Category Archives: Evolution

In NEO: The World Ends With You, pins arent just a way to make you look more fashionable. Instead, they give you powerful psychic abilities that can change over time, depending on how you level them up. With this guide, we hope to steer you towards a stronger party that can succeed in the Reapers Game.

The first thing to discuss is pin evolution eligibility. Like Pokemon, some pins you find are the only form they possess. They cannot be evolved at all. Second, a pin can be evolved by levelling it up. The more you use the pin, the more it will grow. At the victory screen, you are given the option to evolve the pin or not whenever it hits a certain level. Usually, youd want to evolve it as the new pin offers a stronger attack or better effect. Third, a pin can be mutated into a stronger form if used with a specific character for a certain amount of time.

You can find information on every pin in your collection by either going to the Records section or the pins section of the menu. Once youve chosen the pin you want to know more about, swipe the right stick to the right. It will give you more details like if it can be evolved or not. If it displays a ???, this means its a mutation.

The best way to go about playing NEO: The World Ends With You is by evolving your pins, tweaking the drop rate of pins, and increasing the difficulty to get rarer pins. If you keep altering the drop rate and difficulty of the game to your liking, youre on the right path to winning the Reapers Game.

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How does pin evolution work in NEO: The World Ends With You? - Gamepur

ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs.

We all experience growth, change, and new phases in life, and Earth is no exception. Over the course of its 4.5 billion-year lifespan, our planet has transitioned from an asteroid-battered ball of molten rock, to a life-bearing ocean orb, to the home of the only known technological civilization in the universe.

David A. Roberts, an artist and computer scientist, visualized this epic planetary story with a mesmerizing simulation written entirely in GLSL fragment shaders, which are part of the graphics programming language OpenGL. In a recent blog post, Roberts explains how he generated the progression of an Earth simulacrum across geological epochs at a rate of 60 frames per second.

Roberts had been tinkering around with simulations for some time and was inspired to create his planetary evolution video after finding the 1990 game SimEarth, which is part of the Sim series, on the Internet Archive.

[SimEarth] had a really ambitious premise of simulating earth-like planets all the way from creation through to the distant future, but was quite limited by the computer hardware of the time, so I decided to see whether I could create something similar that exploits the power of modern GPUs, Roberts said in an email.

I actually created a mini-game first, which allows you to interactively alter terrain to see how it affects the simulated climate and ecology. And later on created the visual history which runs through everything automatically as I figured it was a bit easier for people to consume, he added.

The simulation starts between a view of the spherical globe in its tortured early years as a protoplanet, when it was still cooking in the juices of planetary formation. It then switches to a flattened map projection to illustrate the origins and dynamics of plate tectonics, the process by which continental plates drift across Earth, and planets like it. From there, a completely different palette of colors is introduced to reveal how water flows sculpt and erode these continents, and how atmospheric climate patterns encircle the planet and influence its terrain.

Roberts built the simulation in his spare time over the course of a few months and entered it into the Shadertoy Competition 2018. His recent blog post outlines its development, which started with complex hydraulic erosion processes and then moved on to include plate tectonics, ecological models, and climate systems.

The climate simulation was a particularly difficult one to approximate reasonably realistically but without requiring a supercomputer, Roberts noted. One source of inspiration here was the Monash Simple Climate Model. Although I couldn't use it as-is because it requires a lot of real Earth data (so doesn't work with simulated earth-like planets), it did help convince me that it was possible to come up with simple but realistic approximations.

Eventually, these interlinked planetary processes on Earth helped to seed the right conditions for life as we know it, and life has, in turn, has profoundly shaped our world. Toward the end of Roberts simulation, the effects of a technologically advanced civilization become apparent on his digital Earth, as city lights light up the landscape and industrial greenhouse gas emissions begin to affect the global climate.

The final section is intended to illustrate a possible future, though perhaps an improbable one, Roberts said. I wanted it to be dramatic, so it is an illustration of a particularly extreme outcome where literally all of the fossil fuels are burned, but I tried to keep the effects realistic otherwise, based on scientific articles I've read about such a hypothetical.

The videos renderings of Earths processes, combined with its rousing musical score, makes for a relaxing break from the daily grind. Roberts didnt produce the simulation with any particular message in mind, beyond telling an interesting visual story about our planet and its inhabitants.

I guess my aim was more to help people see first-hand how intimately all the various earth systems are linked, with changes in one influencing more changes in another, he said. I feel like education is a lot more effective when people can understand for themselves how all these things fit together, rather than just being told what the scientific consensus is.

