiency, some Tech-U students engage in technical jobs outside the university at their leisure. The Students Start-Up Fund to has been helpful for innovative students who have ideas that have already been transformed into startups.

The fact is that two things happen when the entrepreneurial capacity of youths is developed; the economy is strengthened because it has a direct contribution to the socio-economic development process through the development of indigenous expertise and it also helps to address youth unemployment. Policy and support programmes for TVET, therefore, need to be well-coordinated in Nigeria to achieve desirable results. While awareness for TVET programmes continues to increase, the same cannot be said about the coordination among the different sectors and ministries that offer TVET courses; this is evidenced by their different standards and the many inadequacies being faced. In many centres, the capacity of the trainers themselves still needs to be adequately developed. There is also the issue of financing as well as that of inadequate infrastructure.

Not only should entrepreneurship education be tailored towards the needs of the industry, but it should also be designed and administered according to the need of the target clientele. It should be put in mind that only entrepreneurial faculties will effectively deliver entrepreneurship instructions. The capacity of lecturers will, therefore, have to be developed from time to time. While the country eagerly awaits the formulation of a proper policy on skills acquisition, private enterprises can support collaborative research to identify skill gaps in the industry and also partner the ivory tower to develop training contents for youth development in response to the identified skill gaps. They could also be of help through the provision of opportunities for industrial work experience for students in training as well as the offering of an apprenticeship programme for unemployed youths.

Though youths are being trained in TVET, the outcome is not yet commensurate with the efforts being put in. And the higher a country ranks in terms of TVET training, the better for the country in the world economy. It is therefore not wrong to say that TVET development has a lot to do with economic and national development in the long run. It is obvious that no country develops without developing its science and technology. As such, enduring technological development may not take place without skilled technicians. Skilled technicians play major roles in the development of a technology-driven economy anywhere in the world. And TVET is the key that can ensure the required potential and productive workforce with the right scientific and technological competence. Matthew Lauer in his article titled: The future of work requires a return to apprenticeship, published in The Nation of March 9, 2020, put it succinctly when he noted that the skills required for the skilled jobs are not taught in the traditional university. He argued that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will eliminate many white and blue-collar jobs. This is perhaps the reason many countries are now prioritising TVET, and he cited the example of Switzerland where 2/3 of young people are pursuing dual-track classroom and vocational training.

It is undeniable that Nigeria has adopted TVET as an integral part of her national development strategy. TVET that was rejected by many only a few decades back is fast becoming the cornerstone for the development and transformation of education and training. To ensure, however, that the objectives of TVET, which include the impartation of knowledge and skills for increased efficiency in the world of work, personal empowerment and socio-economic development, are achieved, proper execution and management will be of absolute necessity.

Since TVET involves applying skills to support life, it will make a country technologically relevant and internationally competitive. It will also improve the quality of life through technological improvement. And of course, with those, there will be a reduction of poverty and it will culminate in the reduction of social vices. The absence of a national skills policy calls for urgent attention.

It will do the nation a lot of good for the government to invite stakeholders in the industry and the education sector to formulate a comprehensive national skill acquisition policy that aims at arming the youth against unemployment, building self-reliant youths and ultimately improving the economy. The government should also back this up with appropriate legislative instruments to compel and guide implementation.

The point must be made that nations do not just become great. Greatness is assured only on the heels of concerted investment in their people. Therefore, for Nigeria to emerge as a superpower, as commensurate with its latent potential, there has to be a calculated investment in people and skills. This, of course, will be with a view to fully developing comparative areas of strength and positioning for global relevance.

Nigeria will do well to learn from the stories of such outstandingly successful models as you find in Asia, for instance. The phenomenal progress countries such as China, South Korea and India have made with technology show what is possible when nations own their destinies and follow through with definite strategic roadmap. There are indications that the growth rate of Chinese students studying STEM-related courses in America in the last few decades, for instance, is not unconnected with a covert agenda for technological transfer.

Back home in Nigeria, while it is heartwarming that Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Education is increasingly being considered as potent tools for stimulating the economy, it has become necessary to have it codified in a strategic response for achieving national industrial development.

Taking a cue from similar policies deployed in advanced economies like the industrially-rich Germany, the imperativeness of the policy stems from its usefulness in providing sharp strategic direction to the overall formal and informal skills development processes in the country. Covering such broad areas as institution-based skills development and sectoral skills development which includes formal and informal apprenticeship models, the policy would assist to align the developmental priorities of the nation with active measures to produce the relevant manpower for both immediate and future needs of the nation.Sadly, there was a time the country thought better and acted in consonance with best global practices. Just sixty years ago, through the 1959 Ashby Commission Report, the Nigerian government had been counselled on her manpower needs for post-school certificate and higher education over a 20-year period. That report had enunciated both the intermediate and high-level manpower needs of the country, detailing the actual supply rate and estimated capacity of the nations tertiary educational institutions.

Parts of the recommendation of the Eric Ashby-led Commission for the nations educational system were the production of 2,000 graduates a year by 1970, a proposal on the establishment of a National Universities Commission (NUC) and it insisted that enrolment in the universities should reflect national needs in terms of technical and non-technical fields.

Also diligently envisaged in that report were recommendations on teacher production and estimation of enrolment rates in our university system by 1970 and1980. One feels very sad that the country failed to implement the recommendations faithfully and also sustain such enviable planning tradition. But, it is not too late to reinvent that culture of diligence. The formulation of a skills development policy and the proper realignment of existing developmental structures are stepped in that direction.

It should be said that Nigeria needs to now urgently implement thorough skills gap analysis to help provide real-time data and on the actual human capital needs of the country. With such data, the nation is better informed on the extent of skills deficiency and the opportunities available for transformation. Anything short of this is tantamount to paying lip-service to solve the current job crises in the country.

Like Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, said, Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation, there is sure to be a failure. Without a national policy in place, it will yet be a long walk to the ideal situation in skill acquisition.

Concluded.

Professor Salami is Vice-Chancellor, First Technical University, Ibadan.

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National policy on skill acquisition for youths Part 3 - Guardian

The 19th Century Roots of Modern Medical Denialism – Undark Magazine

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Miracle cures, detox cleanses, and vaccine denial may seem to be the products of Hollywood and the social media age, but the truth is that medical pseudoscience has been a cultural touchstone in the U.S. since nearly its founding. At the dawn of the 19th century, when medical journals were still written almost entirely in Latin and only a handful of medical schools existed in the country, the populist fervor that animated the Revolutionary War came to the clinic. And while there was no shortage of cranks peddling phony medicine on a raft of dubious conspiracy theories in the early 1800s, none was more successful and celebrated than Samuel Thomson.

Portrait of Samuel Thomson

Visual: Wikimedia Commons

Portraying himself as an illiterate pig farmer (he was neither), Thomson barnstormed the Northeast telling rapt audiences things they wanted to hear: that natural remedies were superior to toxic chemical drugs; that all disease had a single cause, despite its many manifestations; that intuition and divine providence had guided him to botanical panaceas; that corrupt medical elites, blinded by class condescension and education, were persecuting him, a humble, ordinary man, because of the threat his ideas and discoveries posed to their profits.

For decades, Thomson peddled his dubious system of alternative medicine to Americans by playing to their cultural, political, and religious identities. Two centuries later, the era of Thomsonian medicine isnt just a historical curiosity; it continues to provide a playbook for grifters and dissembling politicians peddling pseudoscientific solutions to everything from cancer to Covid-19.

An acquisitive paranoiac with the steely-eyed look of a fundamentalist preacher, Thomson lectured on the same circuit as the Second Great Awakenings theatrical revivalists, one of countless unschooled peoples doctors as the esteemed orthodox physician Daniel Drake called them. In addition to his lectures, Thomson spread his gospel in his mega bestseller, New Guide to Health, a catalog of herbs accompanied by anecdotes testifying to their medicinal utility. Credulous readers learned that simple preparations of herbs like cayenne pepper or Lobelia inflata also known as puke weed not only relieved minor complaints like headaches and coughs but also rapidly cured progressive, terminal diseases like cancer. In breathless testimonials and self-aggrandizing anecdotes, Thomson and his followers attested to individuals being cured of dysentery, smallpox, and measles using the Thomsonian system. Between sales of the book, which went through 13 editions, and the family rights to buy his patented botanical nostrums, Thomson grew fabulously wealthy.

