#this is innovative tool use at level some humans could not replicate

[digitaltechsolutions]

Simplifying IT Tasks with RPA: A New Era of Workflow Management

IT has now become a result-producing business where speed, efficiency, and with fewer resources are expected to be achieved. RPA has really changed the game for this generation of IT. Through RPA, repetitive and labor-intensive IT workflows will become automated, enabling IT teams to focus on innovation, strategic decision-making, and improved user experience.

What is RPA, and Why Does IT Need It?

Robotic Process Automation or RPA uses software robots, or “bots,” to perform the mundane tasks that humans used to do. Through replicating actions taken by users-for example, data entry, navigation through applications, or even incident responses-RPA bots can significantly reduce time and error rates on high-volume, rule-based tasks. RPA does not require deep coding and system changes like traditional automation, so it is a very versatile tool for any environment with diverse applications.

For IT, RPA means faster operations, more accurate processes, and the ability to scale effortlessly as demands fluctuate.

Transforming IT Workflows with RPA: Key Use Cases

1. System Monitoring and Maintenance

RPA bots can automate the checks of system health, scheduled maintenance, and software patching, taking hours off the shoulders of the IT team. Routine maintenance tasks would then be carried out in a consistent and proactive manner with issues flagged before they get out of hand.

2. Automated Incident Management

Handling incident tickets is a day-to-day reality in IT. RPA streamlines this by triaging incoming tickets, categorizing them based on severity, and notifying the right personnel. In many cases, bots can resolve incidents automatically, accelerating response times and improving service levels.

3. Data Migration and Integration

The process of data transfer from several systems tends to be very cumbersome, with most of the time a mistake results. RPA does transfers and integrations in data with fewer mistakes as its output is identical across the other platforms, without ever making a mistake; that’s a very huge aid when migrating or undertaking great updates.

4. Compliance and Security Audits

This is a cyclical process, yet very crucial and has to be carried out at intervals. RPA bots can check for compliance and report, as well as raise any irregularities. This means that organizations can maintain their compliance with industry regulations without necessarily having to resort to human resources.

5. User Account and Access Management

This software can, for example perform onboarding, off-boarding and account deactivations among others which enables companies in a quick and safe manner to reduce some delays that could pose major security issues.

Why IT Departments Benefit from RPA

1. Greater Productivity and Efficiency

It allows IT professionals to focus on strategic activities. Given that low-value, repetitive tasks are automated, the IT department can do more with less time.

2. Improved Accuracy and Consistency

Human errors are not avoidable, especially in repetitive high volume tasks. RPA performs consistently and accurately, which is very helpful for workloads that are data-intensive and compliance-intensive.

3. Scalability on Demand

RPA bots can scale up or down as required. This flexibility is particularly useful for IT teams dealing with seasonal spikes or unexpected surges in demand.

4. Cost-Effective

RPA is able to execute more tasks without increasing the size of the workforce, thus bringing in cost savings. This minimizes the dependence on outsourced support for mundane tasks and makes IT budgets much more efficient.

5. Enhanced Service Delivery

Faster ticket resolution, accurate data handling, and seamless maintenance all lead to better user experiences and higher satisfaction levels across departments and end-users.

RPA in Action: Real-World Examples

1. Automated Password Resets

Some of the most common helpdesk request issues include password reset situations, which can be relatively easily managed by an RPA. Bots validate users, then reset their passwords while ensuring the updates are relayed back to the customers while leaving the help desk open for more critical engagements, consequently enhancing response times.

2. Patch Management and System Updates

RPA efficiently manages scheduled patches and system updates that do not disrupt workflows but ensure security and performance.

3. Incident Triage and Resolution

RPA minimizes human intervention and speeds up the resolution of issues by categorizing incidents and applying automated fixes for common issues, thus ensuring a more stable IT environment.

4. Data Backup and Recovery

It is very important to have regular data backup for business continuity. The RPA bots can make this process, which guarantees that the backup process occurs without delay and reduces risks associated with loss of data.

Best Practices for Implementing RPA in IT Workflows

Implementing RPA successfully requires a clear strategy. Here are some best practices:

1. Identify High-Impact Processes for Automation

Begin with task automation that is repetitive, rule-based, and at high volume. This should include ideal tasks like data entry, incident management, and routine system checks.

2. Collaborate Across Teams

Include stakeholders in the process with IT, operations, and compliance people involved so that RPA does not misalign the goals of the organization or any regulation requirement.

3. Prioritize Security and Compliance

Access control and encryption must be implemented, particularly concerning sensitive data in bots. All bot activities should be audited regularly to ensure compliance.

4. Monitor and Refine Automation

RPA is not a one-time solution; it’s an evolving asset. Its performance must, therefore, be monitored continuously, processes refined based on the insights gained, and changing needs addressed.

5. Choose the Right RPA Platform

A scalable RPA solution that would easily integrate with the current IT systems and be adapted for future growth models.

Emerging Trends: Intelligent Automation in IT

RPA is rapidly evolving, and the integration of AI and machine learning is pushing it toward Intelligent Process Automation (IPA). Here are a few key trends to watch:

AI Driven Decision Making: Adding AI capabilities with RPA, robots could take decisions based on data and then handle unstructured data with even a predicted probability of some incidents occurring.

Self-healing systems: The intelligent robots can self-heal from problems detected and thereby prevent downtime or human intervention.

Predictive Maintenance: Advanced RPA systems use machine learning to predict when a system is likely to fail, allowing proactive maintenance and fewer system outages.

Conclusion

RPA changes the workflows in IT in that there are no repeating tasks while providing IT teams with ample opportunities to contribute to the bottom line in value-generating activities. Ranging from incident management to backing up data, RPA provides productivity improvement in scalability and precision as well as reduces operation cost.

As organizations embrace the concept of digital transformation, RPA becomes an essential asset for IT departments aiming to be agile and efficient. Companies can unlock the full potential of RPA and lay the groundwork for even more advanced automation through best practices and monitoring of emerging trends.

[investmentguide777]

The Crypto Platform That’s Turning Everyday Investors into Millionaires

Green Global FX, the innovative crypto trading platform powered by artificial intelligence, is rapidly changing the financial landscape by turning everyday investors into millionaires. Through advanced AI algorithms and automated trading tools, Green Global FX is offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to those looking to maximize their cryptocurrency returns without needing to be financial experts. As the crypto market continues to expand, Green Global FX is leading the charge in democratizing wealth creation for all types of investors.

Unleashing the Power of AI for Crypto Success

Cryptocurrency markets are known for their volatility, with prices fluctuating dramatically in short time frames. For the average investor, navigating these waters can be overwhelming and fraught with risk. This is where Green Global FX steps in, providing an AI-driven platform that makes calculated, data-backed trading decisions on behalf of its users. By analyzing market trends in real-time and predicting price movements with unparalleled accuracy, the platform enables users to achieve consistent, high-level returns.

The CEO of Green Global FX commented on the platform's ability to transform the investment landscape:

“We’ve built a platform that levels the playing field for investors of all backgrounds. With Green Global FX, anyone can take advantage of the crypto market’s immense potential. Our AI technology ensures that users can trade smarter, reduce risks, and achieve financial independence faster than they ever thought possible.”

Proven Results: From Everyday Investor to Millionaire

Since its launch, Green Global FX has helped numerous investors turn modest initial investments into significant wealth. The platform’s ability to automatically analyze and execute trades 24/7 gives users the advantage of continuous market engagement, something no human trader could replicate. This hands-free approach has led many users to see their portfolios multiply, with some even reaching millionaire status in just a matter of months.

One user shared their success story, stating:

“When I started using Green Global FX, I knew very little about cryptocurrency. But the platform took care of everything for me. Within a year, I watched my investments grow tenfold. It’s been life-changing.”

This powerful combination of automation, AI, and data-driven decision-making has allowed everyday investors to achieve returns previously thought possible only for institutional traders or professional investors.

Making Wealth Accessible to All

One of the primary goals of Green Global FX is to make wealth-building accessible to everyone. Whether a user is a seasoned trader or completely new to the world of cryptocurrency, the platform provides the tools needed for success. Green Global FX takes the complexity out of crypto trading by offering a user-friendly interface, easy onboarding, and full automation, meaning users don’t need prior trading experience to start seeing impressive returns.

The CEO of Green Global FX explained:

“Our mission is to open the doors to financial success for everyone. With the power of AI, we’ve created a platform that anyone can use to build wealth, regardless of their background or experience level. No longer do you need to be a Wall Street insider to make big gains—Green Global FX puts the power in your hands.”

Secure, Transparent, and Reliable

Trust and security are of utmost importance to investors, and Green Global FX is committed to ensuring both. The platform utilizes cutting-edge encryption and cybersecurity measures to safeguard user data and investments. Transparency is another key feature, with users having full access to real-time data on all trades and transactions, allowing them to monitor their investments every step of the way.

In addition to its secure infrastructure, Green Global FX prioritizes a seamless user experience, ensuring that customers can easily navigate the platform while feeling confident in their investment decisions. Every trade executed by the AI is backed by thorough analysis, making the platform as trustworthy as it is effective.

“We believe trust is the foundation of a successful financial platform,” stated the CEO. “At Green Global FX, we take security seriously and have designed our system to provide full transparency so that users can monitor their investments in real-time, knowing that their assets are in safe hands.”

Why Green Global FX Is the Future of Crypto Trading

As cryptocurrency becomes an increasingly dominant force in the financial world, platforms like Green Global FX are leading the charge in making the market more accessible and profitable for everyday people. With its AI-powered technology, Green Global FX takes the guesswork out of crypto trading, allowing users to capitalize on market movements while reducing the time, stress, and risks typically associated with manual trading.

Traditional investing often requires a deep understanding of markets, financial instruments, and constant monitoring to succeed. Green Global FX eliminates these hurdles by offering fully automated trading solutions that allow users to enjoy passive income growth without the need for expertise or daily oversight.

Take the First Step Toward Financial Freedom

For those looking to take control of their financial future, Green Global FX offers a unique and powerful opportunity. By signing up today, investors can start benefiting from the platform’s AI-driven trading algorithms and watch their investments grow with minimal effort. Whether you’re aiming to supplement your income, save for the future, or build generational wealth, Green Global FX is the ultimate tool for achieving those goals.

“We’re inviting everyone to join us in transforming their financial future,” said the CEO of Green Global FX. “The cryptocurrency market is ripe with opportunity, and with our platform, even first-time investors can tap into that potential. The road to becoming a millionaire has never been more accessible.”

Join the Millionaire Revolution with Green Global FX

Now is the time to act. Sign up with Green Global FX today and begin your journey toward financial independence. Don’t miss the chance to take advantage of AI-powered cryptocurrency trading and watch your wealth grow faster than ever before.Discover how Green Global FX can turn your investments into life-changing success—start your millionaire journey today!

[generative-ai-in-bi]

10 Generative AI Myths You Need to Stop Believing Now

Original source : 10 Generative AI Myths You Need to Stop Believing Now

Many people are already familiar with the concept of generative AI, yet, there are still numerous myths and misconceptions connected with it. However, being aware of the reality that lies behind such opportunities is indeed essential to work with all these features in appropriate ways.