I think simulations are a powerful tool for helping people to gain an intuitive understanding of systems, particularly when they can try changing something and then watch all the resulting consequences play out, Roberts concluded. I didn't quite achieve that level of interactivity with this project, but perhaps I'll follow through on that at some point in the future.

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Watch 4 Billion Years of Earths Evolution in 4 Minutes - VICE

27 July 2021

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

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The Property Line is a brief and lively discussion of thebiggest issues facing the commercial real estate industry. Thepodcast will deliver insights from Seyfarth's real estatelawyers and other industry leaders on current market trends and howthey impact all facets of commercial real estate.

When construing lease obligations, courts generally attempt toenforce what the parties intended at the time of contractformation. Now that a pandemic like COVID-19 is foreseeable,landlords and tenants must carefully draft their leases to giveeffect to the business deal that the parties intend.Building on the last episode,Elizabeth Schreroreturns alongsidehostsEric GreenbergandJames O'Briento discuss key insightslearned from recent retail rent decisions, as well as strategiesthat can be adopted for drafting and negotiating both sides ofleases, and what lease parties can anticipate going forward.

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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The Property Line - The Continuing Evolution Of COVID-19 Retail Rent Decisions And The Impact On Leasing (Part 2) (Podcast) - Real Estate and...

Survey also reveals practices show a fast recovery from the pandemic and the move to more customized care

IRVINE, Calif., July 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kareo 2021 State of the Independent Practice report, a semi-annual survey that has become a principal source of information on the under-studied independent healthcare arena, reveals a far more optimistic, dynamic and growth-oriented prediction for small to mid-sized practices than could have been foreseen at the beginning of 2020. Download the report here.

The survey data discovered:

More than 50% of all independent practices emerged from 2020 with the number of patient visits the same (22%) or even higher (29%) than in 2019.

75% of independent medical practices expect to grow in 2021, up from 59% as reported in a previous Kareo survey conducted in 2019.

Even more optimistically, practices expecting their patient loads to shrink in 2021 fell to less than half of the 2019 findings (6% in 2021 versus 14% in 2019).

According to the report, this positive outlook can be attributed to multiple factors, many of them involving technology.

Dan Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Kareo, the leading provider of cloud-based clinical and practice management software for independent practices, stated, "Early in 2020, independent practices, like all small businesses, were suffering with declining visits and revenues and in many cases, being forced to close their doors for weeks or often months. A pulse survey conducted by Kareo in June 2020 found that 75% of independent practice respondents reported a decline in patient volumes, threatening this critical segment of the healthcare industry."

Rodrigues continued, "However, contrary to expectations, independent practices actually ended the year on an upswing. The data revealed that a renewed focus on the needs of their patients and a rapid, nimble adoption of technology solutions is what allowed practices to maintain and even enhance their patient relationships. The most significant of these technologies was telehealth."

Story continues

Prior to the pandemic, telehealth was a slowly adopted technology that many providers felt was a "nice-to-have" someday. In fact:

In 2019, the Kareo State of the Independent Practice survey and report showed the adoption rate of telehealth at 22%.

A survey Kareo conducted in March 2020 showed that the rate of telehealth usage nearly doubled to 41%.

By June 2020, a follow up survey showed that telehealth usage skyrocketed to 77%.

And by December 2020, that number had increased to 80% of independent practice respondents offering telehealth visits.

This dramatic adoption of telehealth was received mostly positively by independent healthcare providers, but also by their patients who were required to learn to use telehealth platforms to receive care and saw the benefit of the technology as a result.

While delivering care is always a high priority for independent practices, as shown in 2019 when 50% of participants cited it as their primary focus, in the 2021 report, that number has grown to 71%. This suggests that practitioners have a reinforced understanding of their role in patients' lives and health, perhaps prompted by the pandemic, as well as an increasing recognition of the consumerization of healthcare. As patients have assumed greater responsibility for their own healthcare costs, often due to an increased use of high deductible health plans, they have also exerted more active choice in finding providers that meet their expectations.

For more information about how providers feel about using technology in their practices in 2021 and other interesting insights from Kareo's recent survey, download the Kareo 2021 State of the Independent Practice report here.