Though he was dismissed at the time as a dangerous fraud by mainstream physicians, Thomson was nevertheless held in high esteem by millions of Americans, who saw him as an avatar of self-reliance and entrepreneurial ambition. His followers wrote songs, poems, and prayers in homage to him. They congregated in Friendly Botanic Societies that more closely resembled churches than scientific seminars. His most zealous supporters, including some state legislators, hailed him alternately as the American Hippocrates or Jesus. That Thomson was regularly accused of killing patients and was even tried for murder once in Massachusetts seemed only to burnish the legend of his persecution and martyrdom.

In retrospect it can be hard to see how Thomson garnered so much influence. None of his botanical remedies were new to medicine, nor were they very effective for treating any serious condition. Yet in some states, such as Ohio and Mississippi, between a third and half of residents were said to have eschewed orthodox medicine in favor of Thomsons patented system. What made the Thomsonian sales pitch so successful was not just its blanket condemnation of the medical establishment, but its populist conception of healing itself. Just as Americans were free to be their own governors, lawyers, and priests, Thomson argued, so too should they be free to act as their own physician and surgeon. In this view, attempts to enforce state licensure laws or raise standards for medical education and practice were merely assaults on therapeutic choice and medical freedom as anti-American as government establishment of religion.

The parallels between our post-truth era and the age in which Thomsonian medicine prospered are striking. Though rural Americans were highly literate by the standards of the time, they had quickly come to associate intellectualism with the hated urban ruling class. The Thomsonians, the sociologist Paul Starr has written, viewed knowledge as an element in class conflict. In other words, Americans then, as today, were deeply distrustful of an ostensibly egalitarian government led by learned patricians or at least by those who looked and spoke the part. The simplicity of Thomsons system and his elaborate pantomime of socioeconomic solidarity were thus vital elements of his commercial success.

Thomsonian medicine could only succeed in a nation lacking scientific medicine and sharing a widespread belief in the superiority of inborn, intuitive, folkish wisdom over the cultivated, over-sophisticated, and self-interested knowledge of the literati and well-to-do, as Richard Hofstadter put it in his landmark Anti-intellectualism in American Life. Glorification of what one Thomson biographer later called the native practical sense of the ordinary man with direct access to truth would later reach its zenith in national icons like Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett. But Thomson provided a template thats still followed today.

The parallels between todays post-truth era and the age in which Thomsonian medicine prospered are striking.

Thomson and his followers also shared the conviction that access to information is not only an adequate substitute for formal education but preferable and superior to it. As steam-powered presses enabled the mass production of newspapers, early 19th century Americans were deluged with information of questionable provenance and reliability. The effect, as with the internet today, was to generate pervasive cynicism about what can actually be known; truth becomes whatever is believed most widely or fervently. Nowhere was this more evident, and to some extent warranted, than in pre-scientific medicine. In 1825, you might well have been better off seeing a pig farmer about your headaches than seeing an M.D., who probably would have recommended mercury-based purgatives and bleeding to ooze you back to humoral harmony and health.

Yet today, when medicine can claim more successes than ever and is among the most respected professions, people of all political persuasions are embracing pseudoscientific alternative therapies in truly staggering numbers. In 2012, the last year for which authoritative statistics are available, Americans spent over $30 billion out-of-pocket on so-called complementary and alternative medicine, despite a dearth of evidence suggesting any of it works. In fact, about the same proportion of Americans use such products and services today as used Thomsonian medicine in the 1830s. And despite the perception, even among some physicians, that alternative medicine is harmless, its use today is associated with significant adverse public health outcomes, such as vaccine noncompliance and a greater risk of death in cancer patients. How did we arrive at this strange place, where so many educated Americans in the 21st century reject proven, evidence-based medicine in favor of 19th century magic?

The answer is complex. Surely part of it is that we have become victims of our own success. Life expectancy is long. Infant mortality is low. Most of us get more than enough to eat and, at least prior to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, have worried little about dying in an infectious disease outbreak, as so many of our ancestors did. Since we enjoy a relatively high standard of health, were free to focus on newer and harder problems like chronic diseases and developmental disorders precisely the conditions that modern medicine lacks good treatments for. Then there are the long-term crises of knowledge and authority that have been well-chronicled by others: the glut of misinformation online, declining trust in institutions, the devaluation of expertise, and the disturbingly common belief that much if not most of what happens in our world is the result of vast, invisible conspiracies.

But Americans embrace of pseudomedicine is also a reaction to less abstract and more personal problems: the inaccessibility of proper care, the alienating experience many have receiving it, and its intolerably burdensome costs. Research has shown that patients in highly commodified health care systems like ours express the highest mistrust of physicians, and while the exact reasons for this are unclear, its reasonable to suppose that perceived conflicts of interest play a role. Enter the white-coated naturopath or chiropractor, resembling a physician in all but training, education, and experience, and eager to confirm the worst suspicions of their frustrated marks. Just as in Thomsons time, dissatisfaction and distrust drive otherwise reasonable people into the arms of unregulated quacks who, in Hofstadters words, flatter their intuitive, folkish wisdom, provide an outlet for their political anger, and sell them an expensive illusion of empowerment and control over their health.

If we hope to limit the spread of modern medical denialism and the predatory industry feeding on and profiting from it, we must acknowledge this reality. Until we do, the neo-Thomsonians among us will continue to rake in cash and put all of us at risk with their pre-scientific, 19th century ideas.

John Charpentier is a Ph.D. candidate and immunology researcher at the University of Michigan.

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The 19th Century Roots of Modern Medical Denialism - Undark Magazine

How Cisco’s Nonprofit Partners Are Pivoting and Innovating to Address Unexpected Needs – CSRwire.com

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Apr. 08 /CSRwire/ - Cisco Blogs | Corporate Social Responsibility

We know that the most vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected by the economic impacts of global crises, and continue to be impacted after a crisis is over. Those who are unemployed or underemployed. Small business owners. Women. The poor. People who are un/underbanked. At Cisco, we bring to bear all our available resources our funding, our technology, and our expertise to support nonprofit organizations that have technology-based solutions to connect the unconnected and help people become economically self-sufficient.

Ciscos model of investing in innovative organizations with early-stage, technology-based initiatives means that our nonprofit partners are already using technology to deliver many of their programs and services. This has enabled them to quickly pivot to deliver different types of services to address new and emerging needs, and also to rapidly accelerate their reach to meet increased needs of the individuals and communities they are serving.

These are some of nonprofits Cisco supports through our economic empowerment portfolio, and how they are responding to support people and communities in need right now:

Skills Training

Anudip:Provides technology skills training, professional development skills, mentoring, and employment opportunities to low-income and underserved populations (youth, women, people with disabilities) in India, delivered both face-to-face and online. Cisco has supportedAnudips work with cash grant investments, donations of WebEx and other Cisco technologies, and our expertise.How are they helping?Anudip has temporarily transitioned their services to 100 percent remote learning.

AnnieCannons:Provides technology skills training, professional development skills, mentoring, and employment opportunities to survivors of human trafficking in the Bay Area of California. We have supported AnnieCannons with cash grant investments, and donations of WebEx and other Cisco technologies.How are they helping?AnnieCannons has temporarily transitioned its online technology skills training to 100% remote learning. In addition, their staff have increased their outreach to human trafficking and domestic violence survivors who are particularly vulnerable during times of crises.

Upwardly Global (UpGlo):Provides training and support to skilled refugees and immigrants to eliminate barriers and help them integrate into the professional American workforce. Cisco has supported this work via an initial cash grant investment, and we are partnering to support virtual networking and mentoring opportunities with our employees.How are they helping?UpGlo is scaling its online skills training and job readiness resources, enhancing virtual coaching and volunteer services, and helping clients find immediate jobs in high demand areas like healthcare.

Financial Inclusion

Opportunity International (Opportunity):Provides financial products (regular and emergency loans, savings accounts, insurance) and services (capacity building for entrepreneurs, educators, farmers, and financial literacy training) to low income populations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. With Cisco support,Opportunitydesigned, implemented, and scaled mobile enabled financial products and services to more than 20 million people across Africa and Asia.How are they helping?Access to these types of financial products and services is critically important for vulnerable populations who now are unemployed or without a steady source of income.

Kiva:Expands financial access through its peer-to-peer lending platform that enables individuals to make interest-free loans to students and entrepreneurs globally. Small businesses are already being negatively impacted by the spread of COVID-19, including many members of the Kiva community.How are they helping?In the United States, Kiva isofferinglarger loans, flexible repayment schedules, and expanded eligibility. They are working to provide support to their partner financial institutions and individuals outside the United States.

