Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Projects from 4 UK organisations will share £2m in the inaugural AUKUS Pillar 2 Electronic Warfare (EW) Innovation Challenge.
Through AUKUS Pillar 2, Australia, the UK and the US are pooling the talents of their defence sectors to develop at pace the delivery of advanced capabilities. Four UK companies have been selected by the UK’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) to receive a share of the funding to develop solutions in electromagnetic targeting and protection.
The competition was run to find low cost, disposable, high volume and highly autonomous electromagnetic technology that can detect enemy actions or protect against them.
The four successful UK organisations to receive research funding are:
Amiosec Ltd
Autonomous Devices Ltd
Roke Manor Research Ltd
University of Liverpool
The trilateral AUKUS EW Challenge was run as 3 individual competitions by DASA in the UK; the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA), in Australia; and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) in the US. The EW competition was the first in what will be a series of AUKUS Innovation Challenges, setting the template for future advanced defence technology competitions run by the 3 partners.
National winners of the 3 EW Challenge competitions were announced at the AUKUS Defence Ministers’ Meeting on 26 September in London by UK Secretary of State for Defence, the Right Honourable John Healey MP; Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, the Honourable Richard Marles MP; and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. The three Defence Ministers together emphasised the value of the collaboration to a free and open Indo-Pacific, with the potential to enhance joint defence capabilities, ensuring national, regional and global stability.
The 3 innovation competitions called for proposals to identify electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) technology solutions to help give the AUKUS nations a strategic edge in targeting and to provide protection against adversarial electromagnetic-targeting capabilities. EMS is a heavily congested, contested, complex and competitive environment and there is an increasing need for low cost, disposable, high volume and highly autonomous capabilities to achieve advantage.
In total, across all 3 national innovation challenges, 173 qualified suppliers applied, in a show of strength of the AUKUS nations’ defence innovation capabilities.
The winning UK supplier organisations:
Amiosec Ltd: This project is seeking to create fake radio activity, masking the true location of friendly military forces to support missions. The research will focus on extending previous work on AI-generated traffic to boost realism to defeat adversary EW systems. It will be delivered by Amiosec in conjunction with its Australian defence technology partner, Penten.
Autonomous Devices Ltd: Is developing and flight-demonstrating the novel combination of a radar Electronic Counter Measure and a small Uncrewed Air System platform.
Roke Manor Research Ltd: The ability to transmit and receive on identical frequencies simultaneously has been an operational and technical challenge for decades. The Smart STAR Jammer project sets out to combine a Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) Transceiver jointly developed by Roke and the University of Bristol.
University of Liverpool: This project aims to improve the ability to detect multiple individual faint signals in close geometric proximity to one another. This will be achieved using a combination of machine learning and statistics.
AUKUS is a landmark security and defence partnership to support a free and open Indo-Pacific by strengthening regional global security. A major part of the partnership, named Pillar 1, is helping Australia to acquire its first conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet.
Through AUKUS Pillar 2 which includes advanced capabilities such as Artificial Intelligence, autonomy, quantum technologies and electronic warfare – the 3 national partners seek to strengthen trilateral capabilities in cutting-edge military technologies, increase interoperability, and drive knowledge-sharing and innovation. One of the aims of Pillar 2 is to “foster deeper integration of security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains”.
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Today, the Honourable Ya’ara Saks, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, announced an investment of over $5 million in funding over five years for five Indigenous focused projects aimed at promoting child development and preventing, recognizing and responding safely to child maltreatment and youth dating violence. These projects will serve over 1,270 Indigenous children, youth and their families across Canada.
September 26, 2024 | Ottawa, Ontario | Public Health Agency of Canada
As part of the Government of Canada’s ongoing commitment to reconciliation and the well-being of Indigenous Peoples, the Government of Canada is investing in initiatives that promote cultural identity, values, and healing.
Today, the Honourable Ya’ara Saks, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, announced an investment of over $5 million in funding over five years for five Indigenous focused projects aimed at promoting child development and preventing, recognizing and responding safely to child maltreatment and youth dating violence. These projects will serve over 1,270 Indigenous children, youth and their families across Canada.
Colonization, racism, and the impacts of the Indian Residential School system have devastating effects on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in Canada. As a result, Indigenous communities face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and high rates of violence. There is a need to build the evidence-base of effective, culturally appropriate resources and support systems to address these challenges, to help heal and prevent ongoing cycles of violence and trauma.
This funding will support the development, delivery, and testing of health promotion interventions that promote resilience, healthy relationships, and cultural connection. The funded projects will provide Indigenous children, youth, and their families, as well as service providers, with the tools and knowledge to build safe, supportive relationships and reduce the prevalence of violence in their lives. This investment aligns with Canada’s broader efforts to advance reconciliation and promote the health and well-being of Indigenous Peoples.
Quotes
“We are committed to supporting Indigenous Peoples to address violence and promote healing. By investing in these projects, we are helping ensure that Indigenous children, youth, and their families are empowered with culturally appropriate supports to foster healthy relationships and help prevent violence. This is part of our broader commitment to reconciliation.”
The Honourable Ya’ara Saks Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health
“Projects like this saves lives. It is no secret by now that Indigenous Peoples have faced disproportionate rates of violence. When people are in crisis, they need a safe place and safe people to turn to. This funding will help support the many groups that provide these services day in and day out.”
The Honourable Patty Hajdu Minister of Indigenous Services
Quick Facts
As part of the federal Gender-based Violence Strategy, the Government of Canada has invested over $800 million, with $44 million per year ongoing in preventing gender-based violence (including family violence), supporting survivors, and promoting responsive legal and justice systems.
Specifically, the Public Health Agency of Canada is investing up to $18 million per year until 2026, and over $9 million ongoing to support projects that promote safe relationships, prevent youth dating violence, family violence and child maltreatment, and equip health professionals and service providers to recognize and respond safely to gender-based violence.
In addition, Budget 2022 committed $539.3 million over five years (2022 to 2027), to support provinces and territories in their efforts to implement the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.
Yuval Daniel Director of Communications Office of the Honourable Ya’ara Saks Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health 819-360-6927
Castiel, played by Misha Collins, and Dean Winchester, played by Jensen Ackles, in an episode of ‘Supernatural.’ Destiel is the slash ship between the two characters.(Apple TV)
Although the practice of pairing two characters together had existed in fandom for a while, this is recognized as the first use of the term. By the late 1990s, “relationshipper” had been shortened to “shipper” and was being used in other major media fandoms as well.
A ship refers to a romantic pairing between two or more characters, and is often a pairing that doesn’t actively exist in the original story. To “ship” a pairing is to support and enjoy the idea of that specific relationship.
Top 11 Smulder moments from the X-Files YouTube channel.
In the early 2000s, ships were often assigned nautical names, but now they are commonly portmanteaus of the two characters being paired — like Drarry, for Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, or Spuffy for Buffy Summers and Spike.
Many people can relate to seeing two characters interact and thinking, “they’d make a great couple!” But why do we become so invested in these relationships? And what makes some characters more shippable than others?
No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.
Shipping has become a massive part of fan culture. Even when writers and media producers don’t explicitly pair up characters, fans will fill the gaps, creating their own versions and interpretations.
Fans often become deeply invested in fictional couples because they empathize with and feel connected to the characters.
Well-developed characters evoke emotional responses in audiences, similar to the connections we forge with others in real life, especially when we’ve spent a lot of time engaging with the media. The characters become like friends on the screen or page — we become invested in their relationships and growth.
