HPC data centers on energy consumption

   
More than half of respondents were motivated by the idea of wanting to do more with less: Expand computing capabilities with lower power. As the number of AI/ML/HPDA workloads performed on HPC systems continues to increase, the drive to expand computing capabilities comes up against the required energy costs. 33% say they encounter prohibitive energy costs, pointing to a more acute issue.

   
Strategic Importance (top500)

   

  World energy investment

   
The report provides a global benchmark for tracking capital flows in the energy sector and examines how investors are assessing risks and opportunities across all areas of fuel and electricity supply, critical minerals, efficiency, research and development and energy finance.

   
2023 IEA report

   

  Auto-indus: Chinese challenge to EU

   
Having recognized the potential of electric vehicles 15 years ago, China has since invested vast resources in building a competitive electric vehicle ecosystem. As a result, it now leads the global EV landscape, selling over double the number of BEVs in 2022 compared to Europe and the US combined, while also holding a competitive edge in nearly all aspects of the BEV value chain.

   
What can policymakers do? (allianz)

   

  Building better batteries

   br> Some promising battery concepts have been stuck at the research phase for half a century, but they may not languish in labs for much longer. Sparked by the nascent multi-sector electrification boom, an intense effort is now underway to bring high-performance battery technologies into real world use. One hotspot area of research is on batteries suited to grid scale electrical energy storage. Another driver is the demand for electric cars.

   
The next generation of battery (chemistryworld)

   

  COVID-19 in Europe

   
Impacts of COVID-19 are likely to continue in the coming years if more efforts are not made to decrease the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 and mitigate its impact on public health. Options are readily available to reduce the burden of SARS-CoV-2 and other endemic respiratory pathogens. We thus question the current high level of political and societal complacency towards COVID-19 in Europe.

   
No time for complacency (thelancet)

   

   
Here, we analyze the 1972 largest global lakes using three decades of satellite observations, climate data, and hydrologic models, finding statistically significant storage declines for 53% of these water bodies over the period 1992–2020. The net volume loss in natural lakes is largely attributable to climate warming, increasing evaporative demand, and human water consumption.

   
Satellite monitoring revelation (science)

   

   
Changing PA from lower to higher levels might be associated with a higher pain tolerance than an equally large change going from higher to lower PA. This might indicate that it is not only the total PA amount that matters but also the direction of change. These results might suggest increasing PA levels as a possible non-pharmacological pathway towards reducing or preventing chronic pain.

   
Longitudinal relationships (plos one)

   

  Data compression drives the internet

   
With more than 9 billion gigabytes of information traveling the internet every day, researchers are constantly looking for new ways to compress data into smaller packages. Cutting-edge techniques focus on lossy approaches, which achieve compression by intentionally “losing” information from a transmission. Google, for instance, recently unveiled a lossy strategy.

   
How It Works?? (quantamagazine)

   

  Deep sea habitats with mining activities

   
We present The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) Checklist, a biodiversity inventory of benthic metazoa vital to future assessments of environmental impacts. An estimated 92% of species identified from the CCZ are new to science. This is likely to be an overestimate owing to synonyms in the data but is supported by analysis of recent taxonomic studies suggesting that 88% of species sampled in the region are undescribed.

   
Metazoan species live (current biology)

   

   
Challenges in high-resolution human imaging, such as subtle motion and the presence of bone or gas, have limited such acquisition. These issues can be addressed with a large transducer aperture and fast acquisition and processing. Programmable, ultrafast ultrasound scanners with a high channel count provide an unprecedented opportunity to optimize volumetric acquisition.

   
High-resolution 3D mapping of tissue compartments (science)

   

  A metaverse that works

   
Real business value in the metaverse is already emerging, with companies making investments, staking claims, and introducing products. Creating digital twins for factories, designing virtual bank branches, expanding the reach of marquee cultural events—these are just a few of the ways work is getting done in the metaverse.

   
Finding real-world value in virtual reality (pwc)

   

   
The Arctic sea routes in the future cannot be ruled out, however, and this does hold potential for conflict in that the legal status of the Northwest and Northeast Passages in particular is disputed. The divisions here run along rather unusual lines: while Canada and Russia take the view that the routes along their respective land masses pass through waters inside their territory, the US, the EU and China regard the passages as international sea routes.

   
Between conflict & coopertaion (kas)

   

   
Whether working remotely in an entirely different country or an office setting amongst a team, database developers can leverage the features of collaboration tools to stay on the same page, increase efficiency, share ideas, provide feedback, and more. This guide features some of the best collaboration tools for database developers so you can enjoy similar benefits.

   
Best collaboration tools (developer)

   

  German' twisted fusion machine

   
Proxima Fusion raised €‎7mn in funding to build a device known as a stellarator, a little-known fusion reactor that could hold the key to unlocking the potential of atom-fusing power within our lifetime. While the initial funding round was small, it is noteworthy because the startup is the first spinout from Germany’s esteemed Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

   
Scientific breakthroughs (thenextweb)

   

  Artificial intelligence regulation

   
General-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as ChatGPT, are quickly transforming the way AI systems are built and deployed. While these technologies are expected to bring huge benefits in the coming years, spurring innovation in many sectors, their disruptive nature raises policy questions around privacy and intellectual property rights, liability and accountability.

   
EU regulation (europarl)      AI in depth  (europarl) 

   

  ISO' Net Zero Guidelines

   
To support global climate action, ISO offers the Net Zero Guidelines for free download and online browsing. Launched at COP27, the Net Zero Guidelines tackle a major road block for a world where greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to the minimum and balanced by removals: the fragmented net zero governance landscape. Competing approaches and concepts for "Net Zero" sow confusion.

   
Global basis for harmonizing, understanding, & planning (iso)

   

  Tackling the gobal skills shortage

   
The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportune moment for those looking to start their own business, pursue a hobby on a professional level or try their hand at something new, which came to be known as the Great Resignation. While the pandemic acted as a catalyst for change for millions of workers, it also fed directly into the global skills shortage.

   
A multi-pronged approach (qualitydigest)

   

   
Using the most recent and largest empirical dataset ever assembled for Europe to investigate the effect of anthropogenic pressures, we highlighted the predominant detrimental impact of agriculture intensification on avian biodiversity at a continental scale over climate change, urbanization, and forest cover changes.

   
Farmland practices (pnas)

   

  Navigating economic change

   
The authors explore how cities can reverse long-term economic underperformance and move towards a new trajectory, looking at seven cities across five countries that have faced severe economic shocks but managed to break away from the resulting cycles of decline and transition to a more successful development path.

   
Lessons from successful ‘turnaround’ cities for the UK (resolutionfoundation)

   

  Cefic REACH action plan

   
The REACH regulation is a crucial EU legislation that gives companies that manufacture or import chemicals into the EU the mandate to register them with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The registration process includes submitting a dossier that outlines the chemical's properties, hazards, and risks associated with its use.

   
2022 results (cefic)

   

   
The British government's newly published strategy document states that focusing on R&D, design and intellectual property (IP), plus compound semiconductors, is "targeted and value for money" and will secure advantages for the UK in nascent technologies such as AI, high-performance computing, and quantum.

   
Semiconductor strategy (publishing.service)

   

   
Microsoft Teams is one of the most widely used collaborative tools on the market. While Microsoft Teams can keep you and your colleagues on the same page, it is not the only collaborative tool of its kind. In this collaboration software guide, we will discuss the following Microsoft Teams alternatives and include details on their features, pros, cons, and pricing.

   
The user-friendly tools (developer)

   

  EU' International communications

   
27% of all EU residents make use of international communications within the EU at least several times a month. 9% of EU residents make even daily use of calls or messages, either through the telecommunications network (phone calls or text messages) or via the internet (video calls, internet messaging).

   
Survey (europa)

   

  The roots of inflammation & metastasis cancer

   
Researchers from the Institut Curie, CNRS and Inserm have succeeded in identifying a signaling pathway involving copper and leading to the expression of inflammatory genes in macrophages, cells which are present in all tissues and which play a major role in the innate immune response.

   
Openness to a new therapy (nature)

   

  Dietary change in Germany

   
The current food system is environmentally unsustainable. Globally, food production is responsible for a quarter to a third of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and therefore a major driver of climate change. Agriculture occupies more than a third of the Earth’s land surface and has led to reductions in forest cover and loss of biodiversity.

   
Towards healthy & sustainable diets (umweltbundesamt)

   

  The Zoonomia Project

   
In the new studies, the researchers identified regions of the genomes, sometimes just single letters of DNA, that are most conserved, or unchanged, across mammalian species and millions of years of evolution — regions that are likely biologically important. As well as genetic variants that are more likely to play causal roles in rare and common human diseases.

   
What makes the human genome unique? (broadinstitute)

   

   
Results suggest that there is promising evidence indicating that physical activity can be beneficial for patients with substance use disorders. We conclude, too, that future researchers should better describe their interventions," the authors write. "We also maintain that it is important to consider including participants with mental comorbidities and to monitor physical activity adherence during the intervention and mention it in the results.

   
Promising evidence (plos)

   

  Tunisia: The struggle continues

   
Findings of the latest Afrobarometer survey in Tunisia reveal that an overwhelming majority say the country is heading in the wrong direction, with management of the economy seen as the most pressing issue. Negative assessments of the economy have increased sharply, and fewer than half think things will get better in the near future.

   
View of economic crisis (afrobarometer)

   

   
Biological invasions are a growing component of global environmental change . A subset of alien species — those that are invasive — have emerged as a major driver of biodiversity loss and generate massive and rising economic costs. Investments in the management of invasions have been vastly underfunded and delayed, causing trillion-dollar impacts that could have been avoided.

   
Invasive alien species (abec)

   

  The French & retirement

   
In a context of inflation and financial restrictions for households, many (52%) fear a possible deterioration in their income. These reasons related to health and finances come far ahead of the fear of losing one's job or having more difficulty accessing training and updating one's skills. Part of the fiftieth more exposed to occupational hazards have already quit their jobs, because disability, illness or for a job change.

   
Credoc survey

   

   
The new proposed emissions standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles for model year (MY) 2027 and beyond would significantly reduce climate and other harmful air pollution, unlocking significant benefits for public health, especially in communities that have borne the greatest burden of poor air quality.

   
Strongest-ever pollution standards (epa)

   

   
For the public, generative AI might help people structure their information and views into public comments that have a better chance of influencing agency decisions. While agencies usually permit commenters to send in whatever text they want, more sophisticated comments tend to follow a professional format that contains substantive and sometimes highly technical information.

   
Generative AI Tech., impacts, & conflicts issues (brookings)

   

   
There is extensive evidence that sensory association learning, and the consequent power of a cue to control behavior varies considerably across individuals and is associated with risk for weight gain. Modern processed foods are therefore potent reinforcers and, as with drugs of abuse, animal models have shown that their frequent consumption rewires brain circuits, even in offspring born to mothers consuming a high-fat diet (HFD) during lactation.

   
Sweet & fatty snack modulates reward processing in humans (cell)

   

   
Businesses will need to take into account new groups of stakeholders who have different expectations around what builds trust, and who consume information in entirely different ways. When it comes to these new measures for earning trust, family businesses will need to do a much better job of both showing and telling.

   
New priorities to secure their legacy (pwc)

   

   
While the financial sector has not reached full-blown crisis mode, further bank failures and capital market disruptions cannot be ruled out as policymakers struggle to restore investor confidence. In Europe, more energy-supply constraints, for instance as a result of colder weather towards the end of the year, could require gas rationing, which would push 2023 GDP growth into negative territory.

   
Spring economic Outlook (allianz)

   

   
The exploitation of energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean will be one of the greatest political, diplomatic and economic challenges for Europe in the medium term. In an ever-changing environment, Greece, a pillar of political and economic stability, can make a significant contribution to meeting the energy needs of the entire region and Europe.

   
A Region Arises as Europe's supplier! (kas)

   

   
Brexit poses unique challenges for EU policymakers as the most important financial centre in Europe is now outside its regulatory framework. The study requested by ECON committee looks at expected medium- to long-term divergence between EU and UK regulation and at options for future cooperation. A few financial sector segments will depend on the broader EU-UK political relationship.

   
Implications for the EU (europarl.europa)

   

  For a Safe and Sustainable Life Cycle

   
Various sectors can benefit from the use of advanced materials, but they can also face challenges. The UBA position paper describes the area of tension between the promising use and possible challenges for environmental and health protection and other sustainability dimensions, illustrates this with various examples and derives corner stones for a safe and sustainable life cycle of advanced materials.

   
Advanced materials (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
Science and technologies are continuously developing and new or emerging processes are being successfully introduced into the industries. In order to reflect such changes and their consequences for BAT, this document will be periodically reviewed and, if necessary, updated accordingly.

   
Best Available Techniques (jrc)

   

   
Producing high-quality products is crucial for any business. But designing quality into the product from the start is the only significant way a business can improve its product margins. When you use detection methods and find a nonconformance, you’ve already invested in that nonconforming product and are either faced with scrapping the part and your investment or investing more in rework to reclaim some of that investment.

   
Five key strategies (qualitydigest)

   

   
In Europe, some 2.8 million social enterprises employ around 13.6 million people. The share of the social economy in paid employment varies between 0.6% and 9.9% across the EU Member States.1 The European Commission promotes social – and inclusive – entrepreneurship because of its important role in job creation, work integration and inclusive and sustainable growth.

   
Eurobarometer (europa)

   

   
The software development lifecycle defines the stages, flow, steps, and activities used to develop software. Further, the SDLC is a framework programmers can follow to ensure that the software they create is high quality, meets the requirements of the end-user, and is delivered on time and within budget.

   
Overview of the SDLC (developer)
   

   
The big tech companies are seeking a share of the market, which is estimated to be worth more than $8 trillion, with $3.8 trillion of it in the US, according to CB Insights. The healthcare market is projected to have an average annual growth rate of almost 4% by 2024. In 2021, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta collectively invested over $3.1 billion in the healthcare industry.

   
Big Tech (hackernoon)

nbsp;  

   
High risk of bias in many studies and substantial heterogeneity suggest caution in interpreting results. Nonetheless, most symptom change estimates for general mental health, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms were close to zero and not statistically significant, and significant changes were of minimal to small magnitudes.

   
Before and during the covid-19 pandemic (bmj)

   

   
AI serves a variety of purposes in safety evaluations during drug development. Use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the monitoring and reporting of drug safety data is a tool companies can utilize to assist them in this process. AI assists companies by automating information capture, yielding quick output, limiting errors, and helps to understand and classify clinical documentation.

   
From development to post-marketing product use (pharmtech)

   

   
If you use Google, Instagram, Wikipedia, or YouTube, you're going to start noticing changes to content moderation, transparency, and safety features on those sites over the next six months. Why? It’s down to some major tech legislation that was passed in the EU last year but hasn’t received enough attention (IMO), especially in the US.

   
The internet is about to get a lot safer (technologyreview)

   

   
Workplace safety policies along with various technologies can be effective tools for preventing injuries and increasing employee productivity. Overlooking or underutilizing these resources can leave you vulnerable to serious problems and legal consequences. Engaging the whole company, including upper management and every single employee, in using these resources is the only way to truly achieve facility safety.

   
Safety management system (qualitydigest)

   

   
The case studies suggest that attitudes and official positions are evolving. There is a new understanding that an integrated climate-and-development program can simultaneously speed up development and lower GHG emissions if implemented at scale. Investment and innovations in adaptation, resilience, nature, and emissions mitigation can be in each country’s national self-interest.

   
With developing countries (brookings)

   

   
This study is an update of the 2021 study on digital technologies as a means of repression and social control prepared at the request of the European Parliament’s DG EXPO. In terms of scope, the update focuses on any situation related to the use of Pegasus-type spyware that has a foreign element.

   
The EU’s external relations (europarl.europa)

   

   
96% of surveyed consumers intend to adopt some type of cost-saving behaviour over the next six months. Still, eager to resume their pre-covid habits, they’re returning to stores and travelling again. Empowered by technology, they’re seeking and demanding seamless in-store and online experiences that better suit their lifestyles—and pocketbooks.

   
In a world of disruptions (pwc)

   

   
While the foundations of the audit profession–independence, objectivity and professional skepticism–are unchanged, audit teams are harnessing the digital audit to get a fuller picture of the data, using full populations of the data to understand key business processes and identify risks in real-time.

   
With the help of data & tech. (ey)

   

   
The five Ds–that will determine the course of inflation over the longer term: decarbonization, demographics, digitalization, deglobalization and debt. The net effect of the factors will be inflationary, with significant variation across countries. The supply of labor is declining, which increases the wage pressure (demographics).

   
The “five Ds” (allianz-trade)

   

   
Europe's pharmaceutical industry is both an innovative, economically important sector and an essential part of services of general interest in geo-economically tense times. In 2020 , the European1 pharmaceutical industry exported goods worth around 510 billion euros, imported goods in Value of 347 billion euros and counted over 835,000 employees.

   
From resilience to competitiveness (kas)

   

   
The forest sector contributes to high emissions worldwide through the loss of historically built-up carbon stocks, mainly from deforestation and forest degradation. This report examines how, and under which circumstances, different forms of results-based financing are suitable for reducing emissions and enhancing removals in the forest sector in the context of different countries and mitigation measures.

   
Potential mechanism with “results-based payments” (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
In this issue of strategy+business, we’ll sketch out that new game, starting with a close-up view of three of the peskiest “moles” that are popping up: cyber risk, supply chain risk, and climate risk. We’ll note where things are going wrong, how they can go better, and how the presence of trust helps ensure positive business outcomes.

   
How to challenge the existing mindsets (strategy+business)

   

   
People-centred security is defined in this report as the security and safety of women, men, boys and girls across all socioeconomic and cultural groups. This concept has three dimensions: personal security, community-related security and political security. Security and justice sector reform centred on people’s security is context specific, politically aware, culturally sensitive and needs based.

   
People-centred approach to security sector (dcaf)

   

   
When researchers gather in London next week for the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing, they will discuss the latest advances in deploying techniques such as CRISPR–Cas9 to treat genetic diseases, and will look ahead to the possible approval of the first genome-editing therapy later this year.

   
Advances in genome-editing technologies (nature)

   

   
Food prices have come down from Spring 2022 peaks, debt servicing costs are projected to rise further this year and next, and the worst impacts are surely still to come. About 60% of low-income countries, and 30% of middle-income countries, are now considered at high risk of (or already in) debt distress.

   
Breaking the cycle of hunger & debt (ipes-food)

   

   
The UK’s decade of weak productivity growth is clearly important for understanding it’s relative economic decline, but how important is it in the story of household income gaps? For some, productivity growth is all that matters for typical household incomes. But others have argued that this is no longer the case and that incomes and productivity have ‘decoupled’.

