Monthly Archives: July 2021

I’ve lived under Donald Trump and Fidel Castro. Both taught me the importance of defending truth. – America Magazine

Posted: July 14, 2021 at 1:40 pm

Cuidado con el coco! This warning about a mythical character, never seen but feared, was a staple of childhood in Cuba. A boogeyman, el coco kept us in line by making us afraid of the unknown. But I was also taught that there was another threatening creature, a real one: The United States was the ultimate el coco, whose big toothy shores wanted to devour our island. Fearing it would keep us in line.

But recently many Cubans have dared to cross that line, gathering for protests over a lack of food and medicine, rising prices and the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Butthe cries of the community have gone deeper, asking for basic freedoms in a desperate bid for the worlds attention. Artists, writers, musicians and journalists who have dared to speakpublicly have been swiftly taken by security forces, their whereabouts unknown. Internet service has been shut down. The protests, which began in small towns and spread throughout the country, are a rare sight in a country in which unauthorized public gatherings are illegal and have been met with swift crackdowns.

Elementary school in Fidel Castros Cuba was a strange place where history began with Christopher Columbus, moved ahead centuries to Cubas independence from Spain and then moved straight to La Revolucin. Our other subjects included Marxism-Leninism (yes, in elementary school) and rigorous physical exercise in the Soviet model, a propaganda tool on the worlds stage. Our teachers came to school in army fatigues to underscore how under siege our country was from the imperialist power to the north and the dissidents within. Communist party affiliation was required for jobs and disclosed at school by each child. Those who were young communists wore an official blue and white bandana with their school uniformpioneros on the front lines of the fight for a new world order.

I refused and was often sent to the inspector, especially when I dared wear my religious medals. Yet, paradoxically, I was their star pupil trotted out in assemblies to read speeches prepared for me, which I then stomped on when I left the stage. I learned we could not speak of faith, my church was drowned out by loudspeakers while we tried to pray, and Christmas was outlawed, remaining alive only in memories.

This was my childhood. It made me prize critical thought and truth-telling as fundamental human rights. It also made me aware that the extremes meet in the end and that whether on the left (as in Cuba) or on the right (as in Trumpism), extremism for the sake of power results in the erosion of human thought, truth and agency. The Gospel I believe in stands up against lies, wherever they come from, and against anything that assails the common good. These are not values shared by either extreme.

At the height of the pandemic, I asked someone to please mask up or move away, only to hear them cry, Its a free country! People who have no idea what it is to have no freedom under a brutally repressive regime bandy about phrases like this. It is insulting. It is ignorant. It is the outcome of a world in which ideologies no longer mean anything and at the same time have intensified and appear to mean everything. Pope Francis is called a Communist because he dares speak about the poor and the environment. Communist China has one the most virulent forms of capitalism on the planet and victimizes both the poor and the environment.

When young people in Cuba today shout Libertad! (wearing masks and desperate for vaccines, which many free U.S. citizens refuse to take), their cry is about their most basic survival as human beings, the need for food and medicine. It is about being lied to their entire lives, about the grinding reality of being unable to even express ones thoughts for fear of ones life. To protest in the streets is to brave imprisonment or death. As one eloquent young man put it on a widely shared video, We are starving while they build hotels.

It is possible that this man already has been identified and imprisoned, the brutal repression we always knew awaited the person engaging in any act of defiance. But notice the contradiction: They are building hotels while the people starve. This is the truth no one wants to talk about because the powerful on the left and on the right benefit from it. A truly communist country would not build tourist hotelsthats capitalism. A truly democratic country would not pass voter suppression laws like those being sponsored by Republican legislatures; that is undemocratic and dangerous.

We now live in a post-ideological world where improbable ideology reigns supreme as a weapon in building power. The only defense we have against this is truth arrived at by being willing to embrace complexity. Yes, Cuba has a horrible, repressive, left-wing dictatorship. Yes, the right-wing dictatorship that preceded the revolution was also horrible and propped up by the United States, as in many other places. Yes, Cuba imprisons its thinkers and intellectuals for telling the truth. Yes, we in the United States have stopped listening to ours. All of these are yeses.

The majority of Cuban-Americans in the United States sold themselves to Trumpism because he waved el coco of socialism at them. But in 2020, Donald J. Trump lost. The threat of the United States under a Biden administration will not stoke the same fears in Cuba. This is the greatest hope I have. There is no coco to scare the Cuban people with anymore.

