Daily Archives: September 20, 2021

Plants may have quickly evolved all their complexities in two short, yet dramatic bursts, rather than gradually over millions of years.

A new study led by researchers at Stanford University shows that land-based plants underwent diversification in two bursts, around 250 million years apart from each other. The first evolutionary burst led to the development of seeds, while the second caused the diversification of flowering plants.

While plants were thought to have become more complex as they developed seeds and flowers, the new research brings insight into the timing of those developments. The researchers used a novel metric to classify plant species based on complexity and arranged them into groups based on the number of parts they contained in their reproductive systems.

According to Andrew Leslie, lead author of the study and geological sciences professor at Stanford Universitys School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Science, the stasis or a plateau in the development of complexity after the initial development of seeds surprised the researchers. After a long period of stasis, a sudden dramatic change happened when flowering plants diversified.

Researchers found that the reproductive structures in various plants are different, yet all of them all about the same number of reproductive parts during that initial period of stasis.

Flowering plants are more complex and diverse than other groups of plants. They come in a plethora of colors, shapes, and smells, with intricate parts such as pistils, petals, and anthers that have a precise arrangement to lure pollinators.

Scientists have long focussed on characteristics within groups of plants within the same family to study evolution, as it is harder to compare flowering plants which are more complex and diverse to their no flowering, and simpler brethren.

For this study, researchers developed a unique system that classified plants based on the number of reproductive parts they possessed based on observation. This allowed them to overcome the complexities of comparing flowering and non-flowering plants to study their evolutionary paths.

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Just Two Major Bursts Of Evolution Brought Plants All Their Diversity - Mashable India

Ive never been a huge fan of male celebrity fashion. Im no fashion expert, but while Ive seen female celebrities wear a huge variety of styles with tons of creative exploration, the men have always seemed to settle for a black and white tuxedo.

Overall, mens fashion trends at events such as the Met Gala have been woefully simple and dull. In recent years, however, theres been a drastic change in the areas male celebrities are willing to explore with their fashion; from colorful harnesses to more stereotypically feminine clothing.

For better or worse, its a much-needed step toward introducing a wider range of options for mens formal fashion. One of the best events to see this evolution of fashion trends is at the annual Met Gala, where celebrities from all areas put on their best fashion for the evening. Lets take a look at how mens style has shifted over the years.

Going back 11 years, the 2010 Met Gala showcased awfully mundane mens fashion. While the women attending wore colorful and vibrant dresses, every male celebrity seemed to be wearing a suit with varying combinations of ties as the differentiating factor. Chris Pine was one of the more daring members, showing up in a navy blue suit rather than a black one. The styles were refined and elegant but lacked any risk or excitement. It felt like everyone was playing it safe, relying on tradition. But for a roster of some of the most creatively talented individuals, what is it saying if the biggest sign of creative expression was changing a blazer from black to blue?

[Heres why the VMAs dont work in 2021]

The Met Galas from 2011 through 2015 followed a similar trend of tuxedo after tuxedo, although some celebrities decided to splash a little more color onto the carbon-copied trend.

In 2012 Cameron Silver brought a colorful full-body pattern tuxedo to the mix. The world saw Tom Brady in a bright blue blazer one of the flashier outfits of the night in 2013. Still, for the most part, stars stuck to their tried and tested black and white tuxedo combo.

In 2016, Kanye West broke the mold when he wore a bedazzled jacket and ripped blue jeans (he also wore blue eye contacts, but well overlook that). While it wasnt exactly the height of fashion, especially for a high-class event like the Met Gala, it was an appreciated departure from the norm.

However, 2019s Met Gala marked the biggest departure from the classic tuxedo as the stars ventured into spaces that previously might have been deemed too feminine. Harry Styles wore a full jumpsuit with a sheer top and sleeves, while Odell Beckham Jr. combined old and new, wearing a skirt with a sleeveless tuxedo. Male stars also dove into some wonderfully weird and colorful territory; Billy Porter wore a shiny gold outfit set with a crown and wings, Ryan Murphy wore a beaded peach-colored cape and collar covered in scales and glitter and Jared Leto wore a jeweled red gown while carrying a wax figure of his own head. In many ways, it marked the long-overdue departure from more stereotypical mens fashion into areas that were more exciting and innovative.

Not every piece was appealing; some were too garish and awkward, often feeling like an attention grab rather than careful art. But the stars were finally taking more risks and having more fun with their outfits.

Both Beckham and Styles faced a swarm of comments online regarding their unique outfit choices. Beckham received many comments questioning his sexuality, whereas Styles sheer dress angered many for being too feminine. Still, many supported the two, praising Styles for his unconventional look, and emphasizing that Beckham should be able to wear whatever he wants without facing scrutiny.

Back in the present, the evolution from the standard tuxedo to a much more vibrant and eccentric landscape of fashion is evident. ASAP Rocky attended this years Met Gala in a colorful grandmas quilt, while Jeremy Pope rocked a half-topless white tuxedo.

[Mask fashion: Stay safe in style]

Lil Nas X pulled out all the stops for a three-part costume that was bright, eye-catching and expressive. Some stars, however, still opted for more traditional outfits. Channing Tatum for example, went with a plain black and white tuxedo. Still, there is a huge increase in the amount of creative and colorful outfits in mens fashion, such as Kid Cudis eyeshadow-sweater-skirt combo.