   
Decomposing and understanding differences (resolutionfoundation)

   

  Business: as game changers

   
There is a broad sense that business, in its pursuit of profits and the usual modes of operation, has created and exacerbated many of the crises. But that reflects a view of both the potential and the purpose of modern business that has long been out of style. Whether it was the mechanization of agriculture solving the problem of scarcity, the advent of electricity providing immense benefits to people’s quality of life, or the computer revolution enabling much greater connectivity.

   
Source of great progress and solutions (strategy-business)

   

   
Robotic process automation (RPA) is an application of technology, governed by business logic and structured inputs, aimed at automating business processes. Using RPA tools, a company can configure software, or a “robot,” to capture and interpret applications for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering responses, and communicating with other digital systems.

   
Streamlining business workflows (cio)

   

   
While the external environment is precarious and may remain that way for some time given the evolving geopolitical tensions, domestic policy actions do matter, and Africa's policymakers are not helpless. The time to act is now, in order to regain lost ground and move towards prosperous economies and resilient, inclusive societies.

   
2023 Top priorities for the continent (brookings)

   

   
We use an ancestry-aware approximate Bayesian computation framework to estimate the nature, strength, and time of onset of selection acting on 2,879 ancient and modern European genomes from the last 10,000 years. our analyses suggest that the risk of inflammatory disorders has increased in post-Neolithic Europeans, possibly because of antagonistic pleiotropy following genetic adaptation to pathogens.

   
Resistance to infection (cell)

   

   
During the drafting of the Waste Shipment Regulation, imprecise legal terms were used, which initially made standardized implementation difficult. In order to define these imprecise terms more clearly, it was necessary to develop a technical basis for interpretation. The main sectors in which plastic waste is generated are packaging, construction, vehicles and agriculture. Electrical/electronic and medical also offer potential volume.

   
The new entries for plastic waste (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
The study for the PECH reviews China’s marine fisheries and aquaculture and its trade of fishery products. It recommends, among other things, to develop an appropriate strategy to respond to China’s increasing domination of the global fishmeal supply, and calls for more transparency on Chinese fishing activities.

   
Role and impact (europarl)

   

   
This year is already forecast to be hotter than 2022, which global datasets rank as the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. But El Niño occurs during the northern hemisphere winter and its heating effect takes months to be felt, meaning 2024 is much more likely to set a new record.

   
The extreme weather (severe-weather)

   

   
While there is a consensus around a mild recession view, we shouldn’t forget that the profound COVID-19 shock to the global economy and the rapid fiscally stimulated recovery have left a trail of imbalances that will lead to more persistent macroeconomic volatility. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that economic activity is rarely linear.

   
Transforming uncertainty into opportunity (ey)

   

   
A team of researchers used molecular analysis to identify several basic ingredients used in mummification, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature.This work is the first instance of the analysis of named materials used in mummification from the different contexts of an embalming workshop and a burial chamber. it provides an important step forward in our understanding of ancient Egyptian embalming materials and methods.

   
New insights (nature)

   

   
The entire history of IT has been a steady evolution of the same three enduring eternities: interaction, information, and computation. The future of IT will continue to march along these same three tracks toward specific, convergent endgames: simplici- ty, intelligence, and abundance. Three additional categories—the business of technology, cyber and trust, and core modernization—acknowledge the reality that business drives technology.

   
Insights (deloitte)

   

  2023 Annual CEO survey

   
CEO faces daunting near-term challenges, starting with the global economy, which nearly 75% believe will see declining growth during the year ahead. This year’s survey summary organised into nine tough questions—which naturally fall into three groups—about what it takes to operate in our dual-imperative world: The race for the future, Today’s tensions, A balanced agenda.

   
Winning today’s race while running tomorrow’s (pwc)

   

  Best available techniques

   
The BREF on Textiles Industry covers the pretreatment operations such as washing, bleaching, mercerisation or dyeing of textile fibres or textiles where the treatment capacity exceeds 10 tonnes per day, as specified in Point 6.2. of Annex I to Directive 2010/75/EU. This BREF also concerns independently operated treatment of waste water that are not covered by Directive 91/271/EEC.

   
Textiles Industry (jrc)

   

   
Geopolitical tensions have seen nations turn inward and become skeptical about cooperation and interdependence. When it comes to the supply chain, this caution is fair, as if tensions escalate, essential materials may be inaccessible, or major trade routes could be shut down. Therefore, governments and industry leaders are exploring domestic self-sufficiency in material supply and manufacturing.

   
Shaking up 2023 (kpmg)

   

  Perceptions of inequality and fairness

   
The direct economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic do not seem to be the major cause of the decrease in fairness perceptions. Potential drivers include uncertainties about the future, perceived inequality of opportunity, and discontent with measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

   
what has changed over the past 5 years? (Eurobarometer)

   

   
In parallel to the evolution of compendial and regulatory approaches addressing new quality paradigms for analytical procedure validation (discussed in Part I of this article), fundamentals of the quality by design (QbD) concept have been incorporated into the new International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) Q14 and ICH Q2(R2), which were recently released for public consultation.

   
Guidelines evolutions in ICH Q14 and Q2(R2) (pharmtech)

   

   
The European Union has an unusual IT strategy. While the US prioritizes the development of global tech giants, the EU focuses on becoming the sector’s leading regulator. To gauge the details, TNW asked IT experts across the bloc what they predict from the EU’s policies in 2023. All expect significant changes in legislation, with certain technologies particularly prominent in their forecasts.

   
What to expect in 2023 ? (thenextweb)

   

   
In spite of an economy that’s worrisome for most CEOs and last year’s major flops (remember NFTs?), innovative hardware announcements will continue to make a splash on the showroom floor. From cohesive developments in the smart home category to peculiar designs for electric vehicles, here’s what you can expect.

   
The main themes of the exhibition (wired)

   

   
CPM can be used to create both static and dynamic schedules, and is particularly well suited for software projects with complex interdependencies. While CPM has been traditionally used for large construction projects, it has since been adapted for use in other industries such as manufacturing, software development, and event planning.

   
How does CPA work? (developer)

   

   
Generosity is at the core of cooperation—putting the needs of others first develops trust and bonds. Consequently, designing an ecosystem based on generosity, with flexible boundaries that promote dynamic networks between participants, can potentially work as a “generosity machine.”

   
Generosity-based collaboration (strategy-business)

   

   
Is it possible to teach everyone in the country how to code by the time they graduate high school? Perhaps, with concerted, consistent effort, but that alone is not enough to maintain a tech career. The needs of many employers can shift dramatically, which naturally can create gaps between classroom-based career expectations and real-world demand.

   
The limited supply of talent (informationweek)

   

   
Experimental studies have shown that chronic infections, even in healthy individuals, can lead to increased dopamine and testosterone production. These hormone changes can cause increased aggression and risk-taking behaviour such as increased hyperactive movement, failure to avoid olfactory predator cues (i.e., seeking out instead of avoiding felid urine), and decreased neophobia.

   
The effects of toxoplasmosis in host behavior (nature)

  

   
The International Telecommunication Union (2021) report on connectivity notes that despite increased access to mobile broadband networks, the least developed countries (LDCs) may actually be falling further behind in Internet usage. Likely reasons include the cost of services and devices as well as a lack of awareness of the Internet and requisite digital skills.

   
Who is connected & who is not ? (afrobarometer)

   

   
Most of the chips that go into consumer products and data centers, among other commercial applications, are produced in Asia. Moving that manufacturing to the US would be likely to push up costs and make chips less commercially competitive, even with government subsidies. In April 2022, TSMC founder Morris Chang said that chip manufacturing costs in the US are 50% higher than in Taiwan.

   
The great “reshoring” push (technologyreview)

   

   
Under the Reference Scenario, and from the perspective of climate change and energy security, the rate at which the world’s energy intensity per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) will decline is faster than in the past. However, as the macroeconomy expands beyond the rate of decline, global energy consumption in 2050 will increase by 1.3 times from 2020 to 17 649 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe).

   
Energy, Environment and Economy (ieej)

   

   
Opinions on the EU response to current energy challenges, including opinions on specific EU measures taken in this respect, as well as support for EU measures aimed at securing energy supply and mitigating rising energy prices. Citizens’ willingness to cut down on their energy consumption via a range of different actions.

   
Survey (eurobarometer)

   

   
This paper looks beyond mitigation and adaptation, offering a range of examples where loss and damage to cultural heritage is successfully being averted and minimised. While heritage management predates climate change, it can offer important lessons for cultural heritage threatened by climate change impacts.

   
Measuring the value of loss (odi)

   

   
It’s a paradoxical time as we look ahead to 2023, one in which companies are at once ready to forge ahead with new investments and innovations yet must do so with a dose of caution attributable to the uncertainty of the business landscape. This dilemma is reflected in general attitudes about the year ahead. For the most part, channel firms remain positive about their own company’s outlook for 2023.

   
Trends to watch (comptiacdn)

   

  The social costs of pesticide

   
This study aims to provide an assessment of social costs of pesticides in France in the prospect of an integration to the public budget spending, helping public authorities to identify financial flows of public funding with an impact perspective, within a methodological framework based on the social norms at the core of the public system.

   
The hidden costs in France (frontiersin)

   

   
Through its competence for research and technological development, the EU is supporting the academic communities' commitment to ensuring the highest standards on integrity, in full compliance with the principle of academic freedom enshrined in Article 13 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

   
Handling knowledge as a public good (europarl.europa)

   

   
Representatives from governments worldwide, meeting at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) outside Paris on 18 November, voted to introduce four new prefixes to the International System of Units (SI) with immediate effect. The prefixes ronna and quetta represent 1027 and 1030, and ronto and quecto signify 10−27 and 10−30.

   
Extreme numbers get new names (nature)

   

   
The underlying drivers of surging inflation vary by geography and industry, but overall the vast majority of respondents are seeing major or extreme input price increases across all measures, from labor to raw materials. It is critical that CEOs pull what levers they can to mitigate these input pressures, recognizing that some may be out of their control or are secondary effects from other industries.

   
How to remain resolute on investment (ey)

   

   
This issue of strategy+business looks at three daunting climate challenges. First among those challenges are the floods, wildfires, droughts, and other natural calamities . The second challenge is equally urgent: decarbonization—starting with how to measure the carbon embedded in global supply chains. Third about investment opportunities that addres the looming green infrastructure crisis.

   
The unexpected opportunities (pwc)

   

   
Italy has faced a series of economic crises in the past 50 years, many of them shared by the United Kingdom. Before digging into the root of Italy’s growth problems. Many factors are to blame: poor economic incentives, a large share of small and unproductive firms, a lack of domestic market competition, and policy capture. Some of Italy’s traps may become future challenges for the UK economy.

   
UK against a backdrop of low productivity & high inequality (resolutionfoundation)

   

  Microbium & Brain’s social development

   
In recent decades, scientists have come to understand that the gut and the brain have powerful mutual influences. Certain types of intestinal ulcers, for example, have been linked to worsening symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease. And clinicians have long known that gastrointestinal disorders are more common in people who also have neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder.

   
Experiment (quantamagazine)

   

   
The results of the present review demonstrate and confirm that excessive atmospheric nitrogen deposition negatively affects species assemblages, and thus poses a serious risk to biodiversity. In many cases, it has already caused a decline. The scientific evidence available for the various existing dose-response relationships between nitrogen deposition and the risks for ecosystems and habitat quality of European ecosystems is summarised in Chapters 3 to 9 of this report.

   
Protection of N-sensitive natural and semi-natural ecosystems (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
While stimulus packages were designed to protect socio-economically vulnerable groups, studies show that fewer than two in 10 citizens and businesses benefited from government COVID-19 aid in 2020. In spite of governments’ pledge to be transparent in the use of funds, the relief programs were plagued by corruption, fraud, and lack of transparency.

   
The unfair distribution (afrobarometer)

   

   
Europeans’ knowledge about antibiotics leaves room for improvement. Only close to three in ten Europeans correctly answer the four questions used to measure respondents’ knowledge. Significant variations are noted between Member States, ranging from just over half of citizens in Finland who are able to do so, to less than one in ten (8%) in Romania.

   
Eurobarometer (europa)

   

   
Cell and gene therapies need to be made cheaper. Much cheaper. With price tags in the millions, they will never be able to deliver on their promise of personalized cures at scale. More automated manufacturing offers one of the most significant ways to cut costs. The sector has been moving hospital lab manufacture towards more standardised and repeatable processes in dedicated facilities, but there’s still a long improvement path to travel.

   
Through automation process (reutersevents)

   

   
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has been used for years, often to improve oil well production rates, but rising carbon prices in places like Europe have raised hope that it could become a standalone business case in the future.Some experts say CCS technology, which typically acts as a filter on smokestacks, is key to achieving the goal of a net carbon-free economy by 2050.

   
Annuel report (globalccsinstitute)

   

   
A recent survey from research firm Gartner found talent is the top challenge facing CFOs heading into 2023, with accurate forecasting and cost management following close behind. Given this and heading into 2023, CFOs need to focus on several key areas, including where the business risks and opportunities lie.

   
With changing economy & market conditions (informationweek)

   

   
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented rise in mortality that translated into life expectancy losses around the world, with only a few exceptions. We estimate life expectancy changes in 29 countries since 2020 (including most of Europe, the United States and Chile), attribute them to mortality changes by age group and compare them with historic life expectancy shocks.

   
Analysis (natures)

   

  What is ESG?

   
ESG scores are determined by third-party firms that have their own methodologies to identify a company’s ESG rating. Currently, this isn’t a process that is streamlined across the board, and different companies have their own way of determining a company’s ESG rating. ESG scores and ratings are important because they give an overall picture of the company’s performance in these three areas.

   
Environmental, social, & governance commitment (cio)

   

   
Delivering the European Green Deal is a key priority of the European Commission. The Commission adopted a series of policy proposals to deliver on the European Green Deal, notably the socalled ‘Fit for 55’ package3 . The package of legislative proposals will make the EU's climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies fit to deliver on the EU climate targets.

   
Report (europa)

   

   
It is well-documented that mosquitoes are more strongly attracted to some humans than others, but the underlying mechanisms for this phenomenon remain unclear. The most widely accepted explanation for these differences is that variation in skin odors produced by different humans, related in part to their unique skin microbiota, governs their attractiveness to mosquitoes.

   
Mosquito attraction behavior (cell)

   

   
In order to understand Europe’s position in the global quantum computing market we need to roll the clock back a couple years. Investors and entrepreneurs began flocking to quantum during the COVID-19 tech boom and, despite the expected post-pandemic drop off, analysts are predicting a massive increase in market size over the next 5-15 years.

   
A massive growth (thenextweb)

   

   
To reach the climate neutrality envisaged in the Green Deal by 2050, reducing agricultural GHG emissions is not enough, and efforts to implement large scale carbon sequestration in European agricultural soils will be necessary. The renewed CAP includes improvements in environmental conditionality and foresees eco-schemes and agri-environmental measures that can help achieve this goal.

   
Carbon cycle & Agricultural practices (europarl)

   

   
The increasing amount of healthcare data that are becoming available to support regulatory decision making for medicines. While clinical trials remain the fundamental method of establishing the safety and effectiveness of medicines during the pre-authorisation phase, they do not fully reflect the real world, resulting in gaps between regulatory dossiers and subsequent clinical evidence needed by downstream stakeholders including HTAs, payers and ultimately clinicians and patients.

   
Framework for medicines regulation (ema)

   

   
After trade tensions that materialized under the Trump administration, the major crises of the past few years – the global Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine – have intensified doubts about the future of globalization, and increased scrutiny on supply-chain exposures. However, globalization is not dead yet. While intentions to reshore, friendshore or decouple from geopolitically nonaligned countries

   
Can the US & EU really "friendshore" away from China? (allianz-trade)

   

   
The Special Eurobarometer on Food safety covered the population of the respective nationalities of the European Union Member States, resident in each of the 27 Member States and aged 15 years and over, with a total of 26,509 respondents. A technical note concerning the interviews conducted by the member institutes of the Kantar network is annexed to this report. It also specifies the confidence intervals.

   
Survey report (efsa)

   

  Psychological effects on biological age

   
The theory specifies how psychological factors such as emotions can affect aging. However, while human psychology is known to go through certain changes throughout the life span, few studies have attempted to describe these changes in the terms of biogerontology (using aging clocks) or determine their effect on physical health.

   
Contribution assessment (aging-us)

   

   
The world around us is changing and the pace of change is faster than ever before. The future has begun and those who do not want to get left behind must ensure their ability to look ahead. That is why ISO has developed a Standardization Foresight Framework; to help us look more systematically at the long-term and to encourage discussion and exchange within the ISO system about future opportunities for International Standardization.

   
How these trends link to ISO’s work (iso)

   

  Starlink constellation vs GPS

   
For the past two years, team at UT Austin’s Radionavigation Lab has been reverse-engineering signals sent from thousands of Starlink internet satellites in low Earth orbit to ground-based receivers. this team has cracked the problem, and they believes that regular beacon signals from the constellation, designed to help receivers connect with the satellites, could form the basis of a useful navigation system.

   
Could Starlink fill that role? (technologyreview)

   

   
North African economies are characterized by a significant share of informal activity and employment. About two-thirds of workers in North Africa operate without any formal arrangement and social protection, and about 30 percent of GDP is estimated to be produced by informal workers and firms.

   
Informality & Development (imf)

   

   
Trade, development, and foreign policy instruments can contribute to the abolition of modern slavery practices in non-EU countries. The study analyses empirical evidence about the impact of the tools at our disposal. Case studies on Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Mexico, Philippines, Sudan and Thailand trace their use.

   
External policy tools (europarl)

   

   
35% of channel firms said that they will only work with vendors that offer a seamless partner experience, while the majority (57%) hews close to that high mandate, deeming solid PX important enough that they will accept only slight deficiencies in it even from a vendor partner they are generating revenue from.

   
Managing the Px lifecycle (comptiacdn)

   

   
The Chinese private sector push into Africa is not evenly distributed: 12 countries account for two-thirds of total investment on the continent. They include Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, the Republic of Congo, Zambia, Ghana, Algeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The data suggests Chinese companies also focus on African countries as a sales destination that broadens their reach.

   
Gauging the future (thediplomat)

   

   
Virtually all wind turbines, which produce more than 5 percent of the world’s electricity, are controlled as if they were individual, freestanding units. In fact, the vast majority are part of larger wind farm installations involving hundreds of turbines whose wakes can affect each other. The energy output of such wind farm installations can be increased by modeling the wind flow of the entire collection of turbines.

   
Modeling the wind flow (qualitydigest)

   

   
Citizens’ perceptions of the European Union and Parliament are influenced by what they see, hear and read in various media. This Flash Eurobarometer is designed to present a picture of EU citizens’ media use and media habits, looking at both traditional media and online media. This survey was conducted by Ipsos online panels and their partner network.

   
Eurobarometer (europa)

   

   
A large increase in energy bills this winter was always going to be difficult to bear, but the explosion that we are now on course for will be totally unmanageable for millions of households. The increase in the scale of the problem will require a different, not just a bigger, policy response. This paper examines what that should be.