Here, ten myths regarding generative AI are exposed to assist people dealing with reality and fake information.

1. AI Can Do Everything Humans Can Do (And Better)

Without a doubt, the most common myth around AI is that it can replicate all the activities that people can and even exceeds their capability levels. Despite appreciable advances in forms of applications embracing generative AI that includes language and vision, and even artistic products, an AI system is a tool developed by man. Artificial intelligence is not as holistic as human intelligence, it does not have personal insight, emotions, and self-awareness.

AI used effectively for tasks that are clearly defined. For example, it can process large chunks of information in a short span of time than it would take any person, thus helpful in areas like data analysis and forecasting. But it is weak at solving problems that involve practical reasoning, moral reasoning, or understanding of contingencies. Generative AI can create text, images from the learned patterns from the provided data but it does not comprehend the content as a human does.

2. AI Writing is Automatically Plagiarism-Free

Another myth is that AI writing does not have plagiarism since what the system produces is original. However, as we have seen, generative AI works on the availability of current raw data to generate content, it cannot create new text. It implies that one is never certain that AI is not regurgitating fragments of the data set input to it, meaning questions relating to originality and plagiarism could arise.

AI in content generation, thus, needs to have well-developed checks on originality to ensure the content produced is original and not plagiarized. There is always some use for programs such as plagiarism detectors, but they should always be reviewed by a person. For the same reason, the training data needs to be selected with equal attention in order to avoid reproducing someone else’s efforts. It is important to understand such limitations to achieve a reasonable level of AI application in content creation.

3. AI Completely Replaces Human Creativity

Another myth is that AI affords to take over creativity by humans. Thus, AI can support and improve creative tasks, but it will never possess the creativity that is inherent in human beings. Creativity goes beyond ideas of placing together of different ideas to form new compositions; the same encompasses emotional aspects, cultural aspects and the aspects of innovation that center on the experiences of human beings.

Referring to music, art or written text, generative AI is as creative as a parrot, in the sense that it will recreate creativity that has been passed through it by using patterns which have been fed into it. It doesn’t come with the purpose of creating. On the contrary, AI can be perceived as a tool that can supplement human imagination by giving more ideas, more time, and the means for the idea manipulation.

4. AI is Unbiased and Objective

One more myth is that of AI being completely neutral and free from an opinion and prejudice. Actually, any AI system captures the existing biases and discrimination in the data used for training and the algorithms employed in a system’s design. By definition, an AI system is as good or as bad as the data that is given to it as input; therefore, if the data fed into an AI system is prejudiced, the outcome will also be prejudiced. This is a problem especially on profiles that require sensitive decision making such as hiring, police force, lending among others.

It is important to select training data that is diverse and inclusive, perform bias checks on AI regularly, and incorporate fairness constraints in AI algorithms. These issues have to be dealt with and addressed so that through transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of AI, AI systems used are fair and equitable.

5. AI will Take All Our Jobs

One of the main issues is the idea that AI will take our jobs. To some extent it is true that through the introduction of innovative technologies such as AI and automation they spark threats of job loss; however, it is equally important to note that they are more of a job reinvention process. In the human-robot interaction, AI is useful as it can perform routine and uninteresting activities that do not require human creativity.

In the past, people highlighted the fact that generation of technology leads to emergence of new employment forms while leaving some of the existing positions without demand. The major challenge therefore lies in how the workers are going to undergo a transformation by developing new skills that are inline with AI. Continued and expanded access to education and training that relates to the emerging areas of digital literacy, AI, and data science will have to be ensured in the near future.

6. AI is a Silver Bullet for All Your Content Needs

Some think that with the help of AI one can face no difficulties and overcome any hurdles in content creation. AI can truly improve the content generation process but that does not mean it is the universal solutions. Many things which an AI creates are to be reviewed by a human being in order to avoid mistakes, update and improve the quality. Also, AI is unable to grasp context and subtlety, which are critical for producing quality and valuable content.

AI also has an ability to write first drafts, provide suggestions and even promote content with help of SEO. But further adjustment and enhancement in the content can only be done by human inputs so as to meet the exact standard and effectively appeal to the audience.

7. AI Can Fully Understand and Replicate Human Emotions

Among them let me mention another one — AI can capture and mimic human feelings. Thus it is seen that though there can be an analysis of emotional signals and a response that appears sympathetic, there is no feeling. AI can be designed to identify signs of emotions in people’s actions and words, but it does not mean that it really knows or can feel emotions.

Affective Computing or the Emotional AI is the branch of artificial intelligence that is focused on making human-computer interactions dependent on the emotions. However, these systems work on predefined rules and defined data pattern, which gives them no emotional intelligence like that in the human heart. It means that AI can only imitate the emotions but cannot replace the feeling that people in the same mood can share.

8. AI is Completely Secure and Trustworthy

Believing that AI is fully safe and trustworthy is a misconception that one should better avoid. There are several security risks associated with integrated AI systems, such as attacks, hacking, and misuse. The issue of security is fundamental while deploying the AI system to ensure that the system is protected both from an external and internal attack.

AI developers and users should have appropriate security measures like encryption, auditing, and monitoring that should be put in place all the time. Further, there is a need for ethical standards and legal frameworks on the use of AI to encourage its utilization in a proper, accountable manner. It is worth remembering that trust can only be gradually established through constant engagement in addressing security and ethics issues.

9. AI is Infallible and Always Accurate

The other myth is that the AI is always perfect and does not make any mistakes. Thus, it might be asserted that despite of the high level of accuracy AI could produce a great number of mistakes. AI systems can also error, for instance, because of the lack of a sufficient amount of training examples, existence of some algorithm defects, or unpredictable events. There are problems when relying on the results of AI without people’s intervention or monitoring.

But it is important to understand that AI is a tool that can strengthen human capacities, not remove them. AI solutions require human experience and decisions for the validation of the application outputs for accuracy and reliability. The awareness of AI’s drawbacks is useful for decision-making about AI’s best application.

10. AI is Only for Tech-Savvy Experts

The last myth is that only people with high IT skills can implement AI. However, creating and implementing the sophisticated AI systems necessitates a certain level of technical expertise; yet, some of the AI tools and applications are built to suit everyone’s needs. AI technologies can be introduced and implemented by a wider audience because of friendly interfaces, ready-made models, and documentation that can be easily read by Non-IT specialists.

Business entities and other users do not need a strong technical background when interacting with AI technologies and rather use various AI platforms and automated machine learning tools, as well as applications. These tools bring artificial intelligence to the minds of more people so that a wider circle of individuals can try using AI for different tasks.

Conclusion: Separating Generative AI Fact from Fiction

Generative AI is one of the most influential technologies today, yet, it is important to cut through myth and hype with the possibilities. It shows information about myths and facts about AI aiming to provide the people with reasonable expectations and actually try to put its abilities to use in a proper and safe way. However, understanding AI’s capabilities and drawbacks is the key to using this powerful invention to help enhance human creativity, reduce costs and optimize the way to develop new products and services while contemplating AI’s ethical and security issues.

If you want to read the full blog then click here: 10 Generative AI Myths You Need to Stop Believing Now

[worklabournewsresearch]

Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

“For people with disabilities—many of whom have long asked for remote accommodations at work—a lasting acceptance of remote work could be a silver lining of the pandemic...But even as workplaces become more flexible—and presumably more inclusive–people with disabilities continue to face discrimination during the hiring process. As highlighted in a new report by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), the widespread adoption of algorithm-based hiring tools has only exacerbated existing inequities and discriminatory practices. Many employers use résumé screeners, while 76% of companies with more than 100 employees reportedly ask job applicants to take personality and aptitude tests; some businesses even use facial and voice recognition technology in the hiring process.”

“‘Many employers who use these kinds of tests do so because they believe that they’re more neutral and more effective—that using these tests will make the hiring process more equitable because it will become more consistent, and it won’t involve potentially biased human recruiters and human HR people,’ says Lydia X.Z. Brown, a co-author on the report and policy counsel with CDT’s Privacy and Data Project. ‘The reality is, as we know, anytime we create an algorithm which learns from the environment in which it is deployed, that algorithm will necessarily replicate—and then amplify at scale—the very same structural and systemic discrimination that occurs at the interpersonal level.’”

Fast Company, January 14, 2021: “How algorithm-based hiring tools can increase disability discrimination,” by Pavithra Mohan

Center for Democracy & Technology, December 3, 2020: Algorithm-driven Hiring Tools: Innovative Recruitment or Expedited Disability Discrimination? (PDF, 25 pages) (Plain Language Report PDF, 16 pages)

Government Announces Priorities for Action to Increase Diversity and Inclusion in the Public Service

“The public service has long made diversity and inclusion a core value and continuously reflects on the treatment of Black Canadians, Indigenous Peoples, and other individuals who face racial discrimination and other barriers in the workplace, and who are often underrepresented at the most senior levels of the public service. While there has been progress, too many public servants continue to face obstacles. It is time to close the gaps and eliminate the barriers that remain, ensuring the public service is truly representative of the people it serves.”

“The President of the Treasury Board, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, along with Greg Fergus, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, has announced the government’s priorities to foster greater diversity, inclusion and accessibility in the public service. Among these efforts, there are several key initiatives:

Generating and publishing data for a more accurate picture of representation gaps...

Increasing the diversity of the senior leaders of the public service...

Ensuring appropriate benchmarks...

Addressing systemic barriers...”

Canada.ca, January 26, 2021: Government announces priorities for action to increase diversity and inclusion in the public service

Photo Source: Montgomery, C. (2020). Zoom call with coffee [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/smgTvepind4

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.” Dame Jane Goodall DBE | English Primatologist and Anthropologist

Educational Spring | Wellness by Design®

Yesterday a friend sent me a message about an encounter they had with one of my ex-students at a recent dinner party. This ex-student mentioned the impact that I had on a number of his friends, his words were “you have no idea how many he stopped from suiciding just for being there and being him”. I’m not sharing this message to brag, I am sharing this insight into the true value of teachers and learning communities that operate from a human-centred learning ecosystem design. People need people. Every individual matters.

This got me thinking about what really matters. It amplified for me that the real pandemic of our industrial model of schooling is the growth in mental illness amongst young people. Additionally, COVID-19 sharply illustrated the truth of inequity in our system, especially with reference to the digital divide. According to Pasi Sahlberg from the Gonski Institute for Education, the pandemic has unearthed this unpleasant truth, "The education system has unequal structures that have become visible now through this remote online learning period."

So, what if we placed wellness at the centre of our society? What if we made it central to the objectives of learning? What is the interconnected relationship between character, competency and wellness within a whole education? What might be the global context for this?

The World Economic Forum has explored whether gross domestic product is still a relevant measure of a population’s wellbeing for many years. Looking at what alternatives could offer as mega trends such as climate change, demographic shifts, rapid urbanisation, moves in economic power, resource scarcity and swift advancements in technology innovations reshape our world.

In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 in May 2019, Lord Richard Layard, a Program Director at the London School of Economics and the Vice Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, advocated that wellbeing should replace growth as main aim of UK spending. His group drafted a wellbeing report for the UK government, setting out proposals including a bigger budget for mental health, a strategy to improve the wellbeing of children in schools, and more spending on further education for people who don’t go to university.