Social Enterprise

Vispala:Started by the CEO of Anudip, Vispala uses 3D printing technology to print low cost prosthetic arms for underserved populations in India. Cisco provided early stage funding to help them develop and test their products, scale, and become a financially sustainable social enterprise.How are they helping?They have now pivoted their focus to 3D printing surgical masks for healthcare providers.

NESsT:NESsT develops sustainable social enterprises that solve critical social problems in emerging market economies, likePIXED, a Peruvian social enterprise that manufactures 3D-printed prosthetics.How are they helping?PIXEDhas shifted its manufacturing of prostheses into personal protective equipment (PPE) for physicians and hospitals in Peru. NESsT is working closely with PIXED management (and all of its portfolio companies) to create contingency plans that address short- and longer-term needs that must be addressed during an impending global recession.

To accelerate global problem solving, we need financially sustainable solutions that address different issues in different parts of the world. Thats why Cisco invests in early-stage solutions that leverage technology to create meaningful impact at scale.

Our nonprofit partners in economic empowerment are able to quickly adapt to the way they serve others in order to address the biggest challenges that we face. To learn more about these amazing nonprofits and how you can get involved, please visit oureconomic empowermentpage.

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How Cisco's Nonprofit Partners Are Pivoting and Innovating to Address Unexpected Needs - CSRwire.com

What does COVID-19 mean for the social fabric of our nations? – BFPG

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As much of the world has entered into a bleak period of social confinement and dramatic economic decline, there has been an understandable urge to identify the upshot of this dark moment in global history. In particular, the desire to regard the pandemic as an opportunity to spark a kind of social, economic and political reset, reinstating a nostalgic vision of a simpler, more community-focused time.

In 1887, Friedrich Engels predicted that only a brutal war would provide the necessary chaos and economic disruption to precipitate a revolution. In 2020, these kinds of hopefully utilitarian aspirations for the pandemic are not confined to any one political tradition. In Western nations in particular, COVID-19 has been portrayed as the Great Leveller. Yet, it is difficult to afford this notion any credence beyond the superficial universal requirements of behavioural change.

The flagrant use of this term reveals much about the social challenges in Western liberal democracies, which pre-dated this pandemic. As our societies have become more diverse in every sense, and more empowered, the task of conjuring the imagined community that Benedict Anderson espoused has become more difficult. And with the arrival of pandemic, the public sphere itself is reconfigured to some degree, with millions tuning in to watch national broadcasts from leaders and their advisers, providing the backdrop of that most elusive quality of modern life: a shared reality.

A survey I published just before the crisis showed that the desire for a greater degree of national unity was one of the few consensus positions in European nations. The outsized salience of nostalgia in Western politics and its cultural resonance at least in part captures the absence of community-forging national tests over recent decades, and strengthens the potency of historical crises such as the Second World War. Leaders and citizens alike have been desperate to chart a course towards a rejuvenation of social ties, because the fragmentation of communities on the back of economic and technological change has made it more difficult to govern and embedded a persistent sense of insecurity.

Over recent years, new identities have emerged and assumed an astonishing degree of power and influence, with societies polarising around generational, socio-economic, educational, regional and gender lines. Over the past five years, policy-makers and researchers and have frequently discussed how an effective invocation of the community underpinning the nation could provide the key to softening some of these seemingly insurmountable barriers repairing the atomising effects of our late-stage capitalist, digital era lives.

There was a considerable desire amongst citizens, too, to believe in the crisis alchemy of social trust. At the outbreak of the crisis I appeared on Sky News discussing, amongst other things, the feverish stockpiling of toilet paper and penne pasta that had consumed the United Kingdom. It was suggested that this behaviour, disadvantaging the elderly and vulnerable, was completely out of character this is, after all, the land of the Blitz Spirit. When I made the point that the Blitz saw moments of great heroism and selflessness, but also precipitated astonishing spikes in the levels of violent, sexual and petty crime, I received a torrent of threats and abuse on social media and via email for having tarnished the legacy of this crucial period in the national consciousness.

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out some of the best traits of the people of the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its generosity; not least of all, the staggering number of applications to volunteer for the National Health Service. Yet, it cannot come as a surprise that stressful situations that inspire a degree of competition around access to scarce resources do not always lead to the highest expression of the immense capacities of human nature. Many other less visible and more troubling forms of destructive social behaviour, whether child abuse, domestic violence, or the tinder box compelled in council estates by confining large families in cramped, unsatisfactory accommodations have predictably flared, with devastating and lasting consequences for the victims.

As I discussed last week, there is nothing endemic in this crisis that naturally suggests that populism in the West will fall by the wayside in its aftermath even despite the rallying we have seen around the flag in many nations, and the renewed empowerment of our institutions. Similarly, any sense of national unity the pandemic inspires is vulnerable to erosion as we over-compensate for our confinement in the transition, and in the face of the acceleration of social conflict and competition seething beneath the surface of this collective test. At the heart of this pandemic is in fact a very unevenly experienced situation.

While it began as the globalists disease, striking down politicians and political staff, those attending international conferences, or partaking in skiing holidays in the Dolomites, the citizens who bear the brunt of hospitalisations, and indeed deaths, are those with underlying medical and health conditions. Conditions that often reflect deep structural inequalities including the higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and respiratory illness affecting citizens from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Those in cities are especially vulnerable, with air pollution linked to a higher propensity for complications and even death. As are those with mental health conditions. In some nations, including the United States, socio-economic disparities are fused onto racial inequalities meaning citizens from BAME backgrounds are disproportionately likely to be hospitalised, and to pass away.

The trauma of another economic recession of this nature will be collectively shared, yet ultimately, the personal financial impacts of this pandemic will also be asymmetrical. While governments are offering unprecedented interventions to help shield workers and employers from the brunt of the disruption, as in the 2008-09 Financial Crisis, it will be the young who are most vulnerable to its immediate and long-term effects. As the Resolution Foundation noted, The Government is rightly socialising much of the costs of this crisis [] But these approaches create insider/outsider dynamics in which the young come off worst compensating people for the earnings they already had rather than the potential earnings they would otherwise have received. So too are many women, already disadvantaged in their career earnings by the structural inequalities of child-bearing, housework and family caring responsibilities, bearing the brunt of burden of this crisis to the working lives of parents.

The daily experience of this allegedly unifying crisis is also deeply subject to personal circumstance. While we all must undertake social distancing, limiting many of the pleasures of life and certainly the fall is greatest for those who are able to regularly partake in a vibrant social calendar, excursions to restaurants and the theatre, and overseas travel the environment in which we live through this lockdown varies tremendously. While abuse and violence are of course the extreme, though distressingly common, expressions of disadvantage, many citizens safe in their homes are also due to prohibitive housing costs living in small, dark flats with no outdoor spaces. Contrast this with the experience of those living in the countryside, or with large gardens, and the scale of the disparities of constraint and sacrifice become clear.

While images of middle-class runners sprinting buoyantly through parks in their Lululemon athletic gear feature heavily on the news, policy-makers are all too aware that every day that the lockdown continues, many other citizens are eating more, smoking more, drinking more, and experiencing a greater degree of mental strain than they would in their ordinary lives. The elderly have lost many of the activities and support services that maintain their quality of life. Children are forced to confront dark sides of the world previously unbeknownst to their innocent minds. Those who rely on medical support and interventions, including cancer patients, are treading water, and those with undiagnosed conditions may now only discover their illnesses at a dangerous moment in their spread.

The costs to society, and to the state, mount day by day forcing governments to balance choices about which groups of individuals, and which types of afflictions, are to be privileged.

Worryingly, many of the groups disproportionately affected in a negative manner by the economic, social and daily experiences of the crisis, are those most vulnerable to political disengagement. If there is an eventual backlash from this crisis and remembering that the lag on shaping political behaviour can be relatively long it could potentially deepen and embed disenfranchisement amongst certain social groups, or equally, create the conditions for a new wave of anti-establishment movements predicated on correcting injustices and inequalities revealed by the crisis. Depending on your personal politics, this second scenario may appear to be a positive option; however, simply from the perspective of governance and social cohesion, it would undoubtedly foretell more rocky years ahead.

