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Artificial Intelligence

Improve throughput performance of Llama 2 models using Amazon SageMaker

AWS Machine Learning Blog We’re at an exciting inflection point in the widespread adoption of machine learning (ML), and we believe most customer experiences and applications will be reinvented with generative AI. Generative AI can create new content and ideas, including conversations, stories, images, videos, and music. Like most AI, generative AI is powered by ML models—very large models that are trained on vast amounts of data and commonly referred to as foundation models (FMs). FMs are based on transformers. Transformers are slow and memory-hungry on generating long text sequences due to the sheer size of the models. Large language models (LLMs) used to generate text sequences need immense amounts of computing power and have difficulty accessing the available high bandwidth memory (HBM) and compute capacity. This is because a large portion of the available memory bandwidth is consumed by loading the model’s parameters and by the auto-regressive decoding process.As a result, even with massive amounts of compute power, LLMs are limited by memory I/O and computation limits, preventing them from taking full advantage of the available hardware resources. Overall, generative inference of LLMs has three main challenges (according to Pope et al. 2022): A large memory footprint due to massive model parameters and transient state during decoding. The parameters often exceed the memory of a single accelerator chip. Attention key-value caches also require substantial memory. Low parallelizability increases latency, especially with the large memory footprint, requiring substantial data transfers to load parameters and caches into compute cores each step. This results in high total memory bandwidth needs to meet latency targets. Quadratic scaling of attention mechanism compute relative to sequence length compounds the latency and computational challenges. Batching is one of the techniques to address these challenges. Batching refers to the process of sending multiple input sequences together to a LLM...
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Covid-19

Gatwick cancels 82 flights due to staff shortages

BBC News - Business The airport will cancel some flights over the coming week after Covid hits air traffic controllers. Go to Source 25/09/2023 - 21:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Use of antiviral may be fuelling evolution of Covid, scientists say

Coronavirus | The Guardian Study finds evidence virus can survive treatment with molnupiravir, leading to mutated versions that sometimes spreadAn antiviral drug used to treat patients with Covid-19 may be causing mutations in the virus and fuelling the evolution of new variants, scientists have said.Molnupiravir, which is also sold under the brand name Lagevrio, is designed to mutate coronavirus to destruction, but researchers found evidence that the virus can sometimes survive the treatment, leading to mutated versions that occasionally spread to other people. Continue reading... Go to Source 25/09/2023 - 18:06 /Ian Sample Science editor Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

How organizations can cultivate compassion with leave management policies

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com Today’s workforce is laser focused on achieving better balance across their work and personal lives. This is occurring at a time when employers say attracting and retaining talent remains challenging and paramount to their overall business success. To support current and prospective talent, employers will need to create more competitive benefit offerings, enhance the overall workforce experience and find the right balance of flexibility for employees. One place to start is assessing leave management… Go to Source 25/09/2023 - 09:03 /Maria Trapenasso Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Get your flu and COVID shots at the same time, health experts urge

As autumn rolls in, health experts are giving the green light to double up on vaccinations, as getting both the flu and COVID shots can provide an added layer of defense. Go to Source 24/09/2023 - 15:02 /Katie Dangerfield Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Changes to Covid treatment system in England ‘could lead to postcode lottery’

Coronavirus | The Guardian Patients have been left confused and frustrated with no centralised system for obtaining medicinesChanges to the way Covid treatments are obtained by those most at risk from the disease could lead to a “postcode lottery” for access, experts have said, with charities warning patients have been left confused and frustrated by the new system.Previously, people eligible for Covid treatments in England were contacted by their local Covid Medicines Delivery Unit (CMDU) once they reported testing positive for the virus. Continue reading... Go to Source 24/09/2023 - 15:02 /Nicola Davis Science correspondent and Alfie Packham Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Struggling self-employed in UK would prefer salaried job security, report claims

Coronavirus | The Guardian Mental health issues and lack of faith in government support are driving desire to change statusMental distress and financial insecurity has pushed 40% of self-employed workers to say they would switch to a salaried job if they could secure the same income, according to an academic study that has tracked self-employment trends during the Covid-19 pandemic.About one in eight would accept a 20% pay cut to get out of self-employment, such is the damage done to their mental health and the expectation that government support will not be forthcoming should another crisis wreck their business. Continue reading... Go to Source 24/09/2023 - 12:04 /Phillip Inman Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

Haemonetics revenue hits record high amid global expansion

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com The company, founded in Natick in 1971, sells supplies for plasma and blood collection as well as for hospital services such as homeostasis, transfusion management and vascular closure and cell salvage products. Go to Source 22/09/2023 - 12:09 /Grant Welker Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Is this the end for Japan’s ‘Spirited Away’ Studio Ghibli?

The Straits Times Business News September 22, 2023 11:00 AMGhibli movies often come with life lessons - creators and business leaders alike might learn some from this purchase. Go to Source 22/09/2023 - 06:03 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

Federal Emergency Management Agency partners with Home Depot to help Maui residents rebuild

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending representatives to a hardware store on Maui to answer questions from residents impacted by the recent wildfires. Go to Source 22/09/2023 - 00:02 /Katie Helland Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

Building the Manager Effectiveness Indicator with insights from 60,000+ managers

15Five Your company’s success depends on the effectiveness of your managers. In early Summer of 2023 15Five announced the launch of our HR Outcomes Dashboard, giving HR leaders a way to easily measure, analyze, and act with confidence on the data that connects their performance management programs to business impact. A key driver of that data is manager effectiveness. In this article, we will highlight some of the research and development process that went into building the Manager Effectiveness Indicator (MEI) to help our customers start measuring and improving their managerial effectiveness in service of impacting their organizational performance. We compiled our findings in a research report to peel back the curtain into our research and development of the MEI. Read the full research report here Why Manager Effectiveness Matters The best HR leaders know that HR needs to shift from an administrative-only position to having a more strategic impact on their organization. Doing “HR work” is no longer good enough if it isn’t increasing employee engagement, maximizing performance, and decreasing regrettable turnover.  Unsurprisingly, this is because engagement, performance, and retention have clear connections to an organization’s business results. In fact, according to Gartner, high employee engagement correlates with higher average revenue growth, net profit margin, customer satisfaction and earnings per share. With these areas of focus in mind, the leading thinkers in HR are recognizing that effective managers are the highest leverage way to drive these outcomes. Extensive research, including countless conversations with top HR leaders over the past year, has shown that increasing manager effectiveness is consistently prioritized as a primary focus to drive business results and an organization’s most important strategic outcomes. While manager effectiveness is top of mind for so many HR leaders, understanding the current state of manager effectiveness is a much more difficult task....
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Management

Meet Houston’s fastest-growing company: Darda Management is No. 1 on 2023 Fast 50 List

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com Darda Management is Houston's fastest-growing private company, reporting a 686.96% increase in revenue from 2020 to 2022. Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 21:03 /Wyatt Loy Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Mental health among UK secondary pupils worsened sharply in pandemic, study shows

Coronavirus | The Guardian First comparative research of its kind finds those with lots of social interaction and supportive family coped betterSecondary school pupils in the UK experienced significantly higher rates of depression, social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, and overall worse mental wellbeing during the Covid pandemic, research shows.Cases of depression among secondary school pupils aged 11 to 13 rose by 8.5% during the pandemic compared with a 0.3% increase for the same cohort prior to Covid, according to a comparative study by researchers at the University of Oxford’s psychiatry department. Continue reading... Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 18:02 /Rachel Hall Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

More financing and networking support for women entrepreneurs from new programme

The Straits Times Business News September 21, 2023 10:06 PME-business training for more than 240 women entrepreneurs from small businesses to start in 2024. Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 18:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Delivery Hero in talks for partial sale of Foodpanda, with Grab a potential buyer: Report

The Straits Times Business News September 21, 2023 8:00 AMGerman business magazine said Grab could pay a little more than 1 billion euros (S$1.46 billion) for the unit. Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 03:04 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Oil prices ease 1% after Fed warns of higher rates for longer

The Straits Times Business News September 21, 2023 7:33 AMInterest rate hikes to tame inflation can slow economic growth and reduce oil demand. Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 03:04 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

School of Engineering welcomes Songyee Yoon PhD ’00 as visiting innovation scholar

MIT News - Artificial intelligence Songyee Yoon PhD ’00, an entrepreneur, innovator, investor, and leader in AI and the gaming industry, has been appointed as a School of Engineering visiting innovation scholar for the 2023-24 academic year. Yoon, who is as a member of the MIT Corporation, serves as president and chief strategic officer of NCSOFT, a world leader in game publishing and digital entertainment. Under her leadership, NCSOFT has expanded to include locations in seven countries on three continents. She played a pivotal role in founding the NCSOFT AI Center, a state-of-the-art AI research facility that has helped the company develop and integrate the latest AI and machine learning technologies into their products.    In 2021, Yoon founded Chamaeleon, an early-stage venture capital firm. As a managing partner at the firm, Yoon focuses on consumer software, content and media, and deep and frontier tech. She particularly supports entrepreneurs working at the intersection of AI, entertainment, and social platforms.    As a visiting innovation scholar, Yoon will engage in a variety of activities with faculty, students, and staff across MIT’s School of Engineering. She will provide guidance to the dean of engineering on strategic initiatives, cutting-edge programs, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the school. “I am both humbled and excited to embark on my journey as an innovation scholar, where I will champion entrepreneurship and empower female engineers to flourish within diverse career paths,” says Yoon. A central theme throughout Yoon’s career and many philanthropic pursuits has been a passion for promoting inclusivity and supporting future leaders. “As technology continues to transform our world, there is a growing need for inclusive innovation. Throughout my career, I’ve seen firsthand how amplifying all voices fosters more creativity and adds richness to building,” adds Yoon. “I am honored to help the School of Engineering...
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Covid-19