When Pope Francis brokered a rapprochement between the United States and Cuba in 2014, he knew exactly what he was doing: Take away el coco, deal a blow to the Cuban propaganda machine, bring about relations people to people. Undo the false ideological labels. Help all. I hope that those of us who live in the world of both/and truth-telling will prevail across the 90 miles that separate us. If we focus on the truth of the common good in Cuba, here and everywhere, then the path is clear. Adis, el coco.

This article has been updated.

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I've lived under Donald Trump and Fidel Castro. Both taught me the importance of defending truth. - America Magazine

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Opinion | America Punishes Only a Certain Kind of Rebel – The New York Times

Posted: at 1:40 pm

Before he died, Davis wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, a two-volume work in which he purported to show that the Southern states had rightfully the power to withdraw from a Union into which they had, as sovereign communities, voluntarily entered and that secession was a righteous response to violations and usurpations of the Constitution.

Stephens similarly sought vindication with a book that framed the Civil War as a fight over opposing principles that lay in the organic structure of the government of the states. It was strife, he wrote, between the principles of federation, on the one side, and centralism, or consolidation, on the other.

Leniency for defeated Confederates did not just give them an opportunity to shape the nations memory of the war; it also contributed to a climate of impunity that fueled violence against Black people and their allies. Contemporary observers blamed the New Orleans massacre of 1866 in which a mob of white rioters attacked a group of mostly Black Unionists, leaving dozens dead and many more wounded on Johnsons permissive Reconstruction policies.

Blood is upon his hands, the blood of innocent, loyal citizens, who had committed no crime but that of seeking to protect themselves against rebel misrule, which he, Andrew Johnson, had foisted upon them, The Chicago Tribune wrote.

To explain Johnsons leniency, the historian Eric Foner notes two factors. The first was Johnsons deep-seated racism, his belief that white men alone must manage the South. The second was his ambition to serve a second term. Thus, as Foner writes in Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution, Johnson came to view cooperation with the former Confederate elite as indispensable to two interrelated goals white supremacy in the South and his own re-election as president.

Put a little differently, Johnsons willingness to hold former Confederates responsible was tempered by both ideology and the realities of partisan politics. The Southern planter class may have been disloyal, but it still represented the kind of citizen Johnson believed should rule, as well as the kind of voter he hoped to attract.

This is an important point. The United States has never struggled to punish those radicals who stood against hierarchy and domination. Whether you were a labor radical, Black revolutionary or left-wing militant, to attempt to upset existing class and social relations or, at times, to even associate with people who held those ideas was to court state repression. The two Red Scares of the 20th century are evidence enough of this fact.

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Opinion | America Punishes Only a Certain Kind of Rebel - The New York Times

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Addressing the Ag Labor Challenge with Automation | – Southern Farm Network

Posted: at 1:40 pm

Overcoming the agriculture labor hurdle includes finding ways to get the work done in jobs that go unfilled. During the Agri-Pulse Food and Ag Policy Summit West on Monday, a panel discussion focused on innovations in agriculture to overcome labor challenges.

Western Growers Vice President of Innovation Walt Duflock says the first problem is the workers arent there.

Its not like were taking away jobs we cant find workers already. This often comes up when we talk about technology and innovation automation, and I think the way we address it is A, really demonstrate the realities on the ground that they have many unfilled positions but also theres a need to translate the workforce of the future as well.

Pauline Canteneur, Business Strategist at FarmWise, says her company is developing innovative solutions to help growers address the labor challenge.

We leverage AI and robotics to deliver automated solution to vegetable farms. Our first product is an automated mechanical weeder that detects crops from weeds using facial recognition, so its like Facebook for your crops, if you will, and then were able to actuate precisely blades around the crop, removing harmful weeds. We deploy a fleet of a dozen of robots along the central coast of California. So, we deploy as a service to bridge a gap between a shortening labor supply and just quite frankly, a lack of a solution to get this weeding job done.

Gabe Youtsey, Chief Innovation Officer at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources department, says these robot innovations arent taking the jobs of current farm workerstape

Cut #3 :18 OC:not harvested.

Lets blow up the myth, right now, there are no ag robots taking away any jobs at all today or anytime in the near future, right, and you know that because youve got acreage planted every year that is prepped, planted, grown, irrigated, weeded and then not harvested.

Jenny Maloney of Bayer CropScience adds its all part of the larger puzzle facing growers everyday.

Theres so many pressures every day that growers are facing, whether its on water or nutrients pesticide use, labor, I mean, its just heavy every day, something else, and growers are looking for ways to meet those requirements and stay in business and stay profitable.

The panel adds that addressing the challenge will require research, investment, communication and regulatory changes to help meet the future needs of agriculture.

