Daily Archives: May 17, 2022

Painting a clearer picture of black holes – Purdue University

Posted: May 17, 2022 at 7:13 pm

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Black holes are everywhere right now at the middle of every galaxy, of course, as well as all over the news thanks to the recent picture taken of the black hole at the center of Earths own galaxy.

Matthew Lister, professor of physics and astronomy in the College of Science at Purdue University, explains the significance of the image, only the second one ever taken of a black hole. He was not part of the team that took the image, but as an expert on black hole phenomena, he is very excited about the development. The image is notable in that the addition of another radio telescope at the South Pole resulted in an improvement in resolution over the first picture of a black hole. The observations were challenging, due to the nature of the black hole itself.

The radio emission of the black hole at the center of our galaxy is quite weak, and the black hole environment varies quite rapidly, Lister said. Its like trying to take an image of a moving target where youre not getting a lot of light from it, so this required a lot of processing and comparison to computer models to be confident that the image reflects whats really going on at the galactic center.

An international cadre of scientists collaborated to piece together the final picture of the black hole. The images come from the Event Horizon Telescope, an array of telescopes across the globe that work together to study black holes, something Lister has done for more than 20 years. Lister ispart of the team that is designing the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope, which promises to image many more black hole systems in even sharper detail.

Lister and his collaborators recently discovered a supermassive black hole binary system, one of only two known such systems. The two black holes, which orbit each other, likely weigh 100 million suns each. The two are only between 200 astronomical units and 2,000 AU apart (one AU is the distance from the Earth to the sun), at least 10 times closer than the only other known supermassive binary black hole system.

Studying black holes is important for another, not quite as esoteric reason, too: Their extreme properties may offer an insight into the much-vaunted Theory of Everything or a unified field theory that would unite all observed physical laws of the universe.

We dont have a theory that connects gravity and quantum mechanics, Lister said. In the case of black holes, you have very large amounts of mass confined to a very, very small volume. In order to better understand how things like gravity and quantum mechanics are unified, black holes are a key subject to study.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked in each of the last four years as one of the 10 Most Innovative universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap athttps://stories.purdue.edu.

Media contact: Brittany Steff, bsteff@purdue.edu

Source: Matthew Lister, mlister@purdue.edu

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The other physics problem | symmetry magazine – Symmetry magazine

Posted: at 7:13 pm

Alexander Gardner mailed his application to North Carolina A&T from what was likely a military prison cell somewhere in the US South. It was the mid-1950s; Gardner would have been in his late 20s. He had run away from home at the age of 14 to join the US Merchant Marines.

Gardner had been incarcerated for punching a commanding officer who called him a racial slur. He had only an 8th grade education, but North Carolina A&Ta university located in Greensboro, NCsaw his potential. They accepted him, and he graduated in 1958 with a degree in engineering physics. Five years later, Gardner became the first Black person to earn a physics PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He returned to North Carolina A&T the year after that, this time as a member of the physics faculty.

Thats an unbelievable story, says Arlene Maclin, a former physics professor who credits Gardner as one of her earliest and most important mentors.

However, its far from the only extraordinary tale of triumph over adversity to come out of the Black physics community. And it was possible, in part, due to the unique support Gardner found at North Carolina A&T, which is classified as an HBCU, a Historically Black College or University.

HBCUs have played an important role in bringing Black students into physics. Prior to 2003, HBCUs consistently graduated the majority of Black physics-degree holders. In the year 2000, HBCUs enrolled just 13% of all Black postsecondary students but awarded a staggering 60% of physics degrees earned by Black students that year. Those numbers have been on a steady decline in the years since, but HBCUs still produce a disproportionate share of Black physics graduates today.

In 2020, there were 101 active HBCUs in the United States. Thirty of them offer a bachelors degree in physics, and 11 of those offer amasters degree in physics. Just four of themAlabama A&M University, Florida A&M University, Hampton University and Howard Universityoffer general physics PhD programs. HBCUs granted only an estimated 11 of the 1,910 physics PhDs awarded to US graduate students in 2018 and 2019.

Advocates for recruiting and retaining more Black students into physics often discuss how to balance support for Black students at HBCUs like North Carolina A&T, and at Primarily White Institutions like UNC Chapel Hill. But the Black physicists whove emerged from both HBCUs and PWIs suggest that the physics community should be more concerned about structural challenges that minority physics students face everywhere, and the toxic environments that can be found in any academic department.

A new initiative called TEAM-UP Together, aimed at doubling the number of African Americans earning undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy by 2030, will work toward those goals.

Black students, especially Black women, are vastly underrepresented in physics. Despite making up 15.64% of the college-age population, Black students earned an average of 3% of bachelors degrees in physics between 2014 and 2018, according to the American Physical Society. The majority74.5%of those degrees went to Black men. During the same timeframe, Black students earned just 1.8% of doctoral degrees in physics.

Experts and alumni of HBCU physics programs agree that HBCUs succeed in attracting and retaining Black students because they can create a supportive environment for students from all walks of life, even the most disadvantaged.