Australia news live: Albanese criticised over scope of Covid inquiry; Australia signs global treaty to protect high seas

Coronavirus | The Guardian The prime minister plans to set up three-person panel to look at response to the coronavirus pandemicGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastMore Australian home owners selling up quick but failing to make a profitNew CoreLogic data shows the portion of owners making a loss - after selling their home within two years of buying - rose to 9.7% in the June quarter, compared to 2.7% in the same period of 2022, AAP reports.We are two years on from the height of pandemic-related lockdowns, low interest rates, and have just passed the peak of transitions from low fixed rates to high variable rates.The portion of homes sold within just two years increased by one percentage point to 8.5% over the past year, however the portion of these short-term resales where the seller incurred a loss has increased more substantially. Continue reading... Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 00:01 /Jordyn Beazley Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Tapping quickly on market demand: Caterer closes 25% more sales after spotting spike in orders on banking app

The Straits Times Business News September 21, 2023 4:00 AMNot only did the OCBC Business app help boost his company's earnings during the festive season last year, it also gives him an overview of expenditure, sales and cash flow. Go to Source 21/09/2023 - 00:01 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Train and deploy ML models in a multicloud environment using Amazon SageMaker

AWS Machine Learning Blog As customers accelerate their migrations to the cloud and transform their business, some find themselves in situations where they have to manage IT operations in a multicloud environment. For example, you might have acquired a company that was already running on a different cloud provider, or you may have a workload that generates value from unique capabilities provided by AWS. Another example is independent software vendors (ISVs) that make their products and services available in different cloud platforms to benefit their end customers. Or an organization may be operating in a Region where a primary cloud provider is not available, and in order to meet the data sovereignty or data residency requirements, they can use a secondary cloud provider. In these scenarios, as you start to embrace generative AI, large language models (LLMs) and machine learning (ML) technologies as a core part of your business, you may be looking for options to take advantage of AWS AI and ML capabilities outside of AWS in a multicloud environment. For example, you may want to make use of Amazon SageMaker to build and train ML model, or use Amazon SageMaker Jumpstart to deploy pre-built foundation or third party ML models, which you can deploy at the click of a few buttons. Or you may want to take advantage of Amazon Bedrock to build and scale generative AI applications, or you can leverage AWS’ pre-trained AI services, which don’t require you to learn machine learning skills. AWS provides support for scenarios where organizations want to bring their own model to Amazon SageMaker or into Amazon SageMaker Canvas for predictions. In this post, we demonstrate one of the many options that you have to take advantage of AWS’s broadest and deepest set of AI/ML capabilities in a multicloud environment. We...
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Covid-19

Anthony Albanese expected to announce inquiry into Australia’s Covid response – reports

Coronavirus | The Guardian A three-strong panel will look into how governments responded, according to reports, but the opposition says it won’t have enough powersGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastA leading infectious diseases expert says an inquiry into the Covid pandemic must look at all aspects of governments’ responses, including factors beyond medical issues, such as decisions around lockdowns and school closures.The federal government is on Thursday expected to announce a special commission of inquiry into the Covid pandemic, the Australian Financial Review reported late on Wednesday. Continue reading... Go to Source 20/09/2023 - 15:01 /Josh Butler Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

US Fed likely to pause rate hikes and raise growth forecast

The Straits Times Business News September 20, 2023 10:43 AMThe Fed decision will be published at 2am on Thursday Singapore time, along with updated economic forecasts. Go to Source 20/09/2023 - 06:04 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Meet the 2023-24 Accenture Fellows

MIT News - Artificial intelligence The MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology has selected five new research fellows for 2023-24. Now in its third year, the initiative underscores the ways in which industry and research can collaborate to spur technological innovation. Through its partnership with the School of Engineering, Accenture provides five annual fellowships awarded to graduate students with the aim of generating powerful new insights on the convergence of business and technology with the potential to transform society. The 2023-24 fellows will conduct research in areas including artificial intelligence, sustainability, and robotics. The 2023-24 Accenture Fellows are: Yiyue Luo Yiyue Luo is a PhD candidate who is developing innovative integrations of tactile sensing and haptics, interactive sensing and AI, digital fabrication, and smart wearables. Her work takes advantage of recent advances in digital manufacturing and AI, and the convergence in advanced sensing and actuation mechanisms, scalable digital manufacturing, and emerging computational techniques, with the goal of creating novel sensing and actuation devices that revolutionize interactions between people and their environments. In past projects, Luo has developed tactile sensing apparel including socks, gloves, and vests, as well as a workflow for computationally designing and digitally fabricating soft textiles-based pneumatic actuators. With the support of an Accenture Fellowship, she will advance her work of combining sensing and actuating devices and explore the development of haptic devices that simulate tactile cues captured by tactile sensors. Her ultimate aim is to build a scalable, textile-based, closed-loop human-machine interface. Luo’s research holds exciting potential to advance ground-breaking applications for smart textiles, health care, artificial and virtual reality, human-machine interactions, and robotics. Zanele Munyikwa is a PhD candidate whose research explores foundation models, a class of models that forms the basis of transformative general-purpose technologies (GPTs) such as GPT4. An Accenture Fellowship...
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Business News

Microsoft projects two new areas of growth for gaming: Mobile and ads

US Top News and Analysis Completing the Activision Blizzard deal including King Digital Entertainment, the company behind Candy Crush, would help Microsoft gain in ads and mobile purchases. Go to Source 20/09/2023 - 00:03 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI and multi-modal agents in AWS: The key to unlocking new value in financial markets

AWS Machine Learning Blog Multi-modal data is a valuable component of the financial industry, encompassing market, economic, customer, news and social media, and risk data. Financial organizations generate, collect, and use this data to gain insights into financial operations, make better decisions, and improve performance. However, there are challenges associated with multi-modal data due to the complexity and lack of standardization in financial systems and data formats and quality, as well as the fragmented and unstructured nature of the data. Financial clients have frequently described the operational overhead of gaining financial insights from multi-modal data, which necessitates complex extraction and transformation logic, leading to bloated effort and costs. Technical challenges with multi-modal data further include the complexity of integrating and modeling different data types, the difficulty of combining data from multiple modalities (text, images, audio, video), and the need for advanced computer science skills and sophisticated analysis tools. One of the ways to handle multi-modal data that is gaining popularity is the use of multi-modal agents. Multi-modal agents are AI systems that can understand and analyze data in multiple modalities using the right tools in their toolkit. They are able to connect insights across these diverse data types to gain a more comprehensive understanding and generate appropriate responses. Multi-modal agents, in conjunction with generative AI, are finding a wide spread application in financial markets. The following are a few popular use cases: Smart reporting and market intelligence – AI can analyze various sources of financial information to generate market intelligence reports, aiding analysts, investors, and companies to stay updated on trends. Multi-modal agents can summarize lengthy financial reports quickly, saving analysts significant time and effort. Quantitative modeling and forecasting – Generative models can synthesize large volumes of financial data to train machine learning (ML) models for applications like stock price...
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Artificial Intelligence

Unlock ML insights using the Amazon SageMaker Feature Store Feature Processor

AWS Machine Learning Blog Amazon SageMaker Feature Store provides an end-to-end solution to automate feature engineering for machine learning (ML). For many ML use cases, raw data like log files, sensor readings, or transaction records need to be transformed into meaningful features that are optimized for model training. Feature quality is critical to ensure a highly accurate ML model. Transforming raw data into features using aggregation, encoding, normalization, and other operations is often needed and can require significant effort. Engineers must manually write custom data preprocessing and aggregation logic in Python or Spark for each use case. This undifferentiated heavy lifting is cumbersome, repetitive, and error-prone. The SageMaker Feature Store Feature Processor reduces this burden by automatically transforming raw data into aggregated features suitable for batch training ML models. It lets engineers provide simple data transformation functions, then handles running them at scale on Spark and managing the underlying infrastructure. This enables data scientists and data engineers to focus on the feature engineering logic rather than implementation details. In this post, we demonstrate how a car sales company can use the Feature Processor to transform raw sales transaction data into features in three steps: Local runs of data transformations. Remote runs at scale using Spark. Operationalization via pipelines. We show how SageMaker Feature Store ingests the raw data, runs feature transformations remotely using Spark, and loads the resulting aggregated features into a feature group. These engineered features are can then be used to train ML models. For this use case, we see how SageMaker Feature Store helps convert the raw car sales data into structured features. These features are subsequently used to gain insights like: Average and maximum price of red convertibles from 2010 Models with best mileage vs. price Sales trends of new vs. used cars over the years...
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Covid-19

Prolonged grief disorder more common in Covid lockdown bereaved, study finds

Coronavirus | The Guardian Social isolation and loneliness in early bereavement, and lack of social support, are strong contributorsPeople bereaved during the first two waves of the Covid pandemic are three times more likely to have prolonged grief disorder (PGD), which can leave them lonely and in intense emotional pain, research from Cardiff and Bristol universities has revealed.The disorder, also known as complicated grief, can result in persistent longing for the deceased, intense emotional pain including guilt and denial, and trouble engaging with friends and planning for the future, all of which goes on for longer than six months. Continue reading... Go to Source 19/09/2023 - 21:05 /Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

What Torchy’s CEO Mike Rypka has learned in 17 years making ‘Trailer Park’ tacos

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com For Founder and CEO Mike Rypka, one of the best parts of growing Torchy's Tacos to 115 locations has been creating new opportunities for longtime employees to grow their careers. "I really wanted to provide opportunities for my people. So obviously, the more we grow, the more opportunities there are for folks within the organization to move up and have a damn good career," he said. Torchy's, which does business as Success Foods Management Group LLC, hopes to grow at about 120 restaurants by the… Go to Source 19/09/2023 - 06:03 /Will Anderson Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