This connection grows even more when characters are placed in relatable situations, such as navigating a breakup or unrequited love. When we can put ourselves in the shoes of the character, we become more invested in their story. Fans connect with characters, and then yearn for their happiness because it feels connected to their own happiness.
It becomes more than just a story; instead, shipping the characters becomes a way for fans to explore their own emotions.
The slow burn effect
In recent decades, media producers and writers have leaned heavily into “will they or won’t they” relationships. These situations, much like a cliffhanger, keep audiences emotionally invested and engaged with the relationship.
The anticipation keeps viewers coming back for more, waiting for the romantic payoff, even in cases when they know it will never happen. The tension built between characters and the feeling of an unresolved romantic narrative — whether intentional or not — heightens fan interest and engagement in shipping.
Shipping also allows fans to project their own desires and fantasies onto a character. We all have our ideal meet-cutes and daydreams about meeting “our person” and what that connection would be like.
Aziraphale, played by Michael Sheen, and Crowley, played by David Tennant, in an episode of ‘Good Omens.’ Ineffable Husbands is the ship name of these two characters. (Amazon Prime)
So, when we encounter a character who feels relatable, or who feels like “our person,” shipping allows us to explore those daydreams without any of the actual risks of complications involved in real life relationships. In many ways, the act of shipping is an exercise in emotional fulfillment for the fan.
Some characters naturally have a spark that draw fans to them — whether it’s through witty banter, emotional vulnerability, opposites-attract tension or the fact that there’s only one bed. When characters have great chemistry, fans can’t help but see the potential for something deeper.
This is especially true when a character’s arc involves personal or emotional growth, as we are eager to imagine a happy ending for characters who are evolving. Combine this growth with the tension of a “will they or won’t they” relationship — a classic of the 90s and 2000s sitcom, think Rachel and Ross from Friends, or Ted and Robin from How I Met Your Mother — and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a beloved ship.
In fact, a common shipping trope is the slow burn where the romance builds excruciatingly slowly. These types of relationships keep fans hooked because the development is gradual, and subtle. On-screen couples like Jess and Nick from New Girl and Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine are prime examples of this.
Jake Proposes to Amy on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Fans experience the full gamut of the emotional journey with these characters and, should then tension break and romance bloom, the pay-off is incredibly satisfying.
If the relationships don’t come to pass, fans often turn to fanfiction — stories written by and for fans — to explore the potential of that ship more fully, with platforms like Archive of Our Own providing a space for these creative explorations.
Pushing for diversity in media
Fans are often drawn to relationships and characters that challenge the dominant ideologies and norms seen in media. Some of the most popular ships involve queer pairings — a trend that dates back, at least, to early days of media fandom with Spirk (Spock/Kirk) fanfiction.
Some of today’s most popular queer ships include Aziraphale/Crowley from Good Omens, Dean Winchester/Castiel from Supernatural, Villanelle/Eve from Killing Eve and Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham from Hannibal.
Such relationships can provide a sense of representation that’s often lacking in mainstream media, allowing fans to see themselves in the stories they love. In this way, shipping can serve as a form of advocacy, pushing for greater diversity and inclusivity in media.
Shipping is about more than wanting characters to kiss — it’s an emotionally charged experience that culminates from empathy, narrative tension, personal fantasies and desires. For fans, these fictional relationships can feel as real as any in our own lives, and that’s why we keep coming back for more.
Effie Sapuridis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Government of Canada is investing more than $5 million over five years to fund five Indigenous focused projects aimed at preventing child maltreatment and youth dating violence. These projects will help over 1,270 Indigenous children, youth, and families, as well as service providers, across Canada by providing them with the tools to build safe, supportive relationships.
September 2024
The Government of Canada is investing more than $5 million over five years to fund five Indigenous focused projects aimed at preventing child maltreatment and youth dating violence. These projects will help over 1,270 Indigenous children, youth, and families, as well as service providers, across Canada by providing them with the tools to build safe, supportive relationships.
This funding will support a variety of initiatives across Canada, each focusing on cultural identity, healing, and promoting healthier relationships in Indigenous communities. The projects are designed to meet the unique needs of Indigenous youth and their families, while also addressing the intergenerational trauma and cycles of violence caused by colonization, racism, and the Residential School System.
To prevent and address youth dating violence:
Infinity Women Secretariat Inc. is receiving $601,959 to explore and promote the use of Red River Métis culture in building healthy relationships among youth. This project will reach 210 Métis youth in Manitoba, helping them feel a sense of belonging and improving their confidence.
Legacy of Hope Foundation is receiving $555,015 to develop an online toolkit aimed at preventing dating violence. The toolkit will include Indigenous voices and perspectives and will feature online workshops for 300 Indigenous youth across Canada, creating safe spaces for conversations about healthy relationships.
Nunavut Disabilities Makinnasuaqtiit Society is receiving $1.35 million to develop a dating violence prevention program for 320 Inuit youth with disabilities across Nunavut. The project will focus on teaching these youth about healthy relationships and how to prevent dating violence in a way that is culturally and developmentally appropriate.
To prevent and address child maltreatment:
ILITAQSINIQ is receiving over $1.6 million to deliver two family strengthening programs in six communities across Nunavut. These programs will provide knowledge and skills on topics such as parenting, communication, and handling family dynamics, with the goal of helping 192 children and their caregivers.
Martin Family Initiative is receiving close to $1 million to adapt, deliver and evaluate their health and family well-being resources across Canada to better support over 250 early childhood professionals aimed at promoting positive parenting and contributing to the reduction of child maltreatment in the Indigenous communities they serve.
This October sees Oxford’s Ice Rink hit the big 4-0, as it celebrates four decades of skating fun by hosting a Back to the 80s Gala on Saturday 5th October.
Ice skating fans will get two chances to see this retro fun-fest, with shows at 2.30pm and 6pm, featuring the cream of the city’s skating talent from the Oxford School of Skating and Oxford Ice Academy.
The Back to the 80s Gala will see skaters dressed in retro fashions, dancing to songs that were big hits in the year the rink opened, 1984. People attending the show are guaranteed to feel like they’ve stepped back into the 80s!
The gala coincides with a Big Open Weekend at the ice rink, with free public skating sessions and taster lessons on Saturday and Sunday, and even a Saturday night disco.
“We are really excited to celebrate this major milestone for the Ice Rink! In August, we completed an extensive renovation, including a brand-new ice pad with updated logos and hockey lines, and a roof replacement. So, we are looking forward to showing it off.
To book a ticket to the skating show, please visit our website. We are excited to have you celebrate the Ice Rink’s birthday with us!” “
Jane De Lange, Skate School Co-ordinator at Oxford Ice Rink
“For 40 years, Oxford Ice Rink has been at the heart of our community, offering fun, fitness, and a space where people of all ages can come together. With its recent upgrades, the rink is now better than ever, ensuring it continues to provide a fantastic experience for everyone from first-time skaters to seasoned pros. We’re looking forward to welcoming everyone to the Back to the 80s Gala and the Big Open Weekend to celebrate this exciting milestone.”
Cllr Chewe Munkonge, Cabinet Member for a Healthy Oxford, Oxford City Council
In partnership with Serco Leisure, More Community Leisure Trust manage five Oxford facilities, including the ice rink, Ferry Leisure Centre and Hinksey Outdoor Pool on behalf of Oxford City Council.