HBCUs get the broadest breadth of the African American community, says Hakeem Oluseyi, president of the National Society of Black Physicists. Everybody gets the top. Everybody gets the middle class. But for those of us who are the real deep strugglerswho are just as brilliant, who are just as capable, and likely very much more hard-workingthe HBCUs are, in many ways, our bridge into that world, because they understand us from where we're coming from. Most of these other places dont.

Thomas Searles, an associate professor of electrical & computer engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago, agrees with Oluseyi. Searles earned his undergraduate degree at Morehouse College and served as an assistant professor of physics at Howard University, both HBCUs. HBCUs are about mentoring all students, not just the best and the brightesteverybody, he says.

Still, HBCUs are not exempt from issues related to bias and discrimination.

Ive experienced more sexism at HBCUs than I experienced in other places that I've worked, and I've worked at the NSF, the CIA, MIT Lincoln Lab, Oak Ridge, Maclin says. As a Black woman, I was prepared to deal with racism, but not sexism.

More women than men have enrolled at HBCUs in every year since 1976. But Maclin explains that even at HBCUs, Black women in faculty must work harder to gain tenure and secure administrative support for their initiatives. The most recent data reported by the National Center for Education Statistics for the fall of 2001 found that Black women represented 27% of all full-time instructional and research faculty and 17% of full professors at HBCUswith Black men making up 31% and 36% of those roles, respectively. Maclin suggests that HBCU physics students who are women likely face similar difficulties.

Black women still do not have a critical mass in physics, anywhere, Maclin says. We dont have five Black women physicists anywhere working together. Nowhere.

Maclin says she once offered to help the chair of an HBCU physics department recruit more Black women. He never took me up on that challenge, she says.

Tennille Presley, an associate professor of physics at Winston-Salem State University, an HBCU in North Carolina, says she has similarly noted a disconnect between the gender breakdown of students and professors at HBCUs.

I agree with Dr. Maclin, Presley says. "In general, there should be more diversity in physics departments, especially as it relates to the inclusion of Black women and other women of colorand that includes both students and faculty."

Of course, Black women in PWI physics departments also face challenges that their Black male peers do not. The same is true for Black physics students who may be LGBTQIA+, disabled, foreign-born, or who hold any other marginalized identity in addition to being Black.

Certain identities are seen as conflicting [with our ideas of] who a scientist is, and who a physicist is, says Farrah Simpson, a doctoral candidate in physics who earned her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and who also serves as student representative on the National Society of Black Physicists executive board.

Being Black, queer and a womanall these intersectional identitiesa lot of the time I feel within scientific spaces that people expect you to behave a certain way, or to have a certain identity, and your identity is [seen] as contradicting that, she says.

Maintaining a doctoral degree program in physics requires resources that historically and chronically underfunded HBCUs may be unable or unwilling to provide.

Physics departments are not cheap to maintain for the university, says Claudia Rankins, former dean of the School of Science at Hampton University. "Many small physics departments only graduate a few students every year, yet the professors who teach the upper-level courses, as well as the labs, need to be there.[It's] the same struggle other small programs or majors encounter."

Recruiting and retaining faculty is also a challenge for cash-strapped HBCU programs, where faculty made an average of $24,000 less per year than their PWI counterparts in 2019-2020.

So, the majority of physics doctoral degreesmore than 99%, according to the AIPare awarded by PWIs.

Institutions have partnered via bridge programs, which are specifically designed to help students transition from undergraduate and/or masters degrees at an HBCU to a doctoral degree at a PWI. These programs aim to provide mentoring that students moving to an institution where they are in the minority may need and may not receive. However, HBCU faculty and bridge program alumni often criticize these programs for failing to deliver adequate support to the students who participate. In part, the issue comes down to a lack of emphasis on mentoring at PWIs, especially the most elite.

Ive heard from professors at MIT who have said, Well, HBCUs are smaller; they have fewer students. They can afford to really mentor students in a proper way. At a place like MIT, we dont have that luxury, says Dara Norman, deputy director for the Community Science and Data Center at NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory.

Norman says this attitude is common among faculty at R1 universities. But Norman, who took nearly all of MITs core physics classes as part of her undergraduate degree, also says that mentorship is crucial for students who may not know what to expect when arriving on university campuses.

My parents did not go to college in the regular way; both my parents were in the Navy, Norman says. When I got to college, I realized I didnt really know what college wasAnd I couldnt fall back on my parents experienceI wonderif I had hit the ground running, would I have been in better shape?

PWI physics departments can also create environments that are actively hostile toward Black students.

Charles Brown, a postdoctoral researcher in quantum simulation at the University of California, Berkeley, can detail numerous instances of racialized microaggressions and even open hostility during his time as a graduate student in the physics department at Yale University. In a 2020 Physics Today article, Brown recounted stories of strangers handing him trash as though he were a member of the cleaning staff; of being denied entry to buildings while streams of non-black people passed by without showing ID; of being constantly asked whether he was affiliated with Yale at all.

It puts cracks in the foundation of your identity in the field, of your sense of belonging to the field, Brown says. Being a student is hard. Youre learning lots of difficult stuff. Youre navigating some new environment. And when youre getting constant messages that you don't belong, and that you're not respected, it makes it that much harder to do the thing thats already hard for students of any background.