Some styles may be too eccentric to realistically be worn in a casual social setting, but the effects do trickle down as more stars wear clothing thats nonconforming, it leaves the public more open-minded and opens doors for those looking to experiment with fashion. Inside and outside of the Met Gala, it seems there are more opportunities for free self-expression in mens fashion and everything points to more opportunities in the future.

As for the best Met Gala outfit this year? It has to go to Frank Ocean, who brought a lime green animatronic baby to the function. Nothing can top that one.

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From tuxedos to quilt cloaks: The evolution of men's fashion at the Met Gala - The Diamondback

Let's state the obvious: Your favorite time of the month isn't when you get your period. The cramps don't help, but buying loads of pricey products isn't a blast, either. But another aggravation arises for those who try to live sustainable lives: the environmental cost.

According to multiple sources, North American women are believed to use and, subsequently, dispose of 12 billion single-use menstrual pads and tampons every single year.

To help reduce the sheer volume of period products tossed in the trash, LastObject, a Danish brand of reusable personal care products, recently began crowdfunding a rewashable menstrual pad they call LastPad.

The company, which says it has "made hundreds of prototypes and samples that have been tested and feedback collected to improve on the design," claims each pad will last 240 uses.

While LastPad likely isn't the last attempt to make period care more sustainable, it's also not the first as more people think about the environmental impact of the products they need during their periods.

Many developed countries switched to disposable menstrual care products decades ago. Kotex began selling the first disposable pads in 1920, The Cut explains, taking advantage of the same style of bandages used to treat soldiers during World War I.

About a decade later, a "modern" tampon consisting of a paper insertion tube filled with compressed cotton on a string was invented, according to Tampax, an international purveyor of period products. Several years later, the patent was sold to Tampax's founder, a woman named Gertrude Tendrich.

Once Tendrich actually began selling disposable tampons in 1936, Tampax says demand for their products took off as millions of women entered the workforce to fill in for departing soldiers during World War II. Yet despite the need for products designed for on-the-go women, taboos and sexual stigmas around tampon use persisted. By 1941, common information about such products lagged, causing the still nascent company to launch a traveling "Tampax Ladies" education team that toured colleges, schools, trade shows and conventions. The women helped eradicate the taboos and provide information.

Still, it would be decades before tampons would stop being considered "indecent" for regular use, according to a NARAL Pro-Choice America state affiliate. But other options did exist for women for whom tampons weren't an option.

In the late 19th century, suspenders and belts were commercially available to hold "bandages," aka pads, in place. But it wasn't until 1957 that a Black female inventor named Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner filed a patent for a sanitary napkin "belt" that seems to have been more reliable than earlier iterations. The invention allowed women to venture out of the house during their periods more comfortably, maintain personal hygiene and avoid tampons if desired.

While the need to find a solution for menstruation-related bleeding is as old as humanity, the commercial period products obviously were not. Before modern tampons or pads were widely available, all variety of inventive solutions were concocted to prevent menstrual leaks, including rolled-up paper, grass, and moss.

Westend61 / Getty Images

Reusable pads are a far cry from the used rags and cloths that people had to resort to before the advent of disposable tampons and pads. Like disposable pads, most reusable versions are typically secured onto the part of panties right below the vulva.

But many of these types of pads market the lack of disposable plastic involved in manufacturing an important consideration, given that internal Natracare research shows that three mainstream disposable pad brands consist of enough plastic equivalent to roughly five plastic shopping bags.

In addition to LastObject's planned LastPad launch, commercial brands like Rael sell reusable pads, a huge variety of small-time brands and shops also sell them.

Menstrual cups are similar to tampons in that they are inserted into a vagina and then removed with a small cord, but that's generally where the resemblance ends. Unlike tampons, menstrual cups don't absorb blood but instead act as a levee until the wearer can hygienically remove it and dispose of the blood.

Disposable options are commercially available, but the many brands of reusable cups can be washed in the sink and reinserted repeatedly, avoiding the need to repeatedly spend money on disposable options that later fill up landfills.

Menstrual cups can last up to ten years but, according to The Lancet, tend to be "made of medical-grade silicone, rubber, latex, or elastomer."

"Medical grade silicone menstrual cups are not recyclable through any conventional methods and cannot be placed into your recycle bins," states Period Nirvana, an online period product marketplace and educational site. The site adds that one brand, the DivaCup offers recycling through Terracycle, although that company was recently sued over claims it misleads customers about what can be recycled.

Some companies that sell menstrual cups include Saalt, JuJu, Ruby Cup and Nixit.

Have you worn underwear before? Great you know exactly how to wear a pair of period panties, no training necessary. Just like underwear not made to absorb menstrual blood, period panties come in a variety of styles, from thongs to boy shorts.

But it's important to keep in mind that not all period panties are designed to replace other period products but are intended to serve as a back-up. Additionally, like most menstruation products, period panties aren't regulated, leading to questions about the chemicals used to make the garments.

Similar to other reusable period products, some types of period panties can eliminate the need for disposable products like tampons. Brands offering period underwear include Goat Union, Thinx, Trendix and Bambody.