About KareoKareo is the only cloud-based and complete medical technology platform purpose-built to meet the unique needs of independent practices and the billing companies that serve them. Today Kareo helps more than 75,000 providers across all 50 states run a more efficient and profitable practice, while setting them up to deliver outstanding patient care. With oices across the country, Kareo's mission is to help independent practices and the billing companies that support them succeed in an ever-changing healthcare market. More information can be found at http://www.kareo.com.

Contact: Lindsay Thompson Strategieslindsay@strategiesadpr.com714-656-0141Cell: 949-280-5854

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Kareo Survey Shows the Evolution of Independent Healthcare Practices Using Technology and Their Outlook for the Future - Yahoo Finance

Life reconstruction of Heterodontosaurus vocalizing on a cool Jurassic morning. Credit: Viktor Radermacher

Using an exceptionally preserved fossil from South Africa, a particle accelerator, and high-powered x-rays, an international team including a University of Minnesota researcher has discovered that not all dinosaurs breathed in the same way. The findings give scientists more insight into how a major group of dinosaurs, including well-known creatures like the triceratops and stegosaurus, evolved.

The study is published in eLife, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal for the biomedical and life sciences.

Not all animals use the same techniques and organs to breathe. Humans expand and contract their lungs. Birds have air sacs outside their lungs that pump oxygen in, and their lungs dont actually move. For a long time, paleontologists assumed that all dinosaurs breathed like birds, since they had similar breathing anatomy. This study, however, found that Heterodontosaurus did not it instead had paddle-shaped ribs and small, toothpick-like bones, and expanded both its chest and belly in order to breathe.

Using a well-preserved fossil and high-powered x-rays, an international team including a University of Minnesota researcher has discovered that not all dinosaurs breathed in the same way. This video shows a 3D digitization of the newly discovered Heterodontosaurus specimen, the oldest ancestor of dinosaurs such as Triceratops and Stegosaurus. Credit: Viktor Radermacher

Heterodontosaurus is the oldest dinosaur in the Ornithischian line, one of three major dinosaur groups that includes Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and other duck-billed dinosaurs. The other groups are sauropods, or longnecks, and theropods like the T-Rex.

We actually have never known how these [Ornithischians] breathed, said Viktor Radermacher, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student in the University of Minnesotas Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The interesting thing is that Heterodontosaurus is the ancestor of this group and it has these [newly discovered] pieces of anatomy, but its descendants dont. What that means is that Heterodontosaurus is a missing link between the ancestors of dinosaurs and the bigger, charismatic species we know. This gives us a whole bunch of information and fills in some pretty glaring gaps in our knowledge of the biology of these dinosaurs.

The newly discovered Heterodontosaurus tucki specimen (left), along with the researchers digital reconstruction of the fossil (right), shows the dinosaurs unusual paddle-shaped ribs and small, toothpick-like bones. Credit: Viktor Radermacher

The researchers analyzed the new Heterodontosaurus specimen with high-powered x-rays generated from a synchrotron a giant, donut-shaped particle accelerator that spins electrons at the speed of light at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France. Using those x-rays, they were able to digitally reconstruct the skeleton and identify the dinosaurs unique features.

The takeaway message is that there are many ways to breathe, Radermacher said. And the really interesting thing about life on Earth is that we all have different strategies to do the same thing, and weve just identified a new strategy of breathing. This shows that utilizing dinosaurs and paleontology, we can learn more about the diversity of animals on Earth and how they breathe.

For more on this discovery, read 200-Million-Year-Old Fossil Sheds Light on the Evolution of How Dinosaurs Breathed.

Reference: A new Heterodontosaurus specimen elucidates the unique ventilatory macroevolution of ornithischian dinosaurs by Viktor J Radermacher, Vincent Fernandez, Emma R Schachner, Richard J Butler, Emese M Bordy, Michael Naylor Hudgins, William J de Klerk, Kimberley EJ Chapelle and Jonah N Choiniere, 6 July 2021, eLife.DOI: 10.7554/eLife.66036

In addition to Radermacher, the research team included Vincent Fernandez, an ESRF beamline scientist and X-Ray technician at the Natural History Museum, UK; Emma Schachner, an associate professor at Louisiana State University; Richard Butler, a professor of palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, UK; Emese Bordy, an associate professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa; Michael Naylor Hudgins, a grad student at the University of Alberta, Canada; William de Klerk, emeritus curator of the Department of Earth Sciences at Rhodes University in Makhanda, South Africa; Kimberley Chapelle, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; and Jonah Choiniere, a professor of comparative palaeobiology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

The research was funded by grants from South Africas National Research Foundation (NRF) and Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Palaeontological Scientific Trust, and the Durand Foundation for Evolutionary Biology and Phycology.