Cohort of new students start England’s first new BEd course for 30 years
Almost 100 local students have embarked on England’s first new Batchelor of Education (BEd) course in 30 years as they begin their training to become the region’s next primary school teachers.
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is the newest provider of Initial Teacher Training in the country, and teaching got underway for the BEd Primary Education with Qualified Teacher Status course in Chelmsford, Cambridge and Peterborough this week.
Interested in becoming a teacher?
Find out more about our BEd Primary Education degree at an Open Day. Book your place for 5 October or 23 November 2024.
It is estimated that around 200 people leave the region every year to seek undergraduate teacher training opportunities at universities elsewhere in the country. It is hoped that the new, innovative course delivered by ARU will increase the number of teachers who train locally and stay in the region’s schools after graduation.
The course combines three years of academic study with three high-quality assessed placements with primary schools across the East of England and London.
Designed and taught by primary teachers who took the Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) route in to teaching, the new course is regulated by Ofsted.
Jenny Fogarty, Director of Initial Teacher Training at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said:
“We were thrilled to welcome our first cohort onto our campuses this week and we look forward to working with them over the next three years, nurturing them and developing them into primary school teachers fit for 21st Century classrooms.
“As the only new accredited provider of Initial Teacher Training in England, this is a landmark moment for education in the East of England and we hope it will put an end to people feeling they need to move away in order to become a teacher.”
Anyone interested in finding out more, and potentially applying to be part of the 2025 cohort in Cambridge, Chelmsford, or Peterborough, is encouraged to attend one of ARU’s next undergraduate open days on Saturday, 5 October or Saturday, 23 November 2024.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ThoughtSpot, the AI-Powered Analytics Company, today announced that the Company has appointed Ketan Karkhanis as Chief Executive Officer.
Ketan is joining ThoughtSpot from Salesforce, where he has spent over a decade of his career. He most recently served as the Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Salesforce Sales Cloud business, leading one of the company’s largest cloud businesses that generated more than $7 billion last fiscal year. He returned to Salesforce in March 2022 after his time as the COO of Turvo, a supply-chain collaboration platform that was acquired by Lineage Logistics in 2022. Before that, Ketan was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Salesforce Einstein Analytics, incubating the business from launch to over $300 million and a 30,000 strong user community.
“During this time of accelerated transformation driven by the advent of generative AI, there is no better person to lead ThoughtSpot than Ketan,” said Ajeet Singh, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of ThoughtSpot. “He is a customer-obsessed, employee-focused business leader with a deep experience in analytics and has built and led world-class SaaS businesses of significant scale. The ThoughtSpot Board believes that Ketan is the right leader to help ThoughtSpot capitalize on its foundational innovation and capture the massive market opportunity that lies ahead in AI-powered analytics.”
Singh added, “Over the last six months, ThoughtSpot has made significant progress in accelerating its product roadmap, delivering genAI-driven value to customers that are migrating away from legacy visualization platforms, and centering its focus on durable growth at scale, all setting the table for our next CEO.”
“Ketan has the passion and experience to lead ThoughtSpot in its next chapter,” said Ravi Mhatre, Founder and Managing Director of Lightspeed Venture Partners and the founding investor on ThoughtSpot’s Board of Directors. “This appointment comes at a perfect time for the market as analytics is redefined by genAI, and ensures that ThoughtSpot is best positioned to scale rapidly.”
“ThoughtSpot has built a fundamentally different approach to analytics since its inception, squarely focused on democratizing data and empowering everyone to make data-driven decisions with its AI and search-driven analytics platform,” said Ketan Karkhanis, CEO of ThoughtSpot. “ThoughtSpot has a significant head start in innovation that is required for truly delivering on the expectations that genAI has created, with a proven solution that is delivering value to some of the largest and most complex enterprises in the world. I am extremely honored to have the opportunity to lead the company that finds itself intersecting with the genAI tailwinds at a perfect time, and is in a strong position to capitalize on this market opportunity by bringing unparalleled value to over a thousand customers across the globe.”
Ketan has a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from PICT (Pune Institute of Computer Technology, India) and an MBA from Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business.
About ThoughtSpot ThoughtSpot is the AI-Powered Analytics company. Our mission is to create a more fact-driven world with the easiest to use analytics platform. With ThoughtSpot, anyone can leverage natural language search to ask and answer data questions with confidence. ThoughtSpot enables everyone within an organization to limitlessly engage with live data in any major cloud data platform, making it easy to create and interact with granular, hyper-personalized, and actionable insights. Customers can take advantage of both ThoughtSpot’s web and mobile applications to improve decision-making for every employee, wherever and whenever decisions are made. With ThoughtSpot’s low-code developer-friendly platform, ThoughtSpot Embedded, customers can also embed AI-Powered Analytics to their products and services, monetizing their data and engaging users to keep them coming back for more. Organizations like Capital One, Daimler, Comcast, Cigna, Royal Bank of Canada, Nasdaq, and Unilever rely on ThoughtSpot to transform how their employees and customers take advantage of data. Try ThoughtSpot today and see for yourself.
Mylène Paradis (BA [communications], Université Laval, 1991; MA [journalism], Université Laval, 1993) joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2002.
Mylène Paradis (BA [communications], Université Laval, 1991; MA [journalism], Université Laval, 1993) joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2002. At headquarters, she held positions with the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force and the Central America and Caribbean Bureau. She was Chief of Staff to the Deputy Minister of International Development and Director of the Global Health and Nutrition Branch. Abroad, she was posted to Madrid from 2005 to 2008. Throughout her career, she has held secondments to various departments, including the Privy Council Office, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Health Canada. Most recently, she was Director General of Canadian Partnerships for Health and Social Development at Global Affairs Canada.
Marianick Tremblay (BBA [civil and international law], Université de Sherbrooke, 1989; LL.B. Université de Sherbrooke, 1990) was called to the Quebec Bar in 1990 and joined External Affairs and International Trade Canada in 1993. At headquarters, she served as senior counsel in the Environmental Law Division, coordinator of the Human Security Program, and senior counsel for small arms. Ms. Tremblay also served as deputy director of the Brazil and Southern Cone Section, and then as director of Hemispheric Affairs, which included relations with the Organization of American States and coordination of the Canadian delegation’s participation in the Summit of the Americas. From 2018 to 2021, she served as director general of the Mobilization of Canadians in the Partnerships for Development Innovation Sector. She has served in various overseas postings, including Mexico (1995–1998), Morocco (2001–2005), Chile (2007–2010), and as Ambassador to El Salvador (2010–2012), Ecuador (2015–2018), and Colombia (2021–2024).
Craig Weichel (BA Honours [History], Wilfrid Laurier University, 1994; MA [History], McMaster University, 1996) joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 1998. At headquarters, he worked in the U.S. General Relations, Northern Europe, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (Nuclear), and United Nations divisions. He also headed the Natural Disaster Response and Civilian Security Policy Division and the North Korea Task Force. From 2007 to 2009, he was President of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers. Abroad, he served in New York with the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations; in Vienna with the Canadian Delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; in Rome and, more recently, in Washington, where he directed the embassy’s environment and energy program.