Bridget is a freelance reporter and newsletter writer based in the Washington, D.C., area. She primarily writes about energy, conservation and the environment. Originally from Philadelphia, she graduated from Emerson College in 2016 with a degree in journalism and a minor in environmental studies. When she isn't working on a story, she's normally on a northern Maine lake or traveling abroad to practice speaking Spanish.

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The Evolution of Eco-Friendly Period Products - EcoWatch

image:An African lily (Agapanthus africanus) flower is broken into component parts. According to a new classification of plant complexity, an African lily has 12 types of parts in its reproductive structure, some of which are on the seed or inside the ovary and not pictured here. In comparison, a typical fern has one type of reproductive part. (Photo credit: Andrew Leslie) view more

Credit: Andrew Leslie

A Stanford-led studyreveals that rather than evolving gradually over hundreds of millions of years, land plants underwent major diversification in two dramatic bursts, 250 million years apart. The first occurred early in plant history, giving rise to the development of seeds, and the second took place during the diversification of flowering plants.

The research uses a novel but simple metric to classify plant complexity based on the arrangement and number of basic parts in their reproductive structures.While scientists have long assumed that plants became more complex with the advent of seeds and flowers, the new findings, published Sept. 17 inScience, offer insight to the timing and magnitude of those changes.

The most surprising thing is this kind of stasis, this plateau in complexity after the initial evolution of seeds and then the total change that happened when flowering plants started diversifying, said lead study authorAndrew Leslie, an assistant professor of geological sciences at StanfordsSchool of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences(Stanford Earth). The reproductive structures look different in all these plants, but they all have about the same number of parts during that stasis.

Flowers are more diverse than every other group of plants, producing colors, smells and shapes that nourish animals and delight the senses. They are also intricate: petals, anthers and pistils interweave in precise arrangements to lure pollinators and trick them into spreading pollen from one flower to another.

This complexity makes it difficult for scientists to compare flowering plants to plants with simpler reproductivesystems, such as ferns or some conifers. As a result, botanists have long focused on characteristics within family groups and typically study evolution in non-flowering plants separately from their more intricate flowering relatives.

Leslie and his co-authors overcame these differences by designing a system that classifies the number of different kinds of parts in reproductive structures based on observation alone. Each species was scored according to how many types of parts it has and the degree to which it exhibited clustering of those parts. They categorized about 1,300 land plant species from about 420 million years ago until the present.

This tells a pretty simple story about plant reproductive evolution in terms of form and function: The more functions the plants have and the more specific they are, the more parts they have,Leslie said. It's a useful way of thinking about broad-scale changes encompassing the whole of plant history.

When land plants first diversified in the early Devonian about 420 million to 360 million years ago, Earth was a warmer world devoid of trees or terrestrial vertebrate animals. Arachnids like scorpions and mites roamed the land amongst short, patchy plants and the tallest land organism was a 20-foot fungus resembling a tree trunk. After the Devonian, huge changes occurred in the animal kingdom: Land animals evolved to have large body sizes and more varied diets, insects diversified, dinosaurs appeared but plants didnt see a major change in reproductive complexity until they developed flowers.

Insect pollination and animal seed dispersal may have appeared as early as 300 million years ago, but it's not until the last 100 million years that these really intricate interactions with pollinators are driving this super high complexity in flowering plants, Leslie said. There was such a long period of time where plants could have interacted with insects in the way that flowering plants do now, but they didn't to the same degree of intricacy.

In the Late Cretaceous, about 100 to 66 million years ago, Earth more closely resembled the planet we know today a bit like Yosemite National Park without the flowering trees and bushes. The second burst of complexity was more dramatic than the first, emphasizing the unique nature of flowering plants, according to Leslie. That period gave rise to plants like the passionflower, which can have 20 different types of parts, more than twice the number found in non-flowering plants.

The researchers classified 472 living species, part of which Leslie carried out on and around Stanfords campus by simply pulling apart local plants and counting their reproductive organs. The analysis includes vascular land plants everything except mosses and a few early plants that lack supportive tissue for conducting water and minerals.

One thing we argue in this paper is that this classification simply reflects their functional diversity, Leslie said. They basically split up their labor in order to be more efficient at doing what they needed to do.

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Study co-authors include Carl Simpson of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and Luke Mander of The Open University.

Reproductive innovations and pulsed rise in plant complexity

17-Sep-2021

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

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Plants evolved complexity in two bursts -- with a 250-million-year hiatus. The first occurred early - EurekAlert

That would be fine indeed, it would be fantastic if we shared a common language and vocabulary for deliberating these differences. We could explore them in our classrooms, asking students how they imagine America: past, present and future. But we are splitting into mutually hostile tribes, which makes real conversation almost impossible. What should be a teachable moment for our children has become another dividing line between their parents. Even the question of masks in schools is now a take-no-prisoners struggle, pitting different versions of America against each other.

To be sure, we have always fought over who we are. In the 1920s, most notably, the Scopes trial triggered a campaign by fundamentalist and evangelical Christians to block the teaching of evolution. Yet fierce history wars also flared during these same years, as ethnic and racial minorities joined hands with white patriotic societies to blast textbooks that allegedly undermined the Founding Fathers. By emphasizing the economic motivations for the American Revolution and the Constitution, the argument went, history books diminished the grandeur of the nation itself.