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Exceptionally Preserved Fossil Sheds Light on the Evolution of How Dinosaurs Breathed - SciTechDaily

My favorite thing to drink this summer has been a super refreshing cucumber-mint limeade. I first made it one hot evening when my 12-year-old son and I were getting ready to watch a Euro 2020 soccer match. We squeezed lots of limes, mixed the juice with a bit of sugar syrup and blitzed it together with a whole peeled cucumber until it was a beautiful pale green color. Then we poured it into our prettiest glasses over ice, topped up with soda water and garnished with mint. It hit every spot you want in a summer drink. My son drank his straight up, but I added a shot of tequila to mine to make it into a cocktail.

What, actually, is a cocktail? Its one of those words you can use hundreds of times in your life without ever asking where it comes from. In 19th-century America, cocktail was far from the only word for mixed alcoholic drinks. Like a sling (a drink made from brandy, rum or other spirits mixed with sugar, water and flavoring) or a toddy (much the same thing but with hot water and sometimes honey instead of sugar), cocktail originally meant a specific kind of mixed drink rather than mixed drinks in general. If history had taken a different course, we might all now speak of drinking drams, cobblers, coolers, smashes, juleps ormy personal favoriteslingflips.

In racing terms, a cocktail was originally a word for a horse that was a mixed breed rather than a thoroughbred. The idea of a cocktail-as-drink was that the alcohol was mingled with other ingredients, specifically with water, sugar and bitters (the original cocktail was basically a bittered sling). There were whiskey cocktails and gin cocktails and rum cocktails. These were excitingly flavored mixed drinks rather than pure spirit, and they were seen in the early 19th century as something you might drink in the morning, like coffee, to pep yourself up.

By 1917, when Tom Bullock published The Ideal Bartender, cocktails had assumed dozens of different forms, from Blue Blazer (flaming whiskey with sugar and lemon peel) to Leaping Frog (apricot brandy, lime and ice). The first Black American to publish a cocktail book, Bullock worked at the St. Louis Country Club and was renowned as the greatest mixologist of his time, versed in the art of the julep. He is sometimes credited as one of the inventors of the gimlet (gin and lime juice). It was said that his drinks were so good that no one could fail to finish one.

In more recent times, it seemed as if gimlets and juleps and slings were becoming archaiclike something out of the Mad Men erain contrast to the simplicity of a glass of wine or beer. But with the pandemic, cocktails are back and more exciting than ever. Sri Lankan-British mixologist Ryan Chetiyawardanathe founder of Dandelyan in London, which has been named the worlds best barlaunched an online Master Class series on cocktail making in March 2020 which had a far bigger response than anticipated. Mr. Chetiyawardana, whose latest bar is Silver Lyan in Washington, D.C., suggested to me that the reason cocktail making found new fans over the past year is because the act of making someone a cocktail feels very hospitable. By sharing in the act of cocktail making over Zoom, friends and family could feel as if they were actually in the same room, enjoying the same icy-cold drink with the same mix of flavors, getting tipsy in unison.

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The Long Evolution of the Cocktail - The Wall Street Journal

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Tom Bachik is the choice nail artist of celebrities including Selena Gomez, Olivia Rodrigo and Jennifer Lopez. However, while growing up, his passions were more around Shaun White than colorful nails.

The plan was to open up my own studio and custom paint racecar helmets and hockey masks and jet skis, said Bachik. He turned to the growing nail industry in the early 90s when he was expecting his first child and wanted more financial stability. Learning to became a nail technician was hard, but I love challenges, Bachik said.

Bachik started his career in nails by learning to do acrylic nails, which were all the rage in the 90s. From there, he witnessed the evolution of nail art firsthand.

Nails definitely follow fashion and follow the trends of whats happening in fashion, Bachik said. Minimalistic French manicures of the 90s took a sharp turn from the nail art-heavy 80s, characterized by airbrushing and bling. Now, nail art is seeing a resurgence, as a result of Covid, said Bachik.

People had time at home to play with their nails. And they wanted something fun to lift their spirits, he said.

As for the current nail trends, Bachik said there is no one-size-fits-all look. But, he said, Everyone wants a little bit of nail art.

Its either ornate and crazy, or its simple. Its pops of color, metallic accents, unique French nails, or a little gem or rhinestone here and there, just to give it a little bit of bling, he said.