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Worldwide Electronic Design Automation Industry to 2026 – Key Players Include Altium, ANSYS and Autodesk Among Others – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 1:40 pm

DUBLIN, July 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Electronic Design Automation Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2021-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

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The global electronic design automation (EDA) market exhibited strong growth during 2015-2020. Electronic design automation, or electronic computer-aided design tool, refers to a collection of various software tools that are used to design circuit boards digitally. It utilizes integrated layouts of analog and digital designs, which are used in the manufacturing of integrated circuits (ICs) and other electronic components. This aids in minimizing the production costs and time required for designing ICs, along with eliminating manufacturing errors. Owing to these benefits, it finds extensive applications across various industries, including aerospace, defense, healthcare, telecom and automotive.

Significant growth in the electronics industry, coupled with the emerging trend of industrial automation across the globe, currently represent as the key factors driving the growth of the market. Furthermore, the integration of connected devices with the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) is also providing a boost to the market growth. These technologies are favoring the widespread adoption of circuits, semiconductors and sensors that are compact and require low operational power. Additionally, the trend of miniaturized electronic products is also creating a positive outlook for the market. Manufacturers are utilizing EDA solutions to design advanced electronics with compact designs, such as smart wearable devices, automotive gadgets and healthcare equipment, with high efficiency. Other factors, including the rising utilization of microprocessors and controllers in automated controls and smartcard applications, advancements in System on Chip (SoC) technology and extensive research and development (R&D) activities, are projected to drive the market further. Looking forward, the publisher expects the global electronic design automation market to grow at a CAGR of around 10% during 2021-2026.

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Competitive Landscape:

The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined with some of the key players being Altium, ANSYS Inc., Autodesk Inc., Boldport Limited, Cadence Design Systems Inc., Mentor (a Siemens Business), Silvaco Inc., Synopsis Inc., Vennsa Technologies, Xilinx Inc., etc.

Key Questions Answered in This Report:

How has the global electronic design automation market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years?

What are the key regional markets?

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global electronic design automation market?

What is the breakup of the market based on the solution type?

What is the breakup of the market based on the deployment type?

What is the breakup of the market based on the end-use industry?

What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry?

What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry?

What is the structure of the global electronic design automation market and who are the key players?

What is the degree of competition in the industry?

Key Topics Covered:

1 Preface

2 Scope and Methodology

3 Executive Summary

4 Introduction4.1 Overview4.2 Key Industry Trends

5 Global Electronic Design Automation Market5.1 Market Overview5.2 Market Performance5.3 Impact of COVID-195.4 Market Forecast

6 Market Breakup by Solution Type6.1 Semiconductor IP6.1.1 Market Trends6.1.2 Market Forecast6.2 CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)6.2.1 Market Trends6.2.2 Market Forecast6.3 IC Physical Design and Verification6.3.1 Market Trends6.3.2 Market Forecast6.4 PCB & MCM (Printed Circuit Board and Multi-Chip Module)6.4.1 Market Trends6.4.2 Market Forecast6.5 Services6.5.1 Market Trends6.5.2 Market Forecast

7 Market Breakup by Deployment Type7.1 On-premises7.1.1 Market Trends7.1.2 Market Forecast7.2 Cloud-based7.2.1 Market Trends7.2.2 Market Forecast

8 Market Breakup by End-Use Industry8.1 Military/Defense8.1.1 Market Trends8.1.2 Market Forecast8.2 Aerospace8.2.1 Market Trends8.2.2 Market Forecast8.3 Telecom8.3.1 Market Trends8.3.2 Market Forecast8.4 Automotive8.4.1 Market Trends8.4.2 Market Forecast8.5 Healthcare8.5.1 Market Trends8.5.2 Market Forecast8.6 Others8.6.1 Market Trends8.6.2 Market Forecast