   
With soaring energy prices (resolutionfoundation)

   

   
Of the 2.4 billion tons of solid waste generated globally each year, approximately 26% is burned residentially and 15% is burned at dump sites. (1) Regulations surrounding the handling, transport, storage, and disposal of solid waste vary across the globe, from landfill and recycling to incidental or intentional combustion.

   
Atmospheric fine particulate matter at urban and rural sites (acs)

   

   
From a messaging standpoint, the centerpiece of this effort is a new variant of the Zoom logo. It ditches the two Os in “Zoom” for six encircled icons, turning “Zoom” into “Zoooooom.” Each icon represents a Zoom product: Team Chat, Phone, Meetings, Rooms, Events, and Contact Center. The “Zoooooom” visual representation of Zoom’s breadth of capabilities will be featured in a new ad campaign.

   
A new variant of the Zoom logo (fastcompany)

   

   
Raman spectroscopy is quickly gaining traction as an efficient, reliable, and economical alternative that can produce accurate, real-time results. Since its discovery in the 1920s, Raman spectroscopy has revolutionised process analysis with its non-destructive mode of operation and capability to measure sample composition.

   
Measuring LNG composition & concentration (engineerlive)
   

   
There is an urgent need to develop sustainable alternatives to mitigate the anthropogenic CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Electrochemical reduction of CO2 into value-added chemicals and fuels helps with the urgently needed intermittent storage of renewable electricity and opens broader avenues for closed carbon-cycle processes.

   
An attractive approach to reduce carbon emissions (cell)

   

   
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is rising faster than expected. Worldwide, more than one million people die of AMR each year, most of them in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Resistant infections can rapidly spread without appropriate access to essential antibiotics and antifungals. Yet, the issue of responsi- bly providing access for people living in resource-poor settings has been largely overlooked.

   
How can pharma take action? (accesstomedicinefoundation)

   

   
Many aspects of life have gone digital, and wallets are no exception. Today, many Americans use the internet and smartphones to transfer money to friends, family and businesses. And while users praise these platforms for making paying for things easier, they also express concerns about security and privacy.

   
Users’ information at stake (pewresearch)

   

   
Climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity, waste, pollution — all of these pressing global challenges have risen to attention in the past few decades as our world economy has grown and expanded. A circular economy, as opposed to the take-make-waste linear model, can help address these and other challenges.

   
Throughout the value chain (gsb.stanford)

   

   
To the mandatory nutrition labelling, we may also see the use of additional forms of presentation of the nutritional information in the front of package, called “front-of-pack” (FOP) nutrition labelling. These aim to help consumers to see at a glance the essential nutrition information when pur­chasing foods.

   
Food labels (eufic)

   

   
Several years ago, we shifted our focus to working with groups rather than individual substances in an effort to accelerate regulatory risk management for substances of concern. With this approach now maturing, we have seen a significant increase in substances being assessed in 2021 – 30 % more than the previous year.

   
ECHA annual report (europa)

   

   
Here we carried out a systematic search for empirical examples about the impacts of ten climatic hazards sensitive to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on each known human pathogenic disease. We found that 58% (that is, 218 out of 375) of infectious diseases confronted by humanity worldwide have been at some point aggravated by climatic hazards; 16% were at times diminished.

   
The full extent of this risk analysed (nature)

   

   
ISO 20022 is the new global language for payments messaging, helping make the quality of data, richer, structured and more meaningful. The payments industry continues to change rapidly and is certainly something that is discussed by most heads of treasury and trade. There is a constant need to adopt global standards within the financial community, and ISO 20022 is one standard that’s taking the lead.

   
Related to trade, treasury & payments (tradefinanceglobal)

   

   
The overarching aim of the report is to explore how AI can improve patient outcomes by detecting real-time adverse events (AEs) more efficiently and effectively; and how it can be applied to interoperable health data, generated within PSPs to improve the remote monitoring of patients and deliver safer, more personalised and precise treatment options promptly.

   
Advanced digital technology (deloitte)

   

   
The aim of the Gate Fees 2021/22 report is to increase price transparency and, by improving the flow of information, improve efficiency in the waste management market. A lack of market information may reduce a local authority’s ability to make informed decisions on waste management options.

   
Report (wrap)

   

   
The newly released Census Bureau estimates allow us to examine these shifts via specific race-ethnic and age groups. Unlike the 2020 census data, these estimates permit analyses of annual population change. This report focuses on annual changes from July 2016 to July 2017 through July 2020 to July 2021.

   
Losses and shift in population (brookings)

   

   
As the effects of the pandemic dissipate, long-term growth is projected to take-off between Asia, Eastern Europe, and East Africa. China is expected to be the fastest growing economy per capita, even if the projection finds growth to be slowing from what the country achieved over the past decade. he fastest-growing economies to 2030.

   
The fastest-growing economies to 2030 (cid.harvard)

   

   
Despite the flurry of interpretable machine learning (IML) methodological development over the past several years, a stark disconnect characterizes the current overall approach. IML researchers develop methods that typically optimize for diverse but narrow technical objectives, yet their claimed use cases for consumers remain broad and often underspecified.

   
Moving from mythos to diagnostics (acm)

   

   
The educational dimension of the study focuses on questions related to teaching and learning, while the operational one concentrates on the administrative and managerial sides of the system. The study pinpoints the key challenges that the system currently faces and provides tailored recommendations on how to overcome them.

   
Challenges and perspectives (europarl.europa)

   

   
Businesses that make innovative changes amidst upheavals and downturns actually gain momentum and outperform competitors upon recovery. What sets apart thriving pharma businesses is their willingness to spot the market shifts as they begin to crest, pivot to align with them, and then swim through deep waters to ultimately catch and ride the wave.

   
Trends (qualitydigest)

   

   
The Inquiry’s subject matter is the nature, scale, and context for the economic change facing the UK during the 2020s. Its goal is not just to describe the change that Covid-19, Brexit, the Net Zero transition and technology will bring, but to help the country and its policy makers better understand and navigate it against a backdrop of low productivity and high inequality.

   
The shifting balance of employer & worker power (resolutionfoundation)

   

   
Microsoft is concerned enough about ransomware that it built an easy-to-configure anti-ransomware tool directly into Windows 10 and Windows 11. Called controlled folder access, it protects you by letting only safe and fully vetted applications access your files.y default, the feature is not turned on, you’ll have to tell it to get to work.

   
How to keep it at bay? (computerworld)

   

   
There are many software development methodologies out there that you can use to help your team become more Agile and deliver better quality products; one of the most popular frameworks is Scrum. However, there are other methods you could also consider including Kanban, Lean, and Extreme Programming (XP).

   
Scrum vs Kanban vs Lean vs XP (developer)

   

   
The venerable toy giant Mattel operates a “virtual garage platform” that allows workers at any level to pitch new concepts, while Maverick Quantum, a Texas-based artificial intelligence platform, goes one step further, soliciting ideas not only from employees but also from their family members.

   
100 companies (fastcompany)

   

   
Lidar technology can enhance many aspects of airport operations. Airports present a complex ecosystem where precise technology can bring great value for safety and efficiency, from terminal facilities with crowd monitoring and baggage transport to equipment and cargo movement to aircraft traffic and maintenance.

   
The success of autonomous solutions (airport-technology)

   

   
Renewables are increasingly becoming the default source of least cost, new power generation. When this is combined with the impact of the fossil fuel crisis and net-zero emissions ambitions, capacity additions are expected to continue to rise in the years ahead. Between 2000 and 2021, renewable power generation capacity worldwide increased just over four-fold, from 754 GW to 3 064 GW.

   
Costs in 2021 (irena)

   

   
This workshop focussed on the non-regulated areas of EFSA’s work, chemical contaminants and biological hazards in food, plant health and animal health and welfare, and was attended by a total of 76participants, of whom 28were from DG SANTEand 22were risk managers from EU Member Stateinstitutions.

   
Implications for risk management & communication (efsa)

   

   
Artificial light at night (ALAN), an increasing anthropogenic driver, is widespread and shows rapid expansion with potential adverse impact on the terrestrial ecosystem. However, whether and to what extent does ALAN affect plant phenology, a critical factor influencing the timing of terrestrial ecosystem processes, remains unexplored due to limited ALAN observation.

   
An underappreciated effect on phenology (academic.oup)

   

   
The first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been released. Webb is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space — a promising successor to the famous Hubble Telescope. Even with our humble, earthbound eyes, we can still observe the difference in image quality and details the telescopes produce.

   
Their images side-by-side (thenextweb)

   

   
While the top 10% of households in Britain were richer than those in many other European countries, middle-income British households were 9% poorer than their counterparts in France, while the poorest fifth of households in Britain were more than 20% poorer than their French and German equivalents.

   
Income growth and inequalities (resolutionfoundation)

   

   
Our survey of over 1,600 C-suite executives and data-science leaders from the world’s largest organizations found that nearly 75% of companies have integrated AI into their business strategies and reworked their cloud plans to achieve AI success. And companies are putting those plans into practice: Nearly a third (30%) of all AI pilot initiatives are subsequently scaled to deliver wide-ranging outcomes.

   
AI maturity: whay it matters (accenture)

   

   
The EU Rule of Law Report, published in 2020, 2021 and next in July 2022, demonstrates that the nature and scope of corruption varies between countries, and the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies is quite different across the Union. The EU Rule of Law Report serves as the basis for dialogue with national authorities and parliaments while also informing broader debates across Europe.

   
From political parties & businesses practices (ec.europa)

   

   
Our research has uncovered a novel type of entrepreneurial support organization that we call a pacemaker organization, or pacer, which offers an alternative for emerging-market entrepreneurs. Pacers serve entrepreneurs for the long run, from one year to a lifetime. Like pacers who help world-class marathon runners win races, pacemaker organizations help entrepreneurs achieve their goals in the marathon of scaling up an enterprise.

   
Building long-term value (ssir)

   

   
Public trust is the bedrock of democracy and sound public governance. This series provides insights on what drives people to trust governments and public institutions. Based on a unique framework on the Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions and an innovative population survey (OECD Trust Survey), the reports in this series are designed to provide sound evidence on citizens’ assessment of public institutions to help governments build and strengthen public trust.

   
Across five drivers of trust (oecd)

   

   
Consistently eating healthy is hard. The average person makes more than 200 decisions related to food each day, and these decisions are shaped by financial, educational, geographic, social and emotional factors. For many, the current setup of the food ecosystem makes developing and sticking with healthy food habits feel unattainable and exhausting, which has contributed to a rise in nutrition-related illnesses.

   
Earning consumer trust (ey)

   

   
A research group led by scientists at the University of São Paulo (USP) in São Carlos, Brazil, has identified a number of bioactive compounds in a marine sponge collected on Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago about 400 km off the coast of Brazil’s Northeast region. “This marine sponge had been studied previously by groups outside Brazil, mainly in the 1990s. We used next-generation techniques to analyze substances from its secondary metabolism.

   
Bioactive compounds discovery (innovations-report)

   

   
High levels of public debt service and insufficient fiscal and monetary space have already constrained the crisis responses of most low and middle-income economies. While advanced countries were able to implement extremely expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in response to the pandemic crisis, few countries in the Global South had this option.

   
How to tackle both? (brookings)

   

  OECD Test Guidelines for Chemicals

   
The report describes the considerations, essential steps and organisational aspects of the development of the OECD Test Guideline for the determination of particle size and particle size distributions of nanomaterials. It gives furthermore insights into the selection, preparation and pre-validation of test materials used in an interlaboratory comparison.

   
Particle size & Distribution of nanomaterials (umweltbundesamt)

   

  Booklets on cybersecurity institutions

   
Cybersecurity is one of the first policy areas to challenge traditional governance structures and policymaking … across an unprecedented range of traditional government departments, from defence and foreign affairs to education and finance. These booklets provide tangible frameworks and insights for public and private sector stakeholders who lead key institutions.

   
Insights for public & private sector stakeholders (dcaf)

   

   
The technology giant developed a shredder-like machine, dubbed “Taz,” that recovers rare earth magnets from audio modules. “While rare earth magnets are typically lost in these conventional shredders, Taz is designed to keep these valuable materials intact to improve our overall recovery rate,” according to the company’s 2022 Environmental Progress Report, which was released this week.

   
The breadth of the environmental solutions (apple)

   

   
This increase in the frequency of contaminated fruits and vegetables sold to consumers goes hand in hand with an increase in theintensityofpesticidesusedinmixtures. While 6,4% of fruits were found to be contaminated with at least two of these most toxic pesticides in 2011, this figure has risen to 10,2% in 2019.

   
The most toxic pesticides found on fruits (pan-eu)

   

   
As this year’s survey results indicate, the sustained workplace changes they’ve been asking for—including higher compensation, more flexibility, better work/life balance, increased learning and development opportunities, better mental health and wellness support, and a greater commitment from businesses to make a positive societal impact—are also the strategies that will help employers attract and retain talent.

   
Striving for balance, advocating for change (deloitte)

   

  EU market reform & price stability

   
The European Union’s flagship climate policy instrument, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), needs more monitoring and transparency in order to prevent “speculation about speculation” and restore political confidence in the market, analysts have said.

   
Special report (euractiv)

   

   
Since the concept of nanotechnology was introduced in the 1970s, it has made its mark in many everyday products, including electronics, fabrics, food, water- and air-treatment processes, cosmetics, and drugs. Given these successes across different fields, many medical researchers were eager to use nanotechnology to diagnose and treat disease.

   
The next big thing (qualitydigest)

   

  Migration for climate action

   
Human mobility can help provide the labour flexibility and skills urgently required for green transitions, to address climate change and other environmental crises. Evidence across four case studies shows how opportunities and challenges can differ according to the nature of migration, the country context and sectoral green transition needs.

   
How labour mobility can help the green transition ? (cdn.od)

   

   
The upshot for the C-suite? As companies take on ambitious business and societal goals, leaders must remember that employees can be a force multiplier or a detractor. In fact, PwC research has found that the workforce is the number one risk to growth—and also the principal means by which companies can execute growth-driven strategies.

   
How people think about work today ? (pwc)

   

   
The results of these surveys feed into the EU Justice Scoreboard, which provides data on the efficiency, quality, and independence of national justice systems – essential parameters of effective justice systems..Effective justice systems are vital for implementing EU law and upholding the rule of law and the values upon which the EU is founded.

   
Companies perception for their independence (ec.europa)

   

  Monkeypox multi-country outbreak

   
Based on ECDC’s epidemiological assessment, the likelihood of MPX spreading in persons having multiple sexual partners in the EU/EEA is considered high. Although most cases in current outbreaks have presented with mild disease symptoms, monkeypox virus (MPXV) may cause severe disease in certain population groups (young children, pregnant women, immunosuppressed persons).

   
Rapid risk assessment (ecdc)

   

   
The mathematical community is especially keen on meritocracy and on avoiding the stigma associated with measures such as quotas. But assessing merit is itself not an exact science, says Jess Wade, a materials scientist at Imperial College London who is known for running science-outreach projects aimed at improving diversity.

   
A man’s world ? (nature)

   

  What digital transformation means

   
What if the freshest insight on how to talk about 21st century transformations isn’t found in a snappy TEDx Talk or an MBA program but in the works of a philosopher born almost 2,500 years ago? Aristotle, for one, had a lot to say about knowledge that is not only relatable but useful for companies undergoing great change.

   
A philosopher's guide to messy transformations (strategy-business)

   

   
With much higher stakes as for microelectronic chips: How can engineers confirm that what’s inside has truly met the intent of the designers? How can a semiconductor design company tell whether its intellectual property was stolen? Much more worrisome, how can anyone be sure a kill switch or some other hardware trojan hasn’t been secretly inserted?

   
The ptychographic X-ray laminography (spectrum.ieee)

   

   
Quantum computing technology offers a new approach to finding approximate solutions to problems with exponential scaling. We formulate a simplistic, yet effective, model of RNA folding that can easily be mapped to quantum computers and we show that currently available quantum computing hardware is competitive with classical methods.

   
RNA structure determination (plos)

   

   

Wave breaking is what puts air into the ocean,” says study author Themis Sapsis, an associate professor of mechanical and ocean engineering and an affiliate of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at MIT. “It may sound like a detail, but if you multiply its effect over the area of the entire ocean, wave breaking starts becoming fundamentally important to climate prediction.”

   
AI to capture the complexity of breaking waves (mit)

   

   
We cannot stop the climate crisis today, biodiversity loss tomorrow, and land degradation the day after. We need to tackle all these issues together. Land restoration is integral to joint efforts under the Rio Conventions and other international agreements that are essential to make meaningful progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

   
The UN convention to combat desertification (reliefweb)

   

   
Regulation 1141/2014 gave them EU legal status, created the Authority for European Political Parties and Political Foundations (APPF), and reformed the funding system. The latter regulation was amended further in 2018 – in relation to registration and funding criteria – and in 2019 – regarding protection rules for breaches of personal data.

   
Towards a revision of the Regulation (europarl.europa)

   

   
What does the quality and consistency of metal powders have to do with sustainability? A great deal, actually. Because Metal Powder Works’ mechanical production process does not rely on gas atomization to produce these common feedstocks, it uses less energy and no industrial gases, both clear wins for the environment, not to mention producing no CO2 while in use.

   
Steps to reduce waste & energy consumption (sme)

   

   
The survey provides a glimpse of what is possible when we reimagine the status quo. A case in point: the power of trust. We found that highly trusted companies are more likely to have made net-zero commitments and to have tied their CEO’s compensation to nonfinancial outcomes, such as employee engagement scores and gender diversity in the workforce.

   

When we reimagine the status quo (pwc)

   

   
The war in Ukraine has been waging for a month now, not only causing human suffering on a massive scale, but also sending economic tremors that are felt far beyond the country’s borders. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s economy has been pulled between its strong historical ties with the Russian economy and the opportunities in forging new ties with the European Union (EU).

   
Twelve facts (vis.csh.ac)

   

   
In the 65 years since Sputnik took its first lonely spin around Earth, the region of space closest to us has become rather more crowded. Today, on International Day of Human Space Flight, it is important to remember that space is no longer inaccessible. The great void of our stratosphere and beyond have never been closer – and that comes with risks.

   
About objects whirling around our planet (iso)

   

   
Measuring distance between objects with light is currently possible only with specialized and expensive lidar—short for “light detection and ranging”—systems. If you’ve seen a self-driving car tooling around, you can spot it right off by the hunchback of technology mounted to the roof. Most of that gear is the car’s lidar crash-avoidance system, which uses lasers to determine distances between objects.

   
Changing how machines see (qualitydigest)

   

  EU' public opinion

   
The main concerns of Europeans had changed dramatically between winter 2020-2021 and spring 2021, and they have changed again since spring 2021. Mentions of rising prices/ inflation/ cost of living have increased considerably, moving it from sixth position in spring 2021 to second position, while the environment and climate change has risen from second place to be the most important issue facing the EU.