Bachik shared with Glossy which nail trends his celebrity clients are wearing and what hes doing to match their vibe to their nail look.

Bright colors and abstract patternsA lot of [current nail trends] have to do with summer. Its the color and the brightness [that] make you happy, said Bachik.

Selena Gomez, one of Bachiks long-time clients, has not shied away from colorful manicures in the past. Most recently, she sported the look in her photoshoot for LaMariette, her new swimsuit line.

While Gomezs swimsuits heavily feature colors like pink, orange and blue, Bachik went with neon green nails. I wanted to make the nails pop, but yet tie to the whole look, said Bachik. I try to [do] whats going to be a little unexpected.

Fluid abstract nail art is also a huge trend, said Bachik. Its just random patterns, [like] swirls and lava lamp-style flowing patterns, he said. Takes on the trend include simple nudes with white flowy patterns, flowing patterns of black and white and Pucci [-inspired] swirls with two or three colors running through the nail.

Other patterns that are blowing up include flowers on each nail and small flowers covering the whole nail, Bachik said. Those are designs that just make you feel good.

The modern FrenchThe modern French manicure is another popular form of nail art that can be as fun or as subtle as a client wants. It often features both bright colors and matching pastel colors, Bachik said.

The younger girls want a lot of it [nail art], or they want it super bright. My older clients are more about simple versions of that, he said.

Most importantly, he said, is honing in on the emotional connection that nails are tied to, based on clients personalities.

Charlize [Theron] was all about, Give me something fun. Its summer, and vacations coming, and I want something cute and fun, Bachik said. He gave her a subtle twist on the classic French manicure by switching out the white tips to pops of neon on the corner of each nail.

We did every nail in a different color on Selena [Gomez]. With Heidi [Klum], we just did the tips. And with Charlize, we did just the corners. It varies, depending on their personality and what the occasion is, Bachik said.

Press-on nailsFor Olivia Rodrigos debut album, Sour, Bachik again focused on making sure her that nails tell her story. The manicure sported by Rodrigo in her albums cover art features black-and-white checkerboard nail art, as a nod to the pop-punk, grunge sound of her music.

Nails are the exclamation point at the end of the sentence, said Bachik.

For music videos and red carpets, Bachik has been a longtime fan of press-on nails to provide his clients with a custom look for a short period of time. I could actually create the looks on the clear tips ahead of time, [rather than spend] 3-4 hours doing a crazy set of nails on-set, said Bachik.

Most recently, Bachik has partnered with imPRESS Press-On Manicure.

Theyve got so many designs, and theyre really good about being on-trend, with pops of colors, small floral prints, modern French manicures nails, said Bachik. Jess Conte x ImPress Press-On Manicure Birthday Collection is the brands newest collection of press-on nails and allows people who may not be able to afford a session with Bachik to keep up with nail trends. It features hot colors like sage green and baby blue, as well as floral, polka dot and French manicure patterns, he said.

It appeals to the mass market; people love to follow Instagram and Pinterest accounts [featuring] crazy nail art, said Bachik. But they dont necessarily want to wear it themselves.

But with the right manicure, Its almost like someones whole confidence changes, said Bachik. Its so cool to watch that happen.

Continued here:

Tom Bachik on the evolution of nail art and the latest celeb nail trends - Glossy

For some travelers, app-based food delivery companies like Grubhub and UberEats have already rendered hotel room service nearly obsolete.

A few pioneering players in the hospitality space, however, have found ways to use delivery apps to their advantage, leveraging new partnerships to put a modern, tech-enabled spin on traditional room service concepts.

In what it called a "first-of-its-kind" move, the recently opened Resorts World Las Vegas announced in June that it had inked a deal with Grubhub to launch On the Fly at Resorts World powered by Grubhub.

Billed as a new mobile ordering experience, On the Fly enables Resorts World Las Vegas guests to order from any of the megaresort's 40 food and beverage venues as well as select retail outlets, either via the Grubhub app or by scanning Grubhub QR codes located throughout the property. Orders can be placed for pickup or for delivery to either a guestroom or to Resorts World Las Vegas' 5.5-acre pool complex. Payments can be made by credit card or room charge.

For poolside deliveries, orders can be picked up from a secure, QR code-activated restaurant locker, which features touchless opening.

According to Resorts World Las Vegas president Scott Sibella, the On the Fly platform provides users with what he describes as "a completely new level of convenience."