Different students deal with these encounters in different ways, but however Black students may process these incidents, they do add up, says Falcon Rankins, head of PRISSEM Academic Services, an organization that works to support Black HBCU STEM faculty.

[There is so much] labor that Black students, female students have to do in terms of that calculus around, you know: Is this racism? Rankins says. Is this person being sexist? Is this person assuming that I dont know how to do something because Im Black? All those questions that we have to ask ourselvesI think thats real labor that isnt always appreciated as labor.

Ultimately, providing students with a welcoming environment is crucial to retaining those students at any educational institution. We keep [pursuing] these pipeline-building efforts without asking, Where does this pipeline dump out at the end of the day? Rankins says, noting that this applies to the entirety of the physics ecosystem and STEM fields as a whole.

[Physics] departments need to take a really close, deep-dive, data-driven look at what's going on in their particular context, and fix that, says Arlene Modeste Knowles, who serves as project manager for the American Institute of Physics National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy (TEAM-UP). Because if you recruit students into a toxic environment, it's going to be a revolving door. Those students aren't going to make it through.

In 2020, the AIP published an example of exactly the kind of data-driven work Knowles is talking about with The Time is Now, a detailed report based on the organizations two-year study examining the underrepresentation of Black students in undergraduate physics departments.

In April, the TEAM-UP diversity task force was awarded a $12.5 million, five-year grant by the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International to launch TEAM-UP Together, a collective action aimed at helping the task force achieve its goal of doubling the number of African-Americans earning undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy by 2030.

The grant will initially support scholarships for students studying physics and astronomy at HBCUs and other predominantly Black institutions, before eventually extending to students at all undergraduate institutions in the US. The funding will also support undergraduate departments that have committed to implementing recommendations set out by the 2020 TEAM-UP report.

I don't want to see any other African American students endure harm in a physics or astronomy department, Knowles says.I want to see them thrive in those environments. With TEAM-UP Together, which will support the physical science community and leverage the enormous influence of AAS, APS, AAPT, SPS and AIP to catalyze systemic change, we have a chance at making this a reality.

While there is no surefire solution to these problems, Presley suggests that the physics community would do well to fall back on the tool it knows best: Educate others, Presley says. I think the more that [these issues] are brought to the forefront, the better things can be.

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The other physics problem | symmetry magazine - Symmetry magazine

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Inscribes battles fraud with AI-powered detection and automation tools – VentureBeat

Posted: at 7:12 pm

We are excited to bring Transform 2022 back in-person July 19 and virtually July 20 - 28. Join AI and data leaders for insightful talks and exciting networking opportunities. Register today!

When applying for financial services, applicants need to prove that they are who they say they are and that the information theyre providing isnt misleading, fudged or blatantly fraudulent.

Its standard practice not to mention basic common sense. But massive amounts of inaccurate information often as the result of intentional fraud still gets through.

Today every $1 in fraud loss costs U.S. financial services firms $4, according to LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Synthetic identity fraud, when fraudsters create identities not associated with real people, resulted in an estimated $20 billion in losses for U.S. financial institutions in 2020.

As the world becomes increasingly digitized and banks are inherently more global, fraud rates are naturally on the increase. But particularly amidst the pandemic, fraud rates have accelerated: On average, 5% of all financial application documents submitted in an online channel are manipulated but that number more than doubled in 2020 to 13%, according to Inscribe, a B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) company specializing in fraud detection.

The 5-year-old, San Francisco-based Inscribe aims to combat this mounting problem with its AI-powered fraud detection and document automation tools. The company is among a growing number catering to the post-COVID global fraud detection and prevention market. This is expected to grow to $65.8 billion by 2026, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.5% from 2021, according to Markets and Markets.

[ Learn more: AI engine exposes online fraud ]

Documents can be modified in many ways, saidInscribe CTO Conor Burke, who founded the company with his twin brother Ronan Burke. To reduce fraud loss and increase decisions and decision accuracy, the companys software first classifies the type of document, then extracts information from it and verifies information against it. The tool can pick up on Photoshop changes or alterations to JPEGs or PDFs, detects format inconsistencies, and follows so-called cookie crumbs, or user trails. It also creates trust and quality scores and has an integrated decision engine.

Inscribe differentiates itself in the marketby homing in on non-identity data points including income, revenue and assets, according to Conor Burke. The company claims to catch $80 million in fraud a month by identifying what is not visible to the human eye. It also says that its automated review function speeds up application times by 10-fold.

The companys tools employ human-in-the-loop AI. With such supervised machine learning, examples of fraud and nonfraud are labeled and input into models, and anomaly detection can be quickly developed to pick up on types of fraud that humans wouldnt otherwise see, Conor Burke explained.

One of the biggest things is the superhuman intelligence you can gain by using machine learning, he said. We really see this with our customers that magic moment when they see a computer operate at this level of super intelligence, that it really is able to catch fraud in a lot of cases that wouldnt have been caught.

The goal with time is to reduce as much as possible the number of humans involved and rely on natural feedback and other data points to improve and enhance models, Burke said. This is to be as scalable as possible and to adapt to new trends quickly and accurately.

Weve added a layer of tuning software to help businesses be more objective and more certain and original, said Inscribe CEO Ronan Burke.