How Korean fishermen almost stopped S’pore firm from building their first offshore wind farm

The Straits Times Business News September 19, 2023 4:00 AMThis company has successfully finished the project and is working with EnterpriseSG to scale its business. Go to Source 19/09/2023 - 00:08 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

MIT scholars awarded seed grants to probe the social implications of generative AI

MIT News - Artificial intelligence In July, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Provost Cynthia Barnhart issued a call for papers to “articulate effective roadmaps, policy recommendations, and calls for action across the broad domain of generative AI.” Over the next month, they received an influx of responses from every school at MIT proposing to explore generative AI’s potential applications and impact across areas ranging from climate and the environment to education, health care, companionship, music, and literature. Now, 27 proposals have been selected to receive exploratory funding. Co-authored by interdisciplinary teams of faculty and researchers affiliated with all five of the Institute’s schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, the proposals represent a sweeping array of perspectives for exploring the transformative potential of generative AI, in both positive and negative directions for society. “In the past year, generative AI has captured the public imagination and raised countless questions about how this rapidly advancing technology will affect our world,” Kornbluth says. “This summer, to help shed light on those questions, we offered our faculty seed grants for the most promising ‘impact papers’ — basically, proposals to pursue intensive research on some aspect of how generative AI will shape people’s life and work. I’m thrilled to report that we received 75 proposals in short order, across an enormous spectrum of fields and very often from interdisciplinary teams. With the seed grants now awarded, I cannot wait to see how our faculty expand our understanding and illuminate the potential impacts of generative AI.” Each selected research group will receive between $50,000 and $70,000 to create 10-page impact papers that will be due by Dec. 15. Those papers will be shared widely via a publication venue managed and hosted by the MIT Press and the MIT Libraries. The papers were reviewed by a...
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Management

The Challenges of Virtual Teams and 10 Ways to Solve Them

15Five Employers are waking up to the benefits of remote work and non-traditional workplace structures. But to lead effectively, a few critical challenges of managing virtual teams should be addressed before issues escalate and business performance suffers.  Not sure if it’s worth learning the challenges of virtual, remote, or hybrid teams? Are you convinced employees will eventually return to the office? Think again.  Only 6% of over 8,000 workers surveyed by Gallup said they want to return to the office full-time. A huge 99% of workers like aspects of working from home that include no commute, better focus, and improved family connection on the list of benefits. 87% of workers offered at least some remote work options would take the opportunity. Let’s look at how leaders can mitigate the challenges of virtual teams and explore actionable solutions that keep employees engaged and meeting performance expectations. Lack of In-Person Connection Humans are social creatures, and remote work can contribute to feelings of loneliness—even before the COVID-19 pandemic. When employees feel like they’re not the best version of themselves, performance suffers.  Building team relationships for remote employees is a challenge. How do you connect virtual teams with different priorities and communication styles in different time zones? It’s not as simple as inviting everyone for a team meal or holiday party. Solutions 1. Organize team retreats Hold virtual team retreats or workshops to provide teams with an opportunity to discuss work and form deeper connections. For example, creator marketing platform ConvertKit holds bi-annual team retreats where their fully remote workforce collaborates and connects in person.  2. Budget for in-person events Look for work-oriented opportunities for groups to meet up and spend time together. For example, is there an industry conference a whole team could practically attend? Or is there an opportunity for the...
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Artificial Intelligence

Multi-AI collaboration helps reasoning and factual accuracy in large language models

MIT News - Artificial intelligence An age-old adage, often introduced to us during our formative years, is designed to nudge us beyond our self-centered, nascent minds: "Two heads are better than one." This proverb encourages collaborative thinking and highlights the potency of shared intellect. Fast forward to 2023, and we find that this wisdom holds true even in the realm of artificial intelligence: Multiple language models, working in harmony, are better than one.  Recently, a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) embodied this ancient wisdom within the frontier of modern technology. They introduced a strategy that leverages multiple AI systems to discuss and argue with each other to converge on a best-possible answer to a given question. This method empowers these expansive language models to heighten their adherence to factual data and refine their decision-making.  The crux of the problem with large language models (LLMs) lies in the inconsistency of their generated responses, leading to potential inaccuracies and flawed reasoning. This new approach lets each agent actively assess every other agent’s responses, and uses this collective feedback to refine its own answer. In technical terms, the process consists of multiple rounds of response generation and critique. Each language model generates an answer to the given question, and then incorporates the feedback from all other agents to update its own response. This iterative cycle culminates in a final output from a majority vote across the models' solutions. It somewhat mirrors the dynamics of a group discussion — where individuals contribute to reach a unified and well-reasoned conclusion. One real strength of the approach lies in its seamless application to existing black-box models. As the methodology revolves around generating text, it can also be implemented across various LLMs without needing access to their internal workings. This simplicity, the team...
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Covid-19

Officials discussed raising Boris Johnson concerns to Queen

BBC News - Home Government officials raised fears about the former PM's conduct in the pandemic to Buckingham Palace. Go to Source 18/09/2023 - 09:14 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Singtel to sell 20% stake in regional data-centre business to KKR for up to $1.1 billion

The Straits Times Business News September 18, 2023 8:15 AMSINGAPORE – A giant American private equity group will commit up to $1.1 billion for a 20 per cent stake in Singtel’s regional data centre business. Go to Source 18/09/2023 - 03:06 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Markets dance to the tune of news and data

The Straits Times Business News September 18, 2023 5:00 AMSINGAPORE – The market danced to the tune of a slew of key data and news releases, which included United States retail sales, business inventories, producer price index (PPI) and inflation data. Go to Source 18/09/2023 - 00:06 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Nature is vital to business. Can a new cornerstone guide help CEOs see the light?

The Straits Times Business News September 18, 2023 5:00 AMWith the support of governments, the framework aims to put nature front and centre for businesses for the first time. Go to Source 18/09/2023 - 00:06 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Industry has questions to answer on Russell Brand – Cleverly

BBC News - Home Comedian Russell Brand has denied sexual assault allegations, with scrutiny also on the TV business. Go to Source 17/09/2023 - 15:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Qatar Airways chief says Australia’s decision to block flights ‘very unfair’ after pandemic support

Coronavirus | The Guardian Akbar Al Baker says request for more flights into Australia was ‘legitimate’ at a time the airline was ‘so supportive of Australia’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastQatar Airways says the Australian government’s decision to block its request for extra flights was “very unfair” given the airline’s support for Australians during the pandemic.The airline’s bid to fly an extra 21 services into Australia’s major airports was rejected with ministers citing a range of reasons including it being contrary to the national interest. Continue reading... Go to Source 17/09/2023 - 06:03 /Henry Belot Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Fed unlikely to raise rates in November, says Goldman Sachs

The Straits Times Business News September 17, 2023 5:07 AMIt forecasts that the US central bank will lift its economic growth projections. Go to Source 17/09/2023 - 00:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

AI-driven tool makes it easy to personalize 3D-printable models

MIT News - Artificial intelligence As 3D printers have become cheaper and more widely accessible, a rapidly growing community of novice makers are fabricating their own objects. To do this, many of these amateur artisans access free, open-source repositories of user-generated 3D models that they download and fabricate on their 3D printer. But adding custom design elements to these models poses a steep challenge for many makers, since it requires the use of complex and expensive computer-aided design (CAD) software, and is especially difficult if the original representation of the model is not available online. Plus, even if a user is able to add personalized elements to an object, ensuring those customizations don’t hurt the object’s functionality requires an additional level of domain expertise that many novice makers lack. To help makers overcome these challenges, MIT researchers developed a generative-AI-driven tool that enables the user to add custom design elements to 3D models without compromising the functionality of the fabricated objects. A designer could utilize this tool, called Style2Fab, to personalize 3D models of objects using only natural language prompts to describe their desired design. The user could then fabricate the objects with a 3D printer. “For someone with less experience, the essential problem they faced has been: Now that they have downloaded a model, as soon as they want to make any changes to it, they are at a loss and don’t know what to do. Style2Fab would make it very easy to stylize and print a 3D model, but also experiment and learn while doing it,” says Faraz Faruqi, a computer science graduate student and lead author of a paper introducing Style2Fab. Style2Fab is driven by deep-learning algorithms that automatically partition the model into aesthetic and functional segments, streamlining the design process. In addition to empowering novice designers...
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Business News

Start-ups create innovative solutions in sustainability and healthcare

The Straits Times Business News September 15, 2023 4:26 PMLee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition drew 1,000 entries from 77 countries. Go to Source 15/09/2023 - 12:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Arm is trading at a premium to Nvidia after IPO pop even though it’s a ‘no-growth company’

US Top News and Analysis With a valuation of about $68 billion, Arm's price-to-earnings multiple after its first day of trading is higher than Nvidia's. Go to Source 15/09/2023 - 06:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

What Torchy’s boss Mike Rypka has learned in 17 years making Trailer Park tacos

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com For founder and CEO Mike Rypka, one of the best parts of growing Torchy's Tacos to 115 locations has been creating new opportunities for longtime employees to grow their careers. "I really wanted to provide opportunities for my people. So obviously, the more we grow, the more opportunities there are for folks within the organization to move up and have a damn good career," he said. Torchy's, which does business as Success Foods Management Group LLC, just a few weeks ago opened its 20th restaurant… Go to Source 15/09/2023 - 00:04 /Will Anderson Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