I do not wish to appear to forecast only lasting doom and gloom from this crisis. Indeed, there are many ways in which it could indeed offer a pathway towards some profound social reckonings lighting a fire under burgeoning movements towards a recalculation of our relationship with nature, with work, and with one another. Amidst the obvious stresses, parents are given the chance of a modern lifetime to bond with their children. There will be tremendous opportunities for third sector organisations to have their work more visible and valued, and to build on the momentum of charitable and community acts compelled by the pandemics swift hand. It also feels inevitable to some extent that lower-paid workers (often described as unskilled) on the frontline of this crisis will be afforded a greater degree of respect, and that there will be increased public pressure to reduce the pernicious environmental impacts of industry and transport.

The pandemic has already compelled a surge in public sector innovation and an unprecedented degree of speed in policy responses, and enacted changes to the welfare state that will be difficult to reverse including the long-called-for adjustments to the payment level and access period of Universal Credit, the UK Governments flagship centralised welfare payment system. It is also difficult to imagine that the red lines of the first iteration of the UK Governments new immigration policy will remain as fixed, with thousands of desperately needed frontline NHS migrant workers having had their visas extended in the heat of the crisis.

Ultimately, governments will need to ask themselves why is it unacceptable for citizens to experience acute poverty or social deprivation during a pandemic, and acceptable at other times? Why must social media organisations intervene to combat conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, but are allowed wash their hands of the harmful proliferation of conspiracy theories that work daily to undermine social and political trust? Why is it outrageous for a woman to suffer at the hands of her partner during a lockdown, and somehow not worthy of our outrage on a normal day? Is it because the circumstances conjured by the pandemic are seen as so outside of reasonable individual agency? In asking ourselves these questions, we may well begin to expand our common societal understanding of what is beyond a persons control, and in doing so, find ourselves willing to look with fresh and frank eyes at some of the more enduring structural barriers that have persisted in plain sight.

Yet, it is nonetheless important to caution and particularly in light of the very human desire for this crisis to somehow, naturally lead us towards salvation that its harmful social effects will be profound and potentially long-lasting. And that governments will find themselves at the end of all of this, with a list of unresolved problems that pre-dated the crisis, as well as these more recent consequences of the pandemic itself.

While it is perfectly possible that leaders can rise to this tremendous challenge, we do not have ample evidence from the past five years which has brought up the bodies of many simmering tensions and conflicts and inequalities of their will and capacity to do so. Perhaps the trauma and jolt of this fast-moving, wide-reaching pandemic will provide the grist to the mill to support this in a manner that was not possible before its emergence. It is too early to say. All we can assert with certainty, is that no outcomes are inevitable.

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What does COVID-19 mean for the social fabric of our nations? - BFPG

Covid-19 and the Conspiracy Theorists | Asharq AL-awsat – Asharq Al-awsat English

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Even conspiracy theories need to be partly built on facts in order to be plausible enough to market.

It is impossible to convince any sane person with blatant nonsense, or pathological illusions that ignore solid developments, and actions and quotes by authorities with well-known experience in their fields. Indeed, this is exactly what we are witnessing in these exceptional times as Covid-19 sweeps the world, bringing down all barriers.

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me a recorded interview with a controversial British personality self-regarded as a visionary crusader against forces of global hegemony. This interview almost appeared with two valuable contributions by Jacques Attali, the Algerian-born French economist, thinker and political adviser, and Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli (of Lebanese origin) historian and professor.

I had followed the career of the British personality since his early days as footballer, and then as a prominent sports journalist. His next step, however, took him to a totally different career; as he became an anti-establishment activist, first becoming an environmentalist with The Greens, and later a campaigner against political and economic elites, which he doubts and ruthlessly demonizes, and feels that it is his mission to uncover and warn against its evil conspiracies!

In his interview, the British conspiracy theorist dismisses the Covid-19 virus, and sees it as a new chapter in the global 1% elites conspiracy designed to strengthen its world domination. This is done as he claims by destroying the current world economys institutions and rebuild them in a way that further serves their interests.

In his argument, in addition to the global companies, and Davos World Economic Forum, he includes the World Health Organization (WHO), among the leading co-conspirators!

Some of the data mentioned by the controversial gentleman is true; more so for any political and economic researcher or expert, who understands the dynamics of the market economy and the role of accumulation, concentration, monopoly and speculation in capitalism.

Furthermore, anybody who has been following the progress of technology through the centuries would know the impact of technologies, from the discovery of the gunpowder and paper, the invention of printing, and recently, the development of the computer, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence (AI).

What I mean to say is that with or without Covid-19 we have been marching towards a new world. The only thing this pandemic has done is merely accelerating this march, and negating all reservations against it.

This is where Harari hits his target. He acknowledges the historical importance of the world crisis we are all facing.

Humankind is now facing a global crisis, he says, adding, perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture. We must act quickly and decisively. We should also take into account the long-term consequences of our actions. When choosing between alternatives, we should ask ourselves not only how to overcome the immediate threat, but also what kind of world we will inhabit once the storm passes. Yes, the storm will pass, humankind will survive, most of us will still be alive but we will live in a different world.

Harari goes on many short-term emergency measures will become a fixture of life. That is the nature of emergencies. They fast-forward historical processes. Decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours. Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger. Entire countries serve as guinea-pigs in large-scale social experiments. What happens when everybody works from home and communicates only at a distance? What happens when entire schools and universities go online? In normal times, governments, businesses and educational boards would never agree to conduct such experiments. But these arent normal times. In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity.

The first choice therefore is between a Chinese model of totalitarian surveillance and the respect of human rights, including personal privacy; and the second is between isolationism and globalization.

Jacques Attali, who was the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1991-1993, and a former adviser to ex-French President Francois Mitterrand, seems somehow to agree with Harari on more than one issue. He also believes that great historical disasters caused by various plagues led to profound changes in the political structures of nations, as well as the cultures embodied in those structures.

Talking of the bubonic plague (The Black Death) of the 14th century, which killed almost one third of Europes population, Attali says that among its most significant repercussions was the change in the position of the clergy. The clergy lost out influence to the benefit of the police, which became the only protector of the people after the churchs failure to protect them.

However, as Attali explains, this situation did not last long either; after the real power shifted from the authority of religion as represented by the Church to the authority of enforcement as represented by the police, it shifted again from the authority of enforcement to the authority of the state and the laws.

This point, in particular, will bring us back to ongoing argument about who would be the main beneficiary from the repercussions of Covid-19 in the Arab World. Is it the political and security, which has decisively taken the initiative in confronting the pandemic? Or is it some religious groups which are waiting until the worst passes, and then emerge to say Well, where were your science and scientists when God attempted to test our beliefs?

Indeed, contradicting theories and arguments about our lives and futures mushroom here and there, as the world, as a whole finds itself fighting against time.

From one side there are voices insisting that the top priority now must be saving lives, as saving the economies can wait, especially, that they are built on lending and debts, and can be rebuilt after recessions. From the opposite direction, many voices argue that life and death are existential facts, and the world must never sacrifice its economic well-being for the many to save the lives of the few.

Personally, I am - without hesitation - with the first opinion.

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Covid-19 and the Conspiracy Theorists | Asharq AL-awsat - Asharq Al-awsat English

War against virus: The new nightingales of India, lighting the lamp of hope (IANS Special) – Outlook India

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War against virus: The new nightingales of India, lighting the lamp of hope (IANS Special)

New Delhi, April 10 (IANS) As thousands of nurses across the country light the lamps of hope in the hospitals, several leading ladies play a vital role in India''s war room to contain the spread of dreaded pandemic.

From developing India''s first test kit for COVID-19, to despatching life saving medicines in remote areas, and from chalking out strategies for the government to tackle the spread of the virus to building treatment protocols, women from various walks of life burn midnight oil to counter the virus which is gradually spreading in world''s second most populated country.

Just a day before she delivered a baby, Minal Dakhave Bhosale, a Pune based virologist, managed to deliver the first testing kit for COVID-19 to India. In just a record time of six weeks, Minal and her team including some of the best scientists gifted its first test kit to conduct COVID-19 tests at a large scale in the country, an exercise required to identify and isolate carriers of the dreaded virus.

A few kilometers away from Minal''s laboratory in Pune, another virologist, Dr Priya Abraham, made an important breakthrough by isolating the virus. This breakthrough, by Dr Abraham, Director of the National Viral Institute, helps the scientists and immunologists in developing a vaccine or a drug for the treatment for new coronavirus.

Around 1500 kilometers away from Pune, in India''s seat of power, New Delhi, several women bureaucrats, policy makers, health strategists, joined hands with the Prime Minister''s Office (PMO) in chalking out strategies and initiating quick steps to prevent the country from slipping into stage 3, where disease is transmitted into communities.

