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Category: education – Page 132

Google AI Releases The Open Buildings Dataset, A New Open-Source Dataset Containing The Locations And Footprints Of >500M Buildings Across Africa

Google uses artificial intelligence technology to find millions of buildings on the satellite map that were previously difficult to locate. These can now be used for humanitarian aid or other purposes. Google utilized its building detection model (Continental-Scale Building Detection from High Resolution Satellite Imagery) to create an Open Buildings dataset, containing locations and footprints of 516 million buildings with coverage across most African continent countries.

In this data set, there are millions of buildings that have not been discovered in the past. These newly-discovered building materials will help the outside world understand African populations and where they live, facilitating health care services such as education or vaccination to their communities.

Google’s team of developers built a training set for their building detection model by manually labeling 1.75 million buildings in 100k images to make the most accurate identification possible, even when dealing with rural or urban environments that have vastly different properties and features. The need to identify what kind of dwelling place is being captured was especially difficult during scoping missions in remote areas where natural landmarks were plentiful. At the same time, dense surroundings made it hard to differentiate between multiple structures on an aerial image at once.

Barry Dean, CEO, LUCI — Making Power Wheelchairs Smarter

Making Power Wheelchair Technologies “Smarter” — Barry Dean, CEO, LUCI

Barry Dean is an award-winning songwriter turned smart wheelchair technology company founder.

As CEO of LUCI (https://luci.com/), a company re-imagining mobility for power wheelchairs, Barry sets the strategic vision and leads the company towards its goal of providing security, stability and connectivity for power wheelchairs. He founded the company with his brother, Jered, in 2017 with hopes of building a smarter solution for his daughter Katherine and all power wheelchair riders.

Barry has written multiple No. 1 singles including “Pontoon” (Little Big Town), “Day Drinking” (Little Big Town), ” Somebody’s Daughter” (Tenille Townes), and “Think a Little Less” (Michael Ray), along with a Top 40 hit with “Girls Chase Boys” (Ingrid Michaelson). He has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Song on Tim McGraw’s “Diamond Rings and Old Barstools.”

Barry is a founding writer at Creative Nation Music, Recording Academy (GRAMMY) Nashville Chapter Governor, and has previously served two terms as a board member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International. Prior to becoming a songwriter, he led market strategy and product development for a leading education technology company.

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Lisa Gable — Chief Executive Officer — Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE)

Improving Quality Of Life & Health, For Hundreds Of Millions Globally, Suffering Food Allergies & Intolerances — Lisa Gable, Chief Executive Officer, Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE)

Lisa Gable is the Chief Executive Officer, of Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE — https://www.foodallergy.org), an organization with a mission to improve the quality of life and the health of 85 million Americans with food allergies and food intolerances, including 32 million of those are at risk for life-threatening anaphylaxis, and to provide them hope through the promise of new treatments. To date FARE has turned over $100 million in donor gifts into ground-breaking research and has provided a voice for the community, advocating on its behalf and offering hope for a better tomorrow.

Ms. Gable has served four U.S. presidents and two governors, counseled Fortune 500 CEOs, and represented global public-private partnerships and non-profits with an end goal of moving organizations to higher levels of performance.

As the former President of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, Ms. Gable created and led a coalition of food and beverage industry corporations and public health and government agencies, resulting in the reduction of 6.4 trillion calories from the American diet.

Ms Gable was appointed the first female U.S. Commissioner General to the 2005 Aichi World EXPO, holding the personal rank of Ambassador, served as a U.S. Delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and served both in the Reagan White House and Defense Department, serving as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chief of Staff.

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Mind the gap: State-of-the-art technologies and applications for EEG-based brain–computer interfaces

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) provide bidirectional communication between the brain and output devices that translate user intent into function. Among the different brain imaging techniques used to operate BCIs, electroencephalography (EEG) constitutes the preferred method of choice, owing to its relative low cost, ease of use, high temporal resolution, and noninvasiveness. In recent years, significant progress in wearable technologies and computational intelligence has greatly enhanced the performance and capabilities of EEG-based BCIs (eBCIs) and propelled their migration out of the laboratory and into real-world environments. This rapid translation constitutes a paradigm shift in human–machine interaction that will deeply transform different industries in the near future, including healthcare and wellbeing, entertainment, security, education, and marketing. In this contribution, the state-of-the-art in wearable biosensing is reviewed, focusing on the development of novel electrode interfaces for long term and noninvasive EEG monitoring. Commercially available EEG platforms are surveyed, and a comparative analysis is presented based on the benefits and limitations they provide for eBCI development. Emerging applications in neuroscientific research and future trends related to the widespread implementation of eBCIs for medical and nonmedical uses are discussed. Finally, a commentary on the ethical, social, and legal concerns associated with this increasingly ubiquitous technology is provided, as well as general recommendations to address key issues related to mainstream consumer adoption.