What Torchy’s boss Mike Rypka has learned in 17 years making trailer park tacos

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com For founder and CEO Mike Rypka, one of the best parts of growing Torchy's Tacos to 115 locations has been creating new opportunities for longtime employees to grow their careers. "I really wanted to provide opportunities for my people. So obviously, the more we grow, the more opportunities there are for folks within the organization to move up and have a damn good career," he said. Torchy's, which does business as Success Foods Management Group LLC, just a few weeks ago opened its 20th restaurant… Go to Source 15/09/2023 - 00:04 /Will Anderson Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Fine-tune Falcon 7B and other LLMs on Amazon SageMaker with @remote decorator

AWS Machine Learning Blog Today, generative AI models cover a variety of tasks from text summarization, Q&A, and image and video generation. To improve the quality of output, approaches like n-short learning, Prompt engineering, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and fine tuning are used. Fine-tuning allows you to adjust these generative AI models to achieve improved performance on your domain-specific tasks. With Amazon SageMaker, now you can run a SageMaker training job simply by annotating your Python code with @remote decorator. The SageMaker Python SDK automatically translates your existing workspace environment, and any associated data processing code and datasets, into an SageMaker training job that runs on the training platform. This has the advantage of writing the code in a more natural, object-oriented way, and still uses SageMaker capabilities to run training jobs on a remote cluster with minimal changes. In this post, we showcase how to fine-tune a Falcon-7B Foundation Models (FM) using @remote decorator from SageMaker Python SDK. It also uses Hugging Face’s parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) library and quantization techniques through bitsandbytes to support fine-tuning. The code presented in this blog can also be used to fine-tune other FMs, such as Llama-2 13b. The full precision representations of this model might have challenges to fit into memory on a single or even several Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) — or may even need a bigger instance. Hence, in order to fine-tune this model without increasing cost, we use the technique known as Quantized LLMs with Low-Rank Adapters (QLoRA). QLoRA is an efficient fine-tuning approach that reduces memory usage of LLMs while maintaining very good performance. Advantages of using @remote decorator Before going further, let’s understand how remote decorator improves developer productivity while working with SageMaker: @remote decorator triggers a training job directly using native python code, without the explicit invocation...
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Artificial Intelligence

Simplify access to internal information using Retrieval Augmented Generation and LangChain Agents

AWS Machine Learning Blog This post takes you through the most common challenges that customers face when searching internal documents, and gives you concrete guidance on how AWS services can be used to create a generative AI conversational bot that makes internal information more useful. Unstructured data accounts for 80% of all the data found within organizations, consisting of repositories of manuals, PDFs, FAQs, emails, and other documents that grows daily. Businesses today rely on continuously growing repositories of internal information, and problems arise when the amount of unstructured data becomes unmanageable. Often, users find themselves reading and checking many different internal sources to find the answers they need. Internal question and answer forums can help users get highly specific answers but also require longer wait times. In the case of company-specific internal FAQs, long wait times result in lower employee productivity. Question and answer forums are difficult to scale as they rely on manually written answers. With generative AI, there is currently a paradigm shift in how users search and find information. The next logical step is to use generative AI to condense large documents into smaller bite sized information for easier user consumption. Instead of spending a long time reading text or waiting for answers, users can generate summaries in real-time based on multiple existing repositories of internal information. Solution overview The solution allows customers to retrieve curated responses to questions asked about internal documents by using a transformer model to generate answers to questions about data that it has not been trained on, a technique known as zero-shot prompting. By adopting this solution, customers can gain the following benefits: Find accurate answers to questions based on existing sources of internal documents Reduce the time users spend searching for answers by using Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide...
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Covid-19

UK taxpayers left footing bill as number of fraudulent Covid loans soars

Coronavirus | The Guardian Figures show that lenders flagged nearly £1.7bn of government-backed loans for potential fraud at end of JuneUK taxpayers have been forced to cover a larger bill for Covid support to companies than expected, after fresh government data showed the amount of pandemic business loans flagged for fraud had jumped by 43%.Figures released by the Department for Business and Trade showed that high street banks and other private lenders – which were responsible for distributing government-backed loans during the Covid crisis – had flagged nearly £1.7bn worth of loans for potential fraud at the end of June. That marks a 43% rise from the £1.1bn flagged three months earlier. Continue reading... Go to Source 14/09/2023 - 21:03 /Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

A pose-mapping technique could remotely evaluate patients with cerebral palsy

MIT News - Artificial intelligence It can be a hassle to get to the doctor’s office. And the task can be especially challenging for parents of children with motor disorders such as cerebral palsy, as a clinician must evaluate the child in person on a regular basis, often for an hour at a time. Making it to these frequent evaluations can be expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally taxing. MIT engineers hope to alleviate some of that stress with a new method that remotely evaluates patients’ motor function. By combining computer vision and machine-learning techniques, the method analyzes videos of patients in real-time and computes a clinical score of motor function based on certain patterns of poses that it detects in video frames. The researchers tested the method on videos of more than 1,000 children with cerebral palsy. They found the method could process each video and assign a clinical score that matched with over 70 percent accuracy what a clinician had previously determined during an in-person visit. The video analysis can be run on a range of mobile devices. The team envisions that patients can be evaluated on their progress simply by setting up their phone or tablet to take a video as they move about their own home. They could then load the video into a program that would quickly analyze the video frames and assign a clinical score, or level of progress. The video and the score could then be sent to a doctor for review. The team is now tailoring the approach to evaluate children with metachromatic leukodystrophy — a rare genetic disorder that affects the central and peripheral nervous system. They also hope to adapt the method to assess patients who have experienced a stroke. “We want to reduce a little of patients’ stress by not having...
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Artificial Intelligence

How an archeological approach can help leverage biased data in AI to improve medicine

MIT News - Artificial intelligence The classic computer science adage “garbage in, garbage out” lacks nuance when it comes to understanding biased medical data, argue computer science and bioethics professors from MIT, Johns Hopkins University, and the Alan Turing Institute in a new opinion piece published in a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The rising popularity of artificial intelligence has brought increased scrutiny to the matter of biased AI models resulting in algorithmic discrimination, which the White House Office of Science and Technology identified as a key issue in their recent Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.  When encountering biased data, particularly for AI models used in medical settings, the typical response is to either collect more data from underrepresented groups or generate synthetic data making up for missing parts to ensure that the model performs equally well across an array of patient populations. But the authors argue that this technical approach should be augmented with a sociotechnical perspective that takes both historical and current social factors into account. By doing so, researchers can be more effective in addressing bias in public health.  “The three of us had been discussing the ways in which we often treat issues with data from a machine learning perspective as irritations that need to be managed with a technical solution,” recalls co-author Marzyeh Ghassemi, an assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer science and an affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic), the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Institute of Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). “We had used analogies of data as an artifact that gives a partial view of past practices, or a cracked mirror holding up a reflection. In both cases the information is perhaps not...
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Management

10 Reasons to Attend 15Five’s Thrive ‘23 Conference in Denver

15Five Are you ready to Thrive?  The 15Five team is thrilled to bring strategic HR professionals and industry thought leaders together once again for Thrive 2023.  This year’s immersive, action-packed conference is happening November 6-8 in beautiful Denver, Colorado. Grab your team and get ready for an unforgettable experience of community-building, learning, and inspiration.  Not sure if Thrive’s the right conference for you? Here are 10 reasons to get registered (and excited!) for this year’s event. 1. Get inspired by strategic HR success stories We love a good success story—that’s why the Thrive calendar will be full of inspiring, outcome-driven customer stories (20+ hours worth!).  Hear from 15Five customers who have overcome struggles, found new strategies that make an impact, and are building engaging workplaces where employees can do their best work. 2. Experience Denver at the beautiful Grand Hyatt  Between the great content and the Denver altitude, you’ll be feeling on top of the world at Thrive ‘23! This year’s event will be held in the stunning Grand Hyatt Denver, in the heart of downtown.  Located just one block from the 16th Street Mall and minutes from Coors Field and the Broncos stadium, the Grand Hyatt puts you in a prime location to enjoy all the Mile High City has to offer.  3. Be among the first to know what’s new at 15Five  Our Thrive keynotes are absolutely jam-packed this year. You’ll hear from Jennie Yang, VP of People at 15Five, on why connecting the work of HR to quantifiable business impact does not have to come at the cost of building the human-centered workplace of your dreams. You’ll also hear from Dr. Jeff Smith, Head of Product at 15Five, on the shift to strategic HR and what this for HR leaders moving forward. We’ll also be unveiling 15Five’s...
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Covid-19

Two passengers with Covid on board cruise ship grounded off Greenland

Coronavirus | The Guardian Pair in isolation with virus, other passengers have been told, as Ocean Explorer remains stuck in Alpefjord national parkGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastTwo people on board a cruise ship run aground in Greenland’s Alpefjord national park have Covid-19, according to an Australian passenger on board, but everybody remained in “good spirits”.The Australian-operated Ocean Explorer, which is carrying 206 passengers and crew, ran aground while touring the national park on Monday, around 1,400km north-east of Greenland’s capital Nuuk. Continue reading... Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 18:04 /Jordyn Beazley Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

Genes to Mental Health Network Open Session Meeting

NIMH News Feed During the annual meeting, this open session will feature research progress presentations from the Genes to Mental Health Network (G2MH) investigators. Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 09:03 /National Institute of Mental Health Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Helping computer vision and language models understand what they see