9 Market Breakup by Region9.1 North America9.1.1 United States9.1.1.1 Market Trends9.1.1.2 Market Forecast9.1.2 Canada9.1.2.1 Market Trends9.1.2.2 Market Forecast9.2 Asia Pacific9.2.1 China9.2.1.1 Market Trends9.2.1.2 Market Forecast9.2.2 Japan9.2.2.1 Market Trends9.2.2.2 Market Forecast9.2.3 India9.2.3.1 Market Trends9.2.3.2 Market Forecast9.2.4 South Korea9.2.4.1 Market Trends9.2.4.2 Market Forecast9.2.5 Australia9.2.5.1 Market Trends9.2.5.2 Market Forecast9.2.6 Indonesia9.2.6.1 Market Trends9.2.6.2 Market Forecast9.2.7 Others9.2.7.1 Market Trends9.2.7.2 Market Forecast9.3 Europe9.3.1 Germany9.3.1.1 Market Trends9.3.1.2 Market Forecast9.3.2 France9.3.2.1 Market Trends9.3.2.2 Market Forecast9.3.3 United Kingdom9.3.3.1 Market Trends9.3.3.2 Market Forecast9.3.4 Italy9.3.4.1 Market Trends9.3.4.2 Market Forecast9.3.5 Spain9.3.5.1 Market Trends9.3.5.2 Market Forecast9.3.6 Russia9.3.6.1 Market Trends9.3.6.2 Market Forecast9.3.7 Others9.3.7.1 Market Trends9.3.7.2 Market Forecast9.4 Latin America9.4.1 Brazil9.4.1.1 Market Trends9.4.1.2 Market Forecast9.4.2 Mexico9.4.2.1 Market Trends9.4.2.2 Market Forecast9.4.3 Others9.4.3.1 Market Trends9.4.3.2 Market Forecast9.5 Middle East and Africa9.5.1 Market Trends9.5.2 Market Breakup by Country9.5.3 Market Forecast

10 SWOT Analysis10.1 Overview10.2 Strengths10.3 Weaknesses10.4 Opportunities10.5 Threats

11 Value Chain Analysis11.1 Overview11.2 Component Suppliers11.3 Original Equipment Manufacturers11.4 System Integrators11.5 End-Use Industries11.6 Post Sales Services

12 Porters Five Forces Analysis12.1 Overview12.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers12.3 Bargaining Power of Suppliers12.4 Degree of Competition12.5 Threat of New Entrants12.6 Threat of Substitutes

13 Price Indicators

14 Competitive Landscape14.1 Market Structure14.2 Key Players14.3 Profiles of Key Players14.3.1 Altium14.3.1.1 Company Overview14.3.1.2 Product Portfolio14.3.2 ANSYS Inc.14.3.2.1 Company Overview14.3.2.2 Product Portfolio14.3.2.3 Financials14.3.2.4 SWOT Analysis14.3.3 Autodesk Inc.14.3.3.1 Company Overview14.3.3.2 Product Portfolio14.3.3.3 Financials14.3.3.4 SWOT Analysis14.3.4 Boldport Limited14.3.4.1 Company Overview14.3.4.2 Product Portfolio14.3.4.3 Financials14.3.5 Cadence Design Systems Inc.14.3.5.1 Company Overview14.3.5.2 Product Portfolio14.3.5.3 Financials14.3.5.4 SWOT Analysis14.3.6 Mentor (a Siemens Business)14.3.6.1 Company Overview14.3.6.2 Product Portfolio14.3.6.3 SWOT Analysis14.3.7 Silvaco Inc.14.3.7.1 Company Overview14.3.7.2 Product Portfolio14.3.8 Synopsis Inc.14.3.8.1 Company Overview14.3.8.2 Product Portfolio14.3.8.3 Financials14.3.8.4 SWOT Analysis14.3.9 Vennsa Technologies14.3.9.1 Company Overview14.3.9.2 Product Portfolio14.3.10 Xilinx Inc.14.3.10.1 Company Overview14.3.10.2 Product Portfolio14.3.10.3 Financials14.3.10.4 SWOT Analysis

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/x24bgz

Media Contact:

Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Worldwide Electronic Design Automation Industry to 2026 - Key Players Include Altium, ANSYS and Autodesk Among Others - Yahoo Finance

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UiPath Joins TSANet to Fast Track Automation to its Customers Globally – Business Wire

Posted: at 1:40 pm

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UiPath (NYSE: PATH), a leading enterprise automation software company, today announced that it has joined TSANet (Technical Support Alliance Network), the industrys largest vendor neutral support alliance, to fast track interactions with other vendors in resolving multi-party integration issues. By joining the TSANet ecosystem, UiPath will leverage other vendors engineering and customer success teams to ultimately reduce the resolution time for its mutual customers. UiPath, the first pure-play automation company to join the alliance, teams up with hundreds of TSANet Members including Google, IBM, Microsoft Corporation, Nutanix, Red Hat, and VMware.

UiPath offers the first end-to-end automation platform that addresses the full lifecycle of automation. With proven scalability and deployment flexibility, customers today leverage the UiPath platform as a key component in their technology offering to realize value faster. TSANet provides a framework for establishing and maintaining effective collaboration between engineering and customer success teams working on a common customer issue. This allows them to ultimately ensure a higher level of support to UiPath and other TSANet members clients.