The Burke brothers created the company after becoming frustrated with the unusually painful process of applying for credit cards and bank accounts once coming to the U.S.

It raised our suspicions of what was going on behind the scenes, Ronan Burke said.

Largely, that comes down to resource constraints and the increasing difficulty of the problem, he said. Many financial services companies have well-honed application processes, but they either have badly written fraud detection software or no such software at all. Added to that is the fact that large institutions are notoriously cagey about sharing their processes, solutions, or internal expertise.

But he underscored the fact that fintechs are beginning to understand the need to collaborate and collectively tackle the problem. There will be increased activity and investment in the space in coming months, he projected, as vendors and companies work together to build better AI tools and share more data about where fraud is occurring and how to identify fraud.

Because ultimately, nearly everyone interacts with financial services companies, Conor Burke pointed out. It is critical to be intelligent about integrating automation while also balancing growth, efficiency, compliance and fraud. Leveraging automation tools as risk accelerates and new types of fraud emerge will help increase protection for everyone and help foster new types of business models that might otherwise stagnate.

More people are doing high risk, high value transactions online, but the same level of trust hasnt been transferred yet, he said. The consideration then isnt only automating fraud detection but trusting it. We really need to adapt our systems to this new reality.

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Intelligent Innovation openness and RAN automation – Ericsson

Posted: at 7:12 pm

Ericssons intelligent innovation approach is very simple: use standardization where standardization gives optimal results and use vendor-specific where a vendor-specific approach optimizes results. Intelligent innovation is dynamic, agile and a problem solver. It is strongly aligned to Ericssons approach to RAN automation which recognizes the O-RAN Alliance service management and orchestration (SMO) platform, including the non-Real-Time RAN intelligent controller (Non-RT-RIC), is a brilliant platform for RAN automation. Ericsson extends this innovation to include todays existing, purpose-built 4G and 5G networks which make up 98 percent of deployed networks today.

Intelligent innovation is closely tied to Ericssons approach and commitment to openness and innovation in the telecommunications industry. So how does it work?

Ericssons Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP) is a prime example of Intelligent Innovation in practice. The platform uses both [pre]-standardized interfaces to maximize openness to encourage multi-vendor inter-working and open development ecosystems, particularly in the northbound (OSS/BSS) and southbound (network) interfaces, and in closed, vendor-specific components areas like the software development kit (SDK) where speed, agility and control are important.

Ericsson is a strong supporter of the internal, R1 interface, between the Non-RT-RIC and the RAN automation rApps that run on it. The ability to specify, publish and eventually standardize the R1 interface are key to creating an open innovation ecosystem that will allow RAN vendors, communication service providers (CSPs) and other third-party software vendors to build and importantly monetize RAN automation rApps. The Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform is highly innovative and uses a mix of [pre-] standardized[1] and customer specific approaches on the platform.

[1] The key O-RAN Alliance interfaces have been proposed and are in the process of being specified. Once specified the expectation is that the interfaces will become standards. Today these interfaces can be said to be pre-standardized.

Ericsson has a very strong track record of leading 3GPP to define the specifications for our 2G, 3G, 4G/LTE and 5G mobile network technology. The utran-UE (Uu) interface, which operates between the user-equipment (UE) also known as the end-user device or smartphone, and the radio base station or eNodeB, is a prime example of the importance of interface standardization. The standardized Uu interface means any phone manufacturer can be confident that the mobile phone its produced will work on all 4G or 5G networks, anywhere in the world. As always there is always a requirement to carry out a level of interoperability testing between the device and various RAN vendor equipment because standards can be interpreted or implemented in slightly different manners, but this testing in minimal. Standardization has driven a broad ecosystem of phone manufacturers with access to global markets. For end users, it means they can travel anywhere in the world and use their phone; assuming there is network coverage and their service provider has the requisite roaming agreement. This is not how things were twenty-plus years ago. Its important to remember that until the introduction of 4G/LTE there wasnt any global mobile telephony standard. The world was roughly divided into incompatible systems based on 3GPP (WCDMA) and 3GPP2 (cmda2000), which were further broken down into a number of variations as well as country specific standards across the globe. Latin America in particular was interesting because there was a mix of WCDMA and CDMA networks.

In this example there were clear benefits to the industry of standardization to support multiple vendor ecosystems.

A key component of the Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform is the platform software development kit, or SDK. The SDK is designed to enable Ericsson, CSPs and third-party independent software vendors (ISVs) to rapidly build automation rApps. This is because the SDK offers: low technical barriers to market entry, low costs to development and, based on the eventual specification or even standardization of the R1 interface, enables monetization across multiple SMO vendor platforms. When deciding its SDK approach, Ericsson made two important decisions:

This is an example of good openness', with Ericsson having chosen to share a very valuable asset with the industry but also to benefit from the speed and agility that single-entity ownership conveys. Because the rApps developed with the SDK will utilize the open R1 interface to connect to the non-RT-RIC and the O-RAN Alliance A1, O1 and O2 interfaces to connect to Cloud RAN and Open RAN networks the fact that the toolkit used to build those rApps is effectively proprietary doesnt affect the application.