MIT News - Artificial intelligence Powerful machine-learning algorithms known as vision and language models, which learn to match text with images, have shown remarkable results when asked to generate captions or summarize videos. While these models excel at identifying objects, they often struggle to understand concepts, like object attributes or the arrangement of items in a scene. For instance, a vision and language model might recognize the cup and table in an image, but fail to grasp that the cup is sitting on the table. Researchers from MIT, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and elsewhere have demonstrated a new technique that utilizes computer-generated data to help vision and language models overcome this shortcoming. The researchers created a synthetic dataset of images that depict a wide range of scenarios, object arrangements, and human actions, coupled with detailed text descriptions. They used this annotated dataset to “fix” vision and language models so they can learn concepts more effectively. Their technique ensures these models can still make accurate predictions when they see real images. When they tested models on concept understanding, the researchers found that their technique boosted accuracy by up to 10 percent. This could improve systems that automatically caption videos or enhance models that provide natural language answers to questions about images, with applications in fields like e-commerce or health care. “With this work, we are going beyond nouns in the sense that we are going beyond just the names of objects to more of the semantic concept of an object and everything around it. Our idea was that, when a machine-learning model sees objects in many different arrangements, it will have a better idea of how arrangement matters in a scene,” says Khaled Shehada, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and co-author of a...
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Artificial Intelligence

A. Michael West: Advancing human-robot interactions in health care

MIT News - Artificial intelligence An accomplished MIT student researcher in health care robotics, with many scholarship and fellowship awards to his name, A. Michael West is nonchalant about how he chose his path. “I kind of fell into it,” the mechanical engineering PhD candidate says, adding that growing up in suburban California, he was social, athletic — and good at math. “I had the classic choice: You can be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.” Having witnessed his mother’s grueling residency when she was training to be a doctor, and feeling like he didn’t enjoy reading and writing enough to be a lawyer, “That left engineer,” he says. Luckily, he enjoyed physics in high school because, he says, “it gave meaning to the numbers we were learning in mathematics,” and later on, his major in mechanical engineering at Yale University agreed with him. “I definitely stuck with it,” West says. “I liked what I was learning.” As a rising senior at Yale, West was selected to participate in the MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP). The program identifies talented undergraduates to spend a summer on MIT’s campus, conducting research with the mentorship of MIT faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to prepare program participants for graduate study. For West, MSRP was an education in what “exactly grad school was, especially what it would be like at MIT.” It was also, and most importantly, a source of validation that West could succeed in the higher levels of academia. “It gave me the confidence to apply to top grad schools, to know that I could actually contribute here and be successful,” West says. “It very much gave me the confidence to walk into a room and approach people who obviously know way more than I do about certain topics.” With MSRP, West...
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Psychology

What is a psychotic break?

PsycPORT™: Psychology Newswire Symptoms such as frightening hallucinations, paranoia, and sudden behavioral changes may signal a psychotic break. Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 06:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

How parents can support kids' mental health as school year begins

PsycPORT™: Psychology Newswire Tips for parents to help their children adapt to emotional challenges and support their mental health. Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 06:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

How to teach kids to befriend a child with a disability

PsycPORT™: Psychology Newswire The disability may be a part of a child’s identity, but it’s not the only thing that defines them. Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 06:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

Could you be dissociating and not even know it?

PsycPORT™: Psychology Newswire Healthy dissociation is your brain’s way of taking a break from triggers like stress or boredom. Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 06:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

The mental health toll of sorority rush

PsycPORT™: Psychology Newswire Study shows participating in recruitment, regardless of the outcome, leads to significant increases in anxiety. Go to Source 13/09/2023 - 06:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Amazon SageMaker simplifies the Amazon SageMaker Studio setup for individual users

AWS Machine Learning Blog Today, we are excited to announce the simplified Quick setup experience in Amazon SageMaker. With this new capability, individual users can launch Amazon SageMaker Studio with default presets in minutes. SageMaker Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for machine learning (ML). ML practitioners can perform all ML development steps—from preparing their data to building, training, and deploying ML models—within a single, integrated visual interface. You also get access to a large collection of models and pre-built solutions that you can deploy with a few clicks. To use SageMaker Studio or other personal apps such as Amazon SageMaker Canvas, or to collaborate in shared spaces, AWS customers need to first set up a SageMaker domain. A SageMaker domain consists of an associated Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) volume, a list of authorized users, and a variety of security, application, policy, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) configurations. When a user is onboarded to a SageMaker domain, they are assigned a user profile that they can use to launch their apps. User authentication can be via AWS IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS Single Sign-On) or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). Setting up a SageMaker domain and associated user profiles requires understanding the concepts of IAM roles, domains, authentication, and VPCs, and going through a number of configuration steps. To complete these configuration steps, data scientists and developers typically work with their IT admin teams who provision SageMaker Studio and set up the right guardrails. Customers told us that the onboarding process can sometimes be time consuming, delaying data scientists and ML teams from getting started with SageMaker Studio. We listened and simplified the onboarding experience! Introducing the simplified Quick Studio setup The new Quick Studio setup experience for SageMaker provides a new onboarding...
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Management

When Frontline Workers Feel Unsafe at Work How Can HR Take Action?

15Five You may have noticed an uptick in news reports and social media posts lately about workers being yelled at, threatened, or even physically assaulted on the job—you may even know someone who has experienced this firsthand. That’s because these incidents are on the rise, and many frontline workers face increased risk to their physical safety and mental health.  Cultural, economic, and political factors have all contributed to a sharp increase in aggression against workers since the pandemic. Employees in industries such as retail, food service, hospitality, healthcare, and travel have come face-to-face with increasingly agitated and confrontational customers.  Increased safety concerns on the frontlines When we talk about workplace safety, we typically think about jobs that involve some level of inherent danger, like construction, certain manufacturing jobs, emergency services, etc. But today, many jobs that weren’t historically considered unsafe now come with added risk. (Even performers have come under fire—literally—as their so-called “fans” hurl objects at them onstage.) Because of the increase in threats against their employees, some companies have taken drastic steps to protect workers from potential harm. For example, Target recently reported that employees were facing threats over LGBTQ+ Pride merchandise in their stores, leading them to pull some items that had caused “significant confrontational behavior” from their shelves.  According to a 2023 Workplace Safety Survey by Verkada, 58% of frontline workers feel their risk of physical harm on the job is rising, and the majority of healthcare and retail workers fear being subject to “erratic or aggressive behavior.” “Retail workers, like everybody else, are living in a highly volatile and politicized environment right now,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union recently told the Washington Post. “They’re seen too often as being invisible and disposable and not as people who should be...
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Artificial Intelligence

AI model speeds up high-resolution computer vision

MIT News - Artificial intelligence An autonomous vehicle must rapidly and accurately recognize objects that it encounters, from an idling delivery truck parked at the corner to a cyclist whizzing toward an approaching intersection. To do this, the vehicle might use a powerful computer vision model to categorize every pixel in a high-resolution image of this scene, so it doesn’t lose sight of objects that might be obscured in a lower-quality image. But this task, known as semantic segmentation, is complex and requires a huge amount of computation when the image has high resolution. Researchers from MIT, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and elsewhere have developed a more efficient computer vision model that vastly reduces the computational complexity of this task. Their model can perform semantic segmentation accurately in real-time on a device with limited hardware resources, such as the on-board computers that enable an autonomous vehicle to make split-second decisions. Recent state-of-the-art semantic segmentation models directly learn the interaction between each pair of pixels in an image, so their calculations grow quadratically as image resolution increases. Because of this, while these models are accurate, they are too slow to process high-resolution images in real time on an edge device like a sensor or mobile phone. The MIT researchers designed a new building block for semantic segmentation models that achieves the same abilities as these state-of-the-art models, but with only linear computational complexity and hardware-efficient operations. The result is a new model series for high-resolution computer vision that performs up to nine times faster than prior models when deployed on a mobile device. Importantly, this new model series exhibited the same or better accuracy than these alternatives. Not only could this technique be used to help autonomous vehicles make decisions in real-time, it could also improve the efficiency of other...
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Artificial Intelligence

Falcon 180B foundation model from TII is now available via Amazon SageMaker JumpStart

AWS Machine Learning Blog Today, we are excited to announce that the Falcon 180B foundation model developed by Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is available for customers through Amazon SageMaker JumpStart to deploy with one-click for running inference. With a 180-billion-parameter size and trained on a massive 3.5-trillion-token dataset, Falcon 180B is the largest and one of the most performant models with openly accessible weights. You can try out this model with SageMaker JumpStart, a machine learning (ML) hub that provides access to algorithms, models, and ML solutions so you can quickly get started with ML. In this post, we walk through how to discover and deploy the Falcon 180B model via SageMaker JumpStart. What is Falcon 180B Falcon 180B is a model released by TII that follows previous releases in the Falcon family. It’s a scaled-up version of Falcon 40B, and it uses multi-query attention for better scalability. It’s an auto-regressive language model that uses an optimized transformer architecture. It was trained on 3.5 trillion tokens of data, primarily consisting of web data from RefinedWeb (approximately 85%). The model has two versions: 180B and 180B-Chat. 180B is a raw, pre-trained model, which should be further fine-tuned for most use cases. 180B-Chat is better suited to taking generic instructions. The Chat model has been fine-tuned on chat and instructions datasets together with several large-scale conversational datasets. The model is made available under the Falcon-180B TII License and Acceptable Use Policy. Falcon 180B was trained by TII on Amazon SageMaker, on a cluster of approximately 4K A100 GPUs. It used a custom distributed training codebase named Gigatron, which uses 3D parallelism with ZeRO, and custom, high-performance Triton kernels. The distributed training architecture used Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) as the sole unified service for data loading and checkpoint writing and reading,...
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Covid-19