Brenda Wills (Hons BComm, University of Manitoba, 2003; MSc [Sustainable Development], University of Sussex, 2021) is a Métis from Red River, Manitoba who joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2004. Her first posting abroad was in Washington, D.C. as Second Secretary (Trade Policy). She subsequently served as First Secretary (Trade) in Chile, Senior Trade Commissioner and Counsellor (Trade) in Colombia, and Counsellor (Trade Policy) in Mexico City. At Headquarters, she worked in the Trade Policy and Negotiations Branch, first on negotiations with the European Union and the European Free Trade Association, and then on the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations as Deputy Director of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement. She also served as Chief of Staff to the Assistant Deputy Minister of International Business Development and Canada’s Chief Trade Commissioner. Most recently, she served as Senior Trade Commissioner and Counsellor (Commercial Affairs) in Singapore.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.
Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
Exactly one year ago, the Polytechnic launched the Lepota ecosystem project — the discussion club “You have the floor!” During this time, students and university staff have had six distinguished guests as interlocutors: the coach of the Zenit football club Sergey Semak, academician of the Russian Academy of Education Tatyana Chernigovskaya, legendary hockey player Vyacheslav Fetisov, neuropsychologist and psychotherapist Alena Vanchenko, chief architect of the investment and construction holding “A101” Elizaveta Grechukhina, professional developer of educational games and author of additional education programs Andrey Latyshev.
And now a new season has begun in the discussion club. It was opened by the St. Petersburg actor, TV and radio host and blogger Andrey Zaitsev.
Andrey is best known to the general public as a dubbing actor. He voices characters in at least 199 foreign films. Including the main characters: programmer Daniel Domscheit-Berg, played by Daniel Brühl in The Fifth Estate, Sam Hall played by Jake Gyllenhaal in The Day After Tomorrow, Richard Madden’s prince in Cinderella, etc. Fans of the Star Wars saga certainly know that Andrey Zaytsev has been speaking for Anakin Skywalker since 2002. Fans of The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy know Andrey as Star Lord. And if you rewatch Terminator, note that in the third part, Andrey voices John Connor. And, of course, Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean.
So, one can say that in Andrey the polytechnicians saw (or rather heard) all their favorite movie characters at once, which is why the atmosphere at the meeting was so light and relaxed. In addition, Andrey has a great sense of humor, and he easily won over the audience. Although he admitted that he was very nervous, because speaking in front of an audience is always difficult. By the way, among the numerous questions to the guest was one about how to overcome constraint in public speaking.
“The most important thing is that I can be useful to you,” Andrey said at the very beginning of the meeting, inviting us to a dialogue. “Today, many people, in parallel with their main activities, try themselves in voice-over work, try to show themselves, primarily on social networks, and this is normal. I will tell you everything that interests you in the industry of dubbing, cinema, sound, artificial intelligence, to which I have also already contributed my voice.”
The guys were interested in whether AI could replace voice actors in the future. In response, Andrey let them listen to his own voice, made by a neural network.
“This is already happening,” he admitted. “For example, Teo Voice signed a contract with me, we made two voices. One is my regular one, and the other is an old man’s. It’s for streamers, for computer games. Artificial intelligence will help us develop further. Today, if we have professional burnout, we go to ChatGPT and solve the problem with its help. But creative brains cannot be replaced by anything.”
Naturally, the audience wanted to know why Andrey took up dubbing films.
I always dreamed of working with a microphone. I graduated from school in 1996. The first place I wanted to get into was the radio. I thought you had to speak endlessly fast there, like DJs in the 90s, and I still speak very fast and often now — such is my professional deformation. I started with Radio Shanson, then worked for 16 years at Avtoradio. I understood that radio people in the 90s were mostly educated as actors.
The meeting did not pass without discoveries. Thus, the students learned that whispering is harmful to the vocal cords, it is a lot of strain. And the best way to restore a torn voice is… regular sleep. And silence.
It also turned out that in dubbing, in addition to the translator, there is also the profession of “stacker”.
“The actors must get not only the intonation right, but also the closure,” Andrey Zaitsev explained. “It’s not enough to translate a film; there’s a concept called ‘lip syncing’ (full synchronization of sound and visuals in films – Ed.). Sometimes it’s not the dubbing that’s bad, it’s just the translation that’s ‘off track.’ And the perfect dubbing is in the film ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.’”
Andrey advised those students who were interested in how to get into voice acting to act on their own.
Come to try at a studio – there is no such practice now. Now there is the Internet. I always recommend starting on your own. But if you try to voice, then choose characters of your age. And sometimes your build. When dubbing, specific actors are selected for specific characters.
The conversation ended with a question about plans and dreams for the future.
I don’t make plans in the dubbing industry, I’ve already done everything there. I’ve made my acting business cards and want to do something where I can be useful 300 percent, and not plug a hole in another run-of-the-mill series. It’s a little comforting to me that Louis de Funes became popular at 54, I still have some time to spare.
According to tradition, two Lepota branded T-shirts appeared on stage at the end of the meeting. One, with the seventh number, was given to the guest. And on the second one, he left an autograph for the Polytechnicians. Andrey wrote a wish: “Live only for what you love.” And, of course, he could not help but add the great words from the star saga, but did it with reference to the meeting place: “May the power of the Polytechnic be with you!”
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Headline: A year of DAX Copilot: Healthcare innovation that refocuses on the clinician-patient connection
In 2012, a child’s drawing of her appointment with a physician was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In the brightly colored sketch, the girl is sitting on the exam table accompanied by her mother and siblings. To those of us working in healthcare, her doctor is the most notable part of the image. He is sitting at his desk, typing on the computer — with his back to the patient.
This drawing, published alongside an article titled “The Cost of Technology,” is emblematic of the unintended consequences of healthcare innovation. With more tools for physicians to use and greater demands on their time, technology can easily become a barrier between the clinician and the patient. For example, in 2023 approximately 53% of physicians surveyed by Medscape reported feeling burned out, and 23% reported feeling depressed. Long working hours, bureaucratic demands and loss of work-life balance due to administrative requirements are leading causes. Our mission has always been to help clinicians turn their chairs around by providing the support they need to fully focus their attention on delivering care.
Fast-forward to today, and we’ve translated that goal into reality. After establishing the ambient technology category, we introduced DAX Copilot, the first generative AI voice-enabled solution, which has been generally available for one year, and we’re seeing remarkable momentum. Part of a proven and extensible platform, DAX Copilot leverages health systems’ existing investments in the trusted family of Dragon Medical solutions, which is used by more than 600,000 clinicians worldwide.
DAX Copilot combines proven conversational and ambient AI with generative AI to automatically convert multiparty conversations into specialty-specific standardized draft clinical summaries that integrate with existing workflows. DAX Copilot was the first ambient solution to be integrated into the Epic electronic health record (EHR) workflow and allows clinicians to seamlessly document patient visits directly within the EHR. Across the country, more than 400 organizations have already embraced its revolutionary capabilities, streamlining administrative tasks and lightening clinicians’ documentation workloads.
This transformative year has highlighted many of the ways we’re helping empower healthcare teams today and bringing joy back to practicing medicine for thousands of clinicians.
Improving Access to Care — and Enhancing Documentation Quality
DAX Copilot is helping Northwestern Medicine in Chicago improve patient access to care, with physicians using the solution in at least 50% of patient encounters and able to see an average of 11.3 additional patients per month. DAX Copilot users at Northwestern Medicine also report spending an average of 24% less time on notes and a 17% decrease in ‘pajama time,’ working on administrative tasks late into the night.
“Northwestern Medicine is committed to providing a superior work environment that promotes well-being, and implementing DAX Copilot will allow our physicians to spend more quality time with our patients, focusing on their needs rather than on paperwork and data entry,” says Dr. Gaurava Agarwal, chief wellness executive, Northwestern Medicine.