Preeti Sudan, an alumni of London School of Economics, and presently the Secretary of Union Ministry of Health and Welfare, became the nodal point for the PMO to execute the key medical strategies on ground through health departments of various states."

Preeti is a workaholic. Fortunately she has rich experience of public food distribution, disaster management and PM''s mega health Insurance scheme. She seems to be the fittest person to be the nodal point for coordinating the war against a pandemic, " says a 1983 batch IAS and batchmate of Preeti Sudan.

Incidentally, the person in charge of viral diseases in India''s premiere medical body, Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR), happens to be a well known woman scientist, Dr Nivedita Gupta. Her contribution in containment of virus Nipah in India''s southern most state of Kerala is widely acknowledged in the research fraternity.

Dr Gupta, who played a key role in setting up a viral and diagnostic network for ICMR, is presently building testing and treatment protocols in India. Such protocols, adhered by the medical practitioners are vital in the fight against the virus.

The actual battle against COVID-19 could be won only through a repurposed drug or a vaccine, a field which usually comes under biotechnology ministry. As several groups of scientists launch the project of developing repurpose drugs or a vaccine to combat the virus, Renu Swaroop, a top class scientist and secretary in the Union Ministry of Biotechnology, looks after all these projects.

She hopes that repurpose drugs could be an answer to quickly deal with the highly infectious virus.Seeing her deep involvement in the going projects, the union government has given Renu Swaroop one year extension in her service.

While these scientists and bureaucrats hold the key in fighting the pandemic, thousands of nurses, who form the frontline of the battle, work tirelessly in hundreds of hospitals where patients are being treated.

"We are thankful to Prime Minister Modi. For the first time we were invited in a video conference with the PM and I am happy to say all our requests ranging from suitable insurance package to availability of Personal Protection Equipments (PPEs) were heard and sorted out, " said Professor Roy George, the President of The Trained Nurses Association of India (TNAI) the apex body of nurses founded in 1908.

India has over 1.2 million workforce of trained nurses, who seem to brave this highly contagious virus and redefine women empowerment as the country gears up to battle coronavirus.

--IANS

ds/rt

Disclaimer :- This story has not been edited by Outlook staff and is auto-generated from news agency feeds. Source: IANS

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War against virus: The new nightingales of India, lighting the lamp of hope (IANS Special) - Outlook India

Rise in domestic abuse cases as families forced to stay home – The New Paper

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Since she started telecommuting a few weeks ago, she has faced more verbal and physical abuse from her husband, who has always worked from home.

Friction between the couple has become worse now that they are together almost all the time, the woman's social worker, Ms Kristine Lam, told The New Paper.

One of the flashpoints is her husband's harsh disciplining of their two young children, who stopped going to kindergarten a while ago because of the Covid-19 outbreak.

When she tries to help them, he would turn his anger towards her and become violent.

"Her husband would accuse her of being a lousy mother who was incapable of managing the kids," said Ms Lam, who declined to reveal their personal details due to confidentiality.

"He would push her and bang her head against the wall. He also hit her with his hands."

She said the man had always been abusive and controlling, such as checking his wife's phone and laptop, but the frequency of his violence rose after she began working at home.

Ms Lam, a lead social worker at Care Corner's Project StART, and advocacy groups are concerned about a potential rise in domestic abuse as families are forced to stay home during this circuit breaker month.

Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee addressed this issue in Parliament on Monday when he noted a trend in "higher rates of domestic violence, domestic quarrels and friction in the family" in countries that had imposed movement restrictions.

He said a national care hotline will be set up for callers to get support from psychologists, counsellors and others.

Family Violence Specialist Centres (FVSC) and Child Protection Specialist Centres will be "adequately resourced during this time" as they are essential services, Mr Lee added.

The Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) said it received 619 inquiries last month, a 35 per cent jump from March last year.

Aware's head of research and advocacy Shailey Hingorani told TNP: "Crises, such as pandemics or economic recessions, have historically corresponded with a surge in domestic violence cases."

She said social workers told Aware last month that they had observed a rise in family violence cases.

One social worker said 60 per cent of her daily referrals were family violence-related, up from 30 per cent last year.

United Women Singapore president Georgette Tan said such cases may continue to rise as virus containment measures may inadvertently trigger domestic violence.

Nanyang Technological University's associate professor of psychology, Dr Andy Ho, noted that physical isolation also makes it harder for victims to get help.

He said: "Victims are now constantly in close physical proximity with their abusers. This exposes them to a higher likelihood of abuse.

"And they might not have the privacy and personal space to contact their support network for help even if they have one."

Stress arising from the Covid-19 crisis may also result in more abusive behaviour by perpetrators, said Ms Hingorani of Aware.

She added: "Abusers may seek a sense of control in their disrupted and uncertain lives, which may trigger them to lash out at those around them."

Ms Lam, whose centre is one of two FVSCs here, said she has seen a recurrence of violence in cases involving those who were previously on stay-home notices or quarantine orders.

Like NTU's Dr Ho, she feels that victims are now more isolated from their support networks. For example, school counsellors and teachers can no longer monitor how potential child abuse victims are doing now that they are not in school.

Work-from-home arrangements may also impact victims' level of empowerment, as many find their identity through their jobs, and this could affect whether they seek help, said Ms Lam.

Stressing that physical isolation does not mean social isolation, Dr Ho said: "It is crucial for victims to have a contact point that checks in on them. Technology makes that possible, but only if they can have privacy or time alone."

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Rise in domestic abuse cases as families forced to stay home - The New Paper

Bringing Automation to Physical Fiber Cross Connects to improve integrity of testing processes & more – Data Center Frontier

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While much of the internet infrastructure can be remotely controlled and configured, the physical layer still requires manual intervention for provisioning cross connects.

Bob Shine, VP of Product Management and Marketing at Telescent, explores ways to incorporate automation to physical fibercross connects.Further exploreinterconnection with Telescent.

Bob Shine, VP of Product Management and Marketing at Telescent

Each day brings fresh statistics on the increase in internet usage as companies and students switch to work-from-home policies to reduce the risks from COVID-19. Microsoft has announced that its group-collaboration platform, Microsoft Teams, has grown from 32 million daily active users to 44 million. German internet exchange company DE-CIX stated it set a new world record for data throughput at 9.1 terabits per second, an increase of 12% from the prior record set just a couple of months earlier. And to reduce the strain in the European network, Netflix and YouTube announced a switch to streaming in SD for the next 30 days.

As many of the readers of this article understand, the internet is a mesh of multiple local internet service providers that interact with global carriers while providing access to the various applications and enterprises that customers interact with. Something as simple as a Zoom meeting may require interaction with multiple service providers and connections through several multi-tenant data centers (MTDC). Yet to protect this critical infrastructure, MTDC operators are closing their facilities to customers and contractors in hard-hit areas, and severely restricting access in other facilities around the world. The challenge for MTDC operators and their customers is the need to rapidly respond to the increased network demand while reducing human access to the facility as much as possible.

While much of the internet infrastructure can be remotely controlled and configured, the physical layer still requires manual intervention for provisioning cross connects. The solution is to bring automation to the physical layer. Luckily there are solutions that provide a fully reconfigurable, automated solution for remote operation that can scale to many thousand cross connects.

Some of these solutions can automate the management of the physical interconnections to extend Software-Defined-Networking (SDN) to the physical fiber layer. The current manual method involves multiple steps and coordination among staff and these steps can take from a few days to over a week. The automated platforms utilize a large scale, automated fiber-optic cross-connect and software control to enable reliable and repeatable physical provisioning of low-loss connections within minutes. These systems also provide diagnostic capability using an optical power monitor and optional OTDR monitoring of all connections while providing automated Inventory record keeping with machine accuracy.

Comparing the time for manual versus automated provisioning (Graph/image: Telescent)

A key use case for the Telescent G4 NTM is in provisioning cross connects in multi-tenant data centers. OpEx reduction was a major focus for large-scale network and data center operators, even before the challenges imposed by COVID-19. Trained labor to install, configure and troubleshoot physical network interconnections can be difficult to develop and limits scalability and efficiency of computer centers. Installation and management of interconnects are complex and labor-intensive processes, typically taking from three days to over a week on average per reconfiguration. Any problems that arise when performing the multiple steps can significantly increase the labor time and expense. Technicians must manually test insertion loss and signal transmission through each interconnect and this often uncovers installation issues that leads to rework. These measurements may require the coordination of technicians at both ends of a link in different cities, continents, etc.