Australia also performs very well in many measures of wellbeing relative to most other countries in the OECD Better Life Index. Australia ranks at the top in civic engagement and above the average in income and wealth, environmental quality, health status, housing, jobs and earnings, education and skills, subjective well-being, social connections and personal security. Having said that, mental illness remains a serious issue. One in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness in any year. Data from the 2014 Mission Australia’s Youth Survey showed that around one in five (21.2%) of young people (15-19 years old) met the criteria for a probable serious mental illness.

Learning Creates Australia recently highlighted the current measures of success and achievement in schooling are causing barriers to excellence rather than leading to excellence in learning outcomes as highlighted below:

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants to transform its politics to focus on empathy, kindness and wellbeing. After talking about “doing things differently” with a “well-being budget” at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2019, Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand government in May of the same year unveiled its plans to make that strategy a reality.

This move toward a greater commitment toward the health and wellness of communities is not limited to New Zealand. The United Arab Emirates has a Minister of State for Happiness and a National Programme for Happiness and Positivity. It has an agenda that is based on three pillars: inclusion of happiness in the policies, programmes and services of all government bodies and at work, promotion of positivity and happiness as a lifestyle, and development of benchmarks and tools to measure happiness.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and wellbeing of a population. Bhutan measures this collective happiness and wellbeing via a Gross National Happiness index over nine domains as illustrated in Figure 1. 

Figure 1: Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index

Dream a Dream is a not-for-profit organisation in Delhi, India positively impacting on the lives of young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world. One key aspect of their work is the development and implementation of a Happiness Curriculum. The curriculum aims to equip students with skills so that they can better deal with anxiety and stress while thinking critically.

The 45-minute class starts with a meditation session, after which students read and listen to one another’s stories. In addition to textbooks, street plays and yoga serve as teaching tools. The curriculum has been implemented in at least 1,024 Delhi government-run schools, affecting more than 1 million students to date. “In a year and a half, we have already started observing minor but beautiful, positive changes in the relationship of the child and the teacher,” Vishal Talreja Co-founder says. “We have children coming forward and saying, ‘I look forward to coming to school.’”

The Dream a Dream Happiness Curriculum is becoming a model that other governments are promising to replicate in their countries’ classrooms. Countries such as Colombia, UAE, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

It is increasingly becoming clear that the main goal of governments is the overall wellbeing of its citizens. Their resources need to be more wisely spent based on what really matters most for the entire human experience. This also presents a real challenge for the entire education sector and makes a strong case for the moral imperative to curate a human-centred Wellness by Design® learning ecosystem.

Will Richardson, Co-Founder of The Big Questions Institute believes “in school, we seem to think learning happens only when it’s age-grouped and graded, or when it’s chunked into time blocks and subjects and meets some predetermined outcomes. Students have “learned” it seems only when they have consumed a mandated bucket of information or content and been tested to make sure they consumed it adequately.”

We have got to stop the testing hamster wheel that burns out children. We cannot and will not continue to be terrorised by the dreaded ATAR, an overbearing student ranking system that ends the careers of school leaders and teachers and drives up anxiety levels in young people. Figure 2 highlights that 64% of those living in inner regional areas and only 40% for those living in very remote regions complete Year 12. Of course, there are other factors impacting on these statics of those in disadvantaged areas, nonetheless the numbers are damming of our current infatuation with an out-dated, one-size fits all industrial model of schooling.

Figure 2: Geographical impact on education attainment rates1

Daniel Koretz, one of the America’s foremost experts on educational testing, argues in The Testing Charade that the whole idea of test-based accountability has failed—it has increasingly become an end in itself, harming students and corrupting the very ideals of teaching. Pressure to raise NAPLAN and ATAR scores dominates much of Australia’s education today. More often than not standardised tests shape what is taught and influence what we value as assessment. In many schools, we seem to think learning happens when it doesn’t look like real life. During the pandemic with the transition online, we’ve been reminded of those things that we value most: relationships, community, the curiosity of young people, and the power of real, authentic self-determined learning.

Please do not interpret my shift in emphasis as denouncing the value of literacy or numeracy data. Not at all. Of course, they have a place in supporting student growth, not just definitions of achievement. Nonetheless quantification measures like NAPLAN and the ATAR have assumed an importance beyond their ability to truly judge and paint the whole picture of each individual.

By its very nature, a crisis turns everything on its head. So now that everything has changed, why not take the opportunity to guide the development of a new culture? Director and Founder of Leading Thinking International, Kathleen Donohoe in a recent post titled Is educational policy constraining a renaissance in education? stated, “Age old traditions such as school times, compulsory hours, the definition of attendance, recognition, reporting and feedback on learning and the definition of student engagement are following the fate of blackboards and chalk, requiring the reimagination of policy, process and procurement.”

We’ve been paralysed in schooling for far too long, educating by living in the world without truly feeling. Now, acutely, we feel that need for an evolution and move toward the next normal. As we grow out of the pandemic, we need to recognise that this is our Educational Spring. It could happen, but it might not. There will be enormous pressure to forget this educational spring moment and go back to the old ways of experiencing schooling life. History is happening right now.

A clear feature of all the models we shared in our Continuous Learning Toolkit | Volume II – Leading Through Crisis has been an explicit focus on wellness. While some have viewed the use of technology as a distraction, the application of technology during COVID-19 has been an opportunity to prioritise wellness into all aspects of planning and scheduling. This new normal of schooling is based on a shared understanding of the significance of the interdependence of learning and wellness as we support each young person to flourish in this new world environment. It requires us to map the connectedness of a whole education for character, competency and wellness. It brings into sharp focus self-direction, self-determination and self-regulation as critical dimensions in fostering the development of resilient, resourceful and independent learners equipped with the adaptive expertise and self-efficacy to thrive in their world. Let us all build back better, with Wellness by Design®.

To prepare today’s learners to thrive in this new world environment, a whole new Wellness by Design® framework is needed. At the centre of this framework must be an explicit purpose-driven social contract based on the reality that all young people are home to a life, and that individual and collective wellness encompass all dimensions of life within any community.

For learning communities, a positive sense of individual wellness supports a base for rich learning growth and achievement, that enables all learners to thrive throughout their time at school and beyond. Wellness and the full flourishing of the individual cannot be separated from learning. Post COVID-19 we have the powerful potential to positively disrupt education forever, and the key is a genuinely human-centred reimagining. Therefore, it is imperative that any continuous learning competency framework for all school communities, needs to develop a learning ecosystem model that Equips the Learner, Empowers the Learner and Enables the Learner, positioning wellness at the heart of school life.

A focus on wellness is imperative now more than ever before - and I’m not talking about a visit to a day spa or a regular massage (although self-pampering is always welcomed). Wellness by Design® refers to a sense of wholeness and connection that entails personal growth, character and competency, healing from the residual of one’s past, and integration of self-worth and agency.

Maintaining personal wellness often requires commitment and significant effort. Through acknowledging our whole selves, not just the parts we think are amazing, but our blind spots, we become better equipped to connect with the other, which further opens up ways of our social, cultural and spiritual awareness.

So, in the context of schooling, how do we truly meet this moment? It is time to shift the emphasis, the investment from the seduction of just academic prowess and league tables achievement. It is time for learning communities to amplify the central position of Wellness by Design® as we support each young person to move from resilience to the power of resourcefulness of self-efficacy, personal aspiration, adaptive expertise, agency and advocacy.

We need to consider the role of personal goals, challenging assumptions, cognitive flexibility, courage over fear, emotional regulation and self-determination in supporting young people to flourish for their future. All fostered in a school ecosystem that values high (wellness) support as much as high (academic) expectations. A school that explicitly cultivates relationships that give each young person a profound sense of psychological safety, where they are known, valued and loved, through an authentic feeling that someone has their back and always in their corner. After all, we all need a champion.

It may seem counter-intuitive to put wellness at the centre and allow it to permeate throughout the whole of learning instead of confining it to a box of its own, and attending to it as an afterthought, but if we are not well, then how are we to thrive? How are we to make progress? How are we to succeed?

It’s time for us to create Wellness by Design®

References

Koretz, D. (2017). The Testing Charade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York: Free Press.

Southwick, S. M., & Charney, D. S. (2018). Resilience: The science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

1   Commonwealth of Australia. Commonwealth Government (2019). National regional rural and remote tertiary education strategy: final report. Page 13. Year 12 rates are for people aged 19. Tertiary qualifications are for people aged 25-34 years. Remote includes Remote and Very Remote Categories. Any tertiary education qualification includes VET in Schools. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2016) Census of Population and Housing.

15   Financial Review, May 29, 2018.

16   Mission Australia (2017). Youth Mental Health Report: Youth Survey 2012-2016. Page 12.

[itsnanotechnologylove-blog]

Is Nanotechnology Ineffective According To You?

Nanotechnology is the science and art of creating functional as well as occasionally powerful gadgets by adjusting solitary atoms till they are molecularly sized. 

To attain some relativity on this, one should realize that a particle determined in nanometers which is, basically, one billionth of a meter - an atom is ten times smaller than that.

As a revolutionary idea, nanotechnology covers a vast range that can usually be a double bordered sword.

In the right-hand men, the severe ability of nanotechnology can be a favorable factor to clinical innovations, environmental cleansing, power preservation, and several other locations that can mostly improve human presence on our planet. The downside to nanotechnology is that in the incorrect hands, it can be a devastating pressure that may inevitably cause the destruction of human existence as well as even of our planet.

There are different colleges of thought on the benefits versus the threats of nanotechnology quests. One outlook is that replicating nanostructures can gobble up the entire planet in about 3 hours level while one more is that nanotechnology as scientific research could change medical therapies for problems that are currently incurable making use of typical modern technology.

 Nanotechnology has credited with several valuable renovations to existing items like textiles that completely stand up to staining, scratch resistant eyewear as well as a sunscreen that can endure greater direct exposure to the aspects for longer periods. 

Additionally, creating smaller sized, extra effective devices via this innovation has been a favorable factor to innovative developments in computers, more enhanced analysis medical testing and more efficient means of removing toxicity from locations afflicted with atmosphere contamination. Any individual would certainly need to concur that these advantages are certainly not useless qualities of nanotechnology.

 Furthermore, nanotechnology has credited with developments from a naturally degradable plastic made from waste items created from fruit expanding procedures to speculative replacement bone cells that will certainly not be so conveniently declined by the human body after transplant. 

The advantage of such a product will certainly cause easing human suffering while contributing to a prolonged life span. Anybody intending to improve humanity would be tough pushed to state breakthroughs like this as absolutely ineffective.

 In spite of its propensity to do good, nanotechnology might also bring about the production of more portable and also basically extra hazardous weapons, which, if it fell under the incorrect hands could lead to the advancement of chemical as well as organic tools that are far more dangerous, more challenging to prevent and much easier to hide than conventional war.

Cynics are quick to explain extra negativeness of nanotechnology such as the capability of the military or other covert federal government companies to perform continuous, surreptitious surveillance on every single resident. Some go even better by focusing on the theory that nanotechnology, when made use of to advance greed as well as power, can lead to complete physical and psychological control of one intrigue over one more.