Most of all, such interpretations had the potential to demean the multiethnic heroes who contributed to the new republics creation. Polish-Americans lionized Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who came over from Europe to assist the Revolution. German-Americans praised Molly Pitcher, born Maria Ludwig (they said), who allegedly took up her husbands position behind a cannon when he fell. African Americans celebrated Boston Massacre victim Crispus Attucks, the first American to die in the Revolutionary cause. And Jews were proud of Haym Salomon, a Philadelphia merchant who helped finance it.

All of these groups wanted to burnish their role in the nations founding, so they blocked any effort to question its broader themes of freedom and progress. Making the Revolution less heroic would devalue the diverse heroes who fought in it, or so their advocates feared.

A similar pattern unfolded during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when African Americans won the removal of racist textbook material including passages praising slavery and the inclusion of a wider array of Black luminaries. Hispanic and Asian and Native peoples followed suit, demanding that their children have a chance to see themselves, or at least their heroes, in history books.

As before, however, these new figures were mostly folded into the old story. Even as the textbooks embraced diversity, their titles remained the same: Quest for Liberty, Rise of the American Nation, and so on. That was the modus vivendi of the History Wars: each race could have its heroes sung, as the New York Times observed in 1927, so long as no group questioned the underlying melody that united them all.

Religious conflict in schools was different, because it could not be tempered in this additive, come-one-come-all fashion. Either human beings evolved from other mammals, or they did not; either Christ was the Messiah, or he wasnt. So the Religion Wars were more vehement and more enduring than the History Wars of the past.

Several states continued to ban evolution instruction until 1968, when the Supreme Court ruled that such laws violated the First Amendments separation of church and state. Anti-evolutionists switched gears after that, winning measures that required equal time for evolution and Biblical creation until the court struck them down, too. Then came efforts to teach that the scientific record demonstrated intelligent design, which a federal judge ruled unconstitutional in 2005.

Likewise, school prayer and sacramental Bible reading were struck down by the courts in the early 1960s. But schools found ways to continue both practices. Some of them introduced prayers at football games, which would bootleg worship into schools (as advocates openly quipped) even after the courts banned it; others offered courses on the history and literature of the Bible, which often served the same purpose.

Finally, sex education exposed enormous religious rifts in Americas body politic. To conservative critics, school-based instruction on the subject threatened to violate Scriptural injunctions against sex outside of marriage. They especially objected to discussions of abortion, contraception or homosexuality in schools.

But the Religion Wars started to cool in the late 1990s, shortly after Ralph Reed called upon his flock to flood into school boards. As one Florida religion reporter observed in 2008, evangelical families trying to get their children into college didnt believe that the earth was a few thousand years old. And even if they did, they were unlikely to stick their necks out for it if that might hold their kids back.

Conservatives who still cared about evolution or school prayer, or sex education increasingly exempted themselves from the public schools altogether, patronizing Christian academies or simply homeschooling their children. That meant less pressure on school boards, at least around religious questions.

By contrast, the History Wars gained steam. The 2008 election of Barack Obama the nations first African American president fueled the growth of the Tea Party, whose overwhelmingly white members feared losing the nation they love, as one leader in Virginia explained. Fox News host Glenn Beck launched Founders Friday in 2010, devoting the first show in the series to the leader of the original Tea Party: Sam Adams. Beck even outfitted his TV studio with a blackboard and old-fashioned desks, conjuring the one-room schoolhouse of yesteryear.

Out in the real schools, meanwhile, conservatives denounced ethnic studies courses as divisive and un-American. They also challenged the College Boards revised Advanced Placement course in United States history in 2014, which reduced material about the Founding Fathers while adding new information about slavery, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two, and other so-called negative aspects of the past.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 completed the transition from Religion Wars back to History Wars in our schools. To satisfy evangelical voters, who supported him in extraordinary numbers, Trump did rescind an Obama-era order that schools allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. But amid threats of corporate boycotts, states considering bills to limit transgender access quickly backed off them; business opposition has also complicated the efforts of some GOP-controlled states that targeted transgender student athletes.

Similarly, the Trump administration tried to cancel federal grants to groups providing lessons about contraception. But the courts intervened, ruling that the White House could not withdraw promised funds simply because it objected to how they were used. Some Christian conservatives sponsored opt-out campaigns, urging parents to withdraw their children from sex education classes. The very need to exempt themselves suggested that they had lost the larger struggle over the subject.

Yet the History Wars flared as never before, sparked by a president who pledged to Make America Great Again. Trumps 2016 campaign slogan was inspired by a similar phrase used by Ronald Reagan in I980, Lets Make America Great. The difference was subtle but significant: whereas Reagan pointed to a sunny national future, Trump called on the country to revive a lost past.

After neo-Nazis rallied to defend Confederate statues in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, Trump defended the statues and also vowed to retain the names of military bases named after Confederate generals. And when the New York Times released its 1619 Project, which dated Americas founding to the arrival of its first African slaves, Trump announced a 1776 Project to defend traditional accounts of America's origins and development.