Overlake Medical Center & Clinics in Bellevue, Washington, deployed DAX Copilot to help reduce after-hours documentation time and equip its clinicians with tools to manage escalating demands. A pilot with 30 Overlake clinicians saw a significant reduction in time spent on notes outside of scheduled hours. Users also reported other important benefits: 81% said DAX Copilot had reduced their cognitive burden and77% said the solution had improved the quality of their documentation.
At Atrium Health, “DAX Copilot is enabling a better clinician experience,” says Dr. Matthew Anderson, senior medical director of primary care at Atrium Health. “Most of our surveyed users are reporting a positive impact on their day-to-day schedule, being able to increase the number of patients they are able to see and even spending more time with them.”
Enhancing Clinician Well-being
Atrium Health isn’t alone in finding that the time saved on documentation with DAX Copilot is having a positive impact on clinicians’ quality of life. “I finally have weekends back,” says Dr. Christy Chan, a family medicine physician at Overlake. “I used to always have to worry that there was something I had to do — get back onto the EMR, log back in — but I actually have some weekends back.”
Clinicians at Novant Health are experiencing similar benefits. “DAX Copilot has done an amazing thing for the physicians and clinicians who are currently using it,” says Dr. Aram Alexanian, a family physician at Novant Health. “When you hear a comment like ‘I am now able to do things with my daughter in the evenings and weekends that I couldn’t do before,’ nothing satisfies us more than knowing the impact DAX is having on our clinicians.”
DAX Copilot can accurately identify different voices in the room during pediatric visits, differentiating between parents and children to accurately capture the patient exam note for the physician to review and approve.
Community Health Network places a major focus on clinician well-being and implementing DAX Copilot has had a major impact on its clinicians’ ability to close notes before they leave for the day. “Since we have implemented DAX Copilot, I have not left clinic with an open note,” says Dr. Patrick McGill, chief transformation officer for Community Health Network. “We have seen improved access, improved numbers of patients, but overall, it’s really the clinician satisfaction that we’ve seen. In one word, DAX Copilot is transformative. It transforms how we’re able to deliver care and how we’re able to document it. It also transforms the patient experience.”
“DAX Copilot has made my professional life easier. My patients have also benefited from my using Nuance DAX during our appointments. I can be right there with the patient and not furiously writing notes. I cannot thank you enough,” said Anita M. Kelsey, M.D., Duke Health.
Transforming the Patient Experience
Dr. Dominick Lanzo, an orthopedic surgeon at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, agrees. “Once I introduced the DAX Copilot program, it completely transformed the patient experience, and it’s turned out to be incredibly accurate with regards to the history of present illness and the physical exam,” he says. “It’s made my practice much more efficient. I can see more patients, my notes are more accurate, and they’re done in a timely fashion by the end of the afternoon.”
For Dr. Alison Pomykala, an internal medicine specialist at Baptist Medical Group, the integration of DAX Copilot with the Epic EHR is particularly valuable. “The thing I like most about DAX Copilot embedded in the Epic workflow is I’m able to focus more on the patient and I’m spending less time in the exam room typing on the computer,” she says.
“I think the interface is wonderful with Epic. It has been great to see the notes coming up basically in real time on the Epic system. That’s also helped with other things: where we needed to generate a note quickly for referrals, for insurance pre-certifications, for imaging studies, or to have a complete note ready for a patient that we’re sending to the hospital.”
“At our academic health system, integrating DAX Copilot has revolutionized patient care,” says Dr. Anthony Mazzarelli, co-president and CEO at Cooper University Health Care. “By automating clinical documentation through ambient voice technology, it has significantly reduced administrative workloads. This allows our physicians to focus on real-time patient interactions, leading to better care outcomes and increased job satisfaction. DAX Copilot has not only improved efficiency but has also empowered our team to spend more time where it matters most — caring for patients.”
It’s a privilege to see this industry-leading solution make a meaningful difference for the clinicians who are already on board — but the work never stops. The Microsoft healthcare team is determined to continue solving some of the industry’s most complex challenges, and harnessing the power and potential of AI is how we’ll achieve that. We will continue to be leaders in innovation, collaborating across our ecosystem of incredible customers, partners and Microsoft researchers to bring real impact to clinical settings.
DAX Copilot is an innovative solution that goes beyond documentation, offering unique features such as orders, problem-based charting and pre-charting capabilities. For example, recent updates to DAX Copilot include a robust set of features, such as the ability to customize documentation style and formatting, as well as automatically create referral letters, diagnostic evidence, after-visit summaries and encounter summaries. The solution also now offers AI coaching to help users improve the quality and completeness of their notes. Also, the new Summarized Evidence capability offers a comprehensive and sophisticated approach that helps clinicians validate and trust the note output by combining insights that go beyond evidence linking, helping clinicians validate the note.
Importantly, when creating technologies that can change the world, Microsoft believes organizations need to ensure that the technology is used responsibly. Microsoft is committed to creating responsible AI by design that is guided by a core set of principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability.
DAX Copilot is helping restore the human connection at the heart of medicine. We’re excited to drive this solution forward and expand its reach to more clinicians over the coming year and beyond.
Today, the solution can be used across ambulatory specialties, in-office primary care and urgent care, telehealth and emergency medicine. And we are scaling the solution’s availability and capabilities to even more care settings, such as nursing and geographies.
If you’d like to learn how DAX Copilot can help transform healthcare at your organization, please visit: the DAX Copilot website.
Tags: AI, Copilot, Dax Copilot, Dragon Medical solutions, Generative AI, Microsoft Partners, Responsible AI
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 2
News Release
Thursday, September 26, 2024
NIH-supported findings pave the way for genetic testing, clinical trials, and therapy development.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their colleagues have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye’s light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though IRDs affect more than 2 million people worldwide, each individual disease is rare, complicating efforts to identify enough people to study and conduct clinical trials to develop treatment. The study’s findings published today in JAMA Ophthalmology.
In a small study of six unrelated participants, researchers linked the gene UBAP1L to different forms of retinal dystrophies, with issues affecting the macula, the part of the eye used for central vision such as for reading (maculopathy), issues affecting the cone cells that enable color vision (cone dystrophy) or a disorder that also affects the rod cells that enable night vision (cone-rod dystrophy). The patients had symptoms of retinal dystrophy starting in early adulthood, progressing to severe vision loss by late adulthood.
“The patients in this study showed symptoms and features similar to other IRDs, but the cause of their condition was uncertain,” said Bin Guan, Ph.D., chief of the Ophthalmic Genomics Laboratory at NIH’s National Eye Institute (NEI) and a senior author of the report. “Now that we’ve identified the causative gene, we can study how the gene defect causes disease and, hopefully, develop treatment.”
Identifying the UBAP1L gene’s involvement adds to the list of more than 280 genes responsible for this heterogeneous disease.
“These findings highlight the importance of providing genetic testing to our patients with retinal dystrophy, and the value of the clinic and lab working together to better understand retinal diseases,” said co-senior author on the paper, Laryssa A. Huryn, M.D., an ophthalmologist at the NEI, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Genetic evaluation of the six patients revealed four variants in the UBAP1L gene, which encodes for a protein that is abundantly expressed in retina cells, including retinal pigment epithelium cells and photoreceptors. More research is needed to understand the UBAP1L gene’s exact function, but scientists were able to determine that the identified variants likely cause the gene to produce protein that lacks function.