 Will nanotechnology ultimately result in ecophagy - the usage of the entire worldwide ecosphere - or will all this doomsday proneness pointless fodder for active creativities?

[porterfieldheath9-blog]

In Developed For A lot better Graphic Development

Everyone wants to boost their health and wellness, whether this be by means of joining an expensive gym or obtaining a costly set from tools for their home. You could search based on targets like muscle building, fat burning, or health boosters, as well as they even possess photos for each and every shake and enable you to generate your own! Some have mentioned that individual germline engineering may result in unnecessary outcomes and also need to simply certainly not exist Solutions have also been actually consumed the EU to prohibit individual germline design. For health care research study as well as request animal designs and human tissue series are actually generated to replicate human health conditions that are actually hereditary in nature, and the cas9 body has actually been actually utilized in lots of exceptional instances to this day to create these versions as well as to start healing health conditions. Lots of folks depend on AI a great deal that they start to overlook their sentence structure and calculation. People take off in a shower from gore or even otherwise die in extremely terrible ways in practically every episode from Psycho Pass 2-- frequently in large numbers. Champions as well as is actually right now being put on areas including healthcare is actually an amalgmation from several data-analysis approaches, consisting of deep learning. I've participated in just over 2.000 matches in WoTB (As well as whole lots much more in Pc) as well as without spending any type of cash I have reached 2 IX Rates comfortably. I realize that the majority of US states guard personal privacy inside their very own constitutions, in a timid means, yet the impact is that Americans, through default, feel that individuals ought not to have privacy. There is actually an expanding setting all around quality FPV ('First Individual Sight') acrobatic flying, where your vision is actually with your drone electronic camera as you fly this through goggles. Little ones must know durability to obtain with the training course as they will undeniably broken, and must get back up again and again. I really love that along with the technique remedies are actually carried out, I may gladly utilize all of them to my soul's information, as well as certainly not stress that I'm visiting must spend 3 treasures to purchase one down the road. Chats are actually in progress about adjusting the MOOC style for K-12 trainees and also other instructional organizations are actually delivering one-off MOOCs for supervisors as well as educators. When this pertains to teacher reviews, as with any sort of location in learning, innovation isn't really pretty much the modern technology. http://szepseg-divat-blog.info/ would certainly think there certainly will be countless actual images of the planet from room but you angle find any. I just aimed to message you on there ... the net at my task went down as well as today the site isn't really bring up, I viewed where that a person retard on the 9/11 string claimed they had deleted your level planet string, I certainly never even got to find it, I was out on my lunch time breather. This message is usually BS. While that could be true that billing for a game using IAP creates that tougher to pirate, IAP by definition isn't what individuals in this string or complaining about typically, which you will see if you actually read some of the blog posts before publishing your rant. Offered the ambiguous and open state of license legislation today, that's imaginable that certain human genomes, or even aspect of that, may exist outside our possession, and consequently, our command. If doubtful, receive suitable scales - aim to avoid chaos 2-3 (does not relate to turmoil nations along with disarray power), inactivity 3, fatality 2-3, bad luck 2-3, or drain 3 (doesn't apply to nations along with drainpipe researchers) until you've received some knowledge and know exactly what you are performing. Communicate in as many means as feasible - hack right into bank accounts or even listen in on their conversations.http://szepseg-divat-blog.info/ ='float:left;margin-right:10px;' src="https://img1.etsystatic.com/006/0/6018902/il_340x270.357216669_7x78.jpg" width="271" alt="psychosomatic"/> In the human sense, I would state no. I promote you to check out the original newspaper by Turing entitled Computing Machinery and also Cleverness", given that this is definitely appealing,. If none of the is on call, you must ask what item of crapware you bought as well as scream as difficult as you can easily at people who provoked to leave a phone number in the Read Me. For piano newbies, among the best vital skill-sets is discovering ways to review the piano piece. That urged her to begin a company referred to as CENTURY, a device that provides students a customized informative adventure and teachers a means to hug track of a student's failures as well as excellences-- and where they need to function more challenging to help that youngster know. To begin with, it requires added special focus through moms and dads and also educators to steer youths towards productive as well as instructional use of the ipad tablet and second, those very early knowledges with the apple ipad have the tendency to consider versus an eyesight for exactly how this device (or even one like this) can easily come to be a fundamental part of one's career.

[tastydregs]

New Gene Editing Tool for Millions of Edits

There is a new gene-editing tool called Retron Library Recombineering (RLR) that makes this task easier that has been developed by George Church and his team. RLR generates up to millions of mutations simultaneously, and “barcodes” mutant cells so that the entire pool can be screened at once, enabling massive amounts of data to be easily generated and analyzed. The achievement, which has been accomplished in bacterial cells.

“RLR enabled us to do something that’s impossible to do with CRISPR: we randomly chopped up a bacterial genome, turned those genetic fragments into single-stranded DNA in situ, and used them to screen millions of sequences simultaneously,” said co-first author Max Schubert, Ph.D., a postdoc in the lab of Wyss Core Faculty member George Church, Ph.D. “RLR is a simpler, more flexible gene editing tool that can be used for highly multiplexed experiments, which eliminates the toxicity often observed with CRISPR and improves researchers’ ability to explore mutations at the genome level.”

Retrons’ existence has been known for decades, but the function of the ssDNA they produce flummoxed scientists from the 1980s until June 2020, when a team finally figured out that retron ssDNA detects whether a virus has infected the cell, forming part of the bacterial immune system.

Retrons enable the rapid production and screening of millions of trackable DNA variations and their effects on bacteria simultaneously. Credit: Max Schubert / Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Retrons: from enigma to engineering tool

Retrons are segments of bacterial DNA that undergo reverse transcription to produce fragments of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). Retrons’ existence has been known for decades, but the function of the ssDNA they produce flummoxed scientists from the 1980s until June 2020, when a team finally figured out that retron ssDNA detects whether a virus has infected the cell, forming part of the bacterial immune system.

While retrons were originally seen as simply a mysterious quirk of bacteria, researchers have become more interested in them over the last few years because they, like CRISPR, could be used for precise and flexible gene editing in bacteria, yeast, and even human cells.

“For a long time, CRISPR was just considered a weird thing that bacteria did, and figuring out how to harness it for genome engineering changed the world. Retrons are another bacterial innovation that might also provide some important advances,” said Schubert. His interest in retrons was piqued several years ago because of their ability to produce ssDNA in bacteria – an attractive feature for use in a gene editing process called oligonucleotide recombineering.

To see if they could actually use retrons to achieve efficient recombineering with retrons, Schubert and his colleagues first created circular plasmids of bacterial DNA that contained antibiotic resistance genes placed within retron sequences, as well as an SSAP gene to enable integration of the retron sequence into the bacterial genome. They inserted these retron plasmids into E. coli bacteria to see if the genes were successfully integrated into their genomes after 20 generations of cell replication. Initially, less than 0.1% of E. coli bearing the retron recombineering system incorporated the desired mutation.

To improve this disappointing initial performance, the team made several genetic tweaks to the bacteria. First, they inactivated the cells’ natural mismatch repair machinery, which corrects DNA replication errors and could therefore be “fixing” the desired mutations before they were able to be passed on to the next generation. They also inactivated two bacterial genes that code for exonucleases – enzymes that destroy free-floating ssDNA. These changes dramatically increased the proportion of bacteria that incorporated the retron sequence, to more than 90% of the population.

PNAS – High-throughput functional variant screens via in vivo production of single-stranded DNA

Significance

We report a methodology for the pooled construction of mutants bearing precise genomic sequence variations and multiplex phenotypic characterization of these mutants using next-generation sequencing (NGS). Unlike existing techniques depending on CRISPR-Cas–directed genomic breaks for genome editing, this strategy instead uses single-stranded DNA produced by a retron element for recombineering. This enables libraries of millions of elements to be constructed and offers relaxed design constraints which permit natural DNA or random variation to be used as inputs.

Abstract

90% efficiency and enabling multiplexed applications. RLR simultaneously introduces many genomic variants, producing pooled and barcoded variant libraries addressable by targeted deep sequencing. We use RLR for pooled phenotyping of synthesized antibiotic resistance alleles, demonstrating quantitative measurement of relative growth rates. We also perform RLR using the sheared genomic DNA of an evolved bacterium, experimentally querying millions of sequences for causal variants, demonstrating that RLR is uniquely suited to utilize large pools of natural variation. Using ssDNA produced in vivo for pooled experiments presents avenues for exploring variation across the genome.

SOURCES – PNAS, Wyss Institute at Harvard Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts.  He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.

[madijuriss-indn241]

FINAL RESEARCH

Who designed it and when was it designed?

The Fitbit was designed by James Park and Eric Friedman in 2007 

What was the motivation? 

The main motivation for this design came from the rise in wireless technology being integrated into everyday life. The founders wanted to use this technology in a new way, with their main focus on their product being used for health and wellbeing purposes. It was not specifically designed to solve a major problem but as the design has been improved they have found this product to be the solution to many different problems in peoples lives. 

Some examples of this are shown on their website where they mention the stories of different people around the world, and how the Fitbit has helped them. Examples of this are; Helping a woman maintain her health when battling with diabetes and another example was with helping someone with their sleep patterns so that they can in turn help others and be better. It can be big or small health problems that can be solved. Promoting good health will always lead to a positive outcome for that person. 

The design was deemed good at the time because there had been nothing like it before, However this has slowly been changing with the rise of other tech companies getting onboard with the same idea and making their own version of the product. Which has lead to a slight decline in the success of Fitbit. 

How did the designer come up with the idea and how long did it take for the design to complete since inception? 

The founders formed most of their ideas off of being inspired by wireless technology and saw a need for this technology in the health industry. The first tracker was properly launched in 2009, two years since the initial idea. The first product was a small clip on device which was later changed and iterated through time, trial and error and feedback. 

Why was it formed that way? Did the designer consider to take any other shapes, structures or configurations? Has the original form been modified?

The initial form was designed to be compact and convenient for use. It was tracked by syncing up to a computer to view your progress, there was no screen incorporated into the design and at that point the app had not been designed either. This initial design went through multiple different models and many changes to get to where it is currently. The form has taken a watch style shape, with a screen included. Not only this but the usability of the product has changed a lot as well. With the formation of the app design as well as different functions of use such as tracking sleep and heart rate patterns to name a few. So this design has definitely changed alot from not only a aesthetic point of view but also the way that it is used. 

How was it crafted, manufactured/ built? Was the method or process believed to be innovative then? Is it still from todays perspective? 

No manufacturing obviously has to go into the digital side of using the Fitbit product e.g the app etc, as it isn’t the physical component of the design. However in terms of the Fitbit itself the sorts of materials that can be found in the design include; Polycarbonate, Silicon, Nickel, Chromite, Magnese and Aluminium. These are all natural resources 

However there are some resources used in the fitbit that are non-renewable which are; Nitrogen, Rubber, Sand, Copper, Silver, Water and Silica 

The making of some of these materials is harmful to the environment, and others end up in landfill after use. This could be a perspective I take when looking to improve this design in a sustainable way. This includes looking at the way these materials are made, the way they are renewed/disposed and any other impacts environmentally such as water use and emissions. 