Direct and timely communication between technical and customer success teams is critical when resolving product integration issues that involve multiple parties or customizing the requirements of a shared customer, said Michael Binder, UiPath Senior Vice President of Global Services. TSANet allows us to have a single point of contact with more than 800 technology companies and facilitate collaboration between teams to solve integration issues faster and easier. This partnership is yet another critical activity in our commitment towards building and enabling a world-class partner network.

TSANet President, Dennis Smeltzer, commented: Enterprise automation has grown tremendously over the past several years, and collaboration between automation and other technology vendors is a necessity. Having UiPath as the first pure-play automation company to join the alliance is not only a major win for us, but also for the millions of customers our members serve each and every day.

About UiPath

UiPath has a vision to deliver the Fully Automated Enterprise, one where companies use automation to unlock their greatest potential. UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to rapidly scale digital business operations.

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UiPath Joins TSANet to Fast Track Automation to its Customers Globally - Business Wire

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Buyer Consortium Updates Shareholders of Hollysys Automation Technologies With Additional Information Relating to Consent Solicitation – Business Wire

Posted: at 1:40 pm

BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The buyer consortium (the Consortium) consisting of Mr. Shao Baiqing, Ace Lead Profits Limited, and CPE Funds Management Limited today issued a letter to shareholders of Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: HOLI) (the Company or Hollysys) with additional information regarding the Consortiums proposed acquisition of the Company and the consent solicitation. The Consortium strongly believes that the proposed acquisition is the best and only option to shareholders to achieve immediate liquidity on their investment, at a highly attractive premium and with far greater certainty. The Consortium reminds shareholders of the Company as of June 24, 2021 to sign, date and return the WHITE consent card as soon as possible before July 22, 2021.

The full text of the Consortiums letter is as follows:

Dear Fellow Shareholders,

We, the buyer consortium (the Consortium or we) consisting of Mr. Shao Baiqing (Mr. Shao), Ace Lead Profits Limited (Ace Lead), and CPE Funds Management Limited (CPE) would like to remind you to please submit your consent to our resolutions concerning the proposed acquisition (the Proposed Acquisition) of all outstanding ordinary shares of the Company not already owned by the Consortium at a price of $17.10 per share in cash, by following the instructions on the WHITE consent card.

If you hold shares through a bank or broker (i.e., in street-name or as a beneficial owner) and have not yet received the Consortiums consent materials by mail or email, please contact your bank or broker as soon as possible and request instructions regarding the WHITE consent card. If you are a record holder (i.e., you hold shares in your own name on the register of members of the Company), please promptly contact Innisfree M&A Incorporated (Innisfree), the firm assisting the Consortium with the consent solicitation, at the telephone number or email address below to request a copy of the WHITE consent card.

Additionally, in case it is helpful, we would like to share with all shareholders the information we have provided in response to certain limited inquiries we have received:

Q.

Will the results of the consent solicitation commit shareholders to the Proposed Acquisition?

No. We would like to reiterate that the consent is non-binding as to the Proposed Transaction generally and the $17.10 per share offer price specifically. As noted in our June 29, 2021 press release (italic and bold font added for emphasis purposes): This solicitation, if successful, will facilitate the Consortiums efforts to proceed with the Proposed Acquisition despite the inaction of the board of directors of the Company (the Board). If shareholders holding more than 50% of the outstanding shares of the Company deliver their consents to the resolutions as provided in the consent card, such resolutions will become effective pursuant to the Companys articles of association and the BVI Business Companies Act 2004. The intention of these resolutions is, among others, to limit the Boards power to invoke and exercise rights pursuant to the Companys existing poison pill in respect of the Proposed Acquisition. These approved resolutions, even after becoming effective, do not constitute an approval and authorization of the Proposed Acquisition by shareholders. Shareholders of the Company will be entitled to consider and vote upon the Proposed Acquisition at a special shareholder meeting to be called by the Board following the execution of a definitive merger agreement between the Consortium and the Company in respect of the Proposed Acquisition. Shareholders may find the full text of our June 29, 2021 press release, as well as other information about our consent solicitation and the Proposed Acquisition, on the dedicated website at Hollysyspublicsolicitation.net.

Q.

Does the Consortium expect to conduct due diligence with respect to the value of its offer?

Regarding the potential for due diligence and whether the Consortium would reconsider the offer price, we continue to believe that the Company will not allow us to conduct any meaningful due diligence in a timely or effective manner. However, if the Company were to present new, concrete and material information relevant to the offer, of course the Consortium would keep an open mind.

Q.

Does the Consortium have financing in place for its Proposed Acquisition?