FDA approves new Covid boosters as cases rise around US

Coronavirus | The Guardian Moderna and Pfizer shots approved with vaccinations potentially beginning as soon as this weekThe US has approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising cases of coronavirus around the country, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Monday.The FDA said it had approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which can be administered even to people who never previously received a Covid-19 vaccination. Continue reading... Go to Source 12/09/2023 - 00:03 /Adam Gabbatt Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Oracle comes up short on revenue but touts AI cloud contracts

US Top News and Analysis Larry Ellison pointed to a doubling in the amount of money that artificial-intelligence development companies have agreed to spend on Oracle cloud services Go to Source 12/09/2023 - 00:03 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

System combines light and electrons to unlock faster, greener computing

MIT News - Artificial intelligence Computing is at an inflection point. Moore’s Law, which predicts that the number of transistors on an electronic chip will double each year, is slowing down due to the physical limits of fitting more transistors on affordable microchips. These increases in computer power are slowing down as the demand grows for high-performance computers that can support increasingly complex artificial intelligence models. This inconvenience has led engineers to explore new methods for expanding the computational capabilities of their machines, but a solution remains unclear. Photonic computing is one potential remedy for the growing computational demands of machine-learning models. Instead of using transistors and wires, these systems utilize photons (microscopic light particles) to perform computation operations in the analog domain. Lasers produce these small bundles of energy, which move at the speed of light like a spaceship flying at warp speed in a science fiction movie. When photonic computing cores are added to programmable accelerators like a network interface card (NIC, and its augmented counterpart, SmartNICs), the resulting hardware can be plugged in to turbocharge a standard computer. MIT researchers have now harnessed the potential of photonics to accelerate modern computing by demonstrating its capabilities in machine learning. Dubbed “Lightning,” their photonic-electronic reconfigurable SmartNIC helps deep neural networks — machine-learning models that imitate how brains process information — to complete inference tasks like image recognition and language generation in chatbots such as ChatGPT. The prototype’s novel design enables impressive speeds, creating the first photonic computing system to serve real-time machine-learning inference requests. Despite its potential, a major challenge in implementing photonic computing devices is that they are passive, meaning they lack the memory or instructions to control dataflows, unlike their electronic counterparts. Previous photonic computing systems faced this bottleneck, but Lightning removes this obstacle to ensure data movement between...
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Covid-19

Campaigners back Kate Garraway over Derek Draper’s essential care needs

Coronavirus | The Guardian TV presenter says she is ‘battling the system’ to get support for her husband, who has been severely ill since getting Covid in 2020Social care campaigners have backed TV presenter Kate Garraway after she revealed she is “battling the system” to secure essential care for her severely ill husband, Derek Draper.The Good Morning Britain presenter said at the weekend that she fears her husband could lose the support he needs, and that she is getting just four hours sleep a night. Continue reading... Go to Source 11/09/2023 - 18:08 /Robert Booth Social affairs editor Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Veteran banker Elizabeth Sam who was known as ‘Ms MAS’ dies at age 84

The Straits Times Business News September 11, 2023 9:25 PMShe played a key role in Singapore’s growth as a financial centre. Go to Source 11/09/2023 - 18:08 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Shares of Alibaba tumble over 3% after outgoing CEO unexpectedly quits cloud business

US Top News and Analysis The move comes just months after announcing a June announcement that Zhang was departing as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group to focus on the cloud intelligence unit. Go to Source 11/09/2023 - 06:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Making life friendlier with personal robots

MIT News - Artificial intelligence “As a child, I wished for a robot that would explain others’ emotions to me” says Sharifa Alghowinem, a research scientist in the Media Lab’s Personal Robots Group (PRG). Growing up in Saudi Arabia, Alghowinem says she dreamed of coming to MIT one day to develop Arabic-based technologies, and of creating a robot that could help herself and others navigate a complex world. In her early life, Alghowinem faced difficulties with understanding social cues and never scored well on standardized tests, but her dreams carried her through. She earned an undergraduate degree in computing before leaving home to pursue graduate education in Australia. At the Australian National University, she discovered affective computing for the first time and began working to help AI detect human emotions and moods, but it wasn’t until she came to MIT as a postdoc with the Ibn Khaldun Fellowship for Saudi Arabian Women, which is housed in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, that she was finally able to work on a technology with the potential to explain others’ emotions in English and Arabic. Today, she says her work is so fun that she calls the lab “my playground.”  Alghowinem can’t say no to an exciting project. She found one with great potential to make robots more helpful to people by working with Jibo, a friendly robot companion developed by the founder of the Personal Robots Group (PRG) and the social robot startup Jibo Inc., MIT Professor and Dean for Digital Learning Cynthia Breazeal. Breazeal's research explores the potential for companion robots to go far beyond assistants who obey transactional commands, like requests for the daily weather, adding items to shopping lists, or controlling lighting. At the MIT Media Lab, the PRG team designs Jibo to make him an insightful coach...
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Covid-19

DeSantis backs Florida surgeon general in urging residents against new vaccines

Coronavirus | The Guardian Democrats say deaths will follow false claim by Dr Joseph Ladapo that new boosters were not tested on humansCovid-19 deaths are inevitable in Florida, Democrats are warning, after rightwing Republican governor Ron DeSantis joined the state’s controversial surgeon general in urging residents to ignore public health advice and avoid new vaccines targeting a resurgence of the virus.The extraordinary advice came at a feisty press conference in Jacksonville this week that was also marred by an unseemly shouting match between DeSantis, a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, and a Black Air Force veteran. Continue reading... Go to Source 09/09/2023 - 15:02 /Richard Luscombe in Miami Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

How more homeless encampments in Ontario signal a housing crisis out of control

Experts say the growth of homeless encampments in Ontario wasn't caused by the pandemic, but COVID did accelerate already existing trends. Go to Source 09/09/2023 - 12:02 /Don Mitchell Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

AI pilot programs look to reduce energy use and emissions on MIT campus

MIT News - Artificial intelligence Smart thermostats have changed the way many people heat and cool their homes by using machine learning to respond to occupancy patterns and preferences, resulting in a lower energy draw. This technology — which can collect and synthesize data — generally focuses on single-dwelling use, but what if this type of artificial intelligence could dynamically manage the heating and cooling of an entire campus? That’s the idea behind a cross-departmental effort working to reduce campus energy use through AI building controls that respond in real-time to internal and external factors.  Understanding the challenge Heating and cooling can be an energy challenge for campuses like MIT, where existing building management systems (BMS) can’t respond quickly to internal factors like occupancy fluctuations or external factors such as forecast weather or the carbon intensity of the grid. This results in using more energy than needed to heat and cool spaces, often to sub-optimal levels. By engaging AI, researchers have begun to establish a framework to understand and predict optimal temperature set points (the temperature at which a thermostat has been set to maintain) at the individual room level and take into consideration a host of factors, allowing the existing systems to heat and cool more efficiently, all without manual intervention.  “It’s not that different from what folks are doing in houses,” explains Les Norford, a professor of architecture at MIT, whose work in energy studies, controls, and ventilation connected him with the effort. “Except we have to think about things like how long a classroom may be used in a day, weather predictions, time needed to heat and cool a room, the effect of the heat from the sun coming in the window, and how the classroom next door might impact all of this.” These factors are at...
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Artificial Intelligence

Improving asset health and grid resilience using machine learning

AWS Machine Learning Blog This post is co-written with Travis Bronson, and Brian L Wilkerson from Duke Energy Machine learning (ML) is transforming every industry, process, and business, but the path to success is not always straightforward. In this blog post, we demonstrate how Duke Energy, a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, NC., collaborated with the AWS Machine Learning Solutions Lab (MLSL) to use computer vision to automate the inspection of wooden utility poles and help prevent power outages, property damage and even injuries. The electric grid is made up of poles, lines and power plants to generate and deliver electricity to millions of homes and businesses. These utility poles are critical infrastructure components and subject to various environmental factors such as wind, rain and snow, which can cause wear and tear on assets. It’s critical that utility poles are regularly inspected and maintained to prevent failures that can lead to power outages, property damage and even injuries. Most power utility companies, including Duke Energy, use manual visual inspection of utility poles to identifyanomalies related to their transmission and distribution network. But this method can be costlyand time-consuming, and it requires that power transmission lineworkers follow rigorous safety protocols. Duke Energy has used artificial intelligence in the past to create efficiencies in day-to-day operations to great success. The company has used AI to inspect generation assets and critical infrastructure and has been exploring opportunities to apply AI to the inspection of utility poles as well. Over the course of the AWS Machine Learning Solutions Lab engagement with Duke Energy, the utility progressed its work to automate the detection of anomalies in wood poles using advanced computer vision techniques. Goals and use case The goal of this engagement between Duke Energy and the Machine Learning Solutions Lab is to leverage machine...
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Covid-19

UK MPs press for wider Covid vaccine access amid concern over new variant

Coronavirus | The Guardian Government faces calls to consider extending booster programme this autumn to include 50-64 age groupMinisters are facing urgent calls to consider widening the availability of Covid vaccines amid concerns that a new variant of the virus could put pressure on the NHS and cause more sickness in the workforce this winter.As new data appeared to show the Pirola variant spreading, Rishi Sunak and Steve Barclay, the health secretary, were urged to rethink their decision to restrict vaccines to people aged 65 and over and vulnerable groups. Continue reading... Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 21:02 /Rowena Mason, Andrew Gregory and Denis Campbell Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Apartment rents are on the verge of declining due to massive new supply

US Top News and Analysis A year ago, rents were posting 11% annual growth. Now they look like they're about to go negative year over year. Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 21:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