Meanwhile, conservatives around the country streamed into school board meetings to denounce the 1619 Project and critical race theory, which holds that racism is baked into Americas political, legal and social institutions. As the right correctly sensed, these ideas reflected a fundamental challenge to the grand national narrative. The 1619 Project did not simply add diverse people to the old American story of freedom and liberty; instead, it questioned the story itself. Critical race theory doesnt just ask us to consider the role of racial minorities in American history; it suggests that racism is an ongoing feature of that same history.

Steve Bannon is right: The road to saving the nation runs through our schools. The real question is which parts of the nation we want to save, which we wish to discard, and why. Thats an issue that affects all of us, whether we patronize the public schools or not. And thats also why so many indignant citizens have protested at school board meetings, insisting that their version of America is the right one for everybody.

Can we agree to disagree about that? Can our schools present multiple views of the nation? At the height of the Religion Wars, combatants on both sides claimed that there was no room for compromise. The truly scary prospect is that our ideas of America are becoming quasi-religious beliefs in their own right. And we lack enough faith in public education and in ourselves to let students sort them out on their own.

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Why the Culture Wars in Schools Are Worse Than Ever Before - POLITICO

The pandemic caused a period of unprecedented turmoil and opportunity in the world around us. Markets including banking are changing faster in the past year than at any time before. Now, traditional and alternative financial institutions have to align products and services they offer with their customers' needs and expectations. The ultimate target is embedding banking in a consumer's daily life while being invisible, but vital.

Financial institutions have to prioritize short-term and long-term business goals to face economic uncertainty, increased competition, new technological advances, and changing consumer expectations. But the question is if organizations leverage the benefits they have to make a powerful evolution thrust by using new technologies in 2021 and beyond?

Cost reduction is a short-term cure

These days, a lot of financial institutions have focused on traditional short-term strategies like cutting costs across the entire organization as a response to the period of low interest rates, slim margins, and diminished demand for credit. And many scaled back workforces, eliminated product lines, stopped serving certain segments and geographies, closed branches, and reduced investment in new technology and innovation.

One of the negative impacts of cutting costs has been the shift away from less profitable businesses and populations, including less wealthy segments and geographies. But the idea is that it's impossible to make way to prosperity through cost-cutting. The investment must be made to meet consumer expectations for enhanced digital experiences and employee expectations to become digitally ready for the future.

Consumer expectations and banking priorities: bridging the gap

With the outbreak of the pandemic, financial institutions needed to provide online access to all financial services via digital channels because of the restrictions on in-person branches. But according to the World Retail Banking Report 2021, from 40% to 50% of bank executives admitted that they don't know how to streamline and integrate mid-, back- and front-office functions effectively, and how to embrace open banking, orchestrate the ecosystem or become a truly data-driven organization. At the same time, consumers embraced digital experiences rapidly to save themselves time and money.

Legacy financial institutions have to increase investment in areas that the consumers value the most to remain competitive. It includes improvement of digital engagement speed and simplicity, usage of data and analytics for proactive real-time recommendations, creation of new ways to engage and care for customers, and exploration of value-added ways to make a consumers life easier.

Drive Post-pandemic evolution: driven by customers

Most traditional financial institutions are not structured to correspond to a new digital paradigm shift. Consumers' expectations are rising because of their awareness of the capabilities created by data, advanced analytics, new technology, and digital communication. Siloed organizational structures and outdated analysis tools can't longer process data fast enough. Legacy product alignment, repositioning the offering of services, and the commitment of resources around the customer need rethinking.

Traditional banking is to evolve into a digital-first, seamlessly integrated banking experience via a combination of digital channels and modernized branches. A focus should shift from product-centric innovation to customer-centric intelligent transformation.

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS): platform approach

Banking-as-a-Service model centers both on facilitating value creation and value exchange between both financial and non-financial institutions making the consumer a primary beneficiary. BaaS platforms accelerate the innovation process, simplify the offering and delivery of products and services, allow for faster iterations as consumer behavior changes.

The ultimate goal of a BaaS approach is to increase customer engagement, enhance loyalty and overall customer value by moving financial institutions towards embedded finance as a part of consumers everyday life. The combination of financial services with social media, retail, transportation, hospitality, investment, and advisory services enables the increase of the potential to provide value to retail consumer segments or even on an individualized basis.

Super applications emerging: super combo in action

From giants like Apple, Google, PayPal, and Amazon to FinTech firms, retailers, telecom companies, and old school providers like Goldman Sachs, the number of organizations stirring their fingers in the banking ecosystem continues to expand. When consumers were asked what banking services they would use from non-traditional providers, the array of responses were far broader than just basic banking operations. This shows that consumer interest expands far beyond their financial relationships with the traditional banking system.

This means that even the definition of primary financial institution (PFI) should be rethought because many Millennials would not consider their PFI to be used for only checking their bank account, but for a wider variety of other options.

Cloud computing: customer experience enhancement

There were years of hesitation around the adoption of cloud computing for the reasons of security, costs, implementation timelines, and ROI rationale. And for the majority of organizations, the move to cloud computing is only the initial step towards complete cloud transformation. But moving data processing to the cloud embraces way more benefits to ignore: reduced costs, scalability, and flexibility improved productivity, faster innovation to name a few.