Who was the target audience? How did the audience/critics react at first? and has this changed over time?

For some of the first fitbit designs it is said to be clunky and only used for the gym and not the office or everyday life. This is something fitbit has tried to improve on however hasn’t quite gotten there as their tracker 4 is still quite a chunky watch style design. 

In Fitbit’s marketing plan you can see that they target their design to people who are 30+ years of age who need more motivation to be active. As well as those who are overweight or those who just want to monitor their health better and are already active. It is purely a tool for personal growth and improvement. 

Is the design still in production use? if so, is the fact noteworthy compared with the competition or similar attempts since it has been made?

The Fitbit is still in production use, and is being constantly improved to keep up/get ahead of other competition. Since the release of the apple watch, Fitbit sales have been on a decline which could be due to the different brands and how they are perceived. Or even down to the execution of the actual product, the materials they use and which technology is more accurate and efficient to use. 

How can the short term and long term impact of the design example, including associated factors, such as introduction of a pioneering process or subsequent changes it has prompted, if any, on our lifestyle, other designers, relevant industries, and the environment be described? 

The impact of this design example has pioneered the idea of using wireless technology in our everyday lives, and has integrated this into daily use alongside the smartphone. It has encouraged people to opt towards buying more pieces of technology to make their lives more efficient and look at doing daily activities such as exercise in a new way that is assisted by a wearable product. 

This has lead to lifestyle changes such as a wider range of people getting involved in taking control of their physical and mental health. It makes this aspect of peoples lives feel like they can be a lot more in control of their progress and more motivated to make a change in their lifestyle. This could be improved to be marketed to another group all together, maybe for a seperate purpose? This could be a good way of completely redesigning this concept. And by including more people it can be less of a wasteful product. 

This design lead to many other companies replicating their own version of the fit bit such as apple, samsung, xiomi and much more. They have all created their own version of the product in hopes of gaining the same level if not more success than the original designers. 

The fitbit has made some impacts on the environment as described before when looking a bit into the types of materials that they use. And how they are made/disposed of and how this can leave lasting impacts. therefore it can be said that some of the processes and materials they used rote fit bit can and should be improved from a sustainability front. As well as transparency. The fitbit website lacks a sustainability information page and shows that there is a lack of transparency in this area. This is something that also should be improved when redesigning the product. 

What was planned and practiced by the designer ahead of the time?

The main aspect that the founders focused on was the idea of wireless technology. And by incorporating this into something that related to health and well being, this was something that was definitely ahead of its time. And anything that came before it that was similar was not as successful as this product as it had just taken off world wide. By supplementing the smartphone with this product later on through creating an app design it soon became an integral part in peoples daily lives. 

What was not fully considered or even missing at the time, has there been any improvements made? 

The design was not fully resolved from a functionality point of view. Looking at the very first concept/design. The product was 

some issues of the newer designs include, not holding charge, and band irritation on peoples wrists. An interesting way of approaching this redesign could be designing a fitbit that almost seamlessly sits on the body, like it is another peice of the human body. It could be made out of live materials that allow for breathability as well as comfort. 

Specifically the fitbit ultra had an issue with the plastic used. The strain put on the product lead it to later become brittle and crack meaning this specific model had to be discontinued. This is just one of the many versions of fitbit that had to be discontinued because of usability issues. which is all a part of the iterative process and they have continued to try and alter the product to make it better in different ways. in this case the product could not be long lasting which is not only a major product issue, but sustainability issue as well. 

How different are todays perceptions, knowledge and values from those of the times? and how likely would they change in the future?

Todays perceptions have changed only slightly. But only because of new products becoming readily available to us on the market that are slightly improved versions of the fitbit. with the rise of social media and people promoting good health and wellbeing online, there is definitely a rise in people taking charge in this aspect of their lives and therefore a need for this product on the market. however I think that from the beginning of the first fitbit being released until now. There hasn’t been too much of a change. There needs to be a bigger change made to the product, a new innovative step for us to change our perception of what it already is. because to be honest the product has only make slight improvements throughout time, and they are basically cranking out the same product each time just slightly different and slightly better. There needs to be another leap towards something new for our values to be changed further. 

Do we have access to better materials, processes and technologies now? 

We definitely have access to better materials, processes and technologies today than we did when the first fitbit was released. There is a rise of sustainable materials being made, as well as alternative processes and technologies that allow for a more sustainable design process/manufacturing process. This could possibly be incorporated  into a new re-designed fitbit to make it much better, more long-lasting and more sustainable as well.

What would you want to say to the designers if you had a chance?

I would want to ask the designers about what they are seeing/accessing in terms of new innovative materials and design processes that could potentially be included in my new design of their product. They have so much access to new technology and processes that there could hopefully be a leap forward in this sector of design (health). I would also love to be able to ask them more about how they got started on their product, as it has originally started from a circuit board in a wooden box. I would love to know how they got from their initial thoughts about this idea to this amazing product and company that has branched and reached so many people around the world. 

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0c791ce0454b4999b9e962b851e00670 

https://jacquelinesawchik.wordpress.com/marketing-plan-fitbit/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitbit

[sciforce]

Artificial Intelligence and the Shift to the Circular Economy

Over the past 200 years, a model backing by extracting and consuming vast quantities of finite materials and fossil fuels has been shaping the global economy. Such a linear economic model has allowed humanity to build an impressive industrial economy and reach unprecedented prosperity. At the same time, this type of economy is responsible for current environmental issues, depletion of resources, and climate change.

Per McKinsey Global Institute, AI could add $13 trillion to the global economic activity by 2030, yet some issues may constrain its application for social good. At present, the linear economic system requires changes to sustain the growth of the global middle class omitting negative environmental and social impacts.

Circular Economy, Explained

Let us start with the principal difference between the linear and circular economy models. The economic growth is not intertwining with finite resource consumption in the circular economic model. Conversely, it endeavors to eliminate waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, and regenerate natural systems. The advantages of this approach are substantial not only for the planet but to economic growth. The circular economy can spur innovations, resolve growing environmental challenges, and create new jobs. McKinsey predicts that a net benefit of the circular economy for Europe can reach €1.8 trillion by 2030. The EU adopted the package of policies for the development of a circular economy in December 2015. Witnessing this endeavor's positive effect, the European Commission published The Circular Economy Action Plan in March 2020, which promises more changes.

Why AI?

When we think of the circular economy, we often imagine waste management and recycling, such as dealing with food waste, single use-plastics, packaging, and straws. However, the circular economy is a broader concept of being sustainable, as it embraces renewable energy, design for longevity, upgrading, disassembly, water stewardship, social responsibility, and disassembly.

Artificial intelligence is supposed to play an essential role in enabling the circular economy's systemic shift. It is to enhance and facilitate circular economy innovation across industries in three main ways:

1. Design circular products, components, and materials. It is well-known that AI can accelerate the development of new products, features, and materials fit for a circular economy thanks to the rapid ML-driven prototyping and testing.

2. Operate circular business models. AI increases product circulation by intellegent inventory management, pricing and demand prediction, and predictive maintenance.

3. Optimize circular infrastructure. AI can improve sorting and disassembling products, components remanufacturing, and recycling materials that can build the reverse logistics infrastructure required to 'close the loop' on products and materials.

The key idea underlying all AI applications for the circular economy is to manage resources efficiently, compliant, and sustainable. The AI technologies apply to collate, analyze and interpret complex environmental data and information to understand the issues and prioritize action. More importantly, AI can become a platform to democratize sustainability knowledge, enabling us to drive changes in our behavior that benefit the planet on all levels and scales.

Field Applications

From the manufacturing industry to healthcare, the scope of AI application to curb waste is endless, and the principle is relatively similar for all fields. To grasp the extent of AI applications, we can mention just several examples.

Design of New Materials

The European Space Agency deployed circulated economy models to produce and test novel alloy models in their Accelerated Metallurgy project. The circular economy principles in alloys design bring the following results: materials are non-toxic, can be reused, and can be made using additive manufacturing and processing methods to minimize waste. Accelerated Metallurgy uses AI algorithms to analyze big data to design and test alloy composition systematically.

Infrastructure Optimization

A vital feature of the circular economy is that materials and products are not disposed of after the first use but reused multiple times, which requires optimization of the infrastructure to ensure circular product and material flows. Effective recovery of valuable materials requires homogeneous, pure flows of material and products. However, used material streams are usually far from being pristine: from kitchen waste to used computers, and these streams are mixed and heterogeneous in materials, products, and by-products, both biological and technical. AI shows how it can enable enhanced valorization of materials and products by sorting post-consumer mixed material streams through visual recognition techniques. ZenRobotics, for example, works with cameras and sensors, whose imagery input allows AI to control intelligent waste sorting robots. These robots can reach an accuracy level of 98% in sorting myriad material streams, from plastic packaging to construction waste.

Smart Farming

Two mutually opposing trends are currently putting more pressure on agriculture, calling for immediate action. Already severely depleted soils need to provide food for an ever-growing global population, and at the same time, roughly a third of food remains never eaten. AI offers multiple opportunities to make farming smarter by using image recognition to determine fruit ripeness, food supply, demand-effective matching, and increasing food by-products valorization. Our company, for instance, uses computer vision to monitor the growth and development of plants.

Designing Healthier Food Products

AI techniques can help in reducing waste, eliminate unsafe additives, and develop regenerative grown ingredients. Recent applications include alternative egg-free products, plant-based meat, and fish to decrease dependence on natural resources. A Chilean food technology company called NotCo (The Not Company), for example, is trying to replace foods made with animal products using vegetable-based foods that taste the same. They have developed the Giuseppe artificial intelligence program that takes the molecular structure of meat and can replicate it using plant-based ingredients to create a unique flavor and texture.

Predictive Maintenance

AI algorithms may be able to radically improve the assessment of a product's condition, enabling predictive maintenance and the ability to determine the secondary value of a used device more accurately. By using IoT sensors and AI-driven analytics, manufacturers and service operators can know in advance when equipment needs service. Predictive maintenance help to replace the required detail in advance. This solution predicts machine conditions leading to the failure and provides time estimation to plan and minimize downtime.

Conclusion

AI can be an enabler and accelerator of the global transition to the circular economy. Digital technologies are already driving a profound transformation of our economy and way of life. If such modification embraces circular economy principles, it can create value and generate more comprehensive benefits for society. However, AI production requires a clear understanding of the actual problem to solve. Moreover, the circular economy transition involves a network of trusted partners — it cannot be done by one company alone, even having the smartest AI tool.

The data generation, collection, and sharing are the implications of cooperation between all the stakeholders. It is only together with the community AI can transform our global economy and minimize waste.

[ryliweb]

PlayStation 5 Scalpers Aren’t Happy With Their Public Image

The simple, joyful, act of buying the latest console – a twice-decade dopamine hit like no other – has become a rage-inducing misery in 2020 and 2021.

Why? Because of scalpers who employ fast-buying bots to scoop up hundreds of consoles in the time it takes for your finger to press “order”.

They are using increasingly sophisticated bots to do this and becoming more organised to spot opportunities, often working in large groups. For regular gamers who want to buy a console, this has caused huge frustration and anger towards scalpers who are profiting from reselling consoles at huge markups.