"Grubhub has mastered the third-party delivery service," said Sibella. "Many guests are already familiar with the application and its functionality, [and] we've seen substantial early adoption rates of On the Fly."

Unlike the typical third-party delivery process, however, On the Fly's delivery logistics are handled by Resorts World staff members instead of independent delivery contractors.

For Grubhub, the partnership marks the company's first with a hotel and casino, but it likely won't be the brand's last.

Brian Madigan, vice president of corporate and campus partners at Grubhub, called the Resorts World Las Vegas tie-up a "natural fit to improve the guest experience."

"We're constantly looking for opportunities and partnerships that will improve the ordering and food delivery experience, and we see the hotel and resort space as prime for a shift to mobile ordering and delivery in the future," Madigan added.

A sample of a 2ndKitchen QR code room service menu offered at a Sextant Stays property. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sextant Stays

Meanwhile, in the hybrid apartment-hotel hospitality space, Sextant Stays is also innovating on the delivery front.The company, which operates vacation rental apartment-hotels in New Orleans, Miami and other markets, recently linked up with delivery service company 2ndKitchen to offer a "next-generation" room service amenity to guests.

"2ndKitchen essentially gives us room service without having an on-site restaurant taking up a big footprint or worrying about inventory, labor and all these other costs," said Andreas King-Geovanis, founder and CEO of Sextant Stays. "It's a way to add an amenity without overhead."

Through 2ndKitchen, Sextant Stays is able to offer guests the ability to order off of what King-Geovanis calls a "white label" Sextant Stays-branded QR code menu, which features a selection of dishes from three to four local restaurants, all typically located within a five-block radius.

That proximity helps guarantee a timely delivery. Sextant Stays reports that between January and May, 2ndKitchen deliveries to Sextant Stays properties in Miami and New Orleans averaged under 30 minutes.

Moreover, 2ndKitchen doesn't take any delivery or service fees from the customer, with a tip being the only additional line item on a check. The company does take a percentage of each sale from participating restaurants, though King-Geovanis confirmed that that cost remains below the high restaurant fees associated with most big delivery app brands.

"What Airbnb, Vrbo and a lot of other companies are missing is the F&B component," said King-Geovanis. "Our goal is to provide a hotel experience with the same amenities and level of professionalism, with the comfort and space of staying in a home."

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Hotels open the door to the next evolution in room service - Travel Weekly

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Within the last year, procurement has truly become a catalyst of change for sustainability issues at the business level. But with sourcing and other procurement-related processes being integrated in nearly all parts of the global economy, it can be confusing to know what is right and wrong, especially from a legal perspective. Thats where countries can help with different laws, regulations and guidelines that promote sustainable sourcing practices.

Supply chains account for 80% of carbon emissions. But at the same time, procurement and supply chains become more vulnerable as environmental issues arise. Its a double-edged sword. Meanwhile, every country holds different laws, but increasingly, sustainability law is becoming international law. Countries are increasingly banding together to fight for sustainability in business and beyond.

How do you find the right procurement technology and vendor for your company? Spend Matters new 5-step Procurement Technology Buyers Guide can help with how-to documents, checklist templates and other tips.

The United Nations, for example, has the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which works to strengthen environmental standards and practices at the country, regional and global level. The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty for climate change that 196 parties adopted in 2015. It entered into force in 2016.

The UN said in its 2019 environment report that 176 countries have some sort of environmental framework law, 150 have elevated environmental protection and healthy living conditions into their constitutions, and 164 have created cabinet-level bodies responsible for environment protection.

But at the same time, there are alarming levels of deforestation, loss of biodiversity and rising global temperatures. The UN report found that although there has been a growing trend in the last four decades of countries adding environmental laws and agencies, weak enforcement of these laws is the biggest hurdle toward a more sustainable world.

"This compelling report solves the mystery of why problems such as pollution, declining biodiversity and climate change persist despite the proliferation of environmental laws in recent decades, David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, said in a press release. Unless the environmental rule of law is strengthened, even seemingly rigorous rules are destined to fail and the fundamental human right to a healthy environment will go unfulfilled.

And this is just environmental law. More countries are adding laws, regulations and provisions protecting workers from forced labor and other types of slavery as well.

Within widespread sustainability regulation, countries have deliberately targeted supply chains and procurement. Regulations specifically targeting these practices have increased in the last three or four decades.