At times when the personalization of the customer experience is becoming a business requirement, the capability to process data and create insights in real-time requires a strong cloud architecture. The capability to collect, process, and use data insights for the consumers benefit turns imperative. The simple truth is if consumers get value from using their private information, they will share more in the future, making relationships stronger.

Conclusion

Due to becoming more ubiquitous and embedded in customers everyday lives, legacy financial institutions will be forced to be at the center of that ecosystem. More organizations will appear to occupy that position not even being traditional financial organizations. The key principle will become to use data and insights to provide value for winning trust and loyalty in return. To succeed in this concept the collaboration with players outside of traditional banking is needed to make consumers even more engaged with their banking app than they are today.

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Evolution of banking from now and on - Finextra

By Justin Ray, KPMG Performance Insights Contributor

An exciting new era in LPGA history is underway with the unveiling of KPMG Performance Insights, a statistical evolution that will change the way players, coaches, media and fans experience womens golf.

Tracking enhanced scorecard data began earlier this year at the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship, held June 10-13. During that time, the KPMG Performance Insights team has accumulated the data from more than 240,000 individual LPGA Tour shots. This newly filled ocean of statistics will help tell richer, more detailed analytical stories about the best players in the world.

Which shots prove to be most valuable in determining the outcome of a given tournament? What new, context-filled details can we learn about the elite players in the sport? And just how good of a putter is Inbee Park? For this initial look into the KPMG Performance Insights, we asked Justin Ray, KPMG Performance Insights contributor, to dive in and detail the highlights that got his attention.

NELLY NUMBERS

The traditional statistics tell us that Nelly Korda has been the best player on Tour in 2021: She leads the LPGA Tour in scoring average, rounds under par, rounds in the 60s and Rolex Player of the Year points. The advanced statistics explain just how balanced Korda is through the bag, excelling in every level of her game this season.

Korda is averaging a 3.73 strokes gained total per round since the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship, when advanced data was initially tracked. That total is a whopping 0.79 strokes per round better than any other player on Tour in that span. Shes the best on tour in strokes gained off the tee (1.36) and 6th in strokes gained approach (1.50). Her putting has been excellent, too, ranking in the top-30 during that stretch of tournaments.

When it comes to approach play, Korda has been excellent from 150 to 175 yards. From that range, her average proximity is just over 31 feet, fourth best on Tour. She has also excelled from long range 225 to 250 yards where her average distance from the pin is at right about half of the LPGA Tour average.

Kordas second-round 63 at Atlanta Athletic Club not only vaulted her into the lead at the KPMG Womens PGA Championship this summer, but it was the third-best round by strokes gained total since tracking started. Korda beat the field average by a remarkable 9.75 strokes that afternoon in Georgia. Her approach play in that round was otherworldly: She gained 7.78 strokes on approach shots that day, the most by anyone in any single round since tracking started.

LEONA LETHAL ON THE GREEN

Besides Korda, the only other player to average at least 2.5 strokes gained total per round during this stretch is Leona Maguire, with 2.94. While Maguire gains strokes across the board, earning positive numbers off the tee, on approach and around the green, its putting where she really shines of late. Maguire averages 1.73 strokes gained putting per round since the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship, the second-highest clip of any player during that span.

LPGA Tour players have an average make percentage of 55% on putts from 5 to 10 feet. Maguire is making them at a clip of 73%, the seventh-best rate of any player with 10 or more measured rounds. From 20 to 25 feet, she has made 21% of her putts, more than double the Tour average from that range (9%).

THE GREAT INBEE PARK

For years, golf fans have marveled at the putting of seven-time major champion Inbee Park. Now, we can accurately quantify how remarkable she truly is on the green.

Lets take putts from 10 to 15 feet. Since KPMG Performance Insight tracking started, putts from that range have been made 28% of the time by LPGA Tour players. In the mens game, the overall percentage is comparable, hovering right around 30%. The last three season leaders in the mens game in that statistic have made from 40 to 41% of putts from 10 to 15 feet away.

Inbee Park? She is making those putts a whopping 64% of the time. Park is currently making a higher rate of putts from 10 to 15 feet than her male counterparts did last season, on average, from 5 to 10 feet.

At the KPMG Womens PGA Championship, Park drained a 100-foot putt on the 18th hole in the opening round. With that miraculous make, Park gained 1.70 strokes on the field, the most in any single putt since tracking began.

APPROACH PLAY PROWESS OF SALAS

With a strokes gained total average of 1.99 per round, Lizette Salas currently ranks a lofty 12th among all players with 10 or more measured rounds since the LPGA MEDIHEAL Championship in June. Salas has earned that statistical distinction despite not having the advantage of elite driving distance at just over 245 yards off the tee, shes averaged just about a neutral strokes gained off-the-tee performance in that span (-0.01 per round).

This only puts the Americans elite approach play skills into greater perspective. Salas is averaging 1.96 strokes gained approach per round, third-most on Tour. More than 98% of Salas total strokes gained comes from her approach shots, by far the highest rate of any player who ranks in the top-15 in SG total. No matter how you slice up her proximity to the hole numbers, shes stellar: In every statistical denomination from 50 to 225 yards, Salas has recorded an average proximity better than the LPGA Tours overall mean.