Future studies will also be informed by the fact that variants appear to be distinctive to geographic regions. Five of the six families in this study were from South or Southeastern Asia, or Polynesia, regions that have been underrepresented in genetic studies.
The research was co-led by investigators at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London.
The study was funded by the Intramural Research Program at the NEI, and by NEI grants R01EY022356 and R01EY020540. Researchers at the University of Liverpool (UK), and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx also contributed to this report.
This press release describes a basic research finding. Basic research increases our understanding of human behavior and biology, which is foundational to advancing new and better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. Science is an unpredictable and incremental process— each research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. Most clinical advances would not be possible without the knowledge of fundamental basic research. To learn more about basic research, visit https://www.nih.gov/news-events/basic-research-digital-media-kit.
NEI leads the federal government’s research on the visual system and eye diseases. NEI supports basic and clinical science programs to develop sight-saving treatments and address special needs of people with vision loss. For more information, visit https://www.nei.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®
Reference
Ullah E, Lin S, Lu J, Bender C, Webster AR, Malka S, Madusudhan S, Rees E, Williams D, Agather AR, Cukras CA, Hufnagel RB, Chen R, Huryn LA, Arno G, Guan B. “Biallelic loss-of-function variants in UBAP1L and nonsyndromic retinal dystrophies,” September 26, 2024, JAMA Ophthalmology. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2024.3836
A new children’s home in Leicester is preparing to open its doors.
Holly House, in Aylestone, has been converted from two former council houses to create a new home with places for up to five young people, between the ages of eight and 17.
It is the first brand new children’s home to be built in the city in 40 years.
The new home includes four bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and a semi-independent flat for young people leaving care. The building also has communal recreational spaces, a dining room for everyone to eat together, a modern kitchen, lounge, offices and staff sleeping areas. The building is heated with air source heat pumps and has 30 photovoltaic solar panels on the roof.
Along with a home that will open next year in the west of the city, Holly House will help to increase the city council’s in-house capacity from six children’s homes, caring for up to 36 children and young people, to eight homes caring for up to 47.
The estimated cost for creating the new home is around £1,100,000, of which £500,000 has come from the Department for Education’s children’s homes capital funding programme.
There are currently more than 50 children and young people from Leicester living in residential children’s homes run by other organisations, with an average cost of £5,800 per week. Many of these are not located in the city.
The average direct cost at a council-run home in Leicester is around £5000 a week.
Cllr Sarah Russell, deputy city mayor for social care, health, and community safety, said: “It has been great to see Holly House taking shape and it’s wonderful to see that it is now almost complete.
“We consider investing in new children’s homes to be an important use of our resources, so that we can help to support and protect those who need it most.
“Children’s homes should feel like they are just that – a home – and I’m pleased to say that Holly House has been designed and finished with that in mind. We look forward to it opening its doors and becoming a welcoming home for some of Leicester’s most vulnerable children and young people.”
The vast majority of children who can’t live with their birth families live with foster carers but increasing demand for children’s social care services in recent years – a trend across the country – means there has been a significant rise in demand for residential children’s homes.
This has led to an increase in the use of external providers, but by building homes itself, the council can help children to maintain local connections and relationships, and tailor support to their individual needs.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (IL-14)
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, House Democrats held a hearing on Project 2025’s impacts on American families, highlighting House Resolution 1386, Rep. Lauren Underwood’s (IL-14) resolution to officially condemn Project 2025 and the sweeping harm that it would do to our democracy.
Project 2025, otherwise known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a 900+ page “playbook” for the first 180 days of an incoming Trump administration. It is a step-by-step guide for dismantling critical agencies that serve Americans, restructuring the executive branch, and installing Trump loyalists and operatives at nearly every level of government.
If enacted, Project 2025 will radically alter the lives of every American.
The blueprint would strip away fundamental freedoms, destroy checks and balances on presidential powers, and lead to rising costs on health care, child care, housing, groceries, and gas.
Project 2025 would:
End Social Security and Medicare as we know it, forcing hardworking Americans to work longer for less.
Devastate working families across America, raising costs, lowering wages, destroying our environment, and dismantling access to health care.
Remove protections for people with pre-existing health conditions, raise prescription drug prices, ban Medicare from negotiating lower drug costs, and put a new tax on health insurance for people who get coverage at work.
Criminalize abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control, and even ban fertility services like IVF.
Allow government agents to monitor pregnancies to potentially prosecute parents if they miscarry.
Cut school meals for kids, end Head Start for preschoolers, slash public school funding, and fire teachers across the country.
Raise costs and slash investments for working families to give huge new tax breaks to billionaires, CEOs, and the biggest corporations.
Threaten America’s national security and our ability to compete across the globe.
Destroy fundamental checks and balances on Presidential powers.
At the hearing, Underwood said, “As one of the only nurses in Congress, to me, Project 2025’s direct attacks on our health care are some of the most alarming parts of this 920+ page document.
This plan is extreme in the truest sense of the word. It calls to eliminate protections for people with preexisting conditions like myself, proposes new taxes on people who get their health coverage from work, and would cause the cost of prescription drugs to skyrocket.
To put it simply: Donald Trump’s Project 2025 will make more Americans sick and leave them without the coverage they need to take care of themselves and their families.
Few people understand these threats better than our providers, and I am so pleased to be joined today by a fellow Registered Nurse, Vicki Gonzalez. Vicki has been an RN since 1986. For the past 20 years, she has worked as a wound and ostomy nurse at one of our nation’s largest hospitals, Jackson Memorial in Miami. Vicki has seen firsthand how the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid have brought high quality, affordable care to so many people who previously couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, and instead ended up deathly sick in the emergency room. And Vicki knows how dire it would be for these people to once again have to choose between putting food on the table and getting the care they need.”
To view Underwood’s full remarks visit this link. Full text of House Resolution 1386 can be found here.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Nick LaLota (NY-01)
WASHINGTON, D.C.–Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Suffolk County)released the following statement after voting in favor ofH.R. 9747to keep the federal government open and working for the American people.
“Despite partisan fear-mongering, House Republicans have kept the government funded, open, and working for the American people. While others bicker and play politics, I stay focused on delivering real results for Suffolk County, including securing over $150 million in federal funding for our communities,”said LaLota. “Since taking office, I’ve been proud to rank among the most productive freshman members, passing more bills than 97% of my peers—eight bipartisan bills and 20 amendments through the House. These efforts include protecting the Long Island Sound, addressing the fentanyl and sanctuary city crises, and supporting our small businesses and veterans. My commitment is to put the American people first and improve the quality of life for everyone in Suffolk County.”
To read the full text of the legislation, clickHERE.
Background:
LaLota has consistently and successfully voted to keep the government open, funded, and working for the American people.
Since being sworn into office, LaLota has passed eight of his bills through the House, each of which has earned bipartisan support:
H.R. 3511 – Service Disabled Veteran Opportunities in Small Business Act
H.R. 4424 – Vietnam Veterans Liver Fluke Cancer Study Act
H.R. 4669 – DOE & SBA Research Act
H.R. 5441 – Long Island Sound Restoration & Stewardship Reauthorization Act
H.R. 5717 – No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act
H.R. 7105 – Women-Owned Small Business Certification & Opportunity Expansion Act
H.R. 7987 – Plain Language in Contracting Act
H.R. 8663 – DETECT Fentanyl & Xylazine Act
Through the Fiscal Year 2024 government funding bills, LaLota secured over $150 million in federal funding that will directly benefit Suffolk County, including millions in Community Project Funding for infrastructure projects, water quality improvements, and wastewater treatment in each of the First Congressional District’s Towns.