To address these challenges, services like Telescents integrate the network topology manager and diagnostic equipment into the physical SDN framework. While performing the cross connection, these systems can also automate a wide range of physical network functions, including OTDR testing of fiber. This painstaking, multi-step process of manual installation and testing is error prone and costly. Rapid, accurate and remote deployment of the cross connects can reduce the time from days to less than an hour.

Figure 1: Photo and Inside of the Telescent G4 Network Topology Manager showing 1,008 cross-connects configured with the robotic arm. (Graph/images: Telescent)

Automation ensures the integrity of the testing process, connectivity records and measurement results. End-to-end physical links passing through multiple interconnects can be tested automatically in about 10 hours machine time (no labor time) for about 1,000 interconnects. Typically, two technicians require 15 minutes each (0.5 man-hours total) to physically locate fiber endpoints, measure loss at each endpoint, complete an OTDR scan and record the data. For 1,000 interconnects, this corresponds to 500 hours. At $100/hr per person the expense is significant ($50,000). Platforms that bring automation of the physical file layer drives this labor cost to zero and provides many operational benefits.

In summary, a network topology manager that incorporates robotics to configure and reconfigure, connect and disconnect, troubleshoot and validate fiber optic interconnections, on-demand, in real-time and more economically, offers an invaluable solution to meet the unprecedented network challenges we are facing today as well as the unknown challenges we will have to face tomorrow.

Bob Shine is the VP of Product Management and Marketing at Telescent.

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Bringing Automation to Physical Fiber Cross Connects to improve integrity of testing processes & more - Data Center Frontier

COVID-19’s Impact on Industrial Automation, 2020 Thematic Research Report – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "COVID-19 Impact on Industrial Automation - Thematic Research" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The COVID-19 outbreak is now travelling around the world, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. This report discusses the impact of the virus on leading companies in the industrial automation sector.

The report analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the global industrial automation sector. It identifies those companies that may benefit from the impact of COVID-19 over a 12-month period, as well as those companies that will lose out. It includes a thematic screen, that ranks the 58 leading companies in this sector on the basis of overall leadership in the 10 themes that matter most to their industry, including COVID-19. This generates a leading indicator of future performance.

Key Highlights

Reasons to Buy

Key Topics Covered

Companies Mentioned

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

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COVID-19's Impact on Industrial Automation, 2020 Thematic Research Report - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

No, automation won’t kill the CPA – Accounting Today

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Technology has a long history in the accounting profession. From the first abacus used by the Mesopotamians to todays artificial intelligence and machine learning, every advance in technology has been met by accountants questioning how they will adapt to a new workplace.

A 2015 report from Accenture predicted death by digital by 2020, with 40 percent of transactional accounting work being automated. Now that the future is here, we thought it would be a good time to check in on that prediction. Has technology replaced the human factor?

Technology and job anxiety

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) are changing the way work is done in every industry. The market size for RPA alone is expected to exceed $5 billion by 2024, according to a report from Global Market Insights, Inc.

In accounting and finance, companies are leveraging these technologies to increase efficiency and streamline business processes. But with these gains comes fear. In a 2019 survey by Robert Half, 12 percent of workers indicated automation would have a negative impact on their job by:

However, even workers who believe technology will have a positive impact on jobs recognize AI and RPA will require them to develop new skills and processes.

Technology in the finance department

So far, automation in the finance department has been an opportunity rather than a job killer. It reduces cost and risk because computers make fewer mistakes and work faster. It has also served to shine a light on time wasted on low-value, repetitive tasks and poor processes.

Historically, many of the tasks accountants perform were built on manual data entry into legacy systems that didnt integrate with each other. Think data entry, auditing a spreadsheet for errors, entering the same journal entry, or preparing the same reconciliation every month. Entire careers have been built on finding numbers, entering them in a certain spot, and performing routine calculations. But is that really the value accountants provide?

Technology and CPAs: A strategic partnership

The value of the finance and accounting team has never been its ability to count and crunch numbers. Rather, its power to analyze financial and operational results of the business and use those insights to drive better strategic decisions is where its value lies.

But humans are still needed to make logical and ethical decisions. So, technology is not eliminating jobs for CPAs, but liberating them to do the higher value work they were trained to do. And really, it couldnt come at a better time, given the professions mounting workload.

The volume of data with the same resources and accelerated due dates that accountants must work with today is unprecedented and growing. Accounting teams are being asked to process increasing amounts of data and do more with the information they have. For those that are still using manual processes to do this work, the burden is tremendous.

Organizations already use financial and accounting software for account reconciliations, transaction matching, inter-company transactions, and resolving variances. Now, automation in the accounting and finance departments can help organizations improve the quality of their governance, reduce risk, deliver more insight, better manage working capital, and improve financial reporting by performing repetitive processes within the software.

Yair Holtzman of Anchin Block and Anchin has written in Accounting Today about the following three innovative technologies that are poised to impact accountants.

1. Big data analytics

Big data analytics studies large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, and other insights. A survey from the Institute of Management Accountants found that finance and accounting professionals are increasingly implementing big data in their business processes. Fifty-three percent of organizations are developing strategies around the use of big data, and 45 percent indicate their company takes a strong or very strong data-centric approach to information technology.

2. Blockchain

In recent years, blockchain technology has spread beyond its cryptocurrency roots. Initially a solution for governing transactions facilitated by cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, according to Harvard Business Review, ...is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way." It is being used in many industries, including health care, supply chain management, government, insurance, banking, and real estate.

According to Yair Holtzman, Blockchains immutability as a general ledger makes it incredibly valuable to businesses. Information is not centrally stored by any business, organization, or governmental agency. The technology provides a quality audit trail as well as transparency of transactions, changes, or other actions along the business path. This can significantly reduce an organizations costs for annual audits as well as regulatory compliance.

3. Artificial intelligence

AI allows machines to perform tasks that typically require human intellect, including speech recognition, visual perception, decision-making, and translation. In an accounting department, AI helps accounting software learn to automatically perform analyses and draw conclusions: Tasks like bank reconciliations, auditing expense submissions, and invoice categorization can be systematically automated, Holtzman writes. AI can also be used for fraud detection by analyzing transactions to identify potentially fraudulent behavior.

Value of the human element

We cant ignore the fact that the transactional level in an organization will shrink or disappear. Workers who spend their days on manual, repetitive processes like data entry and routine reconciliations will need to upskill improve their existing skills and add new capabilities and take on more strategic roles in the company to remain relevant.

But companies still need interpretation and judgment to realize the full potential of technology and automation. Rather than eliminate jobs, accounting and finance departments will need to shift their focus to developing more strategic and consultative initiatives within the company. Accountants who embrace technology can look for opportunities to apply their best skills and add value.

For most CPAs, technology wont replace them. Instead, their roles will evolve and be augmented as they use technology as a powerful tool for their organization. Put it this way: The ways in which technology is, and will be, deployed in the accounting field will actually let CPAs do what they studied to do. Eventually, these emerging technologies will be so deeply embedded in finance and accounting that no one will talk about the software doing mundane work in the background. It will just be part of the daily routine.

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No, automation won't kill the CPA - Accounting Today

From virtualization to automationthe march to 5G service revenues – RCR Wireless News

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The flexibility 5G enables requires a similar level of flexibility in the underlying network infrastructure. Proprietary, single-purpose hardware is giving way to general-purpose hardware running virtualized network functions. This allows operators to lower capital and operational expenses while also gaining dynamacy in capacity provisioning, spectral resourcing and service management.

As these networks become virtualized, with functionality moving into the cloud, the way they are operated is also changing. The sheer complexity of a distributed architecture processing a huge volume of data produced from myriad sources requires automation. The automation piece is extremely important particularly as they scale up services, Kevin Shatzkamer, VP/GM of Service Provider Solutions, Dell Technologies, said. He continued: First we see cloud automation systems replace proprietary stacks, including the introduction of more DevOps/ NetOps tooling, powered by human intervention and decision-making. Over time, we will see the introduction of AI and ML technologies, automating the decision logic itself.

So what might this process look like in practice? Finnish operator Elisa was an early-mover in 5G, launching limited commercial service using its 3.5 GHz spectrum in 2018, prior to commercial device availability. Last year the companys CTO said its subscribers use around 25 GB of mobile data per month and 172 GB of fixed broadband data per month, among the highest usage levels in the world. To keep up with this increasing capacity demand, Elisa developed network automation tools to streamline its operations.