LYDIA KOS SHORT GAME

The stellar touch of Lydia Ko sings in the new trove of statistical data. Among our group with at least 10 measured rounds, Ko ranks third in strokes gained around the green and ninth in strokes gained putting. Kos performance this season is an example of the traditional and non-traditional numbers being in perfect sync: Shes in the top 10 on the LPGA Tour this season in the old-school numbers of scrambling and putting average, but also in strokes gained around the green and strokes gained putting.

Ko is the only player on Tour averaging half-a-stroke gained per round with her short game and at least a full stroke gained putting. Her stroke average has improved by a full half-stroke so far in 2021 over last season.

ANATOMY OF A LIGHTS-OUT PUTTING ROUND

In the opening round of the AIG Womens Open, Madelene Sagstrom racked up 7.19 strokes putting, the most by any player in a single round since tracking started in mid-June. Following her performance, Sagstrom told the media repeatedly about how well she putted that day. So what did that performance look like from a more detailed perspective?

The numbers were astronomical: Sagstrom made a ridiculous nine putts of 10 feet or longer, and six of more than 20 feet. She was perfect putting from 8 feet and in, as well, on her way to seven birdies. Sagstrom carded a 67 that day despite hitting only 11 greens in regulation. She would go on to finish in a tie for second that week, one shot behind winner Anna Nordqvist.

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KPMG Performance Insights A First Look Into the Next Evolution in Women's Golf - LPGA

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), the global leader in commercial real estate services and investment, today announced new brand positioning including a new vision, Realizing Potential in Every Dimension and global corporate website. The new positioning underscores the companys continued evolution into a provider of highly diversified, integrated services that meet the full range of investor and occupier requirements at all stages of the real estate lifecycle.

CBRE has evolved significantly as we have strengthened and diversified our business across four dimensions asset types, lines of business, clients and geographies. Just as our service offering has evolved, were moving the CBRE brand forward, reflecting our success in delivering differentiated outcomes for all our stakeholders, said Bob Sulentic, the companys president and chief executive officer.

The strategic pillars that support the brand positioning include:

CBRE also unveiled a reimagined and re-designed global website to better support client needs as they seek insights and resources for increasingly complex business challenges.

Benji Baer, CBREs chief marketing officer, said: From property leasing and sales, to workplace experience consultation, to enabling sustainable investments, CBRE plays a central role in helping businesses and people to thrive. Clients are being more thoughtful about their real estate needs than ever before and require more from their business partners. Our new positioning reflects the distinct value our multidimensional expertise delivers and our ability to drive superior solutions for our clients.

About CBRE Group, Inc.

CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE: CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the worlds largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2020 revenue). The company has more than 100,000 employees serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE serves a diverse range of clients with an integrated suite of services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at http://www.cbre.com. We routinely post important information on our website, including corporate and investor presentations and financial information. We intend to use our website as a means of disclosing material, non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Such disclosures will be included in the Investor Relations section of our website at https://ir.cbre.com. Accordingly, investors should monitor such portion of our website, in addition to following our press releases, Securities and Exchange Commission filings and public conference calls and webcasts.

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CBRE Unveils New Brand Positioning that Underscores Company's Evolution into Diversified Global Business - Business Wire

The economic reforms in the 90s led to a tectonic shift in business mindset, from customer needs to client satisfaction and delight. This shift led to an unending quest for quality and competitive advantage, and hence to the idea of hiring vendors for not so critical activities and jobs. On the other hand, the FDI & MNCs were already operating on such outsourcing models for non-critical areas.The organized FM space saw its evolution with global FM players setting up bases in India. It gave the Indian business an option to choose global players & also pushed the evolution in the homegrown FM companies space.

Starting from housekeeping contracts, the scope of the contract expanded to other non-critical aspects like water, electricity & waste management services. At this point, these contracts were only a function of manpower supply and hinged around the supply of man-hours. This was governed by various government statutes in terms of wages and related salaries components of insurance and social security. While the adherence to these statutes was a mandate, many unorganized players did not comply with it. Hence the entire IndiaFM market was split into compliant and non-compliant players, with the bulk of it falling in the latter space.

With the advent of technology and the new age of entrepreneurs, there were two paradigm movements in the FM space.

First being the alignment of vendors with the overall business outcome and second the reinforcement of mandate on compliance to the statute.Alignment of vendors with organizational goals and objectives meant that the businesses were looking for partners and not for vendors, which led to the revised commercial arrangement based on the outcome of services rather than pure manpower deployed.

This was the time when large global MNCs awarded FM contracts on SLA per square feet. This model gave rise to a whole new set of evolved FM players for whom wage compliance & site employee was non-negotiable.The SLA model impact made the FM players think for ways and means to augment its financial impacts. This enabled specialized services interventions typically on the energy management side. The FM portfolio had now moved from non-critical to the near-core side of client business making a notable contribution towards the overall clients business goals.