   
Eurobarometer 96 (europa)

   

   
Studies so far have provided a tantalizing glimpse at best. But that’s about to change. Next year, robotic vehicles will enter the bewildering icy depths of PSRs for the first time, revealing what the interiors of these shadowed craters look like. By the decade’s end, NASA plans to send humans to explore in person.

   
Secrets coming to light (quantamagazine)

   

   
Scrum is an Agile framework that can help with software development and many other types of projects. It differs from other project management methodologies since Scrum typically focuses on helping teams that self-organize and iterate on products and services over time. The Scrum framework allows teams to deliver optimal software to their clients and users.

   
Best management tools & software (developer)

   

   
Africa's Urbanisation Dynamics 2022 provides a new perspective on Africa’s urban economies that is unique in its breadth and level of detail. Based on data from more than 4 million individuals and firms across 2 300 cities in 34 countries, it presents compelling evidence that urbanisation in Africa contributes to better economic outcomes and higher standards of living.

   
The economic power of Africa’s cities (oecd)

   

   
This impressive total marks another important milestone on our journey towards universal internet accessibility, and means that 63 percent of the world’s total population is now online. There’s much more to this story than a headline user figure though, and this article offers extensive analysis to help you understand the implications of this milestone.

   
The full report (thenextweb)

   

   
Taking a One Health approach and applying univariate and multivariateanalysis, this report provides an integrated analysis of possible relationships between AMC (consumption of antimicrobial agents) in humans and food-producing animals and the occurrence of AMR (antimicrobial resistance) in bacteria from humans andfood-producing animals at country and European level.

   
The European Union summary report (efsa)

   

   
According to market research, the protein therapeutics market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.86% between 2020 and 2027 (1). This growth is expected to be driven by the rapid rise in chronic disorders, advancements in technologies, broadening awareness of protein therapeutics, increasing adoption of plasma-derived therapies to manage chronic disorders, and mounting government initiatives to develop healthcare sectors.

   
Empowering technologies (pharmtech)

   

   
BAT is a dynamic concept and so the review of BREFs is a continuing process. For example, new measures and techniques may emerge, science and technologies are continuously developing and new or emerging processes are being successfully introduced into the industries. In order to reflect such changes and their consequences for BAT, this document will be periodically reviewed and, if necessary, updated accordingly.

   
Treatment systems in the chemical sector (eippcb.jrc.ec.europa)

   

   
In search of pharmaceutical agents such as new vaccines, industry will routinely scan thousands of related candidate molecules. A novel technique allows this to take place on the nano scale, minimizing use of materials and energy. The work is published in the prestigious journal Nature Chemistry.

   
The breakthrough in mixed tech. (innovations-report)

   

   
We are on the threshold of a new decade of digital transformation, and at a defining moment for all leaders. The Metaverse Continuum will transform how businesses interact with customers, how work is done, what products and services companies offer, how they make and distribute them, and fundamentally how they operate their organizations.

   
Technology and experience, reshaping business (accenture)

   

   
Apple once again surprised enthusiasts and analysts with its announcement of the M1 Ultra, a variant of the M1 Max that effectively fuses two chips into one. The result is a dual-chip design viewed by software as a single piece of silicon. These announcements target different markets. Apple has its sights set on the consumer and professional workstation world.

   
Single-Chip Processors Have Reached Their Limits (iee)

   

   
One of the most heated arguments among doctors and scientists is over how significant a problem long covid in children really is. Estimates of the prevalence can swing between 1.8% and 87% of children, depending on the study. As a result, some researchers warn parents to protect their children from a poorly understood syndrome that may affect them for the rest of their lives, while others say the risks have been overstated.

   
Raging battle (technologyreview)

   

   
The analysis is based on the laws and regulations adopted in 2021 for the implementation of direct payments and conditionality. The paper goes on to examine the extent to which the CAP funds used contribute to climate action. The European Commission has laid down that 40% of CAP funds must be climate-relevant.

   
Analysis and policy recommendations (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
The unprecedented threats facing food systems; the basic ingredients for civil society-led transformation of food systems; what the next quarter century has in store if (agri) business-as-usual is allowed to run its disastrous course; and what food systems could look like by 2045 if, instead, civil society succeeds in planning ahead and collaborating more effectively than ever before.

   
A long food movement (ipes-food)
   

   
COVID’s impact was inequitable: Deaths were concentrated among the elderly and minorities working in essential jobs. The inequity may have spread the COVID mental health shock to groups who had previously reported better mental health. The tragedy of the deaths—over 900,000 people by early 2022— by itself is overwhelming. All the effects of the shock to society’s well-being and mental health have yet to be fully assessed.

   
Did pandemic worsen mental health outcomes? (brookings)

   

   
CEOs are most worried about the potential for a cyberattack or macroeconomic shock to undermine the achievement of their company’s financial goals—the same goals that most executive compensation packages are still tied to. And they are less concerned about challenges, like climate change and social inequality, that appear to pose smaller immediate threats to revenue.

   
Reimagining the outcomes that matter (pwc)

   

   
A project management certification is a program that assesses someone’s experience and knowledge with the principles, methodologies, and tools associated with project management. Project management certifications are different than project management certificates. PM certifications typically require weeks of courses and hours of education covering different facets of project management.

   
Top 5 Project (developer)

   

   
Scientists have released three studies that reveal intriguing new clues about how the COVID-19 pandemic started. Two of the reports trace the outbreak back to a massive market that sold live animals, among other goods, in Wuhan, China1,2, and a third suggests that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spilled over from animals — possibly those sold at the market — to humans at least twice in November or December 20193.

   
Epicentre of pandemic’s start (nature)

   

   
The chief of Russia's space program, Dmitry Rogozin, issued two demands before acceding to the launch. One, he said, OneWeb must guarantee that its satellites will not be used for military purposes. And two, the UK government must give up its ownership of OneWeb. It is virtually impossible to see the UK government agreeing to Russian demands about what it does, and does not, own.

   
Space cooperation (arstechnica)

   

   
Watching DeepMind’s AI play Go, Hassabis realized that his company’s technology was ready to take on one of the most important and complicated puzzles in biology, one that researchers had been trying to solve for 50 years: predicting the structure of proteins. The three-dimensional structure of proteins determines how they behave and interact in the body. But a large number of important proteins have structures that biologists still don’t know.

   
Never miss a breakthrough (technologyreview)

   

   
The battle against climate change isn’t a choice, it’s billions of choices. No action is insignificant, but certain activities and decisions “move the needle” more than others. Those bolder actions from business leaders are needed now—while there’s still time to limit the damage. It’s time to prove we’re up to the challenge.

   
The disconnect between ambition and impact (deloitte)

   

   
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) has become an ever bigger driver, whether it's healthy eating, plant-based ingredients, sustainable supply chains or ethical workforce practices. Investors have also become more mindful of supply chain risks. Technology is the other major influence, opening up varied opportunities to snap up e-commerce targets with direct-to-consumer channels.

   
Secteur oulook (kpmg)

   

   
The European Parliament’s Autumn 2021 Eurobarometer (EB) survey is the third EB survey conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. While certain adaptations in the methodology were still necessary due to national restrictions in place11, a trend analysis delivers six significant insights.

   
Public opinions (europa)

   
Its code name during development was, well, Cortana, named after a female artificial intelligence character in Microsoft’s popular Halo series of video games. In a nutshell, Microsoft Cortana is an AI-powered virtual assistant that responds to voice commands. It’s available as an app in Windows 10 and 11 and works in conjunction with Microsoft 365 productivity software to help users accomplish business tasks.

   
Past and promising future (computerworld)

   

   
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Freedom Photonics and Purdue University have made strides toward a fully quantum internet by designing and demonstrating the first ever Bell state analyzer for frequency bin coding.Their findings were published in Optica.

   
How to transfer information? (phys)

   

   
The surge in fintech investment is one example of the unprecedented amount of capital flowing into unicorns—defined as privately owned, VC-backed com- panies valued at $1 billion or more—which are in turn scaling at a never-be- fore-seen rate. If 1999 was the year of the IPO, when companies going public raised a record $69.2 billion, the 2020s have ushered in an era of innovation overdrive that the pandemic has only accelerated.

   
A diversifying landscape (pwc)

   

   
We find that personal and employment income taxes are progressive in African countries, but that their progressivity declines as income increases; this finding is in line with earlier studies that made similar calculations for a sample of OECD countries. However, at the very lowest of incomes (between 0.5 and 0.67 times GDP per capita), we find that employment income taxes are slightly less progressive.

   
Findings from a new dataset (odi)

   

   
We live in a data-abundant world and yet we lack basic information about inequality. Economic growth numbers are published every year by governments across the globe, but they do not tell us about how growth is distributed across the population – about who gains and who loses from economic policies. Accessing such data is critical for democracy.

   
Report 2022 (wid.world)

   

   
Last year’s trends spoke to how people and businesses had to chart new territories as the shock of the pandemic subsided. This year, the dominant theme is about the need to respond to changes in all relationships—the threads that form the new fabric of life. The choices we make next might impact our world and its structure in more ways than we can imagine, and it all points to shifts in people’s relationships.

   
“less” doesn’t have to mean “loss” (accenture)

   

   
The African continent represents 20 percent of the earth’s surface and is home to 1.3 billion people—likely reaching 2.53 billion people by 2050. It boasts 60 percent of the world’s arable lands, large swathes of forests, 30 percent of the world’s reserve of minerals, and the youngest population of any continent.

   
Top priorities in 22 (brookings)

   

   
Over the past year and a half, the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council (WEF-IBC) - a group of 120 global CEOs - led a robust, promising conversation with a set of global companies, standard setters, and international institutions centered on a single priority: measuring sustainable, inclusive growth in a comparable and consistent way.

   
A set of common metrics (ey)

   

   
22% of survey respondents have made net-zero commitments (though the largest companies in our sample are further along). CEOs are most worried about the potential for a cyberattack or macroeconomic shock to undermine the achievement of their company’s financial goals—the same goals that most executive compensation packages are still tied to.

   
Strategy is driven by business metrics (pwc)

   

   
Economic complexity offers a potentially powerful paradigm to understand key societal issues and challenges of our time. The underlying idea is that growth, development, technological change, income inequality, spatial disparities, and resilience are the visible outcomes of hidden systemic interactions.

   
The new paradigm (sciencedirect)

   

   
In relation to the COVID-19, the EU agencies in the health and safety cluster have played an important role in the pandemic, albeit in different ways. Helping to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic has been a high priority for all the agencies and our assessment suggests that they have been quick to react to the crisis.

   
Focusing on the health and safety cluster (europa)

   

   
Most studies rely on data supplied by national statistics agencies or the judgments of expert observers. And while scholars acknowledge that the quality of the African state is likely shaped by geographic and ethnic differences within countries, few have measured how state capacity varies at the sub-national level.

   
Professionalism and reach (afrobarometer)

   

  India’s tech innovation engines

   
India recorded 44 new billion-dollar technology companies last year, compared with 10 in 2020 and 9 in 2019 (the country has a total of 83 unicorns). Some analysts are predicting that 2022 will see another surge, with new companies in financial, agricultural and educational technology joining new life-sciences companies, games companies and online marketplaces.

   
India’s socio-economic and environmental challenges (nature)

   

   
91% of young Europeans (15–24-years old) agree that tackling climate change can help improve their own health and well-being, while 87% of all respondents also share this sentiment. 81% of respondents say they are happy living in the EU. 68% of Europeans agree the EU is a place of stability in a troubled world, while 67% agree the EU project offers a future perspective for Europe’s youth.

   
Report (europa)

   

   
For organizations that are leveraging the Continuum by using cloud and cloud-based technologies in more significant ways, the benefits include bottom-line savings such as cost reduction and increased speed to market, and top-line growth in sales via cross-sell and/or up-sell.

   
How to unleash competitiveness? (accenture)

   

   
From June to August 2021, WBCSD convened 75 stakeholders representing 60 organizations from different disciplines, sectors and value chains. The aim was not to define what “nature-positive” means, but to identify existing relevant frameworks and create a shared understanding of the key nature-positive messages or building blocks to support communication and awareness-raising with non-expert business audiences.

   
What does mean ? (wbcsd)

   

   
Rare glimpses into how these algorithms were performing were not comforting: In several states, algorithms used to determine how much help residents will receive from home health aides have automatically cut benefits for thousands. Police departments across the country use the PredPol software to predict where future crimes will occur, but the program disproportionately sends police to Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

   
The use of automated decision systems (ADS) (thenextweb)

   

   
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists and researchers came together in 2021 to assist the Nation during a challenging and unprecedented time. The race to understand and combat COVID-19 produced enormous and rapid breakthroughs in many areas – from additive manufacturing to genetic testing to computer modeling and digital learning and more.

   
A year of challenge (nsf)

   

   
Folks at Technische Universität Wien in Austria have devised a formal security framework called WebSpec to analyze browser security. And they've used it to identify multiple logical flaws affecting web browsers, revealing a new cookie-based attack and an unresolved Content Security Policy contradiction. These logical flaws are not necessarily security vulnerabilities, but they can be.

   
Browser security analysis (theregister/arxiv)

   

   
Companies need to move beyond digital. Top companies do this by starting with a big challenge and then building differentiation (digitally) in the capabilities they own. They get their differentiated capabilities right, and then the flow of digital-powered products, services, solutions, and experiences nat- urally follows.

   
Seven imperatives (pwc)

   

   
Ichthyosaurs coexisted with dinosaurs, but these seagoing reptiles were entirely different creatures. They evolved from land reptiles during the Triassic period, over 246 million years ago. Ichthyosaurs became more streamlined and fish-like over time, and diverse species plied the seas until about 95 million years ago.

   
The largest of its kind (nationalgeographic)

   

   
The European Green Deal6 was launched in December 2019 and sets out the European Commission’s commitment to tackling environmental challenges such as atmospheric warming, climate change, environmental pollution and degradation. It is an integral part of the Commission’s actions to implement the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals.

   
Economic Analysis of the Impacts (cefic)

   

   
As tumors develop, they secrete molecules that disable nearby T cells and other immune cells, allowing the tumors to grow unchecked. Drugs known as checkpoint blockade inhibitors, which can take these brakes off the immune system, are now used to treat some types of cancer, but many other types are resistant to this kind of treatment.

   
Immune system-stimulating drugs (mit)

   

   
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises that organizations will be 40-percent more efficient by 2035, unlocking an estimated $14 trillion in new economic value to global GDP by 2030, according to PwC. This makes it the biggest commercial opportunity in today’s fast-changing business climate, all while improving billions of lives.

   
Responsible use of AI tech. (qualitydigest)

   

   
This report draws on information provided during different interviews with EU experts conducted between April and September 2021. It is also based on five case studies conducted specifically for the purpose of this study by five partners of the Transfrontier Euro- Institut Network (TEIN).

   
Cross-border cooperation (europarl)

   

   
The use of collaboration tools exploded during the coronavirus pandemic, as many offices were shuttered in the name of social distancing. With developers unable to exchange ideas and feedback in an in-person setting, they turned to Zoom calls and other forms of communication to continue their work from home.

   
For software developers (developer)

   

   
The UK has been a pioneer in the development of structures to provide science advice to government. The UK’s guidelines for the use of scientific and engineering advice in policy making, first published in 1997 and subsequently revised,15 are seen as setting a blueprint for the principles of handling science advice in government.

   
Strengths and weaknesses (kas)

   

   
There were on average 270 attacks per company over the year, a 31% increase over 2020. Third-party risk continues to dominate: successful breaches to the organization through the supply chain have increased from 44% to 61%. IT security budgets are now up to 15% of all IT spending, 5 percentage points higher than reported in 2020.

   
Annual survey (accenture)

   

   
The Nature’s 10 list explores key developments in science this year and some of the people who played important parts in these milestones. Along with their colleagues, these individuals helped to make amazing discoveries and brought attention to crucial issues. Nature’s 10 is not an award or a ranking. The selection is compiled by Nature’s editors to highlight key events in science through the compelling stories of those involved.

   
Nature mag selection (nature)

   

   
This report focus on ESG in private markets, alongside emerging regulations such as European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), is driving growth and leading many companies and investors to alter their strategies. Thousands of companies have made public commitments to net zero, set science-based targets, or sought to demonstrate their wider commitments to society through B Corp status.

   
A hot year for the climate (pwc)

   

   
EU citizens are increasingly using digital tools and the internet to work, learn, socialise, to interact with administrations or companies, and to access services such as health and culture. Access to the internet and the use of digital tools is no longer a novelty. For citizens, companies, organisations, and governments in today’s society, they have become essential. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated this trend.

   
The common european vision (eurobarometer)

   

   
This paper looks into the diversity of territorial impacts of the pandemic and drivers behind this diversity. First assessments show that regions in the Alps are particularly sensitive to the shock of the pandemic. First assessments also indicate that several regions within the Alpine region are among those regions in their respective countries that will be hit hardest by the economic recession.

   
The territorial diversity & economic effects (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
The European Commission has proposed the introduction of minimum energy performance standards for the 15% worst performing buildings in Europe, which would be rated “G” on the EU’s energy performance scale, whether they are residential or not. By 1 January 2027, all commercial or public buildings would need to reach at least class “F” on the EU’s energy efficiency scale, and then class “E” by 1 January 2030.

   
€150 billion of EU funding (euractiv)

   

   
We use data from almost 600,000 students in 77 countries participating in the 2018 PISA assessment of student achievement in math, science, and reading. The composite measure of SES that PISA uses can be broken down into six component variables that we here use as simultaneous predictors of achievement.

   

A Multidimensional predictor (frontiersin)

   

   
Enzymes are protein molecules that are present in all living things. They speed up and target chemical reactions, in many cases increasing the rate of reaction millions of times. For example, they aid digestion, metabolise and eliminate waste in humans and animals, and play a crucial role in muscle contraction.

   
Eu regulation (efsa)

   

   
In a 6 November preprint published on medRxiv1, Vérez Bencomo and his colleagues report that one of the institute’s vaccines, Soberana 02, is more than 90% effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 infection when used in combination with a related vaccine. Importantly, the combination seems to be effective against the highly transmissible Delta variant.

   
Vaccine effectiveness (nature)

   

   
Security is a global property about the behavior of a system across all possible inputs. You can’t demonstrate security by example, and there’s nothing to see in a particular execution of an algorithm. Security is about a higher level of abstraction. This book is at best, one effort at making the path as smooth as a know how.

   
Ciphering vs deciphering (joyofcryptography)

   

   
The Cygnus NG-17 spacecraft will launch from NASA Wallops, in Virginia, on a routine resupply mission to the International Space Station. Amid the many tonnes of standard crew supplies, spacewalk equipment, computer hardware, and research experiments will be one unusual package: a pair of electronic textile swatches embedded with impact and vibration sensors.

   
Test of sensor-laden electronic fabrics in space (spectrum)

   

   
Values are called the dominating forces in life while our identity determines nothing less than who we are. Both are therefore extremely important in determining citizens’ preferences towards EU policy. But what exactly are these values? To what extent are they shared among EU citizens? In what sense do they differ among different EU Member States?

