Interesting
Reads – 2019-02-16
Contents
Articles
- AI: unravel the research, fulfill the potential
- Russia considers 'unplugging' from internet
- The Secret History of Women in Coding
- This neuroscientist is fighting sexual harassment in science—but her own job is in peril
- Saudi Arabia runs a huge, sinister online database of women that men use to track them and stop them from running away
- LipPass Authenticates Users Based On the Way They Move Their Mouths
- World Quality Report 2018-19
- Toilet talk: meeting one of the world’s grand challenges with innovation
- Top Retractions of 2018
- We didn’t see this coming: Our 2019 Annual Letter by Bill & Melinda Gates
- Bonus: These are the 20 most congested cities in the world
Events /
Announcements
- CSI, IEEE CS, TEMS, WIE & HCC: Release of the book “The 99 Day Diversity Challenge” and Presentation on “Inclusion begins at home” on 22nd Feb 2019 at Chennai
- Dept. of LIS, Madras Univ: ‘Repair, Restore, Rebuild & Rejuvenate Library Resources’ - A Workshop on Conservation Techniques on 22 & 23 February 2019
- SETS, IEEE CS, CSI, ISACA: "National Workshop on Hardware Security" at Chennai 26th Feb 2019
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Mohan
========================================================
Articles
AI:
unravel the research, fulfill the potential
Millions
of hours have been spent researching AI. But how do we manage the knowledge -
and use it to exploit opportunity?
Artificial
intelligence is a topic that dominates global research. But the rapid rate of
development has led to fragmentation and disorder.
Knowledge
is siloed, terminology is inconsistent-and a clear overview is difficult to
find. Until now.
Our
comprehensive report - Artificial Intelligence: How knowledge is created,
transferred, and used - is the first of its kind. With consultation from many
of the world's leading AI experts and based on the very latest data and
insights from conferences, pre-print articles, social media and Scopus, it is a
meticulously constructed and comprehensive guide that explains the terminology
and brings a refreshing clarity to the global research picture. It helps anyone
involved in AI research to make the most of the fast growing bank of knowledge
available today.
The
world of AI research clarified and explained.
Russia considers
'unplugging' from internet
Russia is considering whether to
disconnect from the global internet briefly, as part of a test of its
cyber-defences.
The test will mean data passing between
Russian citizens and organisations stays inside the nation rather than being
routed internationally.
A draft law mandating technical changes
needed to operate independently was introduced to its parliament last year.
The Secret
History of Women in Coding
Computer
programming once had much better gender balance than it does today. What went
wrong?
Related
Story : The Women Who Contributed to Science but Were Buried in Footnotes
This
neuroscientist is fighting sexual harassment in science—but her own job is in
peril
BethAnn
McLaughlin has no time for James Watson, especially not when the 90-year-old
geneticist is peering out from a photo on the wall of her guest room at Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Banbury Center.
“I
don’t need him staring at me when I’m trying to go to sleep,” McLaughlin told a
December 2018 gathering at the storied New York meeting center as she projected
a photo of her redecorating job: She had hung a washcloth over the image of
Watson, who co-discovered DNA’s structure, directed the lab for decades—and is
well-known for racist and sexist statements.
Saudi Arabia runs a huge, sinister online database of women that men
use to track them and stop them from running away
- Saudi law says every woman must have a male guardian, who has enormous power over her life and travel.
- The Saudi government has digitized parts of the guardian system, letting Saudi men manage women's lives online.
- INSIDER spoke with Shahad al-Mohaimeed, a refugee who navigated this system to flee her family in 2017.
- Guardians can specify when and from which airports women can travel, effectively trapping them in Saudi Arabia.
- The system includes a text-messaging system that alerts men when women use their passports. They are often able to catch them as a result.
Related
Story: Apple and Google accused of helping 'enforce gender apartheid' by
hosting Saudi government app that tracks women and stops them leaving the
country
LipPass Authenticates Users Based On the Way They
Move Their Mouths
Just like in a classic spy movie, someone could
potentially bypass the fingerprint or voiceprint security measures on your
phone by using fingerprint film or a recording of your voice. But fear not—your
deepest, darkest secrets could someday be less vulnerable to hackers, thanks to
a novel user verification technique for phones that relies not on a biological
factor, but a behavioral one.
The new platform, LipPass, deciphers the subtle yet
distinct differences in how a user’s mouth moves when they speak with 90.2
percent accuracy, and detects spoofers with 93.1 percent accuracy.
Related
Story: Hey, Siri: Read My Lips
World Quality Report 2018-19
Learn what is top of mind for QA and testing for IT
leaders just like you. The latest edition of the World Quality Report 2018-19
(WQR) analyzes responses from 1700 people in 32 countries, across ten different
sectors, and discusses the trends shaping QA and testing today, along with
recommendations for addressing tomorrow’s challenges. One of the key findings
of the report is that for the first time, end user satisfaction is now a top
priority for QA and testing.
Download the report and discover the latest trends
in:
- Customer-centered innovation
- Growth of Artificial Intelligence
- Adoption of Internet of Things
- Emergence of Blockchain
- Heightened focus on security
Toilet
talk: meeting one of the world’s grand challenges with innovation
How
is it possible that 2.4 billion people lack access to improved sanitation
facilities in 2015? While many westerners use their bathroom time as “me time,”
40% of the world’s population may be pooping outdoors, in an unsanitary
latrine, or in a plastic bag and launching flying toilets to dispose of their
waste. The environmental impact of the worldwide sanitation situation cannot be
underestimated. Not only do the unsanitary conditions and noxious odors of many
latrines pose a health hazard for fecal-transmitted diseases, but in many cases
the fecal matter ends up in the environment, untreated.