H.R. 9747 would extend current government funding through December 20th, 2024, extend the authorization of the National Flood Insurance Program, ensure working families have access to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits, guarantee Veteran, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits continue, provide an additional $231 million for the Secret Servicefor protective operations for Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees in the 2024 Campaign and activities related to National Special Security Events and provide the agency with flexibility to quickly obligate funds for protective operations, and allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flexibility to quickly obligate funds provided by the CR for the Disaster Relief Fund to respond to disasters.
America Reyes Wang, the lead of the the Space Biology Biospecimen Sharing Program at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, stands beside a spacesuit display. Photo courtesy of America Reyes Wang
As humans return to the Moon and push on toward Mars, scientists are ramping up research into the effects of space on the body to make sure astronauts stay healthy on longer missions. This research often involves spaceflight studies of rodents, insects, and other models in orbiting laboratories such as the International Space Station. However, space-related biological samples are difficult to get, meaning that researchers who want to study space biology are frequently out of luck.
America Reyes Wang, a KBR employee and the lead of the Space Biology Biospecimen Sharing Program at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, oversees the team that has changed that. Birthed from an initiative first pioneered in the 1960s, the Biospecimen Sharing Program collects samples and data from NASA non-human space biology studies and makes them available in the public, open NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR).
To derive the most benefit from the precious few biology studies taking place in space, Reyes Wang arranges collaborations on space biology dissections with NASA-funded researchers so that her team can collect and preserve unutilized biospecimens for others to use. Outside researchers can request the samples to study in person by writing and submitting proposals. Once analyzed, researchers share their data back with the NASA OSDR for other investigators to access and study.
The ethos of open science is central to Reyes Wang’s approach to her work. “The samples that we work with are so precious,” she said. “To me, it’s a no-brainer — why not share what we can share?”
America Reyes Wang wears personal protective equipment (PPE) while working on an activity for NASA’s Biospecimen Sharing Program. Photo courtesy of America Reyes Wang
Reyes Wang aspired to work in the scientific or medical field from a young age, driven by her desire to help people. Her father, who was born in El Salvador and dreamed of being an astronaut after watching the 1969 Moon landing, inspired Reyes Wang to fall in love with space. She also credited her Salvadoran and Mexican family with teaching her the value of understanding different experiences.
“To me, being Hispanic, especially as a Latina in STEM, means recognizing and building upon the hard work and sacrifices of those who came before me, as well as extending a helping hand to those around me for the betterment of us all,” Reyes Wang said. “It also means enjoying and sharing our vibrant cultures.”
As a student at Stanford University, Reyes Wang conducted neurobiology research with rodents, but assumed she would have to choose her love of biology over her love of space. The field of space biology allowed her to combine those interests. Having quietly dreamed of working for NASA for years, she was also thrilled to find that she could work on NASA missions as a space biologist.
If we want to keep up with the pace of humanity’s aspirations to travel further and for longer … open science is one of the best tools we have for achieving those dreams.
America Reyes Wang Biospecimen Sharing Program Lead
Reyes Wang first found a role supporting NASA as an experiment support scientist for the agency’s Rodent Research Program. While she no longer facilitates research on the International Space Station in her current position, she uses her scientific expertise and collaborative outlook to guide the Biospecimen Sharing Program in a direction that will most help advance science.
Despite space biology’s status as a relatively niche field, Reyes Wang has noted its tremendous impact on the biological sciences, medicine, and technology as a whole. For example, spaceflown biological samples are often used to investigate diseases that affect people on Earth. Reyes Wang’s involvement in accelerating these studies captures her long-held desire to help people.
“Open science gives the world an opportunity to get these important answers much more quickly,” Reyes Wang said. “If we want to keep up with the pace of humanity’s aspirations to travel further and for longer, we need to pick up the pace when it comes to getting the answers, and I think open science is one of the best tools we have for achieving those dreams.”
By Lauren Leese Web Content Strategist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christoph Bluth, Professor of International Relations and Security, University of Bradford
Vladimir Putin has announced what appears to be a dramatic strengthening of Russia’s nuclear doctrine. The Russian president was responding to speculation that the west may relax its restrictions on Ukraine’s use of its weapons to attack targets inside Russia.
He told his security council that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons. The trigger for the launch of nuclear missiles against Ukraine or any of its allies, he said, would be “reliable information about a massive launch of aerospace attack means and their crossing of our state border”.
Whether this will affect the thinking of Ukraine’s western allies about the use of its long-range missiles has yet to be seen. But one of the major features of the public discourse about the Ukraine war has been the risk of the use of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear threats have been a standard tactic for the Russian leadership. Whenever Ukraine receives new weapons from the west or is allowed to use western arms to target Russian territory Moscow has responded by either referring to the devastation it could wreak with its nuclear arsenal or by holding a drill to remind the west of its existence.
But there have recently been reports of a growing realisation among Putin’s close advisers that these threats are beginning to wear thin, as one after another of Moscow’s “red lines” are ignored.
Nevertheless, despite providing Ukraine with the most advanced air defence systems and offensive missiles that could strike targets deep within Russia – and perhaps even influence the course of the war – Nato countries are maintaining a strict limit on their use. It’s an indication that despite scepticism about Putin’s willingness to use nuclear weapons, deterrence remains robust – in western minds anyway.
Nuclear deterrence is based on the threat to inflict “unacceptable damage” on an enemy. It is credible only if the adversary believes that the threat is accompanied by the capability and will to follow through.
Nuclear powers have generally conducted nuclear messaging by publicising guidelines for the use of their arsenals. Nato’s current strategic concept was adopted by heads of state and government at the alliance’s summit in Madrid in June 2022. It states: “The circumstances in which Nato might have to use nuclear weapons are extremely remote.”
But the document stresses that if nuclear weapons were used against any Nato member state it would “fundamentally alter” any conflict in which Nato was engaged. It goes on to warn that: “The Alliance has the capabilities and resolve to impose costs on an adversary that would be unacceptable and far outweigh the benefits that any adversary could hope to achieve.”
Russia, meanwhile, is reportedly updating its nuclear doctrine in response to what it says is “western escalation” in the war in Ukraine. The current doctrine, established by a decree in 2020, says Russia can use nuclear weapons to respond to a nuclear attack by an enemy, or to a conventional attack that “threatens the existence of the state”.
The latest statement by Putin is apparently the “draft” of a reworked nuclear doctrine. It certainly appears to lower the bar on resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.
Sabre rattling
The Russian leader made his first overt threat to use nuclear weapons in the conflict in Ukraine in September 2022. He was overseeing the annexation of four occupied Ukrainian provinces after hastily arranged plebiscites, which were generally regarded in the west as being rigged.
He stated that “the US is the only country in the world that twice used nuclear weapons, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incidentally, they created a precedent.”
He went on to assert that during the second world war the US and Britain had deliberately bombed several German cities to rubble. This, he insisted, had the “sole goal, just like in the case of nuclear bombardments in Japan, to scare our country and the entire world”.
But CIA director William Burns recently said the west should not take Putin’s threats seriously: “Putin’s a bully. He’s going to continue to sabre rattle from time to time.”
CIA director Wiliam Burns and MI6 chief Richatrd Moore in conversation at an FT conference, September 2024.