Performance Evaluations: Your Key to Supercharge Employee Growth

15Five Your palms are sweaty. Your stomach is in knots. You can’t stop pacing, and it’s tricky to focus.We’ve all been there. That’s performance evaluation dread. And sometimes, it doesn’t quite go away until the end of your appraisal. Whether you’re an HR director, senior manager, or first-time leader learning the ropes, performance evaluations can be anxiety-inducing. But they don’t have to be.  In this article, we’ll explore what a performance evaluation is (and isn’t), provide insights on performance evaluation challenges, and share how to hold effective performance appraisals that stimulate employee growth and development. What is Performance Evaluation? Performance evaluation is the process of assessing how individual employees contribute to organizational goals and objectives.  The purpose of holding a performance evaluation is to gain insight into employees’ effectiveness in performing their roles and responsibilities while analyzing how these impact the business’s overall success. This is done by sharing constructive feedback, short-term and long-term goal setting, delivering employee recognition, identifying development opportunities, and fostering open, collaborative communication.  An integral part of performance management, performance evaluations are sometimes known as an appraisal or a performance review.  Performance Evaluation vs. Performance Management The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, so let’s explain.  Performance management is the ongoing, holistic development of employees to improve performance, productivity, and growth. For example, ongoing developmental feedback, collaborative goal-setting, and regular one-to-ones.  Performance evaluation is one component of effective performance management.  Think of performance management as the whole pie and performance evaluation as a slice. 4 Benefits of Effective Performance Evaluation Performance evaluations are a crucial driver of business success and have the potential to positively impact employee engagement and development. When conducted thoughtfully and consistently (we recommend once or twice a year), they also contribute to building a culture of accountability and transparency. Here’s what else:...
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Management

5 Use Cases for Machine Learning in HR

15Five As the HR industry continues to evolve from a primarily administrative field to a strategic one, modern people teams need more advanced technologies to aid their work. Machine learning offers the potential to transform people operations to become more efficient, data-driven, and hyper-personalized.  While it may seem counterintuitive to rely more heavily on technology in the field of human resources, machine learning has the potential to enable HR departments to spend more time on the humanity of their work, while automating some processes that currently monopolize their time.  In this article, we’ll share some HR applications for machine learning that can help you save time, improve efficiency, and enable more strategic, people-centric work. What is machine learning? The term “machine learning” refers to self-learning algorithms that use data and statistical models to find patterns and make predictions. Unlike technologies programmed to perform specific actions, machine learning algorithms are trained on huge datasets they can “learn” from and recommend actions based on the patterns they detect. Ideally, the more data points they’re exposed to over time, the more accurate their predictions become. Most of us interact with machine learning applications every day. For example, if you’re on Instagram, every time you scroll through your feed, the platform’s machine learning algorithm is learning more about your interests based on the content you engage with. Ever notice how you keep coming across products you like or funny memes that are oh-so-relatable? That’s no coincidence—your feed is literally serving up content curated just for you.  From customer service chatbots to predictive text on your phone to your Netflix recommendations, if you regularly use technology, you’re probably interacting with machine learning. The difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a broad category, and machine learning is one of the technologies...
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Covid-19

NHS to begin autumn Covid jabs next week as new variant spreads

Coronavirus | The Guardian Pirola variant has prompted concern among scientists because of high number of mutations it carriesCare home residents and people who are housebound will be offered Covid vaccines from Monday, with over-65s and other vulnerable groups to be called for their jabs from the week after.The NHS will kick off its autumn programme of Covid vaccines from next week, having moved the date forward by a month in response to the spread of a new variant nicknamed Pirola. Continue reading... Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 18:03 /Rowena Mason and Hannah Devlin Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Covid-19

Latest Covid variant spreading in UK, health data suggests

Coronavirus | The Guardian BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola, causing concern among scientists because of fear it could be more transmissibleThe latest Covid-19 variant, BA.2.86, appears to be spreading in the UK, health surveillance data suggests.The variant, nicknamed Pirola, has prompted concern among scientists because of the high number of mutations it carries, which raises the possibility that it could evade the immune system more easily or be more transmissible. Continue reading... Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 15:02 /Hannah Devlin Science correspondent Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

These are the red flags that can spark turnover and the green flags that can prevent it

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com As employers shift their focus from recruitment to retention, they may want to take a closer look at their management styles. That's one takeaway from Monster.com’s Workplace Red Flags survey, which explored pain points in the workplace that could result in turnover. In the report, 73% of workers said micromanagement is the biggest workplace red flag. The analysis comes at a time when many managers are facing a significant amount of pressure — due in large part to staffing challenges, new… Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 15:02 /Marq Burnett Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

TikTok’s new Amazon copycat is full of cheap Chinese goods

The Straits Times Business News September 08, 2023 12:57 PMTikTok’s Shop marketplace, its biggest bet for new revenue growth, has gone live for some users in the US. Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 09:03 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

Office for Disparities Research and Workforce Diversity Webinar Series: Engaging Community Stakeholders to Reduce Mental Health Inequities in the Hispanic Community

NIMH News Feed This webinar will explore the significance of involving community stakeholders in developing culturally responsive interventions, the need for implementation science to improve health care uptake in the Hispanic community, and the importance of bridging the gap between implementation science and health disparities research to reduce health inequities. Go to Source 08/09/2023 - 09:03 /National Institute of Mental Health Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Jackson Jewett wants to design buildings that use less concrete

MIT News - Artificial intelligence After three years leading biking tours through U.S. National Parks, Jackson Jewett decided it was time for a change. “It was a lot of fun, but I realized I missed buildings,” says Jewett. “I really wanted to be a part of that industry, learn more about it, and reconnect with my roots in the built environment.” Jewett grew up in California in what he describes as a “very creative household.” “I remember making very elaborate Halloween costumes with my parents, making fun dioramas for school projects, and building forts in the backyard, that kind of thing,” Jewett explains. Both of his parents have backgrounds in design; his mother studied art in college and his father is a practicing architect. From a young age, Jewett was interested in following in his father’s footsteps. But when he arrived at the University of California at Berkeley in the midst of the 2009 housing crash, it didn’t seem like the right time. Jewett graduated with a degree in cognitive science and a minor in history of architecture. And even as he led tours through Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and other parks, buildings were in the back of his mind. It wasn’t just the built environment that Jewett was missing. He also longed for the rigor and structure of an academic environment. Jewett arrived at MIT in 2017, initially only planning on completing the master’s program in civil and environmental engineering. It was then that he first met Josephine Carstensen, a newly hired lecturer in the department. Jewett was interested in Carstensen’s work on “topology optimization,” which uses algorithms to design structures that can achieve their performance requirements while using only a limited amount of material. He was particularly interested in applying this approach to concrete design, and he collaborated...
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Artificial Intelligence

Best practices and design patterns for building machine learning workflows with Amazon SageMaker Pipelines

AWS Machine Learning Blog Amazon SageMaker Pipelines is a fully managed AWS service for building and orchestrating machine learning (ML) workflows. SageMaker Pipelines offers ML application developers the ability to orchestrate different steps of the ML workflow, including data loading, data transformation, training, tuning, and deployment. You can use SageMaker Pipelines to orchestrate ML jobs in SageMaker, and its integration with the larger AWS ecosystem also allows you to use resources like AWS Lambda functions, Amazon EMR jobs, and more. This enables you to build a customized and reproducible pipeline for specific requirements in your ML workflows. In this post, we provide some best practices to maximize the value of SageMaker Pipelines and make the development experience seamless. We also discuss some common design scenarios and patterns when building SageMaker Pipelines and provide examples for addressing them. Best practices for SageMaker Pipelines In this section, we discuss some best practices that can be followed while designing workflows using SageMaker Pipelines. Adopting them can improve the development process and streamline the operational management of SageMaker Pipelines. Use Pipeline Session for lazy loading of the pipeline Pipeline Session enables lazy initialization of pipeline resources (the jobs are not started until pipeline runtime). The PipelineSession context inherits the SageMaker Session and implements convenient methods for interacting with other SageMaker entities and resources, such as training jobs, endpoints, input datasets in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and so on. When defining SageMaker Pipelines, you should use PipelineSession over the regular SageMaker Session: from sagemaker.workflow.pipeline_context import PipelineSession from sagemaker.sklearn.processing import SKLearnProcessor role = sagemaker.get_execution_role() pipeline_session = PipelineSession() sklearn_processor = SKLearnProcessor( framework_version=’0.20.0’, instance_type=’ml.m5.xlarge’, instance_count=1, base_job_name="sklearn-abalone-process", role=role, sagemaker_session=pipeline_session, ) Run pipelines in local mode for cost-effective and quick iterations during development You can run a pipeline in local mode using the LocalPipelineSession context. In this mode,...
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Business News

30 companies, 6 business leaders honoured at 18th Singapore Corporate Awards

The Straits Times Business News September 07, 2023 10:30 PMThe companies were lauded for their work in corporate governance and sustaining shareholder returns. Go to Source 07/09/2023 - 18:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Management

Cleaning out the closet is critical for a family business

Human Resources News - Human Resources News Headlines | Bizjournals.com Ownership and management succession in a family business is a process, not an event, and the process is made up of several interrelated steps. Go to Source 07/09/2023 - 18:02 /James Lea Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Malaysia maintains 3% key rate as growth and inflation ease

The Straits Times Business News September 07, 2023 8:16 PMThis is the third time the Monetary Policy Committee’ has decided to keep theovernight policy rate (OPR) at 3 per cent, after hiking the rate by 25 basis points in May this year. Go to Source 07/09/2023 - 15:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Talent Management

Top 8 companies for hiring Python developers in 2024: Hire Remote Python Developers