How
can we achieve safe sanitation? One way is through innovation. (Bit dated story
but worth reading)
Related
Story: World Toilet Day: Kibera slum seeks to ground 'flying toilets'
Top
Retractions of 2018
Santa
makes lists and so do we, only ours usually is just of those who have been
naughty. And the Retraction Watch leaderboard includes some pretty dodgy
characters. The top spot in the lineup still belongs (and perhaps always will)
to Yoshitaka Fujii with 183 retractions, and it now takes at least 21
retractions to crack the Top 30, with a tie at that slot. For those who won’t
settle for anything less than the Top 10, 41 papers is the minimum.
This
fall we officially launched our database of retractions, a resource for
scientists, journalists, and anyone else interested in publishing mishaps and
research misconduct—and anyone who wants to know whether they’re about to cite
a retracted paper without knowing it. Here are some of the year’s top
retraction stories, in no particular order:
Related Post: Predatory
Publishing
We didn’t see this coming:
Our 2019 Annual Letter by Bill & Melinda Gates
How would you describe 2018?
Was it what you expected?
We’d probably say no. From especially devastating
natural disasters on the one hand to record numbers of women campaigning for
office on the other, 2018 felt to us like a series of surprises. The world
looking backward from today is very different from what we pictured a couple
years ago looking forward.
In this year’s annual letter, we’re highlighting
nine more things that have surprised us along this journey. Some worry us.
Others inspire us. All of them are prodding us to action. We hope they do the
same for you, because that’s how the world gets better.
A benefit of surprises is that they’re often a prod
to action. It can gnaw at people to realize that the realities of the world
don’t match their expectations for it. Some surprises help people see that the
status quo needs to change. Some surprises underscore that transformation is happening
already.
Twenty-five years ago, we read an article that said
hundreds of thousands of kids in poor countries were dying from diarrhea. That
surprise helped crystallize our values. We believe in a world where innovation
is for everyone—where no child dies from a disease it’s possible to prevent.
But what we saw was a world still shaped by inequity.
That discovery was one of the most important steps
in our journey to philanthropy. We were surprised, then we were outraged, then
we were activated.
There have been good surprises, too. When we first
started learning about malaria, we thought the world would never make real
headway on the disease until someone invented a long-acting vaccine. But thanks
to bed nets and other measures, malaria deaths are down 42 percent since 2000.
Bonus: These are the 20 most congested cities in the world
The transportation data firm INRIX Research released
recently its annual rankings of the most congested cities in the world. The
company measured the amount of time lost per capita in 2018 due to the
difference between traffic at the busiest and least busy commuting times each
day. Cities were ranked based on delays caused by congestion, adjusted for each
city's population. Moscow was named the most congested city in the world for
the second year in a row, and Europe had more cities in the top-20 than any
other continent.
Events /
Announcements
CSI, IEEE CS,
TEMS, WIE & HCC: Release of the book “The 99 Day Diversity Challenge” and
Presentation on “Inclusion begins at home” on 22nd Feb 2019 at Chennai
CSI,
IEEE CS, TEMS, WIE & HCC cordially
invite you for the release of the book “The 99 Day Diversity Challenge --
Creating an Inclusive Workplace” by Mr.
Umasanker Kandaswamy, COO & Joint
Director, Bruhat Insights Global and the presentation by Dr. Saundarya Rajesh,
Social Entrepreneur, Founder & President, AVTAR Group & Author of the
book “The 99 Day Diversity Challenge” on “Inclusion begins at home” on Friday,
22nd Feb 2019 at 6.00 p.m. at The Seminar Hall, CSI Education Directorate,
Taramani, Chennai – 600113
The
formal pdf invite is at
and
also at
To
facilitate logistics, please pre-register at
Dept. of LIS,
Madras Univ: ‘Repair, Restore, Rebuild & Rejuvenate Library Resources’ - A
Workshop on Conservation Techniques on
22 & 23 Feb 2019
The
Department of Library & Information Science, University of Madras is
organising -
‘Repair,
Restore, Rebuild & Rejuvenate Library Resources’ - A Workshop on
Conservation Techniques on 22 & 23
February 2019.
For
further details and registration, please visit
SETS, IEEE CS, CSI, ISACA: "National Workshop
on Hardware Security" at Chennai 26th Feb 2019
SETS (Society for Electronic
Transactions and Security) is organizing
"National Workshop on Hardware Security" in association with IEEE
Computer Society, Madras Chapter, Computer Society of India, Chennai Chapter
& ISACA, Chennai Chapter on 26th February 2019.
For
assistance pl. contact: Dr. P. Nageswara Rao, Workshop Coordinator
Mobile:
9884143131 -- Landline: 044-66632506
Email:
workshop@setsindia.net
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Feedback
We
will be pleased to have your feedback on the “Interesting Reads” posts being
sent once in five days.
Pl.
share the links of any interesting things you come across so that we can
include them in these email posts.
Also,
pl. share the email ids of your colleagues, friends, peers and contacts, if you
want them to be included in the google group to get regular posts.
Pl.
send all your communications to hrmohan.ieee@gmail.com
With
regards
HR
Mohan