While there have been many banks offering the Consortium very beneficial terms, we believe it is premature for us to obtain committed financing at this stage given the non-binding nature of the consent solicitation process and the uncertainty around it. We would expect to undertake this phase of the process once it is clear that the Company will negotiate with us in good faith a definitive merger agreement in respect of the Proposed Acquisition that can be put before shareholders. Then, again, the Companys board of directors and the Consortium would first need to execute a merger agreement and shareholders would need to approve it before we could close on the Proposed Acquisition.

Q.

Who is ACE Lead, and is there a dispute about who owns its interest in Hollysys?

Ace Lead is a holding company wholly owned and controlled by Mr. Shao. Mr. Shao is its sole shareholder and director. Certain former and current employees of the Company and its subsidiaries (and related parties of such employees) have economic interests in a portion of the Company shares held by Ace Lead, which allows those individuals to share the economic benefits of those shares (such as rights to receive dividends and proceeds from the sale of shares). But employees and their related parties have no rights or interests in the underlying Company shares and they cannot sell, transfer or vote those Company shares either.

As a matter of record and common ground, there is no dispute that Ace Lead owns 4,144,223 ordinary shares of Hollysys in its own right. The alleged dispute is regarding who should own and control Ace Lead. Mr. Changli Wang asked Mr. Shao to transfer the ownership and control of Ace Lead to himself or his designees, which has no legal or factual basis whatsoever.

Q.

Who is CPE, and what is their experience with U.S. public companies?

CPE is a leading asset manager, currently managing a number of private equity, mezzanine and public market funds. Founded in 2008 by a world class team of investment professionals and supported by over 200 domestic and international investors, CPE is one of the largest private equity firms in China with a total AUM exceeding US$20 billion. Since its inception, the team has made over 200 private equity investments, among which over 50 are buyout transactions. CPE places great emphasis on value creation post investment and employs a dedicated in-house portfolio management team and operating partners who work alongside deal teams to drive strategic, organizational and operational enhancement in portfolio companies. It has received recognition from various international professional awards, the most well-known being the PEI 300 (Year 2021), which ranked CPE as one of the top 60 largest private equity firms worldwide, top 5 in Asia, and No. 2 in China, as well as the Private Equity Exchange & Awards, which honored CPE the winner of both the Best Global Private Equity Fund Silver Award and the Best ESG Private Equity Initiatives Silver Award in 2021. More information about CPE can be found at its official website: http://www.cpe-fund.com/en/index.html.

Shareholders with questions about how to submit consents and related matters should promptly contact Innisfree by email at HOLIconsent@innisfreema.com or by phone at +1 (877) 750-9501 (toll-free from the U.S. and Canada), or at +1 (412) 232-3651 (from other locations), during the hours of 10:00 a.m-7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday-Friday, and 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturdays. We ask you to please return your signed WHITE consent card to us as soon as possible before July 22, 2021.

Thank you for your support and prompt action!

Your sincerely,

Shao BaiqingAce Lead Profits LimitedCPE Funds Management Limited

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Buyer Consortium Updates Shareholders of Hollysys Automation Technologies With Additional Information Relating to Consent Solicitation - Business Wire

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Rockwell Automation recognized as a finalist for the 2021 Microsoft Internet of Things Partner of the Year – PRNewswire

Posted: at 1:39 pm

MILWAUKEE, July 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, has been named a finalist of the 2021 Microsoft Internet of Things Partner of the Year Award. The company was recognized among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

"We're honored to receive this recognition from Microsoft," said Rockwell Automation Chairman and CEO Blake Moret. "Achieving results is what Rockwell is all about, and teaming with Microsoft helps us to deliver on that promise. Our intelligent industrial systems enable our customers to seamlessly save on infrastructure costs, speed time-to-value, and increase productivity."

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based solutions during the past year. Awards were classified in various categories, with honorees chosen from a set of more than 4,400 submitted nominations from more than 100 countries worldwide. Rockwell Automation was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services for IoT.

The Internet of Things Partner of the Year Award recognizes a Microsoft partner that has designed, developed and deployed IoT solutions built on its intelligent cloud and edge innovations, such as Azure, IoT and edge devices with their customers. These solutions are helping companies quickly improve their business by increasing visibility into their digital assets, such as where they are at a given time or predicting maintenance required to ensure zero downtime. As a result, they can drive business results and grow customer value.

"I am honored to announce the winners and finalists of the 2021 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards," said Rodney Clark, corporate vice president, Global Partner Solutions, Channel Sales and Channel Chief, Microsoft. "These remarkable partners have displayed a deep commitment to building world-class solutions for customers from cloud-to-edge and represent some of the best and brightest our ecosystem has to offer."