But scalpers I’ve spoken with say their intentions are misunderstood and their negative public image isn’t justified.

“There seems to be A LOT of bad press on this incredibly valuable industry and I do not feel that it is justified, all we are acting as is a middleman for limited quantity items.” said Jordan, who co-founded The Lab, a private group that advises paying users on how to scalp (known as a “cook group”).

Jordan claims to have secured 25 PlayStation 5 units in January and resold them for £700. The most expensive recommended retail price for the PS5 is £450. This, he feels, is no different to how any other business operates.

“Essentially every business resells their products. Tesco, for example, buys milk from farmers for 26p or so per litre and sells it on for upwards of 70p per litre. No one ever seems to complain to the extent as they are currently doing towards ourselves.” The backlash from angry gamers has led to death threats, Jordan claims, which have been reported to police.

I put Jordan’s analogy to some frustrated gamers who have been trying to buy the Sony console for weeks. One, who didn’t want to be named, said “he is deluded. He doesn’t get he’s another layer of profiteering in his own Tesco analogy. He’s not Robin Hood.”

Bypassing security checks

Jordan’s success has been replicated by other users in The Lab. Jordan’s business partner, Regan, shared images of mass purchases of in-demand Supreme gear using a bot called Velox.

The screenshots show that not only is the bot fast at checking out (the fastest is 2.3 seconds for a Supreme x Smurfs Skateboard), but it also manages to bypass 3D Secure to make the transaction happen.

3D Secure is an additional layer of security which verifies that the buyer is the legitimate card owner. It is a requirement in the UK for all websites processing card payments (if the payment card supports it). This usually redirects buyers to another site, which is owned by the bank, for authentication. But the Velox bot used for these supreme purchases bypasses the protocol for a faster checkout.

I asked web security and performance consultant, Edward Spencer, how this bypass this works.

“I suspect the 3D Secure payments page is being by passed by using a card that has not had 3D Secure enabled. Generally, all cards provided by EU banks must have 3D Secure enabled. If you called your bank and requested that 3D Secure was disabled for your card, they’d refuse. So I would guess that they are using cards associated with banks that are from outside of the EU, and are probably pre-paid. The shops could probably thwart these guys by banning all non-3d Secure transactions”.

But there’s more to scalper success then bypassing 3D Secure. Another person I spoke with, who only wanted to be quoted as “Alex”, attempted to build his own bot to buy a PS5. But his was a website scraper that automated purchases, which, as Alex explains, isn’t quick enough.

“There are bots that interact with servers, and there are bots that interact with the web browser – mine interacted with a web browser. So it can only go as fast as a website will let you go. It works faster than a normal human, but there are other bots that, you know, people would be selling for thousands of dollars that will beat my bot every time.”

He continued: “so I know, for Walmart, there was an open API for their stock. Some of these bots could add a PS5 to their shopping cart, and then they could purchase it from there.”

Alex is right that scalpers and cook groups are finding innovative ways to get stock before anyone else. On January 25th cook group Express Notify found a way to buy PlayStation 5 units from UK retailer Argos a full day before the official stock drop, ordering several consoles. Argos eventually shut down the loophole.

Exactly how these bots bypass safeguards, or “interact with servers”, as Alex put it is a bit of a mystery. Spencer speculates that the creators of these bots have “sniffed” the web traffic between the web browser or mobile app of an online store, and the servers.

“Right now I can open Google Chrome and go to any online store, press F12 and I’ll get the developer tools up. All I’ve got to do is go to the network tab, and then maybe add a product into my cart , and observe how my browser is talking to the server that hosts the website. There will typically be network calls to an API running on the server that reveals information – in a computer and human readable way – about products and stock levels.

“So this API isn’t intended to be used by 3rd party developers, but a 3rd party developer could use it if they worked out how. It’s reverse engineering the online store’s API. This isn’t exactly sophisticated. Sites can mitigate this with tried and tested anti-request forgery techniques but unfortunately many sites just don’t bother.”

I contacted several bot makers and cook groups to ask how their tech works, but none were forthcoming apart from those quoted in this story. If you have any information you’re willing to share, then get in contact.

Impossible competition

The scalpers I did speak with operate as a business, in some cases with full time staff. Because of the potential money on the table, the scalpers employ a lot of techniques to gain an advantage over regular buyers and other bot users. Jordan explained that because of bot competition, he has to be vigilant of opportunities.

“Our group monitors hundreds of websites waiting to notify members of restocks. The website I was able to get checkouts from was GAME, which the monitors notified us at around 10am GMT that PS5 stock had been loaded onto the backend of the website.

“It is pretty simple to set up as all the top tier bots have in-depth guides or really simple interfaces. All I needed was the product ID, a few unique billing profiles and proxies (proxies allow us access websites from different locations whether it be country or city specific). We have this all in place ready before any restocks happen to give us the best chances of purchasing. If you are slow, even with a bot, you will miss out on the product.”

GAME issued the following statement in reply to Jordan’s claim.

“PlayStation 5s continue to be in very high demand and that demand far outweighs current supply. We have strong measures in place to help ensure that our “1 per customer” statement is maintained to allow for as many individual customers to successfully purchase as possible.

“All pre-orders are subject to automatic checks and order updates such as cancellations following these checks take place after a customer will have received a valid order confirmation email.”

Jordan didn’t want to name the bot they used to complete the purchases, but they did say that “ you will have seen it plastered amongst the media recently due to the PS5 shortage.” In late January, the team behind a bot called Carnage boasted about helping users secure 2000 PS5s. The Carnage bot team could not be reached for comment.

Both Regan and Jordan say that they are, ultimately, helping people by giving them financial opportunities to resell consoles at an inflated price. “I mainly just try and help others now, that’s all that really matters to me. The whole group came about near the start of the first UK lockdown and it makes me so happy that I can help people make some extra money for themselves.

“We do a lot for charity as well. I myself or collectively as a group donate to charity almost monthly at this point. Most notably over the past month we donated a large portion of our membership fees to a foodbank local to me.” I asked for details of the food bank to confirm Regan’s donation but he didn’t provide their information.

Employing the use of bots doesn’t guarantee a purchase of any hot ticket item, but it can massively improve your chances. What this means for the consumer is that the already limited pool of available product – which has been exacerbated by supply chain issues related to Covid – shrinks even further. Regan says this means average buyers will always struggle.

“Your average person who just wants one of the consoles to use struggles to get close. A lot of these sites have very minimal or easy to bypass bot protection. They often release stocks at stupid times or without any form of schedule. A retailer I won’t name released stock of the PlayStation 5s in the extremely early hours of the morning. Which shows the lack of care on their part. The only people who will have known about those restocks will have been people with monitors inside of cook groups.”

The post PlayStation 5 Scalpers Aren’t Happy With Their Public Image appeared first on RyLi Gaming Solutions.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/the-healthcare-technology-revolution-ai-assisted-doctors-med-tech-innovation/

The healthcare technology revolution: AI-assisted doctors - Med-Tech Innovation

Piotr Orzechowski, CEO at Infermedica explains why AI provides so many advantages over traditional rule-based decision trees and how integrating AI technology with doctors expertise can enhance patient care. 

Anxiety about the introduction of automation in the workplace has been well documented. With some estimations stating that, by 2025, machines will be doing half of all work tasks, perhaps concerns are not entirely misplaced.

In healthcare, robotics and machine learning are already having an impact on patient care, providing basic assistance across many clinical facilities – no doubt a life-saving job. Some may feel that eventually technology – specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI) – will progress to a point where it can deliver advanced consultation, without the need for a physician. For others, interaction with a machine to determine a course of treatment will never be able to replicate the personalised consultation with a physician, the latter of which has an unparalleled level of expertise and training.

Really, however, AI shouldn’t be viewed as an existential threat to doctors but instead a companion. The two can work harmoniously alongside one another, with AI enhancing knowledge, expertise, and time management. As healthcare organisations across the globe embrace digital technologies to tackle the pandemic, harnessing AI capabilities has the potential to greatly improve patient care.

Adoption of technology in healthcare

It’s no secret that technology already has a huge presence in healthcare. From wearable devices sharing information on vitals to secure messaging apps for medical professionals, tech is transforming almost every aspect of patient care. In Q3 of 2020, European start-ups raised €1.6 billion alone, revealing the phenomenal growth of healthtech services.

In 2020, however, the pandemic has shined an unmissable spotlight on the relationship between technology and healthcare. Earlier this year, when healthcare organisations around the world had to cancel routine and non-urgent appointments in order to cope with the demands of the pandemic, the adoption of telemedicine services and e-consultations soared. Virtual appointment services are expected to fundamentally disrupt the healthcare market with telemedicine services expected to grow sevenfold by 2025.

Necessity prevented patients from physically seeing their doctor for minor health complaints, but it brought digitalisation to the forefront of healthcare services around the world. These have been typically slow to innovate, shackled by levels of bureaucracy and complicated procurement processes, which prevented fast innovation and built a barrier to adopting technologies that can improve patient care.

Irreversible trends

And it’s not just telemedicine that has benefited: collaboration between health professionals and technology companies have introduced new solutions and devices in response to the virus at an unprecedented rate. For example, 3D printed valves and big data solutions that provide patient monitoring in real-time are just two introductions that reflect the huge transformation which has taken place.

The healthcare industry has witnessed how collaboration between innovative companies, healthcare systems and doctors can find new ways to improve patient care and respond to the challenges of the pandemic, and it’s inconceivable to imagine that the change which has taken place will be reversed.

In a few months, we’ve seen systems adopt technology rapidly – and physicians incorporating AI systems into their traditional practices is a next step.

Benefits of AI

Healthcare systems are commonly overstretched. Emergency departments and doctors’ offices typically deal with patients who have conditions that could be treated elsewhere. This means doctors and other healthcare workers have more patients to see, which, critically, takes away time that can be spent with patients harbouring more serious issues.

Misdiagnosis is also a problem. By nature, doctors are experts with extensive training, but incorrectly diagnosing patients or missing warning signs can happen occasionally. For example, on average in the UK, it takes around eight years for endometriosis to be correctly diagnosed, with patients commonly prescribed treatment for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) instead.

AI-driven consultations can alleviate these problems by helping humans, not replacing them. For example, initial consultations conducted by AI solutions can triage patients to the most appropriate level of care, identifying instances where it might be more appropriate for people to seek advice from a pharmacist instead of a doctor. This direction prevents a backlog of patients using the healthcare system unnecessarily, fast-tracking those who need urgent treatment whilst freeing up doctors to spend more time with patients who have complex issues.

Furthermore, AI can provide doctors with enhanced information on a patient’s condition. Systems that analyse health complaints whilst taking into consideration various risk factors, including age, gender and location – as well suggesting possible rarer conditions that share similar symptoms with more common issues, such as endometriosis – equip doctors with more actionable information. This can be shared ahead of an in-person consultation, providing the most up-to-date and accurate information on the patient, improving care and diagnosis.

Cutting time needed to cover basic questions makes in-person consultations more productive, efficient and can help to improve the rate of misdiagnosis. Indeed, a recent study of digital health services in Norway found that 72% of the respondents experienced a better follow-up by their GP as a consequence of using e-consultation, while 58% reported improved quality of their treatment. AI can take this further.