The overall selection process of an FM partner became more structured and critical. The request for proposal process (RFP) became cyclic and with more and more large and mid-sized organizations following this process.The outcome-based FM model focused on new avenues of intervention and it also led to the need for strong governance of the core FM activity. This meant strong supervision, governance, and flow of information seamlessly. However, this would not be feasible as long as there is a 100% manual intervention in these actions. Computer-aided FM was hence conceptualized and was driven by the large global giants. This was called CAFM, computer-aided FM.

CAFM actually was great in terms of its concept but lacked agility, customization, and user-friendliness. FM players and clients lived with CAFM for a while, next-gen app-based CAFM replaced it during the tech revolution of 2015-18, where you had apps for all that you did and needed. Global FM players had to rely on their parent organizations for approval and roll out while the home-grown firms were quick to adopt and roll it out. PSIPL app-based end-to-end FM solution is one of the proven case studies in this regard. All services were tagged using QR codes, prompting checklists, and auto reporting to the users/clients has changed the FM space forever.

App-based FM allowed players to offer near core and core outsourcing solutions seamlessly with resource optimization and better yields. Repairs, maintenance, Critical utility upkeep, and vendor management could now be weaved in a single platform with autonomous information flow between stakeholders operating within their own ecosystems. The outcome-based FM contracts are getting redefined. Clients are demanding FM solutions with App-based technology as a prerequisite. Businesses today look for FM partners who can allow them to focus fully on their core business activity while the FM partner takes care of everything else!

In times of pandemic, the focus has shifted to the site level staff and FM players are trying to establish themselves as more sensitive to client's well-being at all levels. There is a tectonic shift in the government. owned facilities as well. Many of the government organizations like sports authorities, metro projects, railways, airports, ports, medical facilities, govt housing societies, etc, are looking to upgrade the overall end-user experience which is going to drive the next level of growth in the FM market in India.

FM evolution has been remarkable from manpower supply to experience creation. This is very much in line across the industry segments. With more and more spheres of business looking for experience and hence outsourcing to subject matter experts is only going to drive the need for established, credible, compliant, and tech-driven FM players for many years to come.

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Evolution in FM industry in last two decades - People - Construction Week Online India

Zamaswazi Zinhle Majozi. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)

Research conducted by the Centre for Analytics and Behavioural Change (CABC) in May revealed that the Sphithiphithi Evaluator account sat at the centre of content creation for the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) forces network which provided support for a number of public figures facing corruption charges.

The RET forces network which including Sphithiphithi Evaluator had 51 affiliated accounts, produced and amplified high volumes of content in support of former president Jacob Zuma and his allies, while criticising President Cyril Ramaphosa, the media and the judiciary, among others.

Following the looting and violence which transpired during the July unrest, the CABC identified the top 12 accounts which amplified incendiary content that reached more than 19 million people that month.

Sphithiphithi Evaluators content was the most commonly retweeted by these 12 accounts.

The revamp of Sphithiphithi Evaluator

Having joined Twitter in 2013, activity within the Sphithiphithi Evaluator account with the handle @_AfricanSoil only began to peak in January 2018, a month short of Zumas resignation as the president of South Africa.

The content which the account engaged in also received a major makeover, with the focus moving away from sports, to a period of inactivity, and finally, conversation around politics which remains the theme today.

The Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture became the topic of engagement in 2018, but the account has also been involved in a variety of other politics-related conversations including VBS Bank, the Bosasa liquidation in 2019 and the recent #PhoenixMassacre in July.

The CABC found that conversation around and including the Sphithiphithi Evaluator account received more than one million mentions between July last year and August this year.

During this time period, the account engaged heavily in primary topics around Zuma, the ANC, South Africa and Ramaphosa.

The account also adopted a number of techniques to amplify its messages.

Included in these techniques is spinning media content to generate support for Zuma or to attack Ramaphosa, the media itself or the judiciary.

It is within the scope of the RET forces accounts, that hashtags such as #ThumaMinaMediaGroup and #SAMediaMustFall intended to cast doubt on media articles that go against the narrative pushed by the network are used.

A network bigger than anticipated?

Since news broke of Majozis arrest, conversation around Sphithiphithi Evaluator has generated more than 40,000 mentions.

With a common theme of pledging support for Sphithiphithi Evaluator, while criticising the media, Ramaphosas faction of the ANC and the Hawks, the top 20 authors in the conversation contributed more than 3,000 tweets between 29 August and 3 September.

The consensus among these accounts rests on the notion that Sphithiphithi Evaluator, similar to Zuma, is a victim of Ramaphosas alleged dictatorship and did not incite any violence during the unrest.

Research also showed traces of RET forces accounts which had engaged with Sphithiphithi Evaluator content at high volumes between September last year and August this year.

The account has also been backed by prominent accounts which belong to Zumas faction.

Among these are the high-traction posts of Zumas daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudlas account, which came under scrutiny for sharing incendiary content during the July unrest.

In a period of five days (29 August 3 September), conversation linked to and including Sphithiphithi Evaluator or @_AfricanSoil has had a total reach of more than 80 million people.

With a large degree of support from accounts within the online RET forces network, and a growing unique author volume, conversation around the Sphithiphithi Evaluator account is expected to grow even further as Majozis case is set to be heard on 18 October. DM

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The evolution of social media influencer Sphithiphithi... - Daily Maverick