We have developed automation capabilities which enables us to do this and succeed, CTO and VP of Technology and Architecture Kalle Lehtinen said. We have built capabilities in network management processes. For instance, he said needs-based analytics are used to inform network capex strategy and he described the operators network operations center as zero person. For years now we havent had a single person in our network operations center.

Another interesting exploration of virtualization at scale comes from Japanese operator, and new market entrant, Rakuten Mobile. A subsidiary of the e-commerce giant, Rakuten Mobile CTO Tareq Amin has overseen the greenfield build of a fully-virtualized network comprising around 4,000 5G-ready cell sites, multi-access edge computing data centers and the core network. Amin, speaking during a press event in February, said it was an intentional choice to take a new approach rather than undertake a more conventional legacy-type build.

Telco networks of today are very complex no matter what the Gs are. It has no software-centricity; its all about hardware migration as you go from one generation to the other. If you look at our architecture, our architecture today is truly the worlds first open RAN deployment today across any telco. It is running at scale. It is absolutely real; it is not pie in the sky. He said the network demonstrates the ability to lower capex by 40% and opex by 30%.

The network modernization piece is just one transformation needed to realize 5G service revenues. To learn about the key role of edge computing and innovative service creation, read this article. Read about how OSS/BSS transformation is another necessity in the 5G era here.

For the big picture on IT/OT converge in the 5G era and how operators can position themselves to capture the 5G enterprise revenue opportunity, download this report.

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From virtualization to automationthe march to 5G service revenues - RCR Wireless News

Automation for Beginners and Experts | 2020-04-06 – Quality Magazine

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Automation for Beginners and Experts | 2020-04-06 | Quality Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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Industrial Automation Is Paying the Price for Failing to Think Big and Invest Bigger:Globaldata – AiThority

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The industrial automation sector was not in a great place before COVID-19 struck, having been slowed by flat capital expenditure and declining industrial production, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.The virus has since closed factory after factory worldwide with workers sent home. The reality is that despite much hype over the years, advanced factory automation has not been substituted for human workers at scale.

David Bicknell, principal analyst, Thematic Research at GlobalData, comments: By the time it expires, COVID-19 may have served to at last accelerate an investment in factory automation when the global economy eventually rebounds. But that will take a while.

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Organizations that invested in robotics as part of their automation strategy will have found themselves more likely to keep on running when COVID-19 struck.

Bicknell continues: The fallout from COVID-19 will now focus organizations on the need to automate faster in the medium term, not least to help bridge the productivity gap. Projects like Industrie 4.0, which encompass both the cyber and physical worlds, will attempt to tackle the worlds continuity productivity shortfall. It is a pressing task, made all the more urgent by COVID-19. Had business moved with more alacrity and determination when it had the opportunity, it would be in a different place. Those that missed the boat will have the motivation to prepare themselves better for future crises.

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Inside Chinas COVID-19 clogged supply chain and beyond, its clear that preventing future plant shutdowns means making a greater investment in robotics and automation. In recent years, China has bought more robots than any other country, especially collaborative robots (co-bots). It will now have to start putting them to work.

Recommended AI News: Seeing AI to AI: NVIDIA Deepens Ties with Top Research Center

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Industrial Automation Is Paying the Price for Failing to Think Big and Invest Bigger:Globaldata - AiThority

Automation May Take Jobsbut AI Will Create Them – WIRED

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Chances are youve already encountered, more than a few times, truly frightening predictions about artificial intelligence and its implications for the future of humankind. The machines are coming and they want your job, at a minimum. Scary stories are easy to find in all the erudite places where the tech visionaries of Silicon Valley and Seattle, the cosmopolitan elite of New York City, and the policy wonks of Washington, DC, convergeTED talks, Davos, ideas festivals, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, The New York Times, Hollywood films, South by Southwest, Burning Man. The brilliant innovator Elon Musk and the genius theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking have been two of the most quotable and influential purveyors of these AI predictions. AI poses an existential threat to civilization, Elon Musk warned a gathering of governors in Rhode Island one summers day.

Musks words are very much on my mind as the car I drive (its not autonomous, not yet) crests a hill in the rural southern Piedmont region of Virginia, where I was born and raised. From here I can almost see home, the fields once carpeted by lush green tobacco leaves and the roads long ago bustling with workers commuting from profitable textile mills and furniture plants. But that economy is no more. Poverty, unemployment, and frustration are high, as they are with our neighbors across the Blue Ridge Mountains in Appalachia and to the north in the Rust Belt. I am driving between Rustburg, the county seat, and Gladys, an unincorporated farming community where my mom and brother still live.

I left this community, located down the road from where Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, because even as a kid I could see the bitter end of an economy that used to hum along, and I couldnt wait to chase my own dreams of building computers and software. But these are still my people, and I love them. Today, as one of the many tech entrepreneurs on the West Coast, my feet are firmly planted in both urban California and rural Southern soil. Ive come home to talk with my classmates; to reconcile those bafflingly confident, anxiety-producing warnings about the future of jobs and artificial intelligence that I frequently hear among thought leaders in Silicon Valley, New York City, and DC, to see for myself whether there might be a different story to tell.

If I can better understand how the friends and family I grew up with in Campbell County are faring today, a generation after one economic tidal wave swept through, and in the midst of another, perhaps I can better influence the development of advanced technologies that will soon visit their lives and livelihoods. In addition to serving as Microsofts CTO, I also am the executive vice president of AI and research. Its important for those of us building these technologies to meet people where they are, on factory floors, the rooms and hallways of health care facilities, in the classrooms and the agricultural fields.

I pull off Brookneal Highway, the two-lane main road, into a wide gravel parking lot thats next to the old house my friends W. B. and Allan Bass lived in when we were in high school. A sign out front proclaims that Ive arrived at Bass Sod Farm. The house is now headquarters for their sprawling agricultural operation. Its just around the corner from my moms house, and in a sign of the times, near a nondescript cinder-block building that houses a CenturyLink hub for high-speed internet access. Prized deer antlers, a black bear skin, and a stuffed bobcat adorn its conference room, which used to be the family kitchen.

W.B. and Allan were popular back in the day. They always had a nice truck with a gun rack, and were known for their hunting and fishing skills. The Bass family has worked the same plots of Campbell County tobacco land for five generations, dating back to the Civil War. Within my lifetime, Barksdale the grandfather, Walter the father, and now W.B. (Walter Barksdale) and brother Allan have worked the land alongside a small team of seasonal workers, mostly immigrants from Mexico.

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Automation May Take Jobsbut AI Will Create Them - WIRED

AP Automation helps prevent the growing finance fraud problem – MSDynamicsWorld.com

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Fraud is a growing concern for businesses around the world. According to the 2020 AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey, 81 percent of businesses indicated that they experienced payments fraud in 2019. Accounts Payable (AP) is particularly vulnerable to fraud because its where invoices are approved for payment, but conversely, its also where fraud can be prevented. Fraud is a very costly problem. An average company can lose about 5% of revenue annually due to fraud, or about $3.7 trillion for businesses globally, according to The ACFE [Association of Certified Fraud Examiners] Global Fraud Study.

Fraud can crop up in different parts of the AP process from entering a new vendor in the vendor master file to processing an invoice and can be perpetrated from internal or external sources or a combination of the two. For example, an employee could create a fake vendor account or make changes to an existing one, routing payment to another bank account. Other fraudulent practices include creating a fake bill either for a new or existing vendor issuing duplicate or multiple invoices, or overcharging an invoice and pocketing the difference.

AP departments can spot fraud through some telltale signs, such as consecutive invoice numbers, invoices with P.O. boxes only, and those from unknown vendors. Other tipoffs include a check amount that is just under the threshold requiring a second approver, or a larger cost that is split up into smaller invoices to avoid hitting that threshold.

The good news is that AP departments can implement best practices to help prevent fraud. Following are four such strategies that leading AP leaders are implementing in their organizations:

Since fraud is primarily perpetrated by humans, AP departments can significantly prevent fraud by removing humans from the process as much as possible. The goal is to achieve straight-through processing, in which an automated system handles all steps and validations according to set rules, and sends the invoices directly to payment without any human intervention. In reality, typically there are exceptions that dont match the rules in the system, or instances where critical invoice information is missing. Because of this, while organizations aim to have their automated system handle an increasing number of invoices, humans are still needed to handle exceptions.

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AP Automation helps prevent the growing finance fraud problem - MSDynamicsWorld.com

AI and Automation’s Impact on the Workforce – HR Exchange Network

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For years now, human resources professionals have heard about artificial intelligence and automation with increasing frequency, and with good reason. The two closely-related technologies are being used for more and more tasks within organizations. Most are used to replace humans engaged in repetitive processes; things that are completed the same way over and over again. The implementation of one or both technologies can have positive impacts on the bottom lines of companies.