Of course, there may be some reluctance to move toward digital consultations. Bedside manner and patient interaction are a large part of visiting a physician. During a face-to-face meeting, a doctor can read non-verbal cues which may indicate how a patient is truly feeling.

AI can make a difference here too, though, with solutions trained to understand the most nuanced movements or expressions; the system then relays the information to the doctor.

The future of healthcare

Ultimately, a healthcare provider introducing an AI to assist patient care is like an accountant using a calculator. Doctors’ skills are supported by reliable, knowledgeable tool that helps them to do their jobs more effectively. What’s more, AI solutions are constantly improving, drawing on data from real-life use cases to assist doctors in making correct and timely diagnoses.

It’s undeniable that the COVID crisis has pioneered the growth of healthcare solutions around the world, what we now encounter is healthcare systems embracing innovation to address the challenge of the pandemic and beyond. Moving forward, it’s critical to continue embracing technology to improve patient care – and AI will have a huge part to play.

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[sciencespies]

New Study Reveals Similar Creative Process For Artists, Engineers And Scientists

https://sciencespies.com/news/new-study-reveals-similar-creative-process-for-artists-engineers-and-scientists/

New Study Reveals Similar Creative Process For Artists, Engineers And Scientists

A new study on creative similarities between fine arts and STEM

getty

Intuitively, it seems different creative processes are involved in composing a sonnet and designing a circuit board. But a study published this month in the journalThinking, Skills and Creativity suggests creative processes are more general across domains and disciplines. While poets and engineers may create two very different kinds of work with very different intentions and outcomes, the process they use to get there appears quite similar. 

“We’ve understood for a long time that there are differences in how creativity manifests itself in art and how it manifests in other disciplines like engineering or science,” says creativity and innovation researcher David Cropley who co-authored the study. “The new bit of finding is that those differences are actually pretty small and small enough that I would argue they don’t really make a heck of a lot of difference.”

In 2020, the World Economic Forum (WEF) called creativity “the one skill that will future-proof you for the jobs market.” In an interview with Andria Zafirakou, The WEF cited the Global Teacher Prize winner as saying, “Creativity should be embedded into absolutely every aspect of our curriculums. At all ages.” 

The study’s findings support Zafirakou and WEF’s recommendations. Education needs to foster creativity and, according to Cropley, “Create an environment where children feel safe to take some risks and not embarrass themselves, where they don’t get punished for a wrong answer, but they’re encouraged to try new things and be open to new ideas.” Instead of asking what’s two plus two, a teacher or parent might ask how many different ways can children get to the answer? Then encourage children to say that, while it could be two plus two, it could also be three plus one, or seven minus three or the square root of two. “There are situations where you can ask open-ended questions that encourage the idea of many possible answers.”

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The study

In the survey-based study that included a series of psychological tasks, the subjects were 2277 German undergraduate students (1052 females and 1225 males) between 17 and 37 years of age. The students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) courses totaled 2147. The remaining 130 students were enrolled in fine arts/graphics, textile design, performing arts/stage art/direction, theatre, music, sculpting, and painting courses. 

The study measured Personality, an individual’s self-assessment of creative self-efficacy; Process, or generating ideas via divergent thinking to solve a particular problem like how to improve public transit; and Product where subjects had to rate a solution for its originality, feasibility, and effectiveness.

The results showed slight differences in personality and creative processes. “We found that in relation to personality and thinking styles, there’s really not that big a difference between artists and engineers.” But once you drill down into how those in different STEM micro-domains evaluate their own work, divergence starts to emerge. “Certain kinds of engineers place particular emphasis on effectiveness, whereas other disciplines place more emphasis on novelty as the key to creativity,” says Cropley. The study did not look at the differences across the arts.

Challenges in creativity studies 

For all our shortcomings, art and science are two enterprises that have defined human exceptionalism. And yet creativity is one of the most difficult areas to investigate using the scientific method; turning the observer onto itself and then applying an analytic and highly critical process to a cognitive faculty that is largely dependent on freewheeling inspiration and flow. 

Is creativity about problem-solving?

Cropley designs his studies based on what he considers a universal characteristic of creativity: creativity is about problem-solving. A former engineer, Cropley’s collaboration with psychologists in the study of creativity has spanned over 20 years. For him, a major part of creativity is making sure that what you’re creating is effective. This popular, functional definition of creativity extends beyond the process and includes how a work is received. Cropley also takes a definitive position on a centuries-old philosophical debate about aesthetics: is something creative (is something art) if no one ever sees it? According to Cropley the answer is yes, because something counts as problem-solving if it allows you to express yourself, even if no one else ever sees it. 

Embedded in the assumption of many standard creativity tests is a definition of creativity that does not include problem-solving in the traditional sense. Common creativity tests present you with an object, like a rubber band, and ask how many uses you can think of for the rubber band. You then list all the possible uses. This kind of question is exclusionary for Cropley and other creatives in STEM because “that’s kind of back to front. It’s looking at a solution and trying to identify problems.” Cropley points out that engineers don’t go to work each day, put a brick on the table and ask, what can we do with this brick? That’s not how the creative process works for creatives in STEM. “It’s the other way around. We start with the problem and try to come up with many possible solutions.” 

Does identity influence creativity?

Another challenge to studying creativity is whether the mere act of subjects self-identifying as artists versus scientists or engineers on creativity tests changes how subjects self-report about their creative process in a way that doesn’t necessarily reflect real-world creative practices. Cropley acknowledges that he can’t rule out some version of the stereotype threat, where a person is asked to self-identify and then becomes consciously or unconsciously influenced by the idea of conforming to a stereotype. Cropley hopes that with such a large sample size, these kinds of biases and effects are filtered out.

Big-C versus everyday creativity

Creativity researchers James Kaufman and Ronald Beghetto developed a widely used model of creativity called the Four C Model, in which creativity is broken down into four categories. Mini-c creativity is interpretive and occurs when you’re learning something new and meaningful. Little-c creativity is an everyday expression of creativity like inventing a new recipe. Pro-c creativity is creativity expressed by professionals when they demonstrate expertise in their fields. Big-C creativity is a category reserved for the world’s great artists and innovators and the world’s greatest works. 

Cropley reined in the scope of his study to exclude big-C creativity. But he also challenges the notion that artists create big-C works without concerning themselves with how their work is received. “The artist doesn’t paint a picture in the hope that people will hate it,” Cropley shrugs. “A writer writes a novel, of course, not just to embody a new idea, but because they want people to read it, and experience it, and respond favorably.” A pragmatic definition of creativity may inadvertently tilt this type of study and the subsequent recommendations in a way that excludes the value of creativity-for-its-own-sake. Form over function is the kind of creativity routinely observed in children or the kind described by so many artists who claim no attachment to results. Or perhaps a background in engineering, where the worth of what you create is determined by its utility to others, allows for a certain degree of honesty. A definition of creativity that includes how a work is received may more accurately represent the less lofty, but very real, very human, very socially motivated definition of creativity that no doubt drives many big-C creatives.

The reliability of self-reporting

As a general rule in science, survey-based studies are considered a less precise means of measurement. How we think about a process, how we think about ourselves, and how we think about ourselves in relation to that process, and then how we self-report on all of it, are all factors that make us unreliable narrators about our subjective experience in a way that may influence a scientific study. These challenges have pulled at the threads of so-called “soft science” during the replication crisis. And yet there are few other tools at the disposal of those who want to observe and measure a subjective experience of a psychological process like creativity; an experience and process that often distorts or dissipates under analytic scrutiny.

Why aren’t we more creative about how we investigate creativity?

If creativity is “the one skill that will future-proof you for the jobs market,” if creativity is about problem-solving, and if the replication crisis has specifically called out “soft sciences” like psychology, one of the only sciences that truly investigates this important skill, then one of the most urgent problems for creatives in STEM is to develop a new set of criteria and measurement to investigate creativity. Ultimately, we may need better tools to explore some of the greatest features of our humanity. And this may require a big-C, genius-level creative breakthrough.

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[kathleenseiber]

How ferrets can help in a pandemic

About an hour southwest of Melbourne on the Geelong waterfront sits a CSIRO facility that houses one of only a few Physical Containment Level 4 (PC4) labs in the world, and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere.

Credit: Prapass Pulsub / Getty Images

This is the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP). It’s where some of the most dangerous infectious agents on the planet are studied.

And to do that, says the centre’s director, Trevor Drew, you often need ferrets.

It happens that ferrets are susceptible to a wide range of RNA viruses that are also harmful to humans, including influenza, Nipah, Ebola and SARS. Now, one more could be added to that list. From the moment the first genome sequence was released, it was clear that SARS-CoV-2 had a lot in common with the original SARS virus, including the tools it uses to enter human cells.

Trevor Drew

From research on SARS, says Drew, “we knew which receptor it needed in order to gain access to cells”. The little protein stalks sticking out of it, called spike proteins, “actually attach onto a cellular receptor called ACE2. [The virus] then uses that as a sort of a key to unlock the cell membrane and get into the cell.”

SARS-CoV-2 has the same spike protein and, like SARS, it goes straight for ACE2 receptors found on many cells in the human body, including cells lining the respiratory system. In fact, it binds much more tightly than the SARS version did, which makes it more infectious.

Ferrets, it turns out, also have the ACE2 receptor on their cells, and it’s remarkably similar to the human version. The CSIRO team was the first in the world to demonstrate that ferrets could be infected with SARS-CoV-2, but don’t get severe COVID-19 – just a slight rise in body temperature and a bit of sneezing. “They recover quite quickly,” says Drew.

Nevertheless, for a few days the ferrets excrete the virus, so it’s clearly replicating in their systems.

“The first thing to do is to thoroughly define that course of infection in fine detail and also understand something of how the ferret responds,” says Drew. “What is the first reaction to the infection? What parts of the immune system respond and in what way? And how, ultimately, does the ferret, in this case, get rid of the virus?”

Once upon a time you needed a virus sample before vaccine development could begin, Drew explains. “Nowadays we don’t even need the virus, we just need to know what its genomic sequence is.”

What is the first reaction to the infection? What parts of the immune system respond and in what way? 

The moment the first SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence was published, numerous vaccine development projects were launched around the world. That’s a good thing, as long as it’s well coordinated. This, says Drew, is where the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has been valuable.

A partnership of public, private and philanthropic organisations – drawing funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and various international governments, private businesses and individuals – CEPI’s goal is to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, including the so-called “big one”.

“We called it Disease X at the time,” says Drew, because when CEPI was launched in 2017, no-one really knew what the next pandemic pathogen would be. Regardless, it would certainly require a coordinated response at well-known points along the vaccine development pathway: from design and testing, all the way to clinical trials, large-scale manufacture, and distribution.

In a move that Drew calls “prescient”, CEPI has been funding facilities around the world to make ready these capabilities. When SARS-CoV-2 showed up, things were able to move quickly. Vaccine experts at CEPI and WHO analysed numerous vaccine development projects and chose several of the most promising to pursue. These included projects at Oxford University and the University of Queensland, and those at a handful of biotech companies.