Unfortunately, in todays deployed 4G and 5G purpose-built or physical RAN networks the network management function tends to be highly proprietary or vendor specific. There have been some good interworking initiatives, such as the Operational Support System interworking initiative, or OSSii, but unlike Ericsson not all RAN vendors have adopted the spirit or the letter of the OSSii approach. This means that for the EIAP to support non-Ericsson network management systems (NMS) or equipment management systems (EMS) often requires a level of systems integration to support the FCAPS - fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security of non-Ericsson networks.

However, because the EIAP is designed to maximize openness the platform is capable of supporting standardized and proprietary northbound and southbound interfaces with the intent of providing a single, multi-vendor, multi-technology service management and orchestration platform.

Sometimes, all you can do is make your platforms as open as possible and hope that other vendors take the opportunity to leverage that capability to provide what CSPs expect: truly multi-vendor and multi-technology platforms.

We believe that there are four key principles that create the conditions for good openness and that Ericssons approach to Open RAN service management and orchestration uses all four:

So, to answer our own question, the use of open interfaces is fundamental for driving RAN automation. In terms of the debate between standardization or proprietary, vendor-specific approaches we believe this is driven by weighing up the pros and cons of each approach. Certainly, in the SMO domain good openness means a mix of standardization and vendor-specific interfaces to create optimal outcomes and enable rapid innovation.

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UiPath Partners with Adobe to Automate End-to-End Digital Document Processes and Workflows – Business Wire

Posted: at 7:12 pm

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UiPath (NYSE: PATH), a leading enterprise automation software company, today announced it has integrated its automation platform with digital document generation and e-signature capabilities from Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE). By integrating with Adobe Document Services and Adobe Acrobat Sign to help customers automate end-to-end document processes, UiPath can boost employee productivity, enhance digital customer experiences, and lower costs through seamless, uninterrupted digital document workflows.

According to a Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Adobe, 97% of organizations with minimal digital document processes are seeing a negative impact on productivity. Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have triggered a paradigm shift in existing ways of managing processes and repetitive tasks creating the productivity and efficiency gains that these fast-moving organizations demand.

Whether its onboarding new hires, creating NDAs, or ordering standard equipment, employees and customers spend a lot of time repeating manual, paper-based processes. These tasks not only take too much time, but they also introduce inefficiency and risk into every step of the process, said Deepak Bharadwaj, Vice President of Product Management, Adobe Document Cloud. In todays hybrid world, every department across an organization needs modern tools that accelerate document and e-signature workflows. And with UiPath and Adobes integration, organizations will have easy access to the best digital document experiences that drive productivity and scale in a secure manner.

By transforming manual processes into all-digital experiences, UiPath and Adobe are enabling organizations to accelerate and modernize their work with employees and customers alike. More specifically, these integrations:

For example, when onboarding a new vendor that vendor is required to complete an NDA. With the Adobe Acrobat Sign connector for UiPath, customers can automate the process through a web form by indicating the recipient and selecting the type of document that is needed. The connector triggers an automated process to find the most recent version of the NDA that automatically descends to requesting the vendors e-signature. Meanwhile, customers can view the progress at any time what documents were reviewed, who signed them, and more.

Customers want a simple, affordable, and resilient solution without complex infrastructure and application changes. They also know that Adobe has been in the business of providing the best document tools and services for decades. Were here to help, said Param Kahlon, UiPath Chief Product Officer. As interest in accelerated document processes amongst organizations continues to grow, the UiPath integration with Adobe enables enterprise organizations to easily begin or continue their enterprise automation journey, successfully mature and scale their automation initiatives, and refocus their workforce on business transformation.

For more information on the integration and to get started, visit the UiPath Marketplace:https://marketplace.uipath.com/listings/adobe-pdf-services.

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 Partners with Adobe to Automate End-to-End Digital Document Processes and Workflows - Business Wire

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IT-OT Convergence Has Always Been The Path Forward – Automation World

Posted: at 7:12 pm

As Industry 4.0 and IIoT (Industrial Internet ofThings) concepts become real applications,an exciting conversation has developed centeredon the integration of information technology(IT) with operations technology (OT). Large IT companieshave actively promoted ideas like workloadconsolidation for businesses to optimize processes andbe more competitive. Some of the largest players inautomation technology (AT) are jumping on board.Greater system openness, real-time deterministiccontrol with many-core processors, the incorporationof web technologies and machine learning, amongother advances, are all possible through applyingpopular technologies to industrial applications.

IT and OT convergence offers incredible benefitsto machine control architectures todayjust as it hasfor more than 30 years. While many suppliers arejust beginning to integrate PC-based technology intoindustrial automation, it is nothing new. The history ofIT-OT convergence in automation technology datesback to the early 1980s with the advent of the modernPC and those who saw its potential for industrialuse. The adaptation of these ideas follows the diffusionof innovations theory, which describes how newtechnologies are adopted in order by the innovators(2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%),late majority (34%) and, finally, the laggards (16%).

PC-focused innovationin the 1980sDuring this era, the larger technology world beganto develop the personal computer (PC) and relatedtechnologies for widespread business and consumeruse far beyond 1970s levels. This led to transformationsin standard chip sets, board designs, and sophisticatedoperating systems. At that time, most industrialtechnology companies stayed away from the PCpath. The PLC platforms of the time used proprietarychip sets, board designs and, in most cases, programmingsoftware. Traditional PLC technology formachine control evolved much slower than it shouldhave due to an industry-wide aversion to change. Asa result, the paths of hardware PLCs and consumerPCs would not begin to converge for decades.