The Microsoft press release with more information about the awards and a full list of winners and finalists can be found at: https://news.microsoft.com/2021/07/08/microsoft-announces-2021-partner-of-the-year-awards-winners-and-finalists/

About Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK), is a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation. We connect the imaginations of people with the potential of technology to expand what is humanly possible, making the world more productive and more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs approximately 24,000 problem solvers dedicated to our customers in more than 100 countries. To learn more about how we are bringing the Connected Enterprise to life across industrial enterprises, visit http://www.rockwellautomation.com

SOURCE Rockwell Automation

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Rockwell Automation recognized as a finalist for the 2021 Microsoft Internet of Things Partner of the Year - PRNewswire

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ACCELQ Announces the Launch of Q-Community – A Global Community of Test Automation Enthusiasts – Business Wire

Posted: at 1:39 pm

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ACCELQ is delighted to announce the launch of Q-Community this summer. Q-Community aims to build and serve a community of Test Automation enthusiasts with a primary objective to find and nurture ways to transform test automation to be simpler, more reliable, and sustainable for the real world. It will help foster, guide, and upskill testers to stay relevant for the future of technological innovation.

Our vision is to drive community initiatives to make Automation easily accessible and eliminate traditional skill-based silos. The launch of community comes at a great time as we are going through rapid expansion in our global customer footprint and continue technology leadership and innovation in Quality Engineering with ACCELQ 5.0 platform release, said Mahendra Alladi, CEO & Founder, ACCELQ.

ACCELQ recently onboarded Geosley Andrades as Director of Community Programs to drive the Q-Community initiative globally. The power of community and the sense of belonging it creates is what drives Geosley day-in, day-out. With over a decade of Software testing and automation experience, Geosley brings a mix of a practitioner and a great understanding of community to the table. Being passionate about continuous learning, he loves to help and connect with people to solve real-life testing challenges.

We are thrilled to have Geosley join us on this exciting journey at ACCELQ. Geosleys background in Test Automation blended with his passion for social initiatives fits perfectly with ACCELQs Community vision, says Guljeet Nagpal, Chief Product Officer, ACCELQ

Geosley added, I am excited to join the ACCELQ family. Having worked with many test automation tools during my career, I believe ACCELQ brings the discipline, flexibility, and power of test automation into the No-code World. Looking forward to spreading the good news about Test Automation alongside a passionate and dynamic leadership team and taking ACCELQ to greater heights of success with Q-Community.

About ACCELQ

ACCELQ is an AI-powered Codeless Test Automation platform on the cloud that seamlessly automates Web UI, API, Mobile, and Desktop. ACCELQ was analyzed as a leader in the latest Continuous Test Automation platform Forrester research. ACCELQs customers are Fortune 500 enterprises across industry verticals globally, and they have adopted ACCELQ to accelerate their automation objectives significantly.

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ACCELQ Announces the Launch of Q-Community - A Global Community of Test Automation Enthusiasts - Business Wire

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India is among the least prepared countries for automation in Asia-Pacific: Report – BusinessLine

Posted: at 1:39 pm

India is among the countries most vulnerable to technological disruption in the Asia-Pacific and least prepared for automation, according to a research study released by Deloitte that was commissioned by Autodesk Foundation.

The study, The Future of Work is Now: Is APAC Ready?, explores the state of automation and the future of work across 12 APAC countries Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The report aims to help identify the labour markets most vulnerable to technological disruption in the region.

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It found India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan most at risk and least prepared for the coming wave of automation.

India ranks the fifth highest in terms of the impact from automation and ninth in the level of preparedness for this impact. It faces a greater impact from automation due to the higher share of employment in agriculture, manufacturing and construction, all of which have been identified as high-risk industries.

According to the report, Indias construction sector is the fifth most vulnerable, ahead of those in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Philippines.

The construction industry is likely to be among the hardest hit by automation across APAC due to the high proportion of routine and manual tasks and low year-on-year global productivity growth.

In the case of agriculture, India, the Philippines and Indonesia have a higher likelihood of automation, while Pakistan faced the highest risk of impact from automation.

Increased demand for food and sustainable farming methods is expected to lead to higher adoption of automation and digital solutions, the report said.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence can also help reduce spoilage, increase productivity, and add $9 billion to farmer incomes, it further said.

Indias mining sector has the second-highest risk of impact from automation, after Bangladeshs.

The sectors vulnerability to automation is traced to its relatively low skill requirements, its high degree of routine and manual tasks, and use of direct physical activity to operate machinery.