   
Surevy 508 (europa)

   

   
Potential applications are growing, including creating models for parts built before CAD existed, matching human limbs for orthotics and prosthetics, updating CAD models to as-built after a production process, repair processes, moldmaking—and the list is getting longer. What is driving this are new metrology sensors and more capable software & more powerful and cheaper computing.

   
Applications & emerging Technology (sme)

   

   
Most studies indicate that the majority of enterprise AI projects fail to deliver value. Still, investment in this area is accelerating. How can enterprises best structure their talent, culture, and decision-making to maximize economic value from AI? In this on-demand webinar, researchers Thomas H. Davenport and Laks Srinivasan present the key factors leading to AI investments that deliver real business value.

   
Reliable path to value (sloanreview)

   

   
This report is intended to help guide the action of governments of GPAI Member States and beyond about how to support the responsible adoption of AI for climate action. It is the first step of a program of activities that GPAI would support in this space that we hope would forge concrete international cooperation programs in the form of joint investment in research, development, innovation, regulation, and capacity-building.

   
Beyond data (gpai)

   

   
A breakthrough may lead to a notable advance, which may then be followed by what could be perceived as lateral movement as the other inputs catch-up. Some of the trends highlighted in this report focus on an early-stage facet of a trend, while others recognize a trend moving beyond buzzword to reach a certain stage of market-ready maturity.

   
Trends to watch (comptiacdn)

   

   
Focusing on damages, the German Environment Agency uses the damage costs framework to derive “climate costs”. Mitigation costs are the other framework to calculate climate costs in case the focus is on the costs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The commitment to the Paris Agreement, provides an important benchmark for the mitigation target.

   
Analysis of damage and mitigation frameworks (umweltbundesamt)

   

  City Global Index & Remote Work

   
Study uses data to reveal which global cities are most accessible and attractive for remote workers by assessing factors related to employment compliance, living costs, infrastructure and liveability, in addition to showing current location trends. The first topic we considered was compliance, both in terms of companies hiring remote workers and for employees looking to relocate.

   
80 cities around the world (workmotion)

   

   
When asked what advice committee members might offer to other audit committees to get to grips with the climate challenge, education came out on top (87% of all respondents mentioned education), followed by good management information (79%), and making sure there is alignment of the climate challenge with corporate strategy (78%).

   
Risk assessments as a daunting task (deloitte)

   

   
Leaders are often shaped by crises. And COVID-19 certainly raised the bar for leadership teams; many have broken with old practices to reconcile what were perceived to be competing stakeholder priorities and achieve in weeks what previously took years. This willingness to drive rapid organizational change for the benefit of all stakeholders embodies responsible leadership.

   
Impact on society & the environment (accenture)

   

   
The medical product industry maintains an extensive network of financial and non-financial ties with all major healthcare parties and activities. This network seems to be mostly unregulated and opaque. With absent effective conflict of interests oversight, such promotion might ultimately threaten the integrity, equity, and sustainability of healthcare systems.

   
Oversight and transparency (bmj)

   

   
At the UN Climate Summit, Urgewald and 20 NGO partners launched the “Global Oil & Gas Exit List” (GOGEL), an extensive public database that covers 887 oil and gas companies, which account for almost 95% of global oil and gas production. Over the past 3 years, 16 oil and gas companies spent US$ 168 billion on exploration for new oil and gas resources.

   
Building pipelines halfway to the moon (gogel)

   

   
Revelations of poor practices at a contract research company helping to carry out Pfizer’s pivotal covid-19 vaccine trial raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight. Researchers who were testing Pfizer’s vaccine at several sites in Texas during that autumn, speed may have come at the cost of data integrity and patient safety.

   
Lab management in question (bmj)

   

   
The new study suggests that cellular enlargement drives a decline in function of stem cells. The researchers found that blood stem cells, which are among the smallest cells in the body, lose their ability to perform their normal function. replenishing the body’s blood cells — as they grow larger.

   
Bigger doesn’t mean better (news.mit)

   

   
By the late 1970s, the American Petroleum Institute had formed a secret committee called the “CO2 and Climate Task Force,” which included representatives of many of the major oil companies, to privately monitor and discuss the latest developments in climate science. In 1980, Stanford University researcher worned that global warming would be “barely noticeable” by 2005, but by the 2060s would have “globally catastrophic effects.”

   
Info. vs desinfo. (fastcompany)

   

   
Predicting the future is a risky business, particularly in the current environment of huge uncertainty. But once again, Gartner this week announced its Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2022 and Beyond during its virtual Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2021 Americas event.

   
Top Predictions (informationweek)

   

   
If scientists can generate supplies of eggs, it would break the rules of reproduction as we know them. Women without ovaries—for example, because of cancer or surgery—might be able to have biologically related children. What’s more, lab-made eggs would cancel the age limits on female fertility, allowing women to have related babies at 50, 60, or even beyond.

   
Plan to turn blood into human eggs (technologyreview)

   

   
This briefing presents an overview of the key features of migration and asylum policy in the UK, recent trends in migration patterns, and public perceptions and political narratives on refugees and other migrants. Since the referendum, EU immigration has been on the decline, with 28% fewer National Insurance numbers allocated to EU citizens in 2019 than in 2015.

   
Attitudes towards refugees and other migrants (odi)

   

   
Many large companies have long regarded strategy development and strategy execution as two separate things. Before the pandemic, top management was generally seen as responsible for developing strategies, while middle managers and employees were responsible for executing them. Decision and action shld be captured immediately to make relevant strategic decisions.

   
How to make big, old companies act fast ? (strategy-business)

   

   
It’s true that we have little fundamental understanding of the inner workings of self-learning algorithms, or of the limits of their applications. These new forms of AI are very different from traditional computer codes that can be understood line by line. Instead, they operate within a black box, seemingly unknowable to humans and even to the machines themselves.

   
The new alchemy? (quantamagazine)

   

   
We are living in a world in which walls, border patrols, Black Hawk helicopters, unmanned aerial systems, motion sensors, and infrared cameras are placed between the world’s highest emitters and the lowest ones, between the environmentally relatively secure and the environmentally exposed.. This expanding global border regime is increasingly built by private industry.

   
Borders over climate action (tni)

   

   
The analysis shows that, between January 2020 and March 2021, G7 nations committed more than US$189 billion to support coal, oil and gas, while clean forms of energy received only $147 billion. In other words, fossil fuels received more than half of the total support to energy-intensive sectors. Inconsistent result with the steep decline in emissions needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C and with G7 countries’ own net-zero targets.

   
Cleaning up their act? (learn.tearfund)

   

   
One of the hallmarks of our digital age is the rapid pace of change. The ability to procure core technology components at lower costs and the ability to connect individuals around the globe have dramatically accelerated the capacity for innovation, and there is often a sense that businesses need to constantly adapt or face irrelevance.

   
Trends to watch (comptiacdn)

   

   
Analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on young people, providing updated information on their economic and social situation, with a focus on employment. This document was provided in-house by the Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies at the request of the committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL).

   
Economic & social situation (europarl)

   

   
12Wielding Influence in the Age of Coronavirus and surrounding publicity, have been clothed in key CCP slogans – above all that they are part of a ‘Community of Health for All’, tying the effort to Beijing’s strategic goal of uniting China and Africa in a ‘Community of Common Destiny’.

   
Report (kas)

   

   
Depending on its purpose, failure analysis can be performed by plant and maintenance engineers, reliability engineers, or failure analysis engineers. Maintenance engineers conduct primary failure analysis based on their knowledge of the plant operations. If the internal team doesn’t have the required expertise, it is advisable to hire consultants that provide failure analysis services.

   
How to Choose? (qualitydigest)

   

   
T hose who had recovered from COVID-19 months before receiving their jabs harboured antibodies capable of defanging the mutant spike, which displays much more resistance to immune attack than any known naturally occurring variant. These peoples’ antibodies even blocked other types of coronaviruses. “It’s very likely they will be effective against any future variant that SARS-CoV-2.

   
One of the pandemic’s great puzzles (nature)

   

   
The plant will use 22- and 28-nanometer line processing," said Tadahiro Kuroda, Director of Systems Design Lab (d.lab) at the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. "So it's not an advanced foundry like the Arizona plant that will use 7 nanometers." But he adds it can produce a range of devices that go into consumer products, sensors, IoT, and auto parts.

   
Chip shortage (spectrum)

   

   
The Methodology Report, which is now available, lays out the metrics by which 20 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies will be assessed and ranked for the 2022 Access to Medicine Index. It captures society’s expectations of pharmaceutical companies regarding access to medicine in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

   
New metric (accesstomedicinefoundation)

   

   
East Asia and Africa started in 1965 with similar shares of working-age populations, at 53 percent. The share then rose rapidly in East Asia to peak at over 70 percent in 2010 due largely to lower fertility rates, and the saving rates rose from 15 percent of GDP to peak at 34 percent of GDP in 2010. The increase in saving rates facilitated more investment and East Asia’s economic transformation.

   
Advantages of industries without smokestacks (brookings)

   

   
Quality management is the cornerstone of medical device manufacturing. There is simply no way to overstate how essential quality is to bring a medical device to market and keep it there long term. A common problem among medical device companies is that senior managers often become disengaged from what’s happening in the quality space.

   
Five biggest quality mistakes (qualitydigest)

   

   
Horizon Europe, the EU’s major Research and Innovation programme, is the successor to Horizon 2020. It is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion. It aims to support scientific excellence, tackle climate change, help to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and boost the EU’s competitiveness and growth.

   
EU citizens’ knowledge and attitudes (eurobarometer)

   

   
Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning are two phrases we often hear being tossed around in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI) and new digital technologies. In the media and the public imagination, mostly these two terms are interchangeable, vague, and (arguably) glamorous. Despite the mixed usage, however, they do, in fact, have some key differences.

   
What’s the Difference? (developer)

   

   
Agriculture is estimated to contribute up to 24% of total GHG emissions worldwide. This is because of the way agricultural goods are produced, as well as the land use change they trigger when forests or peatlands are cleared to cultivate crops or graze cattle. Agricultural production is also the largest source of methane and nitrogen dioxide emissions.

   
Decarbonising land use (odi)

   

   
Many larger companies, especially those with a big online presence, have hundreds or even thousands of APIs embedded in their infrastructure. The growth of APIs will only continue to increase. Most APIs are unique, and many organizations simply create new APIs as needed. That can be a nightmare for security teams.

   
10 tools to the rescue (csoonline)

   

   
75 percent of employers claim the students they hire after 12, 16 or more years of formal education lack the ability to think critically and solve problems -- despite the fact that nearly all educators claim to prioritize helping students develop those very skills. we still do not understand the concept well enough to determine how teaching critical-thinking skills can be integrated into the curriculum.

   
Iimproving student ability (insidehighered)

   

   
AI technologies are the most powerful tools in generations for expanding knowledge, increasing prosperity, and enriching the human experience. AI is also the quintessential “dual-use” technology. The ability of a machine to perceive, evaluate, and act more quickly and accurately than a human represents a competitive advantage in any field—civilian or military.

   
Final report (nascai)

   

   

“Super-eruptions are among the most catastrophic events in Earth’s history, venting tremendous amounts of magma almost instantaneously. They can impact global climate to the point of tipping the Earth into a ‘volcanic winter’, which is an abnormally cold period that may result in widespread famine and population disruption.

   
Semi-dormant volcanoes' threats (nature)

   

   
Instead of robot taxes, policymakers who want to help workers displaced by automation should focus on other policies, such as addressing disparities in taxes on capital and labor and easing labor market frictions. Doing so would benefit workers, firms, and the economy more so than would a tax on robots.

   
How do you define robot? (brookings)

   

   
Quantum computers are still in development,, OTI Lumionics designs compagny uses “quantum-inspired” systems and methods for its simulations to test fine chemicals and materials, a process that could take considerably longer through traditional means. The company has been using the Azure Quantum platform in partnership with Microsoft.

   
How to improve the manufacturing cycle for organic LEDs (informationweek)

   

   
Climate protection scenarios are a key part of long-term climate policy planning. The modelling performed in such scenarios informs the development of 2050 national climate strategies—which themselves serve as roadmaps for the decarbonisation of the economy.

   
Scope & Ambition (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is often presented as the crown jewel of EU climate policy, put- ting a price on carbon emissions from the power sector and industry. With a major reform process now under- way, EURACTIV looks at the implications from a social and economic point of view.

   
Focus on industry & fairness (euractiv)

   

   

Microsoft has announced plans to soon release Windows 11. It turns out Windows 10 wasn't the last version of Windows after all, but that's okay, because Windows 11 will be free for all Windows 10 users, and includes a whole bunch of new features and improvements over the current version of Windows.

   
System requirements (windowscentral)

   

   
Under the Japanese presidency of the 2019 G20, members agreed to the Osaka Blue Ocean Vision, which commits G20 countries to “reduce additional pollution by marine plastic litter to zero by 2050”, thereby ensuring that by 2050, the net volume of plastic entering the ocean is zero.

   
Policy options (resourcepanel)

   

   
In this complex, interconnected and risky world, public administrations must ensure that they are as resilient as possible, in order to preserve the well-being and confidence of the population in the face of future crises. In the final analysis, therefore, resilience is key to supporting resilient societies and healthy democratic systems.

   
How to build resilience (oecd-ilibrary)

   

   

This new edition provides an updated and comprehensive overview of the competent public institutions and the structures of food and feed safety within 37 countries. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as well as its Focal Point network from all 27 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway, as well as observers from Switzerland and EU candidate countries have considerably contributed to this almanac.

   
Who does what ? (bfr)

   

   
Due to product shortages, health care systems have begun looking to unconventional sources of supplies, such as using local upholstery companies to make gowns and leveraging the community to help fill product needs. Health systems are increasingly learning that local suppliers can meet product needs and specifications; however,they tend to be at a higher price point.

   
Building supply chain resiliency (ey)

   

   
In the new era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the game of cat and mouse in the realm of cybersecurity has reached its head. AI, from its side, gives cybersecurity added power for more intelligent detection and analysis of cyber threats. But unfortunately, hackers are also using AI as a new weapon to create new – and stronger – malicious innovations.

   
Overview (developer)

   

   
Financial markets represent one of the most powerful ways to drive public and private action on climate resilience, as reflected in a "May executive order" from the US administration. The order calls for the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of the Treasury, and other federal agencies to better measure and address financial risks resulting from climate change.

   
The flow of capital toward climate-aligned investments (brookings)

   

   
The EU-funded project SMARTCHAIN hosts today its closing event, showcasing its main findings and recommendations to support collaborative Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) in Europe. The 3-year long project brought together a wide range of policymakers, practitioners and researchers interested in learning more on collaborative SFSCs and how to support their growth.

   
Key steps to improve sustainability (eufic)

   

   
After continuous growth in previous years, electricity generation from renewable energies also increased in 2020. For the first time ever, renewable energy sources generated more electricity than all fossil energy sources (coal, gas and oil) combined. Wind energy was also able to expand its position as the most important energy source in the German electricity mix.

   
Data on the development in 2020 (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
As the incidence of immune-mediated diseases has increased rapidly in developed societies, there is an unmet need for novel prophylactic practices to fight against these maladies. This study is the first human intervention trial in which urban environmental biodiversity was manipulated to examine its effects on the commensal microbiome and immunoregulation in children.

   
Microbial imbalance or dysbiosis (advances.sciencemag)

   

   
In this study, we characterize the impacts of COVID-19 on air pollution using NO2 and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) from TROPOMI and MODIS satellite datasets for 41 cities in India. Specifically, our results suggested a 13% NO2 reduction during the lockdown (March 25–May 3rd, 2020) compared to the pre-lockdown (January 1st–March 24th, 2020) period.

   
Spatial and temporal variations of air pollution over 41 cities (nature)

   

   
The mission of the Soyuz space craft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut was of immense importance to Russia's space agency Roscosmos, coming as the SpaceX programme relaunches manned spaceflight from the United States and ignites fresh talk of a space race between the two countries.

   

A vast improvement since 2013 (phys)

   

   
The latest iteration of Google’s web analytics platform, dubbed Google Analytics 4, is now available. The new property type includes expanded predictive insights, deeper integration with Google Ads, cross-device measurement capabilities and more granular data controls.

   
Vision for the future of analytics (searchengineland)

   

   
Nearly all respondents (95%) think that agriculture and rural areas are important for ‘our future’ in the European Union. Moreover, the survey shows that more EU citizens are aware of the CAP (73% today, 6 percentage points (p.p.) more than in 2017) and believe that the CAP benefits all citizens, not only farmers (76% today, 15 p. p. more than in 2017).

   
From sustainability to rural areas & food security (ec.europa)

   

   
Aramco and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ), in partnership with SABIC, have successfully demonstrated the production and shipment of blue ammonia from Saudi Arabia to Japan with support from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

   
To a sustainable future (ieej)

   

   
The pandemic has significantly intensified the crisis phenomena in the Global South, while countries of the Global North have often been able to withstand the impacts of the crisis through government interventions. The gap between the countries of the Global North and the Global South threatens to widen even further.

   
The international environmental (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
We still need international cooperation because global challenges and problems cannot be solved nationally or regionally. Admit-tedly, issues such as security, finance architecture, free trade, health, and migration must be worked out at the local and national levels, and in the case of climate change also largely implemented at such levels.

   
Is the international order hanging by a thread? (kas)

   

   
A key part of your approach in this new environment should be future-back planning, as explained in the first chapter of this report. The megatrends are a valuable basis to generate new planning scenarios, define a relevant purpose for the future and execute with urgency — all with the goal of becoming a more resilient and transformative company.

   
How to see opportunities where others don’t ? (ey)

   

   
Microsoft and a team of companies and law enforcement groups have disabled — at least temporarily — one of the world’s largest hacking operations, an effort run by Russian-speaking cybercriminals that officials feared could disrupt the presidential election in three weeks. According to Intel 471, a security firm, there were two attacks on the TrickBot infrastructure before Microsoft received court authorization.

   
Microsoft takes down a risk to the election (nytimes)

   

   
Over half (55%) of global GDP, equal to USD 41.7 trillion1, is dependent on high-functioning biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, a staggering fifth of countries globally(20%) are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficialservices, reveals a new study by Swiss Re Institute.

   
Ecosystem collapse as biodiversity declines (swiss re institut)

   

   
Renewable energy, now predominant in new electric power capacity, has proven especially flexible, cost-effective, and resilient in the face of the 2020 health and economic crisis. Even better, renewables create numerous and diverse jobs. ast year, jobs in the sector worldwide reached an estimated 11.5 million, continuing a long-term growth trend.

   
Why clean energy needed ?? (irena)

   

   
A consensus-based multilateral solution involving PillarOne and PillarTwo would lead to a more favourable environment for investment and growth than would likely be the case in absence of an agreement by the G20/OECDInclusiveFramework. The full impact of the COVID-19 crisis remains highly uncertain at this stage.