Russia’s Nica: Big Bang Questions | RT Documentary

RT Documentary’s new film Russia’s NICA: Big Bang questions takes you to the Russian nuclear facility in Dubna where a collider is being built as part of the NICA mega-science project. It can recreate the beginning of the world 14 billion years ago.

This research can be used to learn how the universe was formed, according to the Big Bang theory, and the data obtained in the process will be essential to many other areas of science.
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna has been operating since Soviet times, and this is where the Synchrophasotron elementary particle accelerator was built in the 1960s. It is still functional and can be used, but it takes an excessive amount of energy. Nevertheless, it remains a monument to Soviet science and the attempts to learn about the universe.

The modern state-of-the-art collider called Nuclotron accelerates the charged particles. They fly towards each other and eventually meet. They collide at a rate of 7000 per second. This seems a lot, but drawing profound conclusions or making a discovery as big as the Higgs Boson takes months and even years of gathering statistics. The Boson was predicted by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs in 1964 and practically proved in 2012. The discovery was made on the CERN collider in Switzerland.

Besides, it is tough to observe the particles since their small size makes them indiscernible not just for the human eye but also for many devices. In this microcosm, a tiny grain of sand is equivalent to planet Earth! But once it’s done, the scientists are hoping to recreate matter formed following the Big Bang.

But the collider is not only about the past. Learning more about magnetic fields can be used in modern science and everyday life. What spectacular results the collider research yields — find out in the film!

TIMESTAMPS

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Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

A New Yorker review of “Roadrunner,” a documentary about the deceased celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, reveals that a peculiar method was used to create a voice over of an email written by Bourdain. In addition to using clips of Bourdain’s voice from various media appearances, the filmmaker says he had an “A.I. model” of Bourdain’s voice created in order to complete the effect of Bourdain ‘reading’ from his own email in the film. “If you watch the film, other than that line you mentioned, you probably don’t know what the other lines are that were spoken by the A.I., and you’re not going to know,” Neville told the reviewer, Helen Rosner. “We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later.”

On Twitter, some media observers decided to start the panel right away.

“This is unsettling,” tweeted Mark Berman, a reporter at the Washington Post, while ProPublica reporter and media manipulation expert Craig Silverman tweeted “this is not okay, especially if you don’t disclose to viewers when the AI is talking.” Indeed, “The ‘ethics panel’ is supposed to happen BEFORE they release the project,” tweeted David Friend, Entertainment reporter at The Canadian Press.

Dr Aboubacar Kampo, MD — Director of Health Programs — UNICEF — Innovation Investment For The Future

Health Innovation Investment For The Future Generations — Dr. Aboubacar Kampo, MD, MPH — Director of Health Programs — UNICEF.

Dr. Aboubacar Kampo, MD, MPH is the Director of Health Programs at UNICEF (UN Headquarters) where he provides strategic leadership, management support and overall direction to UNICEF’s global health program.

UNICEF, also known as the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, is a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide. The agency is among the most widespread and recognizable social welfare organizations in the world, with a presence in 192 countries and territories. UNICEF’s activities include providing immunizations and disease prevention, administering treatment for children and mothers with HIV, enhancing childhood and maternal nutrition, improving sanitation, promoting education, and providing emergency relief in response to disasters.

With over 20 years of experience in development aid and humanitarian assistance, Dr. Kampo has worked as a physician/surgeon in hospitals and clinics in rural and urban areas in Africa and Asia and has over 14 years’ experience in senior management position as Country Director, Senior Global Health Advisor, and Chief of Health and Nutrition with International NGOs and United Nations’ Agencies.

Dr. Kampo is a Medical Doctor and Public Health Specialist, passionate about using innovations to address real life community challenges and bridge the gap between communities and stakeholders.

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