While the majority of industrial vendors andmanufacturers initially shunned IT technology on theplant floor, smaller start-up companies recognizedthat both technologies could coexist. Using provenindustrial standards and computer science innovations,smaller AT companies began the convergenceof IT and OT in manufacturing.

Early adoptersof the 1990sIn the 1990s, both technologies continued toadvance, with IT pioneers running laps around traditionalOT. The popularity of Windows exploded, andit became ubiquitous in nearly every area of technology.By launching Visual Studio in 1997, Microsoftcombined a number of programming languages ina single environment, which continues to evolve tothis day. Industrial vendors that began implementingPC-based automation technologies in the previousdecade saw significant gains in hardware and softwareperformance that far outpaced traditional PLCs. Thesuccessful companies created new tools for deterministic,real-time control that could run on industrialPCs with standardized operating systems.

More automation vendors saw this opportunityand launched computer-based controls. However,these early adopters realized that developing theirown software from scratch was quite costly. Theystarted using off-the-shelf real-time operatingsystems, but often didnt widely promote thesolutions. Some notable crash-and-burns gavePC-based platforms a bad reputation during thistime. However, many platforms were providingincredible results in the field, extending their leadin performance over traditional PLCs.

Early majority from2000 onwardThe turn of the millennium brought further developmentsin software and multi-core processors. MajorIT players like Intel, IBM, and Microsoft activelyexpanded into OT. Likewise, a determined subsetof the automation space kept integrating IT withincreased real-time capabilities.

Along with these automation and controladvances, another major development involved networking.Industrial Ethernet protocols, such as Ether-CAT, created significant performance improvementsand a path forward from legacy fieldbuses. This isanother example of IT and OT convergence, withEthernet merging with fieldbus technology. Ether-CAT eliminated the complexity and cost of switchesand additional hardware while providing deterministiccontrol with up to 65,535 devices per network. Thisresulted from the same PC-based control innovatorswho carefully considered the potential of industrialEthernetcombining its openness and acceptancewith the functionality of a fieldbus.

Todays late majorityFrom automation software apps on smartphonesto many-core Intel Xeon processors in controllers,IT-OT convergence continues to acceleratetoday. For example, contemporary HMIs nowcommonly rely on web technologies, and standardssuch as MQTT and JSON are being implementedin IIoT contexts.

Gigabit Ethernet technologies such as Ether-CAT G are also becoming key as machines becomemore complex. The industry is also beginning toapply machine learning and other artificial intelligencetechnologies.

Fortunately, the reluctance of manufacturersto implement PC-based technologies continues toevaporate as they see the benefits of IT technologiesin industry. The decades of IT-OT advances haveshown that any IT principle carried over to OT productsmust be deterministic, reliable, available for manyyears and implemented efficiently. Done correctly,IT-OT integration produces results far better thanwhat traditional platforms can accomplish.

For more information:www.beckhoff.com/IoT

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Star Cutter and Garr Tool Create Next-generation Production Automation – Automation.com

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Summary

Star Cutter and Garr Tool are developing innovative multi-process CNC machine tools for complete end mill manufacturing.