It can be confusing, though. To sort through the weeds of regulation, Spend Matters created this timeline of some of the key sustainability regulations regarding procurement and supply chain. This is not an exhaustive list, but it includes some of the most major decisions in recent years.

If you are making the case for or are in the process of buying procurement technology be sure to try out Spend Matters TechMatch.

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ESG timeline: The evolution of global sustainability regulation in procurement and supply chain - Spend Matters

Christophe Frrebeau, CEO and co-founder of Della, discusses the evolution of AI in law.

AI-driven contract lifecycle management and analysis technology has been receiving lots of attention in the law firm and enterprise space recently. With Ironclad recently valued at $1 billion, Evisort raising $35 Million in Series B funding and Agiloft raising 45 Million. Not to mention Docusigns acquisition of Seal Software for $188 million last year. So, its unsurprising that the spotlight is fixed firmly on this space. With adoption, market consolidation and sales also increasing, it is clear that contract analysis is now seen as an investment with huge potential for both buyers and investors.

What is also clear is that the spike in interest, adoption, and investment comes from a universal need across the business world to boost productivity. Increased client pressures, the volume of work and, of course, Covid-19 have all accelerated digital adoption and the need to drive efficiencies in the way organisations are run. However, despite recent interest, contract analysis tools are not exactly new kids on the block, and as a nascent technology, there is still plenty of room for AI-driven contract lifecycle management and analysis technology to evolve to meet the ongoing needs of end-users, whether they are in law firms or corporate legal departments.

Contracts define who does what, at a defined price or prices, over a specified time. Contracts also determine who is responsible when things go wrong, whether in a transaction or in an overall relationship. Businesses have run on contracts for centuries. As a result, early attempts at using AI in law have focused on managing, or should I say detecting clauses in contracts. I like to imagine this as AI being used like a yellow highlighter going through your contracts and flagging the bits that require your attention. There is no question that this was, and still is a very significant step in the digitisation of the legal sector, enabling technology to take some of the burden from lawyers.

The crucial point is that this type of contract analysis technology isnt true AI. A lawyer still has to manually review a clause and spend time finding the answer to their specific question. If we want to use AI to its full potential in this process, we need a tool that does more than just highlights the clause that you need to review, but actually finds the answers to your questions, thereby providing you with actionable information quickly.

From a law firm standpoint, the new direction is clear: the client must come first. If not they will go elsewhere. From a technology standpoint, perhaps less so. Many solutions in the contract review market struggle to balance putting the client first and providing a solution that can service large numbers of customers with different needs. In an attempt to put their clients first, many in the contract analysis technology market train individual AI models for specific tasks. This training requires large amounts of niche legal data and human supervision to get the model up to speed. It is expensive and difficult to maintain. As a result, many legal tech vendors are oversimplifying a contracts role, by defining it as a single document containing a set of clauses. In short, they are standardising legal processes to fit their one size fits all solution.

Some vendors have started to notice these limitations and are building capabilities within their solutions to overcome them. For example, adding custom fields and tracking user-generated data points. However, despite them adapting to meet the needs of their clients, these bolt on capabilities often lead to increased complexity. So, rather than trying to get your contracts to fit the narrow criteria of your legal technology, wouldnt it be better if your contract analysis technology was flexible enough to provide the information your users actually need from any given contract? Rather than basing it on assumptions of what they might need on an oversimplified version of a contract.

The next step in contract analysis must be to help lawyers on both sides of the table to drive efficiencies in their contract management lifecycle. Moving from a traditional process, which requires a great deal of manual oversight, to true AI, which removes the burden of oversight and manual review from lawyers, while allowing them to remain in control. Contract analysis should not oversimplify legal processes. It should allow users to customise their tools to their specific needs and, crucially, it should be easy to use.

Ultimately, the goal of AI is to assist us, by making cumbersome tasks as painless as possible.

Dellas platform launched in January (2020), but it is already being used by small and large law firms across multiple countries and several large multinational corporations. Those law firm partners range in size, from top UK and European law firms, to smaller boutique providers and enterprise organisations. Dellas customers include: Eversheds Sutherland, Fidal, BCLP, Wolters Kluwer, and Content Square (USA). The smallest law firm currently using Della has 12 lawyers. Last year, Della launched a partnership with Wolters Kluwer to provide Della to their contract management platform customers.

Read more:

The Evolution Of AI In Law And Why The Contract Analysis Market Calls For The Next - Lawyer Monthly Magazine