   
Supporting health systems & recovery above all (oecd)

   

   
What we do know is that leading net zero commitments have certain attributes. They are science-based. They take responsibility for tackling value chain emissions including suppliers, products, services and investments. They also explicitly recognize that net zero requires a reshaping of corporate strategy and in turn a firm’s operating model.

   
The building blocks (pwc)

   

  USA: Competition in digital markets

   
The purpose of the investigation was to document competition problems in digital markets; examine whether dominant firms are engaging in anticompetitive conduct; and assess whether existing antitrust laws, competition policies, and current enforcement levels are adequate to address these issues.

   
Investigation report (judiciary.house)

   

   
The ESA’s recently launched Solar Orbiter will spend years in one of the most unwelcoming places in the Solar System: the Sun. Solar Orbiter are almost always run by real-time operating systems that work in an entirely different way than the ones you and I know from the average laptop. Operating systems used in space needs to be done correctly within a strictly specified deadline.

   
RTEMS vs VxWorks (arstechnica)

   

   
Viral infections usually cause disease in humans through both direct cytopathogenic effects and excessive inflammatory responses of the infected host. This also seems to be the case with SARS-CoV2, as COVID-19 patients develop cytokine storms that are very likely to contribute to, if not drive, immunopathology, and disease severity.

   
How to suppress pathogenic inflammation ? (nature)

   

   
This is the sixth annual report for the Cabinet Secretary from the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board. It has now completed its sixth full year of work and has covered a number of areas of HCSEC’s work over the course of the year 2019 to 2020.

   
Annual report (assets.publishing.service)

   

   
EU Member States are being urged to step up surveillance and biosecurity measures to guard against possible new outbreaks of avian influenza this year. The warning follows outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) among wild and domestic birds in western Russia and Kazakhstan.

   
Avian influenza overview (efsa)

   

   
What do a human rights negotiation in Afghanistan, a crisis negotiation in Calgary, and a business dispute between a Brazilian and a Frenchman have in common? At first blush, nothing. However, when we dig deeper into these high-stakes negotiations, there is a common thread that connects them all.

   
How to help your counterpart save face? (hbr)

   

   
The human oral cavity harbors a complex microbial community known as the oral microbiome. These organisms are regularly exposed to selective pressures, such as the usage of antibiotics, which drive evolution and acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Resistance among oral bacteria jeopardizes not only antibiotic therapy for oral infections, but also extra-oral infections caused by bacterial translocation.

   
Antibiotic resistance genes (plos)

   

   
You can’t ensure privacy without first getting your cybersecurity ducks in a row. One of the reasons many publicized attacks involve government agencies and credit reporting agencies is because they are pillars of our very identities in the modern world. Cybersecurity professionals help ensure that those pillars remain firmly in place.

   
Why cybersecurity professionals are so important ? (comptia)

   

   
Experts identified a health concern for infants and toddlers, considering both mean and high consumers. Among adults, there is a health concern for high consumers only. Glycoalkaloids poisoning can cause acute gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

   
Public health risks assessed (efsa)

   

   
By 2050, on current trends, greenhouse gas emissions from plastics will increase threefold and could account for as much as 20% of total oil consumption. To achieve net zero emissions globally by 2050, it is critical that the plastics sector reduce its emissions to zero by that date. This report explores the potential for extensive emission reductions in the plastics sector.

   
Climate impacts (odi)

   

   
As the coronavirus pandemic unfolded, one leading global engineering and technology services company found itself well positioned to meet unprecedented challenges. The firm had kicked off a digital transformation project the year before, including investing in a data and analytics program equipped with advanced tools.

   
Insights capability in the post–COVID-19 world (strategy-business)

   

   
This paper seeks to answer that challenge by proposing “The Breakout Scale,” a comparative model for measuring IOs based on data that are observable, replicable, verifiable, and available from the moment they were posted. It is intended for use by the operational research community for real-time categorization of IOs as they are identified.

   
The impact of influence operations (brookings)

   

   
This report is the culmination of a 3-year process of research and collaboration between IPES-Food and a wide range of local, regional and international partners to support the development of sustainable food systems in West Africa. This region is fast becoming a climate hotspot with a number of urgent and interconnected challenges.

   
Unlocking the potential for transition (ipes-food)

   

   
We have reached a tipping point where large and prom-inent drugmakers have retreated from the antibiotics field and smaller innovative biotech companies have gone bank-rupt due to the poor financial rewards on offer. Antibiotics are taken for short courses and the most precious products are reserved for emergencies.

   
Benchmark 2020 (accesstomedicinefoundation)

   

   
New research finds that rapid MRI scans generated with artificial intelligence (AI) were just as effective as, and were diagnostically interchangeable with, traditional MRI. The results could significantly improve the patient experience, expand access to MRIs, and potentially enable new use cases for MRI.

   
Deep learning with 4 times less data (nyulangone)

   

   
The average person subscribes to three streaming services. Keeping them straight is a mess. But a fix may be coming soon. Google has been working on a new platform called Kaleidoscope. It appears to be a website that combines all of your streaming services in one place, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus and many more.

   
Jumping between streaming services (fastcompany)

   

   
In recent years, numerous niche innovations have emerged in the food systems of European countries, which have the potential to contribute to the necessary, more sustainable shaping of food systems. These niche innovations are presented in this publication as well as classified and evaluated with regard to their potential contribution to the transformation of the food system.

   
Niche innovations (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
We’ve been adding voice commands to Dictate so that you can break away from the keyboard. Whether on desktop or mobile (or transitioning between devices), you can stay in the flow and focus on your message by using dictation with voice commands to add, format, edit, and organize your text.

   
How to break away from the keyboard? (microsoft)

   

   
With the national election taking place at a time of desperate hope for new vaccines and therapies to combat the lethal coronovirus, FDA officials are struggling to maintain the credibility and independence of its drug regulatory process amidst accusations of intentionally delaying clinical testing for political reasons.

   
COVID-19 convalescent plasma (fda)

   

   
The report—produced in partnership with universities, research institutions, UN agencies and the secretariats of several multilateral environmental agreements— identifies key anthropogenic drivers for the emergence of zoonoses, from agricultural intensification and increased demand for animal protein to the conversion of land and climate change.

   
How to break the chain of transmission (pnud,ilri, un)

   

   
Consumers are increasingly willing to tell their doctors when they disagree with them, are using tools to get information on costs and health issues, are tracking their health conditions and using that data to make decisions, and accessing and using their medical record data.

   
The future of health (deloitte)

   

   
Expenditures in business travel have been growing fast, much faster than global GDP. The Growth Lab had explored this question by looking at labor and entrepreneurial mobility between firms, regions, and countries. But it occurred to them that the importance of knowhow might explain why firms rely so heavily on business travel.

   
What would happen ? (growthlab)

   

   
Q2’20 saw regions across the globe continuing to grapple with the challenges associated with COVID-19, including economic turbulence, sudden spikes in unemployment rates, restrictions on travel and movement, and the ramifications of the continued shutdown or slowdown of many sectors and industries.

   
Global analysis (kpmg)

   

   
This article’s purpose is to discuss what we know about respiratory protection, and also what can be done to make masks more effective by reducing air leakage. The effectiveness of a mask made from a particular material can vary enormously as a function of how well it seals against the wearer’s face.

   
Something is better than nothing (qualitydigest)

   

   
AI-based solutions are playing a crucial role in the fight against the pandemic — from contact-tracing algorithms to drones that scan body temperatures and ensure compliance with social distancing directives. The primacy of tackling the crisis is reordering ethical considerations.

   
Aligning policymakers and companies (ey)

   

   
his innovation hints at the ways 5G networks could transform and improve all of the critical components of healthcare, a subject especially meaningful today as the spread of the coronavirus has put unprecedented stress on healthcare systems around the world.

   
The privacy challenge (pwc)

   

   
Origin stories come in many forms: tales of how we entered a profession, personal chronicles explaining how and when we became part of an organization, accounts of how we met our significant other, or even how we emerged as a new person after a crisis. Despite this natural inclination, we rarely examine what we include (and don’t include) in those accounts and how those choices shape our present reality.

   
About “becoming” leaders & leadership (hbr)

   

   
Which value(s) can help us to evaluate sustainable climate performance appropriately? At least since Agenda 2030, it has been clear that sustainability means more than just environmental and climate protection, and requires economic and social concerns to be taken into account, too.

   
CO2 productivity as a benchmark (kas)

   

   
Machine Learning and Deep learning algorithms are powerful and flexible predictive modeling tools but have rarely been applied to animal movement data. In this study we present a general framework for predicting animal movement that is a combination of two steps: first predicting movement behavioral states and second predicting the animal’s velocity.

   
Tracking data focus on parametric models (plos)

   

   
Opposition to progress is often “shaped, not so much by fundamental personality traits, but simply by the imperatives of argument, almost regardless of the desires, character, or conviction of the participants. Theses can help us understand why some executives aren’t going full throttle with business experimentation, a practice that is key to innovation, that drives profitable growth and creates shareholder value.

   
Seven myths (strategy-business)

   

   
Vaccines to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) are urgently needed. The effect of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines on viral replication in both upper and lower airways is important to evaluate in nonhuman primates. The use of messenger RNA (mRNA) is a promising approach for Covid-19 vaccination.

   
Evaluation of the mRNA-1273 Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 (nejm)

   

   
The future of grocery may come down to how we buy things like toilet paper and avocados—or the difference between transactional and experiential purchases. From the beginning, the supermarket’s appeal has been the convenience of everything under one roof. Looking ahead—and in light of COVID-19—that model is ripe for disruption.

   
Shaking the coconut tree (fastcompany)

   

   
The COVID-19 situation has deeply affected urban consumers’ views on spending. Before the outbreak, consumer confidence was sky-high, with almost half (46%) of our survey respondents saying they expected to spend more in the next 12 months. When we reached back out to people after the outbreak had begun, 40% reported a decrease in income as a result of job loss or redundancy.

   
A customer purchase journey (pwc)

   

   
The treatment from Southampton-based biotech Synairgen uses a protein called interferon beta which the body produces when it gets a viral infection. The protein is inhaled directly into the lungs of patients with coronavirus, using a nebuliser, in the hope that it will stimulate an immune response.

   
Promising coronavirus treatments (bbc)

   

   
Following a mandate from the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority has developed a Guidance on Technical Requirements(Guidance on Particle-TR),setting out information requirements for applications in the regulated food and feed product areas, and establishing criteria forassessing the presence of a fraction of small particles.

   
Upgrading the conventional risk assessment (efsa)

   

   
Current estimates are that nearly 690 million people are hungry, or 8.9 percent of the world population – up by 10 million people in one year and by nearly 60 million in five years. The number of people affected by severe food insecurity, which is another measure that approximates hunger, shows a similar upward trend.

   
Food security and nutrition (fao)

   

   
Providing production support to an application is one of the most challenging aspects of software development. Developers are assigned to the maintenance team and work on patching bugs on the application. They are, however, also available on-call in case a production outage happens, in which case they work to get the application back on track as quickly as possible.

   
Tech. to speed up troubleshooting (thenextweb)

   

   
Adding crushed rock dust to farmland could draw down up to two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air per year and help meet key global climate targets, according to a major new study led by the University of Sheffield. The technique, known as enhanced rock weathering.

   
Applying rock dust to croplands (newswise)

   

   
Given the exceptional uncertainties characterising the near-term outlook, the OECD considers two epidemiological scenarios for the coming 18months: one where the virus continues to recede and remains under control, and one where a second wave of rapid contagion erupts later in 2020.

   
Outlook2020 (oecd)

   

   
The report describes activities within the project “Advanced materials - Thematic conferences: Assessment of needs to act on chemical safety” to provide discussion input on approaches to describe, cluster and prioritize advanced materials. The report presents a structuring of the field of advanced materials by screening existing definitions and classifications as well scientific activities related...

   
Screening criteria for relevance assessment (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
While the pandemic did unexpectedly result in a dip in stress, there are still concerns that keep millennials and Gen Zs up at night. Three topics stood out for both millennials and Gen Zs in the pulse survey, both before the pandemic and after: family welfare, their longer-term financial futures, and their job/career prospects.

   
The resilient generations (deloitte)

   

   
Protecting global biodiversity calls for a variety of instruments, at the EU border as well as in the provisions of preferential agreements. The EU already includes biodiversity-rel ated non-trade provisions in trade agreements, but these provisions are not legally binding and hardly effective.

   
International trade and environmental rules (europarl)

   

   
“Thelong-term outlook for EVs remains bright,as fundamental cost and technology improvements outweigh the short-term impacts of the pandemic,” Bloomberg NEF says in its latest Electric Vehicle Outlook.Its analysts predict that EVs willmake up 10% of global sales by 2025 and 28% by 2030.

   
In line with environmental policies (euractiv)

   

   
Experts agree that the novel coronavirus behind COVID-19 spreads through direct contact and large droplets that, once sneezed or coughed out, often fall harmlessly to the ground. But a recent letter signed by 239 scientists suggests that the virus may also spread by airborne transmission, lingering in the air for hours within lighter "microdroplets."

   
New studies (academic)

   

   
While messenger RNA (mRNA) is crucially important, it is just one of many types of RNA involved in a range of activities that affect the transmission of genetic information and the functioning—or dysfunctioning—of cells. Appropriately designed RNA-based therapies can thus modulate genetic information in a controlled and targeted manner, effectively acting as gene therapies.

   
How to to deliver to the right cells ? (pharmtech)

   

   
As the Covid-19 crisis spread around the world, large numbers of people started working from home, with immediate and varied impacts on energy use. Oil demand shrank but residential electricity use surged. Companies such as Google and Facebook announced they would allow staff members to work remotely until at least the beginning of next year, while Twitter said its employees could continue working from home indefinitely.

   
Working from home (iea)

   

   
Certifications can validate your IT skills and experience to show employers you have the expertise to get the job done. You can get certified in skills you already have or skills you’d like to put to use in your career — whatever your reason, certifications are a great way to strengthen your resume and set yourself apart from other candidates in a job search.

   
IT Popular certifications (cio)

   

   
When analyzing causes and consequences of comparative advantage across products (or indus-tries), theories of international trade typically assume that countries compete within productsby producing the exact same (or perfectly symmetric) output. Yet this is not the case withquality differentiation. The choice of quality allows firms – for a given product – to tailor theiroutput to match the skills of workers in their country.

   
Quality differentiation & Comparative advantage (growthlab)

   

   
The pandemic and the resulting sudden stopinglobaleconomic activity has increased the riskthat banks will face large credit losses in the coming quarters.In this paper, we argue that policymakersshouldtake more aggressive actions to ensure that banks remain well-capitalized so that they can continue to play their critical roles as providers ofcredit to the economy.

   
Drawing on lessons from global financial crisis (brookings)

   

   
Looking behind the money flows, this report found that the obstacles to agroecological research are deep-rooted — but not insurmountable. The majority of donors partially endorse some principles of agroecology while simultaneously supporting conventional approaches. Agroecology is often reduced to the biophysical dimension, and consequently donors like Switzerland pay less attention to concerns.

   
What is holding back investment ? (ipes)

   

   
The EU’s annual report on arms export control presently lags behind the national reports of many countries. The introduction of a searchable online database will be a substantial step in increasing the user-friendliness of the report. This paper makes recommendations with regard to readability, comprehensiveness and comparability.

   
Recommendations for transparency (europarl)

   

   
This special report, produced in partnership with Vodafone, analyses the current state of play for Europe’s digital vision of the future in a radically transformed post-coronavirus world. It draws on the expertise of high-level politicians and policymakers, industry experts and business leaders, in order to chart the coming revolution in Europe’s technological landscape.

   
The coming revolution (euractiv)

   

   
Microsoft 365 now lets you create intranet sites in multiple languages. You can create pages and news in a user’s preferred language, and show site navigation, site title, and the site description in the preferred language, too. The process is relatively easy – but there are a few things to know before launching.

   
Tips and best practices (computerworld)

   

   
The evidence clearly shows that climate-related natural resource scarcity or extreme weather events are not the sole cause of violent conflict. Rather, for slow- and rapid-onset events, with short- to long-term effects, climate acts as a ‘threat multiplier’. In other words, climate factors compound existing stresses to increase the likelihood of violent conflict.

   
Conflict and fragility (odi)

   

   
When the Journal took up the topic in 2003 with a debate about the role of race in medicine, one side argued that racial and ethnic categories reflected underlying population genetics and could be clinically useful.1 Others held that any small benefit was outweighed by potential harms that arose from the long, rotten history of racism in medicine.

   
Hidden in plain sight (nejm)

   

  MS ' Project Bonsai & Moab

   
Project Bonsai is the first service component of Microsoft's vision to empower customers to build, operate, and manage autonomous system. Also announcing Project Moab, a new open-source balancing robot to help engineers and developers learn how to build real-world autonomous control systems with Project Bonsai.

   
How to incorporate knowledge from experts ? (azure.microsoft)

   

   
During the last three decades, implementing the standard has typically been a significant overhead expense, a never-ending chore to remain compliant, and an added work burden to the staff of most organizations. We’ve developed tools for continual improvement and metrics to demonstrate how well they work, but they are seldom integrated into overall business performance indicators.

   
Part 1 to 5 (qualitydigest)

   

   
In Europe, Italians have the highest genetic diversity. The gradient of their genetic variability, scattered all over the peninsula, encloses on a small scale the whole genetic variance between southern and continental Europeans. This amazing diversity started to accumulate soon after the Late Glacial Maximum, which ended approximately 19,000 years ago.

   
Earliest evidence (phys)

   

   
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) offers best practices for delivering IT services using a systematic approach to IT service management (ITSM). The ITIL 4 was updated by Axelos in February 2019 to include a stronger emphasis on maintaining agility, flexibility and innovation in ITSM, while still supporting legacy networks and systems.

   
Costs, requirements, levels and paths (cio)

   

   
The study starts with a brief overview of empirical data regarding the impacts of biodiversity loss on human rights, highlighting data gaps and limitations in currently available sources. The study will assess the status and content of existing international obligations on biodiversity and human rights.

   
Why is it linked to human rights? (europarl)

   

   
Education is a central need and priority for many affected by emergencies and protracted crises. Emergencies and protracted crises directly affect the education of more than 75 million of the world’s children, with more than half of the world’s children of primary age living in countries affected by crisis.

   
Global analysis framework (odi)

   

  Windows 10 May 2020 update

   
Despite calls for Microsoft to significantly delay its spring Windows release due to the pandemic, the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, version 2004, is expected to begin rolling out to users in the next few weeks. Industry watchers initially expected it on May 12, Patch Tuesday, but the public release now appears to be slated for the last week in May.

   
Review (computerworld)

   

   
We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. With population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y.