While thats a positive point for employing the technology what is the impact to workers? Are they displaced, replaced, or repurposed within the organization?. During a presentation as part of the HR Exchange Networks HR and Future of Work online event, Southern New Hampshire Universitys vice president of research and insight, Dr. Jerome Rekart, took a look at Southern New Hampshire University research that not only explains the opinion landscape around the technologies, but looks at whether or not companies are prepared to handle the human impact of the continued proliferation of artificial intelligence and automation.

From a consumer perspective, artificial intelligence is already rampant in daily life. Apple users are using Siri to answer simple questions and even conduct some tasks; dictating a text message or playing music. Amazons family of Echo devices are much the same. When put in the context of human resources, AI is a bit more focused in that the technology replaces some type of cognitive path or makes [a job] easier.

Automation is not much different. Through AI, automation occurs when a machine does some kind of physical task over and over again.

As mentioned earlier, there are mixed opinions on whether the adoption of these technologies is a good thing or a bad thing for the workforce. Dr. Rekart pointed to two separate pieces of research that draw a stark contrast between two significant groups: employees and employers.

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Last year, Gallup, in a partnership with Northeastern, surveyed employees about their opinions regarding artificial intelligence and found that 70 percent believed AI would, in the long run, kill more jobs than it will create. Conversely, McKinseys research a year earlier focused on corporate leaders. They were asked whether or not AI would force a reduction in the workforce. Only six percent said it would; meaning 94 percent said they didnt believe that it would necessitate a reduction at all.

Given that most experts believe that AI and automation will have drastic effects on most if not all organizations, Dr. Rekart asked the question: how do HR leaders perceive AI and automation will impact their organizations over the next five years?

Consistent with expert opinion, Rekarts research found that 68 percent of respondents said there will be some type of impact. Looking closer at the breakdown of that grouping, 32 percent of respondents expect to be affected by both AI and automation, while 20 percent expect to be only affected by AI and 16 percent only automation. That said, how do organizations feel about the impact of technology? Will it be of great benefit to the organization and its employees or will it be a detriment. Dr. Rekarts research points to a beneficial impact.

The first question posed to respondents focused specifically on the companys bottom line. Rekart says the results were overwhelmingly positive.

Almost 80 percent said that it would be either somewhat or very positive.

But the next question was even more intriguing.

When we asked the next question, Rekart continued, we saw a slight reduction there... but almost the exact same numbers.

But when asked whether they felt there would be a displacement of employees within their organization, many respondents indicated that they did anticipate such an effect. In fact, the average across all HR leaders shows that it is believed that almost one-third of labor will be displaced by AI or automation within the coming five years.

So where will most of the displacement come? According to Dr. Rekarts research, most will come from

All of that said, it begs the question: how are HR leaders preparing for the impact of artificial intelligence and automation. According to Dr. Rekart most arent.

When asked have you or your organization begun to plan for employee displacement by AI or automation, a little more than 58 percent said no.

So how do companies begin to prepare their workforce? There are several different ways. Four Dr. Rekart suggested were:

In his research, Dr. Rekart put that question to HR professionals. Nearly 60 percent said they would provide some type of upskilling opportunity. Going deeper, Dr. Rekart wanted to know how, specifically, those organizations planned to deliver that upskilling.

Nearly 80 percent said they would provide professional development and/or training. Others pointed to providing tuition assistance/reimbursement for college coursework while others said they would provide opportunities to earn badges/non-degree credentials.

Given that information, Dr. Rekart wanted to know what advice HR professionals would give employees whose job is likely in danger of being displaced by AI or automation? Nearly 35 percent pointed to getting new skills or training. In comments related to that finding, HR professionals pointed to the need for employees to begin reading about AI and trying to outsmart the technology by finding a job it will never be able to do. But for Dr. Rekart, all comments were summed up in the following statement:

So how do we move in that direction? Dr. Rekart said, We all have to recognize AI and automation are going to affect off our jobs. He also said things such as professional development, upskilling, and education/tuition assistance/reimbursement will have positive benefits including productivity, loyalty and return-on-investment. Finally, Dr. Rekart said, Many organizations are trying to be responsive to the workforce, to its needs and to the changes that the organizations are feeling.

Want to know more about this topic? What Dr. Jerome Rekarts full presentation here.

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AI and Automation's Impact on the Workforce - HR Exchange Network

Improving the Power Grid with Blockchain – Automation World

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Blockchain has been making big news in the industrial automation sector over the past few years for its potential to address critical issues ranging from the industrial supply chain and food and pharmaceutical safety to OEM-to-manufacturer contract management. Now the distributed ledger technology is being used to optimize the power grid.

Artemis Technology Group's MartinezArtemis Energy Services andOSIsoft recently announced a partnership to securely track, trace, and trade energy while optimizing the electric grid. According to the two companies, this partnership is based on using Artemis Energy Services blockchain technology to interact with real-time data provided by OSIsofts PI System software (which collects, analyzes, visualizes, and shares high-fidelity, time-series data from multiple industrial sources). This combination of technologies is expected to lead to a field-proven 20% increase in overall grid efficiency and utilization, according to a statement from the two companies. This efficiency gain will reduce the need for new fossil-based energy sources and utility grid system upgrades. [This combination of technologies] will create an entirely new marketplace that has the capability to serve both a single individual as well as the complex regulatory and operational authorities that govern and manage energy markets.

Addressing the transformational potential of the blockchain technology from Artemis in the energy sector, Richard Beeson, CTO of OSIsoft, said, The energy-focused platform that Artemis is leveraging went live in July of 2019 [and it] is a purpose-built application for this specific segment of the industry. The electric grid has been called the most complex machine man has ever built. As such, the requirements for this application are significant and the work we are doing now with the data, operations, transactions, and services segments will help define a new future for a grid that has historically operated in a unidirectional flow into one that can be bi-directional and also recognize single phase operation of assets.These are dramatic shifts for this industry, and these new technologies presented by our consortium of companies are the first to be able to effectively enable this future.

Amanda Martinez, CEO of Artemis, explained that the Artemis Transaction Engine is able to transact directly with the real-time information that the OSIsoft PI system manages and create real-time transaction tags to be included in the chain.This allows dynamic operation, real-time settlement, and 100% transparency with the grid operators and regulators, she said.

Asked how the Artemis Transaction Engine differs from standard blockchain technologies, given the complexities of the energy grid, Martinez noted thatArtemis was founded by energy experts who have spent their entire careers helping shape this industry.This (the Artemis Transaction Engine) is an application built by and for the energy industry, not by a software company looking to leverage a market facing extreme pressure to innovate and modernize. Other blockchain applications [were first developed as] a solution based on a particular industry segment, market, or structure, [leading the developers to] go in search of the data and customers to enable the solution they have built.Artemis purpose built our application around the data and fundamental physics of [grid] operation.Therefore, regardless of the continent, country, or market construct, this purpose-built application can be immediately implemented.

OSIsoft's Richard BeesonWith regard to the 20% increase in overall grid efficiency and utilization" cited in the two companies release about their partnership, Besson explained that electric networks are designed and operated based on a cascading set of worst-case assumptions.For example, operating on the hottest day possible in a 20-year planning horizon with the heaviest load and with the loss of their single biggest resource.By considering distributed energy resources (DER) as part of the solution instead of the problem, a utility can make use of these resources at the edge of the grid and increase the average amount of electricity flowing in the existing network year-round.So instead of the system being utilized at 43% on average like it is today around the world, we can help that number move above 60%or even higherfor areas with large-scale DER penetration.Our application helps recognize all of the values of DER, not just a few of them, and this allows for grid services, utilization, efficiency, and a plethora of other benefits to be realized.

Other technologies playing a part in this consortium include software from PXiSE Energy Solutions and DERNetSoft. As you can imagine, the data required for every facet of this solution needs to be in place to allow any of the additional segments to be effective, said Beeson. The purpose of our consortium is to provide each of the necessary elements with what we feel are the best-in-class providers, so that a network provider has a fully capable end-to-end solution for a proof-of-concept deployment.

Beeson added that refinements to the transaction engine are being made by Artemis now, based on work with network providers and industry experts, with deployment of the combined technologies expected to take place in the second half of 2020.

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Improving the Power Grid with Blockchain - Automation World