May 17, 2022 -US manufacturers Star Cutter Company and Garr Tool have jointly developed an innovative 5-axis CNC machine tool that completely automates the production of complex profile end millsfrom blank to finished tool.Star Cutter Company specializes in carbide and preform manufacturing, cutting tools and CNC machines for tool/cutter grinding and hob sharpening. Founded in Detroit back in 1927, the company nowadays operates six manufacturing facilities at strategic locations throughout Michigan. Its Elk Rapids Engineering division is responsible for the renowned Star brand of CNC tool and cutter grinders.Garr Tool is the USAs leading manufacturer of high-performance solid carbide cutting tools. From humble beginnings with Fred Leppien in his garage in 1944, it now operates a state-of-the-art 200,000 square foot manufacturing facility in central Michigan with over 150 CNC grinders. Garr Tool specializes in solid carbide cutting tools, including end mills, drills, reamers and routers.Garr Tool makes extensive use of CNC automation, including tool grinding machines from Ulmer Werkzeugschleiftechnik (UWS) and Star-Cutter. All of these machines are based on control technology supplied by the specialist CNC company NUM. Star Cutter, for example, has partnered with NUM for cooperative development of application-specific CNC hardware and software since 1998, and nowadays bases nearly all its machine tools on NUMs open-architecture Flexium+ CNC platform.According to John Leppien II, vice president of Garr Tool, We use NUMs NUMROTO software for tool production and reconditioning on all of our Star and UWS machines. Our operators regard it as very flexible and user-friendly, and we find that it encourages interdepartmental knowledge sharing and also helps to reduce our training overheads.A few years back, Garr Tool began producing a series of large diameter tools for use on high torque machines employed in the aerospace industry; however, manufacturing the tools involved multiple machines and multiple processes. The company therefore embarked on a collaborative project with Star Cutters Elk Rapids Engineering team, to develop a multi-process machine capable of handling the entire production task. The result was a 2018 development of a Star CNC Tool grinder which included NUMROTO end mill software, cylindrical grind, along with linear motors and drives, with all 5 axes on a closed loop chiller/coolant system. This thermally stable machine allows Garr Tool to maintain .001 in diameter on the OD of these tools during lights out for 48 hour unattended runs.Star's latest machine, the NXT tool and cutter grinder, now also incorporates these same features that were introduced to Garr Tool. Based on NUMs Flexium+ CNC system and NUMROTO software, this new 5-axis machine tool features linear motors instead of ball screws on the X, Y and Z axes, direct drive torque motors on the B and C rotary axes, and a liquid-cooled spindle motor. There is a choice of three different types of spindle motor, to best suit application needs; these include a very high speed unit capable of 24,000rpm, and a very high power unit rated at 28kW.The NXT has an exceptionally small footprint (including the spindle/axis chiller) of just 7 6 x 6 6 (2300 x 2032mm), and an installed height of only 75 (2284mm). These dimensions mean that the machine can easily be accommodated on the shop floor, where space is often at a premium. The base of the machine is cast in ZanitePlus polymer composite to ensure mechanical rigidity and thermal stability.Despite its diminutive size, the NXT offers a substantial grind zone, with maximum X, Y and Z travels of 19.7, 25.6 and 29.5 (500mm, 650mm and 750mm) respectively. The machine can accommodate up to 15 (381mm) end work and up to 10 (254mm) diameter parts. Automated wheel changing and probing is standard with up to 8 (203mm) diameter wheels, and the NXT can also run up to 10 (254mm) diameter wheels with coolant manifolds and up to 12 (305mm) diameter wheels without.The ability to use large diameter grinding wheels for profiling applications or small, sub 1 (25mm) diameter wheels for PCD pocket grinding on the same machine introduces a remarkable level of production flexibility.Star Cutters new NXT tool and cutter grinder features a fully integrated Fanuc 200iD compact 6-axis short arm robot to facilitate fully automated processing of round and flat tool blanks; the standard gripper can handle from 5mm to 32mm blanks, with other options available. In-process measurement data is fed directly to the CNC systems NUMROTO software, to provide adaptive real-time control of the entire grinding process.Based on a modular architecture, the NXT is designed for ease of integration with other forms of industrial automation and handling robots. An extensive range of factory-build and retrofit options include a traveling W-axis and a 12,000rpm wheel dresser.Aaron Remsing, Jr. Sales Manager for Star Cutters Elk Rapids Engineering Division, pointedout: We believe that the NXT is the smallest and most capable CNC tool and cutter grinder on the market. Even though it is an evolutionary design, its performance is nothing short of revolutionary.

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Back to Basics: Increasing Productivity with EHS Automation – EHS Daily Advisor – EHS Daily Advisor

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Back to Basics is a weekly feature that highlights important but possibly overlooked information that any EHS professional should know. This week, we examine automation, the use of automation in EHS reporting, and how it can increase the productivity of the workforce.

New technologies are constantly being invented and distributed to consumers, including versions of artificial intelligence that are used in various ways to make peoples lives simpler. In the EHS industry, there has been a surge of individuals and organizations who are advocating for the automation of EHS processes, especially when it comes to reporting and data collection.

Many companies have come up with their own algorithms and data input resources to help EHS professionals with their jobs, and as this continues to happen, its becoming increasingly important to understand what automated EHS means and how it can impact the workforce. Jake Freivald, the Vice President of Fulcrum, spoke in a recent webinar about the benefits of automation in EHS and what the implementation of artificial intelligence would look like, specifically in the case of safety inspections.

In order to increase productivity and efficiency, EHS leaders should first consider the processes that their employees go through while doing their jobs. Freivald said there are two levels of processes, the workers process, and the enterprises process. The worker, an EHS professional in Freivalds example, may send out a team to do an inspection on-site with checklists, then someone has to return to transcribe that data into a spreadsheet, which is then used as a part of a master spreadsheet that is turned into a report for stakeholders.

This workflow fits into the larger enterprise process, which can involve using the spreadsheets to bill clients and making sure the work being done is remaining in compliance. Freivald stated that in this framework, the data is only useful depending on the quality, which is why it is important to consider the workflow to see if there are any gaps or errors in reporting that can be potentially addressed by automation.

There are many different ways to introduce automation into a workflow or process, and its important to have realistic expectations of what automation can do. Freivald said that rather than artificial intelligence (AI) making every process magically easier, the reality is that AI will likely have a specific set of capabilities that are a solution for a single problem, and it will be able to solve that problem faster than a human.

There are multiple pathways that employ automation and technology that Freivald outlined that are specific to the EHS industry.

In terms of digitizing inspection processes, Freivald recommended finding methods that make it easier for users to input data. When picking between fill-in-the-blank or a pick list with options, choose the pick list. If the worker needs to type in their observations, add in an audio feature so they can use their voice to record what they need to. Break up text and questions into appropriate chunks, and only display certain information or questions when the circumstances make it necessary. Lastly, include diagrams and any other data the user needs in the inspection checklists, and generally simplify more than what might seem necessary. The goal is to streamline processes to increase efficiency.