   
The interplay of mechanisms driven by warming (pnas)

   

   
Over the past four decades, the Arabian Sea has experienced a profound loss of inorganic nitrate. In all probability, this is due to increased denitrification caused by the expansion of the permanent oxygen minimum zone and consequent changes in nutrient stoichiometries. These exceptional changes appear to be creating a niche particularly favorable to Noctiluca scintillans which has recently replaced diatoms as the dominant winter, bloom forming organism.

   
Coast of Oman upheaval (nature report)

   

   
This briefing note focuses specifically on the effects this economic crisis will have on education leavers. It estimates the level of employment and pay scarring that they could suffer, and also considers the unique effects that this particular crisis will have by putting at risk many of the roles that non-graduate education leavers first enter into.

   
Education leavers in the current crisis (resolutionfoundation)

   

   
Resource efficiency as an opportunity many countries have begun to develop policies for a more efficient and sustainable use of natural resources at the national level. A compilation of policies by European countries was published by the European Environment Agency. However, for non-European countries there is little information available.

   
Policies and trends (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
COVID-19 threatens to erode trust in publicinstitutions, especially if citizens view their respective authorities as mishandlingthe responseto the crisis or lacking transparencyas tothe scope of thisresponse.29Nevertheless, some executives appear to be receivinga boost in popularity fortheir seemingly robust responses to the pandemic.

   
Sector governance (dcaf)

   

   
Extrapolating behaviours from acceleration data of wild individuals is a challenge since it is often impossible to test whether the extrapolated behaviours are correct or not. However, the promising advance of behaviour classification through machine learning is the ability to study the behaviour of wild animals without observing (and possibly disturbing) them.

   
Using data from captive individuals (plos)

   

   
This survey found that the EU has among the lowest confidence in the safety and effectiveness of vaccinesworldwide, that levels of confidence vary by vaccine, and that there is a correlation between the confidence of general practitioners in vaccines and the confidence of the general public.

   
Special Eurobarometer (europa)

   

   
People moved through Wuhan to 296 prefectures in 31 provinces and regions throughout the country. The researchers linked the population-flow data, which was provided by a major national wireless telecommunications carrier, to COVID-19 infection counts, provided by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC), by location and time at the prefecture level.

   
Real-time data about population flows (nature)

   

   
The researchers found that low income workers, such as farmers and construction or factory workers, tend to work in jobs that require less physical proximity to other people at work than high income workers, such as office workers or school teachers. However, as low income workers tend to be in occupations that are more machine-dependent and less ICT-enabled, this makes them less flexible to work remotely.

   
Covid economics (cepr)

   

   
Generally, vaccines must go through three progressively more stringent human trial phases before they are considered safe and effective. The phases assess the candidates’ safety profile, the strength of the immune responses they trigger, and how good they are at actually protecting people from infection and disease.

   
100-plus in the works (arstechnica)

   

   
The content is provisional and will be updated on a regular basis, as needed. It has been prepared to provide general guidance on matters of interest only, and does not constitute professional advice. There may be local nuances which require specific consideration. You should not act upon the information contained herein without obtaining specific professional advice.

   
Audit legislation (kpmg)

   

   
Public health experts around the world have said that one of the most vital strategies for slowing the spread of COVID-19 was ‘social distancing’. UQ’s Professor Jolanda Jetten advocated renaming the term to ‘physical distancing’. “The idea of distancing clashes with the deep-seated human instinct to connect with others, especially during challenging times,” she said.

   
Socially connected while physically apart (nature)

   

   
The spread of COVID-19 has compounded Europe’s weak growth and brought some economic activity to a halt. On average, 63 per cent of CFOs report in March 2020 that they are less optimistic about the financial prospects for their company, an increase of almost30 percentage points in six months. If we look at the data based on when CFOs responded throughout March it is apparent that optimism was dwindling fast as the month progressed.

   
A perspective on COVID-19 (deloitte)

   

   
The phrase “flatten the curve” means to slow the transmission of the coronavirus (Covid-19) in order to spread the total number of cases out over a longer period of time. This will avoid overwhelming the healthcare system.1 The model is accurate as presented throughout the internet, but it also overlooks terrible dangers and enormous opportunities.

   
The SIR model & the Curve (qualitydigest)

   

   
“Agricultural economic water scarcity” is, here, defined as lack of irrigation due to limited institutional and economic capacity instead of hydrologic constraints. To date, the location and productivity potential of economically water scarce croplands remain unknown. We develop a monthly agrohydrological analysis to map agricultural regions affected by agricultural economic water scarcity.

   
Adaptation strategy to climate change (sciencemag)

   

   
Evidence of food-borne outbreaks shows that L. monocytogenes is the most relevant pathogen associated with bfV. The probability of illness per serving of uncooked bfV, for the elderly (65–74 years old) population, is up to 3,600 times greater than cooked bfV and very likely lower than any of the evaluated ready-to-eat food categories.

   
Frozen fruit and vegetables (efsa)

   

   
Businesses today are looking to acquire assets that reflect and cater to consumers’ strong environmental and ethical values and comply with increased regulations. Most of these targets are likely to be strategic deal opportunities that offer longer-term value. Consumers are voicing their preferences and businesses are responding.”

   
Consumers are driving the companies to change ethically (kpmg)

   

   
Governments around the world are acting decisively to protect their businesses and people from the economic disruption being caused by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Whether through tax cuts, investment incentives or changes to filing deadlines, tax systems will play a significant part in helping to alleviate the financial and economic turmoil that is now occurring.

   
How are governments responding ? (ey)

   

   
This study researched the drivers and mechanisms of both structural and non-structural horizontal and vertical integration in the seafood industry in all Member States with a coastline. The objective of the study was to identify trends among the Member States. The observed trends generally fall into three broad, inter-linked categories: regulatory environment, natural resources and firm performance.

   
Study (europarl.europa)

   

   
The results from 10 severe adult cases showed that one dose (200 mL) of convalescent plasma was well tolerated and could significantly increase or maintain the neutralizing antibodies at a high level, leading to disappearance of viremia in 7 d. Meanwhile, clinical symptoms and paraclinical criteria rapidly improved within 3 d. Radiological examination showed varying degrees of absorption of lung lesions within 7 d.

   
Plasma therapy in severe COVID-19 patients (pnas)

   

   
The IHME, which is responsible for the ongoing Global Burden of Disease study, calculated the likely need for hospital admissions and intensive care beds and projected deaths in European countries hit by Covid-19. Looking at measures taken by the UK to curb the spread of the disease, the institute says the peak is expected in 10 days’ time, on 17 April.

   
Codiv' assessments (healthdata)

   

   
There are some similarities to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. The epidemic has disrupted market supply chains. Many farmers could not grow or sell their crops. This, coupled with shortages of agricultural labor, has had an impact on food production.

   
Sub-Saharan Africa (fao)

   

   
Zipline has expanded into Ghana, and has plans to start flying in India as well, but the COVID-19 pandemic is changing everything. Africa is preparing for the worst, while in the United States, Zipline is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to try and expedite safety and regulatory approvals for an emergency humanitarian mission.

   
Critical medical supplies distribution (spectrum)

   

   
We are witnessing massive behavior change at a scale and speed that we’ve never seen before, sparked by fear, proselytized by social media, encouraged by government. Such change includes frequent handwashing, working from home and discouraging bad behaviorsuch as toilet roll hoarding. The time to act is now. This document outlines the practical steps you should take to get started.

   
Now & Next since Covid-19 (accenture)

   

   
COVID-19 presents significant challenges to people and organisations around the globe and the disruption continues to evolve. We know that your business is facing several potentially significant challenges to which you need to respond rapidly. To help you cut through the complexity, PwC's team of specialists collaborated to create a resource for you to stay abreast of the changes that impact your business.

   

Source (pwc)

   

   
Reducing the data-dependency of deep learning is currently among the top priorities of AI researchers. computer scientist Yann LeCun discussed the limits of current deep learning techniques and presented the blueprint for “self-supervised learning,” his roadmap to solve deep learning’s data problem.

   
Self-supervised learning (thenextweb)

   

   
As IT pros around the world go all-out to support a workforce that's suddenly fully remote, many technology workers and companies are also joining efforts to alleviate the COVID-19 crisis in various ways, including developing products to combat the virus, tracking and predicting its spread, and protecting hospitals from cyberattacks.

   
IT pros help (computerworld)

   

   
MS worked hard to address the evolving needs of today’s savvy web surfers. With the new Microsoft Edge, we hope you’ll see great performance, more control over your data and better ways to connect to and make sense of information. Because it’s time to expect more from the web.

   
The top 10 reasons to switch (windows)

   

   
This article, which draws from the best practices in supply chain and operations management, can help struggling hospitals and other care providers increase the odds they will have those resources. It is based on a central reality: Tackling shortages and supply constraints requires a comprehensive strategy aimed at both the demand- and supply-side roots of the problem.

   
Filling the gap (hbr)

   

   
The first 21 SARS-CoV-2 genomes in Austria have now been completed and published within the scope of the “Mutational Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2” project recently launched by CeMM in close collaboration with the Medical University of Vienna. The project aims at sequencing 1,000 viral genomes obtained from Austrian patient-derived samples, in order to learn more about the molecular understanding.

   
Global map of SARS-CoV-2 (innovations-report)

   

   
With evidence of benefits in short supply, experts also raised concerns about potential harms. Mask wearing may give people a false sense of security, some experts said. This may lead some members of the public to be lax about other, far more critical precautions, such as staying two meters apart from others, limiting outings, and washing their hands frequently and thoroughly.

   
A deep dive into the data (arstechnica)

   

   
Traditional vaccines, like the seasonal flu vaccine, are made by growing up large quantities of the virus and in some way killing or inactivating it so that it can be used safely as a vaccine. This approach is an old technology from the middle of the past century, according to von Hofe. “The main problem here is the time it takes to produce the vaccine, which is at least a year and can be several.

   
Racing against time (pharmtech) (This server take time to download the article)

   

   
Some of these small businesses rely on corporate events for as much as 90% of their revenue. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread throughout the world and shelter-in-place and work-from-home orders remain intact throughout the Bay Area, many of these businesses find themselves with no source of income.

   
Blank calendars and layoffs (cnbc)

   

   
Early cancer detection could identify tumors when outcomes are superior at a time when outcomes aresuperior and treatment is less morbid. This prospective case-control sub-study assessed the performance of targeted methylation analysis of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) to detect and localizemultiple cancer types across all stages at high specificity.

   
Sensitive and specific multi-cancer detection (annalsofoncology)

   

  How Codiv-19 will change aviation

   
How the current health crisis might spur investment in different segments of robotics and drone technology. These changes were all meant to happen even before the spread of the pandemic, but will now accelerate, forcing all industries to rethink their ecosystems and shift towards a stronger adoption of new technologies.

   
The fall of commercial travel (airport-technology)

   

   
As the coronavirus spreads globally we track the confirmed cases, deaths, recoveries through this microsite, dedicated to Covid-19 updates. The microsite also provides insights into the international spread and social media reaction, alongside a coronavirus FAQ and all the latest news and information concerning the outbreak.

   
Side-by-side comparison (pharmaceutical-technology)

   

  Codiv-19 FAQ

   
Though the first cases of the new coronavirus seem to have spread from animals to people, the virus is now spreading from person to person. People who get COVID-19 appear to get sick in a time frame of a couple of days to two weeks after being exposed. At present, there’s no reason to think the pathogen could be transmitted through food or via consumer goods.

   
What You Need to Know (consumerreports)

   

  Machine learning & Medic.

   
In the February 20 issue of Cell, one team of scientists announced that they — and a powerful deep learning algorithm — had found a totally new antibiotic, one with an unconventional mechanism of action that allows it to fight infections that are resistant to multiple drugs. The compound was hiding in plain sight (as a possible diabetes treatment) because humans didn’t know what to look for. But the computer did.

   
An unconventional mechanism of action (quantamagazine)

   

   
The Dutch government made this stretch of coast a magnet for kiteboarders and other beachgoers a few years ago when it dropped off an immense pile of sand. Called the Zandmotor, or Sand Motor in English, the project is the world’s largest experiment in coastal storm and flood defense at a time when climate change is causing seas to rise and storms to intensify.

   
With nature’s help (pulitzercenter)

   

  Fast vs. Formulated?

   
In an automobile race, a vehicle must be well designed, highly tuned, and have the proper fuel to outperform the other competitors. In the traditional drug development race to get a molecule to clinic, drug companies sometimes look for shortcuts. Questions about manufacturability and drug performance may not be answered until formulation steps are initiated after the filing of the investigational new drug application.

   
Postponing early stage formulation (pharmtech)

   

  How to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 ?

   
As the COVID-19 outbreak has worsened, the volume of calls fielded by our teams has noticeably increased. By the end of February, the phones were ringing off the hook. Business leaders are concerned, and rightly so, for the welfare of their people and their organizations.

   
Seven key actions (strategy-business)

   

  Learning mobility

   
Learning mobility barriers still exist and according to recent statistics from OECD and Eurostat the shares of mobile students vary widely across Member States. Eurostat has released this year information on the number of mobile graduates for the academic year 2012/2013.

   
Study (europa)

   

  ISS gets a new research platform

   
The International Space Station (ISS) will soon be receiving a new research platform, Bartolomeo, which will play host to both scientific and commercial projects. Created by Airbus and hosted by the European Space Agency (ESA), the platform is heading to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.

   
The versatile Bartolomeo service (digitaltrends)

   

  Agricultural applications

   
Remote sensing has the capacity to assist the adaptive evolution of agricultural practices in order to face this major challenge, by providing repetitive information on crop status throughout the season at different scales and for different actors. We start this review by making an overview of the current remote sensing techniques relevant for the agricultural context.

   
Estimation from remote sensing (sciencedirect)

   

  Health equity in england

   
We cannot say with certainty which of these adverse trends might be responsible for the worsening health picture in England. Some, such as the increase in child poverty, will mostly show their effects in the long term. We can say, though, that austerity has adversely affected the social determinants that impact on health in the short, medium and long term.

   
The Marmot review (instituteofhealthequity)

   

  Covid-19 & Global economic assessment

   
Global GDP growth is projected to slow from 2.9% in 2019 to 2.4% this year, before picking up to around 3¼ per cent in 2021 as the effects of the coronavirus fade and output gradually recovers (Figure 6). Announced and implemented policy actions incorporated in the projections will help to support incomes in the near term, particularly those well-targeted on affected firms and households.

   
OECD

   

  Building a balanced diet

   
As the food pyramid is one of the most common and hence most familiar graphic representations, it is used as an example throughout this article. To make it simpler, healthy food guides are used as an umbrella term for FBDGs ( food-based dietary guidelines). The original food pyramid was created in Sweden in 1974.

   
The universal message (eufic)

   

  Robots learning complex tasks

   
Roboticists are developing automated robots that can learn new tasks solely by observing humans. At home, you might someday show a domestic robot how to do routine chores. In the workplace, you could train robots like new employees, showing them how to perform many duties. One such task is setting a dinner table under certain conditions.

   
Training interactive robots (mit)

   

   
Many of the technologies that made the list seem to overlap and even amplify each other, like advances in personalized and anti-aging medicine. It’s also no coincidence that A.I. is involved in many of these spaces, as it’s allowed for many breakthroughs — something that will continue as it runs on more devices, like your phone.

   
Assessment (technologyreview)

   

   
The paper explore quantitatively the role of non-tariff measures (NTMs), including regulatory measures such as sanitary and technical requirements, in shaping the United Kingdom’s future trade relations with the European Union and the impact on developing countries. We simulate the possible impacts of Brexit using a panel data gravity model and compare the European Union membership effect.

   
Future trade relations (unctad)

   

   
The establishment of harmonised or standardised investigation methods for the quantitative description of possible impact of plastics on the environment is urgently necessary. The UBA is actively participating in several research projects funded by the BMBF for the establishment of suitable sampling strategies and chemical investigation methods and is also sponsors research projects which are geared towards methodical issues.

   
From valuable materials to wast (umweltbundesamt)

   

   
While data center and information technology terminology acronyms can be complex, we often use metaphors to help bridge the communication gap between project stakeholders. For data centers, we frequently use cars as a comparison. Most people know how to drive a car, but not everyone knows how the various parts work together — and even fewer know how to fix them without assistance.

   
The great consolidation (areadevelopment)

   

   
Thanks to these advances, new professional sectors have been developed under the general description of teleworking including tele-medicine, tele-education, tele-consultancy. However, this growth, based on the associated technological achievements, has not been without a dark side.

   
Working with technology (europa)

   

   
Structural change is taking place in Africa, but with a pattern that is distinct from the historical experience of industrialized countries and contemporary East Asia. Export-led manufacturing is playing a much smaller role in the structural transformation of Africa’s economies. Manufacturing in Africa’s GDP has fallensince 1980. Instead, services—some with quite low productivity—absorb the bulk of African workers leaving agriculture and moving to cities.

   
Industries without smokestacks (rookings)

   

  Geneva Barometer

   
The turn of the year was marked in Ge-neva by a contradictory dynamic: On the one hand, several international organisa-tions were con-fronted with severe cri-ses, while on the other hand, ambitious promises for the future were made in many places. At the WHO, the handling of the Corona virus (COVID-19) has domi-nated the agenda since January.

   
Geneva’s International Organisations (kas)

   

   
As a variety of technology models hit their breaking point, they herald a bigger shift that enterprises in every industry must note: people will no longer be bystanders when it comes to technology. Whether it’s security standards misaligned with today’s interconnected ecosystems, bad actors leveraging the content neutrality of social platforms to amplify misinformation, or government regulations that are years behind the technology itself, expectations are not being met—and the resulting tech-clash demands action.

   
Opportunities are knocking (accenture)

   

   
In recent months, the words “infection” and “outbreak” have not been far from anyone’s mind as we’ve faced the emergence of a new coronavirus, COVID-19. Mathematics may sound like an unlikely hero to help us overcome a global epidemic; however, the insights we gain from studying the dynamics of infectious diseases by using equations describing fundamental variables are not to be underestimated.

   
Modelling of Infectious Disease Dynamics (plos)

   

   
Policy-makers in low-income countries are increasingly aiming for a different and higher-quality type of growth. This growth should be more technology intensive, with a diversified production structure, be resilient to shocks, create jobs and be more inclusive. Crucial for this is enhancing economic transformation, defined as the movement of resources from low-productivity to high-productivity activities.

   
A new body of evidence (odi)

   

   
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic has spread from China to 25 countries. Local cycles of transmission have already occurred in 12 countries after case importation. In Africa, Egypt has so far confirmed one case. Here we evaluate the preparedness and vulnerability of African countries against their risk of importation of COVID-19.

   
Countries with the highest importation risk (lancet)

   

   
The report identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on publicly available data for FY2018 (fiscal years ended through 30 June 2019), and analyzes their performance across geographies and product sectors. It also provides a global economic outlook, looks at the 50 fastest-growing retailers, and highlights new entrants to the Top 250.