ACDP was given the task of running pre-clinical trials on vaccine candidates from two of them. Normally the preclinical phase entirely precedes clinical trials, but these are unusual times. Both the Oxford and Inovio vaccines have simultaneously entered Phase 1 human trials elsewhere to test for tolerability in humans while preclinical work continues at ACDP.

“I would say almost without a doubt it’s the most heavily studied virus at the molecular level in the history of science,” says Drew. “It’s been a phenomenal example of international collaboration.”

This is an extract from The Virus Detectives, the cover story in the upcoming issue of Cosmos magazine, out on 4 June 2020. It is one of two major features looking at the massive international effort to understand and thwart the spread of COVID-19. You can subscribe to Cosmos online here.

The Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong. Credit: CSIRO

The post How ferrets can help in a pandemic appeared first on Cosmos Magazine.

How ferrets can help in a pandemic published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

[jobinterviewghost]

3 methods to robot-proof your profession

"Devices will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do"-- Herbert Simon (1965 ).

As a scientist in artificial intelligence (AI), people ask me about the 'robotic revolution', typically with major misgivings about how the future might look for themselves or their children.

Considering the buzz surrounding AI, automation and robotics, including prominent thinking from the similarity Stephen Hawking, we might all be forgiven for assuming that in 10 years robots will have replaced us.

However is this worry necessitated?

The majority of people ignore the value of human interaction. Even if AI measures up to the present hype, and I strongly question it will, there will still be a place for us.

Predicting the effect of AI and automation

For decades, people have actually been trying to anticipate what computers will quickly be able to do much better than humans.

Rather of asking: 'What will computer systems (not) be able to do?', we should instead ask: 'What will we simply not want them to do?'

The response primarily lies in things that need human interaction and social intelligence.

Many AI research study is about 'replacing' cognitive jobs. However, it's now widely accepted in evolutionary biology that the human brain evolved not for cognitive thinking, but for social interaction.

As a survival method for hunter-gatherers, being social was helpful because it enabled them to communicate and coordinate during hunting. Our brains evolved to adjust appropriately.

The cognitive abilities that allow us to calculate chemical interactions, design and construct skyscrapers and detect diseases are a side effect of this development, and have actually only truly been used for human benefit in the last couple of thousand years.

As people, we're hardwired to yearn for social interaction and it appears unlikely that computer systems, even humanoid robots, will be able to offer us the interaction we desire.

The Human Touch

Possibly the 2 key traits that separate human beings from many other animals are empathy and feeling. These are 2 social characteristics.

Empathy and psychological contagion are things we do not share with computer systems or robots. Thought experiments like the popular experience device suggests we never ever could.

So, what do empathy and feeling enable us to do? Well, we communicate.

Significant human interaction requires an acknowledgment that the individual we are communicating with has their own beliefs, desires, and emotions, and that they have an understanding people. This is empathy in its most generic meaning.

We likewise empathise. Computer systems can pretend to empathise on an emotional level, but they can not genuinely analyze and react to individuals; they can only replicate this.

People also tell stories. While data and information notify and inform, they lack the relatability of stories. We're hardwired to find and share anecdotes from occasions.

After a celebration, there's a factor you tell your good friends about how people acted, who stated what and the kind of music played. Will a robotic with eyes who can inform a great story have the exact same effect?

Individuals likewise innovate and produce. We do not let computer systems choose which problems are very important for us. They can't prioritise tasks or develop solutions to multi-faceted challenges.

Creativity likewise reoccurs on an impulse of human motivation where computer systems act on a schedule and to a formula.

Human-agent interaction

In expert system, there is somewhat of a 'split' in suitables.

Some scientists and companies are focussing on changing people for particular tasks, like much of Google's AI research. Others intend to help human beings in certain jobs, as in much of Microsoft's AI research.

The research in my lab is about helping people.

Somewhat contradictorily to this article, we look into how to design AI-based tools that more carefully resemble human interaction, not in order to change humans, however to craft AI that communicates in a more natural and relatable way to people, without trying to look like a human itself. This technique makes use of the strength of both human beings and computer systems.

We have actually evolved to communicate with other individuals in specific ways, and it is popular that people anthropomorphise anything that has intentional-looking behaviour. Thus, individuals expect to interact as they would with a human.

There are ethical considerations.

Although a companion robotic that assists older people stay in their house could be configured to reveal feelings, is it ethically sound to phony emotion and would we prefer the genuine thing?

What about my task?

With all of this in mind, what are a few of the jobs we won't entrust to computer systems?

Anything that needs leadership will run out the question: so, political leaders, CEOs, instructors, and judges can consider themselves safe.

Anything that helps to develop individuals as social beings: child-care, social employees and medical professionals will constantly be needed. All of these professions will no doubt continue to be affected by computing, however maybe not to the level lots of predict.

So, let's think about a couple of careers forecasted by some as being 'on obtained time'.

Tech giant IBM has established software application to perform medical diagnosis (although just recently it has actually been revealed to be commonly incorrect sometimes, prescribing unsafe treatment and destroying any trust that some doctors had in it).

Can software application like this give a description of what a diagnosis suggests for a patient? Can it walk through various treatment options? Can it deliver a bleak prognosis in an understanding way or explain what effect this will have on their life while reassuring a distressed patient? Even if it could simulate these complex interactions, would you desire it to?

Meanwhile, a 2013 report from the University of Oxford placed telemarketing at the top of tasks most likely to be completely automated, determining that telemarketing has a 99 percent opportunity of being changed in the next two years.

The recent presentation of Google Duplex making restaurant reservations and hair visits utilizing natural language via telephone has numerous people signifying the end of telemarketers.

But for most of us, social politeness makes us think about the experience of the individual on the other end of the phone line. Telemarketers make use of that politeness to keep us on the line long enough to make a sale.

Will we obey the very same social standards with computers? I won't.

Tips for surviving in a robotic transformation (if it eventuates)

Although we can not precisely anticipate the impact of AI, automation and robotics over the next 20 to 30 years, we can be sure that it will alter the way that we work, possibly needing less individuals in certain professions however added expertise in others.

Here are 3 tips for robot-proofing your career:

Get social: Enhance your social abilities. Improve your listening, together with your spoken and composed interaction. Practice empathising and being innovative. Attempt to innovate and use convincing language abilities to engage others. It assists to presume that you aren't highly competent at this (the majority of us aren't) and there's space to enhance.

Get technical: Learn the technical skills. While human interaction is essential, individuals who are able to build the technical parts, use them in new ways and are socially experienced communicators will be in demand.

Be nice to AI and automation. If you come across AI and automation in your life, like the assistant on your smart device or the self-checkout at the grocery store, be great to it.

Follow these actions and if I'm wrong and robotics do, in reality, take control of the world, a minimum of you'll have some AI recommendation verifying you are among the great people.

Partner Teacher Tim Miller is Director of Learning, School of Computing and Details Systems. Melbourne School of Engineering, University of Melbourne

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is continuously transforming the way we live. Everything we do and every advancement we make as humans is marked by a leap in technology. Every top global industry is constantly trying to mold itself according to the rapidly changing technological advancements. The finance and banking sector has also felt the need to change the dynamics and modify its style of working by embracing new technologies. It has undergone a massive change in operations because of technological innovations and the change in regulatory requirements. RPA and AI are the latest technologies today redefining how banks operate by automating processes such as Know your customer (KYC) and personalizing customer services.

RPA has been recognized as the fastest growing segment of enterprise software with 63% growth in 2018 - Gartner.

Significance of RPA in the banking sector?

RPA addresses the key challenge of attaining efficiency but keeping costs as low as possible. But within the banking sector, this goal comes with an additional complexity of maintaining optimum security levels. To meet these demands, RPA (Robotic Process Automation) has become an effective tool. It has taken forward the transition from service-through-labor to service-through-software.

The financial sector has adopted robotic process automation –  most banks in the UK now follow a process of integrating web robots for increasing efficiency and accuracy of data. And all this while cutting costs and reducing risk of non-compliance and security breaches. Web robots are, in simple terms, software applications designed to emulate what humans can do, but faster, error-free and more efficiently. RPA is finding application in not just banks, but other related financial services as well.

RPA technology  for banks explained

RPA is an acronym for Robotic Process Automation. As suggested by the name, it’s the use of software robots to automate mundane, repetitive tasks. RPA uses software robots or software to perform several tasks like automating transactions, data-processing, establishing communication with systems, performing huge calculations without errors, and fast problem-solving. The banking industry is exploring the potential of this technology in order to breakdown proper jobs, reduce human-induced labor, continuously increase productivity, improve efficiency, and perform rather time-consuming jobs faster. RPA tools and software are capable of mimicking human actions and replicate them to perform tasks that are repetitive in an accurate manner. RPA has proven to be quite efficient in handling work overflow and tasks involving heavy data. Some examples of use of RPA in the banking sector include -  

Collecting and validating customer data for KYC 

Automating the process of onboarding a new customer – RPA is being used in the Retail Banking scenario to collect information from the customer, provide data to the customer service exec in the bank to be able to take a decision on opening an account, approving a loan application, conducting the credit checks and more. 

RPA has been used to automate anti-money laundering checks. To keep track of data and its audit trail for compliance purposes and meeting regulatory standards. These are just a few banking processes that are good candidates for RPA Automation.  

For more RPA banking and financial sector solutions please visit this page - https://www.convedo.com/solutions#solutions

Benefits of using RPA in banking

Ever since RPA’s introduction to the financial world, it has become a force to be reckoned with. The virtual workforce has successfully helped banks minimize and in many cases, eliminate human intervention to a large extent in the execution of earlier human labor heavy tasks.

Faster decision-making and improved operational efficiency are huge pros of adopting RPA technology. By automating much of these time taking, tedious, manual tasks from humans, banks and other financial institutions have been successful in significantly reducing the dire need for human involvement in every step of the way. This has also resulted in humans focusing on more value-added tasks such as improving customer services. This has a direct positive impact on everything from financial performance and cost management to staffing and efficient working.

Banking calculations, accounts matching,  scenario analysis, predictive analysis and other activities particularly involve high risks of human inaccuracy and errors. With the help of RPA software, these challenges are being tackled effectively.  Using RPA in banking, financial and related sectors has helped reduce overhead and operation costs and dramatically decreased workload which in turn, has increased the efficiency of the employees. Time-consuming and lengthy tasks can now be performed within a very short period.

What does RPA involve?

For banks, RPA involves identifying the right processes to automate. We have listed some examples above but it is being used in loan rendering, underwriting, account onboarding, creating personalized offeres for customers, trial balancing and much more. RPA applied to a suitable process in conjunction with AI could automate the whole process end to end and call upon human attention only when an exception is raised. But how do banks get the best from their RPA investment? What is involved in a good RPA implementation. We have tried to answer this question separtely in our Blog – 9 ways to establish an RPA Centre of Excellence (COE). However, in short for banks, RPA implementation should involve –

Identifying the right process to automate 

Evaluate overlap/dependability on other applications or business processes Orchestrate the robots to automate processes Create a centre of excellence to monitor/update and govern the robots. Need help with RPA analysis, building a use case or implementation, book your initial consultation here