Everyone's Blog Posts - RecruitingBlogs Python has become one of the most popular programming languages globally, thanks to its simplicity, versatility, and efficiency. Over the past years, the language has seen a surge in popularity, with increased adoption in various industries such as data science, machine learning, and web development. In recent years, Python has witnessed significant growth in areas such as artificial intelligence, automation, and cloud computing. In the coming years, Python is expected to continue its growth trajectory, driven by the increasing demand for data-driven solutions and the rise of emerging technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications. Large enterprises and businesses can benefit significantly from hiring Python developers. Python developers can help businesses in areas such as data analysis, automation, and web development, enabling them to improve their processes, increase efficiency, and reduce operational costs. Furthermore, Python developers can also assist businesses in developing custom solutions tailored to their specific needs, providing them with a competitive edge in the market. So, here is a list of top companies for hiring Python developers in 2024 remotely with the detailed insights. BorderlessMind: BorderlessMind is a global IT outsourcing company that offers remote hiring services for Python developers. They provide cost-effective and efficient solutions to meet clients' business requirements. The company possesses a vast talent pool of highly skilled and experienced Python developers who are proficient in using the latest technologies and frameworks. They provide customized hiring models that cater to the clients' specific needs, ensuring seamless communication and transparency throughout the project development cycle. With their expertise, clients can reduce their overhead costs and enhance their business efficiency. Year Established: 1999 Headquarter: Noida India | Dallas TX, United States Approx. Employees Strength: 201-500 employees Website:  https://www.borderlessmind.com/ LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/borderlessmind Facebook:...
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Psychology

The Center for Global Mental Health Research Webinar Series 2023: Real-World Opportunities and Challenges: Using NIMH’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Framework in Global Mental Health Research

NIMH News Feed This webinar will discuss the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative and its potential to inform (and be informed by) global mental health research. Go to Source 07/09/2023 - 09:11 /National Institute of Mental Health Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

WeWork to renegotiate nearly all leases, exit ‘unfit’ sites

The Straits Times Business News September 07, 2023 7:45 AMWeWork warned in August that there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in business. Go to Source 07/09/2023 - 03:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

US economic growth continues, fuelled by dwindling savings, says Fed

The Straits Times Business News September 07, 2023 4:47 AMConsumers dipped into rapidly diminishing savings to finance tourism spending. Go to Source 07/09/2023 - 00:05 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Build a secure enterprise application with Generative AI and RAG using Amazon SageMaker JumpStart

AWS Machine Learning Blog Generative AI is a type of AI that can create new content and ideas, including conversations, stories, images, videos, and music. It’s powered by large language models (LLMs) that are pre-trained on vast amounts of data and commonly referred to as foundation models (FMs). With the advent of these LLMs or FMs, customers can simply build Generative AI based applications for advertising, knowledge management, and customer support. Realizing the impact of these applications can provide enhanced insights to the customers and positively impact the performance efficiency in the organization, with easy information retrieval and automating certain time-consuming tasks. With generative AI on AWS, you can reinvent your applications, create entirely new customer experiences, and improve overall productivity. In this post, we build a secure enterprise application using AWS Amplify that invokes an Amazon SageMaker JumpStart foundation model, Amazon SageMaker endpoints, and Amazon OpenSearch Service to explain how to create text-to-text or text-to-image and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). You can use this post as a reference to build secure enterprise applications in the Generative AI domain using AWS services. Solution overview This solution uses SageMaker JumpStart models to deploy text-to-text, text-to-image, and text embeddings models as SageMaker endpoints. These SageMaker endpoints are consumed in the Amplify React application through Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda functions. To protect the application and APIs from inadvertent access, Amazon Cognito is integrated into Amplify React, API Gateway, and Lambda functions. SageMaker endpoints and Lambda are deployed in a private VPC, so the communication from API Gateway to Lambda functions is protected using API Gateway VPC links. The following workflow diagram illustrates this solution. The workflow includes the following steps: Initial Setup: SageMaker JumpStart FMs are deployed as SageMaker endpoints, with three endpoints created from SageMaker JumpStart models. The text-to-image model...
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Artificial Intelligence

Intelligently search Adobe Experience Manager content using Amazon Kendra

AWS Machine Learning Blog Amazon Kendra is an intelligent search service powered by machine learning (ML). With Amazon Kendra, you can easily aggregate content from a variety of content repositories into an index that lets you quickly search all your enterprise data and find the most accurate answer. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a content management system that’s used for creating website or mobile app content. Many organizations use Adobe Experience Manager (On-Premise) or Adobe Experience Manager (Cloud Service) as their content management platform. Enterprise users need to be able to search for accurate answers easily and securely across content from multiple data sources in the enterprise, including AEM, from content such as assets and pages. Amazon Kendra customers can now use the Amazon Kendra AEM connector to index pages and assets from AEM. Amazon Kendra supports AEM as a Cloud Service author instances and AEM On-Premise author and publish instances. You can index AEM content and filter the types of content you want to index with the Amazon Kendra AEM On-Premise or Cloud Service connector, and search your data from AEM with Amazon Kendra intelligent search. This post shows you how to configure the Amazon Kendra AEM connector to index your content and search your AEM assets and pages. The connector also ingests the access control list (ACL) information for each document. The ACL information is used to show search results filtered by what a user has access to. Solution overview In our solution, we configure AEM as a data source for an Amazon Kendra search index using the Amazon Kendra AEM connector. Based on the configuration, when the data source is synchronized, the connector crawls and indexes all the content from AEM that was created on or before a specific date. The connector also indexes the Access Control...
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Business News

CDL sees opportunities for more overseas expansion as it marks 60 years in business

The Straits Times Business News September 06, 2023 9:47 PMSINGAPORE - Property giant City Developments Limited (CDL) has marked its 60th anniversary by unveiling plans to expand its portfolio of homes, offices and hotels to include new asset classes and to tackle more overseas markets. Go to Source 06/09/2023 - 18:01 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Psychology

Facebook Live: Youth Suicide Prevention

NIMH News Feed In recognition of National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in September, NIMH is hosting a Facebook Live event on youth suicide prevention. Go to Source 06/09/2023 - 09:06 /National Institute of Mental Health Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Australia’s Q2 economy posts modest growth, eases recession fears

The Straits Times Business News September 06, 2023 10:59 AMData from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed real GDP rose 0.4 per cent in the second quarter. Go to Source 06/09/2023 - 06:04 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Business News

Foreign firms speeding up growth plans in Singapore and Asean: HSBC survey

The Straits Times Business News September 06, 2023 5:00 AMA skilled workforce and developed infrastructure were among the top reasons cited for S'pore's attractiveness. Go to Source 06/09/2023 - 00:02 / Twitter: @hoffeldtcom
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Artificial Intelligence

Build a generative AI-based content moderation solution on Amazon SageMaker JumpStart

AWS Machine Learning Blog Content moderation plays a pivotal role in maintaining online safety and upholding the values and standards of websites and social media platforms. Its significance is underscored by the protection it provides users from exposure to inappropriate content, safeguarding their well-being in digital spaces. For example, in the advertising industry, content moderation serves to shield brands from unfavorable associations, thereby contributing to brand elevation and revenue growth. Advertisers prioritize their brand’s alignment with appropriate content to uphold their reputation and avert negative publicity. Content moderation also assumes critical importance in the finance and healthcare sectors, where it serves multiple functions. It plays an important role in identifying and safeguarding sensitive personal identifiable and health information (PII, PHI). By adhering to internal standards and practices and complying with external regulations, content moderation enhances digital security for users. This way, it prevents the inadvertent sharing of confidential data on public platforms, ensuring the preservation of user privacy and data security. In this post, we introduce a novel method to perform content moderation on image data with multi-modal pre-training and a large language model (LLM). With multi-modal pre-training, we can directly query the image content based on a set of questions of interest and the model will be able to answer these questions. This enables users to chat with the image to confirm if it contains any inappropriate content that violates the organization’s policies. We use the powerful generating capability of LLMs to generate the final decision including safe/unsafe labels and category type. In addition, by designing a prompt, we can make an LLM generate the defined output format, such as JSON format. The designed prompt template allows the LLM to determine if the image violates the moderation policy, identify the category of violation, explain why, and provide the output...
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Artificial Intelligence

Optimize deployment cost of Amazon SageMaker JumpStart foundation models with Amazon SageMaker asynchronous endpoints

AWS Machine Learning Blog The success of generative AI applications across a wide range of industries has attracted the attention and interest of companies worldwide who are looking to reproduce and surpass the achievements of competitors or solve new and exciting use cases. These customers are looking into foundation models, such as TII Falcon, Stable Diffusion XL, or OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, as the engines that power the generative AI innovation. Foundation models are a class of generative AI models that are capable of understanding and generating human-like content, thanks to the vast amounts of unstructured data they have been trained on. These models have revolutionized various computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including image generation, translation, and question answering. They serve as the building blocks for many AI applications and have become a crucial component in the development of advanced intelligent systems. However, the deployment of foundation models can come with significant challenges, particularly in terms of cost and resource requirements. These models are known for their size, often ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of parameters. Their large size demands extensive computational resources, including powerful hardware and significant memory capacity. In fact, deploying foundation models usually requires at least one (often more) GPUs to handle the computational load efficiently. For example, the TII Falcon-40B Instruct model requires at least an ml.g5.12xlarge instance to be loaded into memory successfully, but performs best with bigger instances. As a result, the return on investment (ROI) of deploying and maintaining these models can be too low to prove business value, especially during development cycles or for spiky workloads. This is due to the running costs of having GPU-powered instances for long sessions, potentially 24/7. Earlier this year, we announced Amazon Bedrock, a serverless API to access foundation models from Amazon...
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