The first step to increasing productivity with automation is to find parts of the workflow or process where there is a significant amount of data passing between people. Freivald recommended looking for areas where poor data quality has caused significant issues, because automating those data handoffs will reduce transcription errors which makes reporting more efficient and accurate. However, it is important to find a balance when determining which problem to tackle with automation. If the problem or process is too simple, the outcome will not be significant enough for the results to matter, but avoid trying to take on too much at once.

Freivald used remediation as an example, which is a process that basically consists of identifying the problem, communicating it, fixing it, and then communicating the fix. Typically, inspectors will perform inspections, identify issues, and then transcribe the data they found in a report which gets sent to the superintendent. The superintendent will identify issues in the report and contact the remediation crew. Remediators will fix what they need to and make another report, which goes back to the superintendent, who then confirms the remediation and closes out the case. Freivald stated that this process would be easier if automation was used during the first inspection step with data collection, since it would reduce transcription errors and streamline the reporting process.

In terms of measuring success, Freivald said to leverage data flow to create and publish metrics, and he suggested using two different types safety performance and inspection performance. Safety performance metrics can include remediation time and cost, fines, calendar days lost, and person-days lost. Inspection performance metrics can include inspection time and cost, the time workers wait for inspection completion, and safety problems found post-inspection. Freivald also warned against being punitive, and emphasized that punishing hazard reports teaches people not to report hazards, which is not the ideal outcome.

Finally, in order to convince upper management to invest more in automation, AI, and technology in general, EHS leaders should emphasize the end result of more productivity and the downstream effects of that productivity. Freivald said the number one thing to do is focus on specific problems that upper management sees, not just the niche issues. Frame the conversation around how automating inspections or other processes with reduce the number of billing days and the days it takes to send the bill to clients, which will increase the speed at which the company gets paid.

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Filings buzz: tracking industrial automation mentions in the medical devices industry – Medical Device Network

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Mentions of industrial automation within the filings of companies in the medical devices industry were 12% lower during 2021 than in 2016, according to the latest analysis of data from GlobalData.

When companies in the medical devices industry publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Industrial automation is one of these topics - companies that excel and invest in these areas are thought to be better prepared for the future business landscape and better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.

To assess whether industrial automation is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of companies in the medical devices industry, two measures were calculated. Firstly, we looked at the percentage of companies which have mentioned industrial automation at least once in filings during the past twelve months - this was 62% compared to 55% in 2016. Secondly, we calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that referred to industrial automation.

Of the 10 biggest employers in the medical devices industry, BD was the company which referred to industrial automation the most during 2021. GlobalData identified 20 industrial automation-related sentences in the United States-based company's filings - 0.2% of all sentences. Danaher mentioned industrial automation the second most - the issue was referred to in 0.14% of sentences in the company's filings. Other top employers with high industrial automation mentions included Roche, Fresenius and IQVIA.

Across all companies in the medical devices industry the filing published in the fourth quarter of 2021 which exhibited the greatest focus on industrial automation came from Agilent. Of the document's 1,720 sentences, nine (0.5%) referred to industrial automation.

This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on industrial automation and how important the issue is considered within the medical devices industry, but it also has limitations and should be interpreted carefully. For example, a company mentioning industrial automation more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the company's ventures into industrial automation have been successes or failures.

In the last quarter, companies in the medical devices industry based in Western Europe were most likely to mention industrial automation with 0.16% of sentences in company filings referring to the issue. In contrast, companies with their headquarters in the United States mentioned industrial automation in just 0.08% of sentences.

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Survey: businesses aren’t reaping the benefits of accounts receivable automation – The Paypers

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Global payment orchestration platform BlueSnap has announced the results of its 2022 Automating Accounts Receivable survey.

For this report, BlueSnap surveyed executives globally to examine the extent to which businesses are adopting automation in their accounts receivable (AR) processes and its benefits. One takeaway from the findings: organisations have only automated a fraction of their AR processes with plenty of gaps left to close to reap the full rewards of true end-to-end AR automation.

Supply chain issues and inflation put increased pressure on businesses to get paid on time. Now more than ever, businesses must find ways to increase efficiencies to keep a positive cash flow. BlueSnap's survey results found that 89% of businesses that have automated AR processes are getting paid within their agreed payment terms or faster.

The data shows that nearly half (49%) of global businesses are stuck using legacy AR processes. While many organisations have started to automate AR processes, they are often only automating one or two steps. When it comes to generating invoices, only 19% have completely automated the process and a mere 15% have completely automated sending the invoices.

Only 8% of the companies surveyed had completely automated the setup and management of customer payment plans, while more than half (51%) said they had the process mostly, but not completely, automated. These fragmented attempts are small steps in the right direction, but to see the full operational benefits like better cash flow, increased customer satisfaction, and improved employee productivity, it is essential for businesses to completely automate AR processes.

The factors preventing organisations from fully automating their AR processes include a lack of understanding of the technology available (71%), a fear that automation will take the human element out of the business (47%), lack of technical expertise to implement new systems (44%), and a concern that people will lose their jobs (23%).

To find out more about BlueSnap, please click here.

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