   
Uncertainty surrounding the global economy (deloitte)

   

   
New EY research suggests that outside of the need for compliance, a gulf separates cybersecurity from the business. To bridge the chasm, CISOs need to prove their value in a language boards and C-suites can understand; and the business needs to embrace cybersecurity from the onset and through the lifecycle of every initiative.

   
Driving a culture of Security by Design (ey)

   

   
During the last 12 months, Slovakia was added to the list of affected countries, whereas Czechia was recognised as officially ASF(African swine fever) free in March 2019. ASF is present in each of the non-membercountries on the eastern border of the EU, except Turkey. New introductions from these non-MSs canbe suspected.

   
Epidemiological analyses of ASF (efsa)

   

   
The European Commission has published the common "toolbox" to guarantee the security of 5G. It leaves the door ajar for Huawei by recommending that member states just limit their involvement to non-sensitive parts of the networks; it thus asserts its autonomy from the pressures of the US administration.

   
5G' security (europa)

   

   
The general theme of uncertainty hindering progress moved to the fore in our survey’s ranking of threats to organisations’ growth prospects. Although over-regulation remained the top threat cited globally, CEO concern over uncertain economic growth surged from number 12 to number three. Climate change is increasingly prominent on CEO agendas, as we discuss later in this report.

   
The rising tide of uncertainty (pwc)

   

   
As individuals specialize in specific knowledge areas, a society’s know-how becomes distributed across different workers. This paper studies the interdependencies among co-workers that result from this process in a population-wide dataset covering educational specializations of millions of workers and their co-workers in Sweden over a 10-year period.

   
Distributed knowledge (advances.sciencemag)

   

   
Current World Bank poverty estimates show that almost half the world's population lives on less than $ 5.50 a day, and the pace of poverty reduction has halved since 2013. At the top of the world economy will find a minority of incredibly wealthy people. Their fortune grows exponentially over time, without much effort.

   
Story of two extremes (oxfamilibrary)

   

   
Where would we be without IDEs and code editors? If you’re a practicing Pythonista, you’re probably well aware of this fact. But as Python’s popularity is constantly growing, so is the selection of Python-related tools. Therefore, the question arises: “Which IDE or code editor should I choose for the most optimal results?”

   
The very best of them (stxnext)

   

   
11,000 scientists from around the world stated clearly and unequivocally that the world was now facing a climate emergency . The task of financing infrastructure of any type, but especially LCCR (low-carbon, climate-resilient) infrastructure in developing countries, is particularly challenging.

   
Through national development banks (odi)

   

   
An overview of global and regional trends in employment, unemployment, labour force participation and productivity, as well as dimensions of job quality such as employment status, informal employment and working poverty. It also examines income and social developments, and provides an indicator of social unrest.

   
An overview of global and regional trends (ilo)

   

   
What’s the ideal way to approach and allocate resources to innovation? Disruption can happen in any industry, at any time. Whether it’s responding to a new technology, competitor or market – from autonomous vehicles to meatless meats. companies are well aware of the need to innovate to succeed.

   
The recipe for portfolio growth (accenture)

   

   
If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Facebook made a gesture toward transparency this week with the launch of its Off-Facebook Activity tool. This offers users a glimpse into the many ways details of real-world transactions get shared with Facebook, regardless of what you’re doing on the Facebook platform.

   
Free software vs Data mining (vox)

   

   
This study aims to investigate how Facebook can help hold government officials to account, and to examine what government officials do to solicit comments through Facebook. The motivations of users posting concerns in relation to public service delivery will also be surveyed in this research. The paper consists of a literature review, a discussion of the methodology, the data collection and its limitations.

   
A Pilot study and analysis (kas)

   

   
Africa’s population continues to grow at an exponential rate, with the U.N. projecting that 40 percent of the world’s population will live on the continent by the end of the century. Here, AGI’s role as a leading source for policy solutions—and for opportunity—for this increasingly youthful continent shines through.

   
Top priorities for the continent 2020-2030 (brookings)

   

   
Opioids remain an essential tool for medical providers. Inappropriate opioid prescribing can lead to diversion of, addiction to, and overdose from prescription opioids,56789 contributing to an epidemic of opioid related deaths in recent years.10 Promoting cautious, scientifically justified, opioid prescribing has become a leading goal of policy makers in both government and healthcare.

   
The prescribing of opioids (bmj)

   

  Youth stocktaking report

   
Youth are exposed to the increasingly complex globalchallenges of our times including climate change, rising inequality and high levels of public debts. In a context in which political positions are dominated by older age cohorts and existing channels for youth to shape policy outcomes perceived by many asoutdated or inefficient.

   
Youth needs and aspirations (oecd)

   

   
New definitions of growth will lead naturally to new thinking in meaning and metrics, which might include personal growth performance measures like learning, happiness, communal longevity or good health. in the future, financial institutions might stop evaluating their loans on categories of firms or countries. Instead, they might look at applicants’ activities that help fulfil specific missions – such as removing plastic from the ocean.

   
Time to reset capitalism (accenture)

   

   
While payments continued to draw the most significant attention from fintechinvestors across most jurisdictions, H1’19 also saw the continued maturation of the fintechindustry as a whole and the broadening of its definition. Areas like wealthtech, proptechand regtechalso grew on the radar of investors.

   
Trends to watch (kpmg)

   

   
Two of the world’s most complex manufacturing industries—semiconductor fabrication and biopharmaceutical production—share a common fundamental objective: to maximize process yields through rigorous control of production equipment and process variables. Biopharma manufacturers seek to correlate raw material data with variations in their bioreactor and process chromatography yields, with a goal of achieving greater predictability and control of process results.

   
Cross-collaboration (pharmtech)

   

   
Opaque and unregulated deci-sion-making processes are, the greater the risk of abusing power for self-enrichment. Arbitrary and unclear decisions, whether that be in dispensing justice, granting governmental contracts, or filling public offices, undermine the rule of law and swallow up additional resources. Corruption is a global phenomenon. But a panacea has yet to be found. Instead, various approaches have been tried world-wide.

   
Threat to the Constitutional State (kas)

   

   
There is a nascent but growingbody of research which suggests that vulnerability to unfair economic outcomes is a morecompelling root cause of the current wave of populism.Whatexactlyis meant by economic fairness in this context? Most broadly, as put by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, it means that “awards should be according to merit.

   
Working paper (growthlab.cid.harvard)

   

   
Modifiable lifestyle factors including smoking, physical activity, alcohol intake, body weight, and diet quality affect both total life expectancy and incidence of chronic diseases.6789 Studies have shown that smoking, inactivity, poor diet quality, and heavy alcohol consumption contribute up to 60% of premature deaths and 7.4-17.9 years’ loss in life expectancy.

   
How to be free from major diseases ? (bmj)

   

   
A panel of tech executives discussed privacy, encryption, and digital advertising this week at CES 2020 Apple’s senior director of global privacy Jane Horvath came out in strong favor of privacy protection, commissioner Rebecca Slaughter of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission came out even stronger.

   
Privacy, encryption, and digital advertising (iee)

   

   
While the quality of air has deteriorated since the industrial revolution, the situationhasimproved in the EU since 2000 as emissions of the main air pollutants have decreased by between 10% and70%,depending on the pollutant. Despite these improvements, air quality is still a majorissue in the European Union.

   
Special Eurobarometer survey (panoramasanita)

   

   
Automation has always been one goal of enterprise technology, but today’s capabilities open new doors. Just by using cloud systems, companies can take advantage of tools from their cloud provider. Internet of things implementations expand the ability to gather inputs from a variety of sources, and artificial intelligence can help drive actions based on those inputs.

   
Promising future (comptia)

   

   
Since fires flared up in the states of New South Wales and Queensland in September 2019, parts of Australia have continued to battle unprecedented levels of wildfire activity, even though the annual fire season in the south-east of the country doesn’t typically peak until January–February. CAMS has been closely monitoring the intensity of the fires and forecasting the resulting transport of the pollutants they release.

   
The most extreme fires (atmosphere.copernicus)

   

   
In Pharmaceutical Technology's ongoing Pharmacopoeia Compliance Series, experts explain the revision process for global and national pharmacopoeias, best practices for monitoring changes, and how to participate in revisions. Other features include FDA warning letters, building a quality culture, and essentials for DOE and QRM.

   
Best practices (pharmtech)

   

   
Many battery materials, including heavy metals such as nickel and cobalt, pose tremendous environmental and humanitarian risks. Cobalt in particular, which is largely available in central Africa, has come under fire for careless and exploitative extraction practices. IBM Research has discovered a chemistry for a new battery which does not use heavy metals or other substances with sourcing concerns.

   
For smart power grid applications (ibm)

   

   
The heat is greatest for small and midsize shale producers, including many whose wells aren't producing as much oil and gas as they had projected to lenders and investors. Some of those companies may be forced out of business, said Clark Sackschewsky, the managing principal of accounting firm BDO's Houston tax practice. Large companies are likely to weather the blow because of their size and global asset diversity.

   
Fracking forecasts in doubt (marketscreener)

   

   
The development of pioneering new digital treatments and technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence and data networks, is set to transform our healthcare systems over the coming years, optimising our healthcare system and offering numerous benefits for patients and healthcare providers alike.

   
Ethical and environmental ramifications (euractiv)

   

   
The tech industry is faced with a tricky balancing act: continuing to drive innovative solutions while grappling with the side effects of those solutions in the global economy. The challenge itself is not unique—every industry deals with this tension as it becomes more mature—but the new variables here are the scale that tech is able to achieve and the evolutionary aspect of mixing digital and physical worlds.

   
The trends shaping the industry (comptia)

   

   
Work is becoming more automated. As new, technology-driven models transform industries, capital replaces people and we estimate 30% of UK jobs, 38% of US jobs, 35% of German jobs and 21% of Japanese jobs could be at risk of automation by the early 2030. Add to this the 53% of workers who believe automation will significantly change or make their job obsolete within the next ten years.

   
Strategy for a better world (pwc)

   

   
This report looks at what we can learn from the experience of Chile – a country that has already experienced the full transition from aid, de facto completing this process with the formal graduation from the list of ODA-eligible countries in January 2018. The Chilean government and its development partners have already explored options to collaborate beyond ODA-financed programmes.

   
The experience of Chile (odi)

   

   
Articles written by female first and last authors were up to 21% less likely to use positive terms to frame their research findings than comparable articles published in the most prestigious journals with at least one man in a lead author position. Additional analyses confirmed that these positive words typically qualified the findings: we would frequently see word combinations such as “novel approach,” “unique mechanism,” or “promising result.”.

   
The gender gap in self-promotion (hbr)

   

   
In recent years, there’s been a shift in how people are considering what they wear for special (and even not so special) occasions. No longer do fashionistas want — or need — to pay high prices for things that might end up gathering dust in the closet after that one special night. They instead want a more convenient shopping experience, a more affordable lifestyle, greater variety, and the option to consume more conscientiously.

   
Isn’t new at all (strategy-business)

   

   
This alien-looking contraption is referred to as a “stratollite,” a portmanteau of “stratos pheric satellite,” operated by a company called World View Enterprises. It’s a finely honed surveillance device outfitted with a suite of sensors and a camera sensitive enough to detect people standing on the ground from the edge of space.

   
Lurking at the edge of space (arstechnica)

   

   
SAP prescribing is a complex process that involves multiple professions across the pre-, intra- and post-operative surgical settings. The utilisation of behaviour change frameworks to identify barriers and enablers to optimal SAP prescribing supports future development of theory-informed antimicrobial stewardship interventions.

   
In public and private hospitals (journals.plos)

   

   
The Fair Tax Mark will later this week release a new report, The Silicon Six and their $100 billion global tax gap, which examines the tax conduct of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Microsoft over the last decade. The report questions whether the companies, collectively referred to as the ‘Silicon Six’, are paying their way on tax.

   
Over $100 billion at stake (fairtaxmark)

   

   
When looking at glorious images of cosmic phenomena, like black holes and supernovae, with striking colors set against the stark, dark backdrop of the universe, it’s important to remember that before that picture could be made, it started as a researcher’s hypothesis. Ideas of these brilliant, stunning celestial forces start as data points on a page before scientists can even develop a sense of what they might look like.

   
Chandra Telescope (smithsonianmag)

   

   
As incumbents scramble to respond to technical, business, and regulatory challenges posed by innovative disruptors, investors and consumers alike are wondering who will win the fight for new media supremacy. The answer, it turns out, may depend on how old you are, the age of your customers, and how each of you define “video content.”

   
A radical reinvention (hbr)

   

   
The reasons for economies falling behind, whether a lack of investment or a lack of political will, are increasingly well understood. Informed individuals may well ask, “If other governments can progress, why can’t ours?” This research, which is part of the World Bank’s Doing Business study, aims to look at the challenges governments face when they implement new tech.

   
The changing landscape of tax policy (pwc)

   

   
It is a symptom of a new great-power politics that is increasingly shaping the international system. Rus-sia, with its construction of intermediate-range missiles, and China, which increases its military spending each year and has reached parity with the US in some areas already, are contributing to this trend.

   
A new arms race (kas)

   

   
This report aims to expand that discourse and provide a metric for assessing how far the world is from production levels that are consistent with global climate goals.Moving away from fossil fuel production poses both economic and political challenges, but doing so is possible and increasingly necessary to avoid dangerous climate change.

   
2019 report (productiongap)

   

   
Babesiosis, an economically consequential animal disease caused by a wide range of tick-transmitted Babesia spp. parasites, is recognized as an emerging infection in humans . Babesia venatorum (formerly Babesia sp. EU1) is notable in that it appears able to infect humans without immune suppression or splenectomy and can present with more severe symptoms.

   
Tick-transmitted Babesia spp. parasites (wwwnc)

   

   
We collected data on companies’ IT systems strategies—specifically, about 1) the adoption of key technologies, 2) the penetration of technologies adopted and 3) organization and culture. Then we scored them on these dimensions, calling companies in the top 10% Leaders, and those in the bottom 25%, Laggards.

   
The game-changing innovation (accenture)

   

   
In an age when consumer habits and expectations are changing so rapidly, being the biggest player is no longer the aim of the game. To stay in front and win the future consumer, organizations must do more than deploy the right mix of scope, efficiency and scale. The ability to act at scale will remain a critical part of value creation.

   
The dynamic scale (ey)

   

   
An effective QC unit must be independent of the manufacturing unit,and the QC unit’s final decision on the release of product must be respected. “It is never appropriate to pressure the quality unit to release product to meet business needs if the product is not acceptable for release,” says Oates. “The quality unit must have a single, final decision-maker who is ultimately responsible for quality decisions.”

   
The right pieces for a Quality Program (pharmtech)

   

   
Early symptoms of auto-brewery syndrome may be mood changes, brain fog and delirium, instead of signs of intoxication, according to the Richmond study. Some symptoms of auto-brewery syndrome can mimic other conditions or medical events, such as hypoglycemia or a stroke.People who suspect they have auto-brewery syndrome get a breathalyzer so they can test their blood alcohol levels when symptoms manifest.

   
Underdiagnosed medical condition (bmjopengastro)

   

   
Blockchain is going through a similar path of diffusion across industries far beyond its initial fintech applications.4 More organizations in more sectors—such as technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and health care, and government—are expanding and diversifying their blockchain initiatives. Bockchain appears to be entering a new era of wider, more practical adoption.

   
2019 Global Blockchain survey (deloitte)

   

   
Just how worried should we be about killer robots? Amidst all the talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) is threatening society, some experts believe AI shouldn’t be feared. Here’s why we can embrace the power of technology. ISO – in conjunction with its sister organization, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) – has identified the need to develop standards for AI that can benefit all societies.

   
Setting boundaries (iso)

   

   
Modern medicine, a marvel of technology and ingenuity, ushers in waves of progress that can add length and quality to human life. And yet certain powerful countervailing forces work against the efficacy of new treatments. The social determinants of health — often-ignored social factors such as employment; housing; income inequality; and can swamp the health systems that ignore them.

   
Expanding the health ecosystem (pwc)

   

   
This paperexploits geographic variation in the incidence of populism to apply cross-sectional regression analysis to these arguments, and concludes that they are highly unconvincing. Instead, the thus-largely overlooked factor of social mobility is found to have far greater explanatory power. Four settings are analyzed: the 2016 US Presidential Election, the 2017 French Presidential Election, the 2019 European Parliament Elections, and the political stability of developed countries in 2017.

   
Social mobility & Populism (growthlab.cid.harvard)

   

   
With the plethora of new kit that seems to come out every year (or even month), it’s easy to get lost in the depths of debates about R vs. Python and Azure vs. AWS. When asked about my favorite tools, I was reminded that I don’t have the pleasure of being “hands-on” for a living anymore. How to The ideal toolbox we think needs to enable an analyst to do three main things with data: prep, unearth sight and drive action ?

   
Hands-on tools (qualitydigest)

   

   
According to the IPCC Special Report on 1 .5°C, global CO2 emissions need to decrease to net zero by 2050 in order to keep global temperature rise below 1 .5°C . If we continue at current emissions levels, the remaining carbon budget to stay below 1 .5°C, namely 420 GtCO2, will be expended in just over nine years .1Current NDCs would lead to about 3°C of global temperatures above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century and global GHG emissions continue to climb.

   
A net-zero emissions economy (climate-transparency)

   

   
What causes companies to stay true to their calling? What countervailing forces can leaders call on that will keep them where they need to be to stay competitive? Our work in service design and customer experience tells us that the answer can be found in the principles of design thinking. For niche players, the problem of focus is, literally, a question of identity itself.

   
How to win by being narrow? (strategy-business)

   

   
Today, nearly half of American adults are in facial recognition databases. Russell Brandom, policy editor at The Verge, explains that the government first started with DMVs running facial recognition on all the photos in their system to see if any of them were the same person, “usually because it was Social Security fraud”. Big tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft have been selling facial recognition tech to various companies for business purposes.

   
The ACLU is suing the FBI (recode/vox)

   

   
Originally designed for measuring isotope abundances and elemental masses, mass spectrometry is becoming a mainstay across life sciences. As electrospray ionization of biomolecules turns 30 and the Orbitrap mass analyzer 20, we take this opportunity to highlight the role of both inventions in stirring mass spectrometry from physics into biology and discuss the advances and challenges that may impact the future applications of biomolecular mass spectrometry.

   
New methodological approaches or instruments (nature)

   

   
In an age of mass extinctions, confirming the survival of lost species provides rare second chances for biodiversity conservation. Global Wildlife Conservation and partners Southern Institute of Ecology and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research have rediscovered a wildlife species lost to science since 1990 called a silver-backed chevrotain—a deer-like species that is the size of a rabbit, has a silver sheen, and has been hanging on in a region of Vietnam ravaged by poaching by snares.

   
Most wanted’ list (globalwildlife)

   

   
The next generation of cellular mobile communications technology has arrived: Major U.S., European, and Asian operators have launched commercial 5G networks. 5G, which is set to succeed the current standard over the next few years, offers an exponential improvement in functionality over 4G.

   
Expanding services with mobile broadband (strategy-business)