Mining comprises less than one per cent of the workforce in 10 out of the 12 countries analysed, suggesting that automation in mining is well underway.

Adoption of automation has gained significant momentum amid the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the report, close to half of all businesses intend to increase their adoption of robotic process automation over the next year.

Automation creates opportunities for new, more meaningful types of work as it replaces mundane or repetitive manual tasks, but the state of preparedness of countries and industries will determine whether they benefit from these advances. Improving digital literacy, supporting disadvantaged workers, and putting in place the right infrastructure and skills will help create new roles that workers can transition into, said Rajeev Mittal, Regional Director, India and SAARC, Autodesk.

The pandemic has accelerated demand for automation across sectors, which will greatly transform how companies in India do business, Mittal added.

The report also proposed solutions to help the workforce thrive as automation gains further momentum. This includes raising awareness of the need to adapt, funding industry-specific programmes for digital transformation, and investing in learning programmes to help disadvantaged workers and build resilience.

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India is among the least prepared countries for automation in Asia-Pacific: Report - BusinessLine

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Unleashing the true potential of automated underwriting – Digital Insurance

Posted: at 1:39 pm

The pandemic has forced the industry to hasten its embrace of automation. By the start of this year, over 40% of life insurers had either already incorporated some degree of accelerated and automated underwriting into their new business process, or had imminent plans to do so. This was a dramatic increase from 18% the year before according to research from Celent.

Pandemic or not, this pivot was always inevitable, and the numbers underline why. According to Celent, over half of insurers that have already adopted accelerated underwriting report payback periods of less than a year, with another quarter either reporting or expecting payback in just two to three years. Decisions that would once take 20 to 30 days are made in 3, and the huge reduction in the costs of policy-issuance means that these systems rapidly pay for themselves.

Nonetheless, the initial wave were currently seeing only scratches the surface of the technologys revolutionary potential.

Simple vs Deep automationMuch of the concrete activity and investment to date has, understandably, focused on the simplest and most straightforward of life insurance applications. For example, applications from younger, healthy customers with no underlying health conditions, where risk is low and policy issuance is straightforward. The accelerated decisions being made by the software here typically amount to unambiguous if X then always Y logic. These are decisions that never truly needed to be seen individually at least by human underwriters in the first place.

This simple layer was always going to be the first port of call for automation as insurers started to dip their toes into new systems and ways of working. We all know that digital automation is great at replacing humans when it comes to the easier, more repetitive tasks.

But this layer is also inherently limited. By definition, this layer can only ever encompass the most risk-free minority of applications. And, ironically enough, the rush for more and more third-party data to feed these systems can actually push the automatic approval percentage down over time. Where the aim is to avoid any need for human involvement from start to finish, for cases with minimal risk, more data can end up meaning more automatic rejections.

One silver lining of the last year, however, is that the need to learn more rapidly has shown insurers the extent to which they can also use data to accelerate decisions in the far more nuanced and complex cases, which would not have been natural candidates for an automated approach before the pandemic.

This is referred to as deep automation, where the aim is not to remove the human element entirely, but to create a more collaborative fusion of man and machine, automating as much as possible while ensuring that human underwriting expertise is focused where it is most needed, as efficiently as possible. By making smarter use of data, and treating accelerated underwriting systems as a tool for human underwriters, rather than a replacement, insurers can reap huge benefits in both time and cost across the majority of the applications they underwrite as opposed to just with one specialty layer.

This is the thinking behind the current industry interest in predictive models and rules-based processing. These systems are able to deal with far more complex chains of if, then logic, drawing on a wide variety of third-party data in sophisticated ways to make much more nuanced judgments about risk without having to involve human underwriters in every individual decision. The human element is still very much there, but the skills and time of expert underwriters are put to better use on perfecting and tweaking the models themselves, as well as dealing with the most difficult and complex of applications that arise.

While its early days, and these models are still being developed and improved, the untapped potential is there for the taking with current technology. At the moment Celent estimates that around 10 to 20% of issuances across the industry involve some form of automated underwriting. With properly integrated systems using deep automation, theres no reason why this number cant be closer to 70%. And thats as things stand today, before models and techniques inevitably improve in the imminent future.

Of course, the potential is about more than just industry opportunity. For customers accessing policies that make use of accelerated underwriting, the result is a far more user-friendly experience in terms of speed and convenience. Extending these benefits to more complex cases could herald a new era of convenience and accessibility in life insurance, not just for those in the lowest risk groups, but right across society including millions with complex, underlying or changeable health conditions.

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Unleashing the true potential of automated underwriting - Digital Insurance

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