Burns told a festival organised by the Financial Times on September 7 that: “There was a moment in the fall of 2022 when I think there was a genuine risk of potential use of tactical nuclear weapons … I never thought … we should be unnecessarily intimidated by that.”
He said he had subsequently passed on a message from US president Joe Biden to Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Russian foreign intelligence service at a meeting in Turkey in November 2022 “to make very clear what the consequences of that kind of escalation would be”.
US satellite networks and other intelligence sources have shown no evidence of any preparations for the employment of nuclear weapons. This is despite Russian claims that the alert status of Russian forces has been raised.
But Putin’s proxies have been busily putting out propaganda messages to reinforce their leader’s threats. According to the Washington Post, Alexander Mikhailov, the director of the Bureau of Military Political Analysis, recently called for Russia to bomb plywood mock-ups of London and Washington to simulate a nuclear attack, so that that would “burn so beautifully that it will horrify the world”.
The speaker of the lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, warned that strikes on Russia would lead to war with nuclear weapons and warned that the European parliament in Strasbourg was only a three-minute flight for a Russian nuclear missile.
So far Putin’s threats have been sufficient to limit the scope of western involvement. Whether the Russian president’s latest threat will be effective is now the question.
Christoph Bluth received funding from the Volkswagen Stiftung and the AHRC
While Russia continues its nuclear sabre rattling, with renewed threats to use its arsenal if attacked, fighting on the frontlines in Ukraine and in Russia’s Kursk region remains intense. But the diplomatic centre of gravity of the war recently shifted to New York and Washington.
Discussions at the UN and meetings scheduled between the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the US president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris are by no means unimportant for the outcomes of the conflict. But it is unlikely that they will constitute the pivotal moment in accelerating the pace towards a Ukrainian victory that Zelensky might envisage.
At meetings at the UN general assembly and security council, Zelensky appealed to world leaders to support his country and force Russia to make peace with Ukraine. His vision to achieve this is via a second global peace summit. This time he wants Russia to participate after the first effort in Switzerland in June achieved very little.
But with Zelensky continuing to push his ten-point peace plan and Putin insisting on Ukraine recognising Russia’s annexation of Crimea and four regions on the mainland, the two sides are as far apart as ever. So prospects of any meaningful negotiations virtually non-existent.
The plan “envisages quick and concrete steps by our strategic partners … from now until the end of December”. These concrete steps are likely to include more western military support and the permission to use longer-range western weapons against targets deeper inside Russia.
This latter point is something on which the western alliance is divided – and the US sceptical on its strategic value. Putin’s insistence that Russia will respond by using its nuclear arsenal if it detects any western missiles crossing its border will have added to this uncertainty.
Even if more decisive western support were suddenly forthcoming, it is unlikely that it would offset other disadvantages that Ukraine and its allies are facing on the battlefield and beyond. Russia has consolidated its alliances with Iran, North Korea and China. All of these countries have supplied mission-critical ammunition and equipment that has enabled the Kremlin to sustain its war effort in Ukraine.
Russia, so far, has also maintained its advantage in numbers. It appears to be determined to push this even harder following Putin’s order to increase the number of combat troops of the Russian army by another 180,000 soldiers.
Meanwhile, a relentless Russian air campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure has also caused lasting damage, especially to the country’s energy supply network. This is likely to have a particularly adverse effect on Ukraine’s civilian population. It is likely to seriously dent morale during the coming winter.
Other plans (and priorities)
As discussions at the UN this week have underlined, there is also some diplomatic momentum building up behind a joint proposal by Brazil and China that was initially launched in May. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, pushed the plan during his speech at the UN general assembly on September 24, as did China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi.
Like previous proposals from China and Brazil individually, as well as from Indonesia, a group of African states and Saudi Arabia, the joint Brazilian-Chinese plan calls for a ceasefire along the current frontlines. Negotiations would then follow.
Ukraine fears, rightly, that this would entrench the status quo and effectively amount to Kyiv giving up territory illegally annexed by Russia. It would not guarantee any fruitful negotiations but give Russia time and space to regroup and rebuild its armed forces for a likely future escalation. None of this is acceptable to Ukraine and its allies as Zelensky made clear in his speech at the UN.
Volodymr Zelensky criticises the Brazil-China plan at the UN general assembly.
China’s previous effort to promote this joint initiative with Brazil just before the peace summit in Switzerland last June, did not go very far. It may not go much further this time either.
But attention and resources are now much more focused on the Middle East and – to a lesser extent – the civil war in Sudan. So the very fact of this plan’s resurrection may be enough for Russia and its allies to prevent the rest of the world from uniting behind the western-backed Ukrainian proposal for a second global peace summit.
This is clearly a concern for Ukraine. Zelensky, with a clear eye on countries in the global south, not only rejected the proposal but also argued that forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia would be akin to reimposing a version of the brutal colonial past of the Soviet era on his country.
Will Zelensky be Trumped in November?
While the stars are thus hardly aligning in Ukraine’s favour at the UN in New York, things did not go much better as far as US domestic politics is concerned ahead of presidential elections in November. Questioning whether Donald Trump really has a credible plan to end the war, Zelensky triggered the notoriously short-fused Republican contender into lashing out at him at campaign rallies.
Donald Trump takes aim at Volodymr Zelensky.
Trump is both accusing Zelensky of refusing to make a deal and expressing doubts about Ukraine’s ability to win the war. Meanwhile, a recent opinion piece penned by Robert F. Kennedy Jnr and Donald Trump Jnr for The Hill, an influential political newspaper, urges that Ukraine be pushed to make a deal with Russia to prevent nuclear escalation.
And Trump’s running-mate J.D. Vance has made clear his opposition to the US continuing to supply aid to Ukraine if elected in November. So it’s pretty clear that there is a very real prospect that Washington may soon cease to be Kyiv’s most important global ally.
All of this explains the urgency behind Zelensky’s push for more and more decisive western support in the coming months, and his pleas to the wider international community to back efforts for a just peace for Ukraine. But it also indicates that Russia and its allies have, for now, done enough to further frustrate any progress towards a Ukrainian victory both on the battlefield and at the negotiation table.
Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Guy Collender, Post Doctoral Senior Research Associate, Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures, University of Portsmouth
The rapid sinking of the Bayesian superyacht and the loss of seven lives, including tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, in August 2024 cruelly emphasised the potentially lethal perils of the sea. This tragedy, although much publicised, is far from unusual. Globally, accidents at sea lead to thousands of deaths every year – but the true scale of the problem is unknown.
Undoubtedly, life at sea remains hard and dangerous in the 21st century, but this is difficult to quantify. There were 215 shipping industry related deaths at sea recorded in 2022. However, due to a lack of standardised data and under-reporting this figure is likely to be an underestimate.
Efforts to raise awareness and improve safety at sea today have much to learn from historic and successful safety initiatives in the UK’s docks. My research on early 20th century docks shows that proper data is a prerequisite to understanding a problem and identifying trends. Such an assessment can then lead to the allocation of resources, targeted safety measures – and life-saving change.
These steps all apply to improving safety at sea, but the lack of accurate data is a real stumbling block.
Life and death at sea
Fishing is widely recognised as the “most dangerous occupation globally”, but estimates of deaths among the fishing community vary enormously from 32,000 to more than 100,000 deaths per year. Of course, such deaths also occur inland in lakes and rivers, as well as at sea.
Twenty-six vessels of over 100 gross tonnes were recorded lost in 2023, with 13 sinking beneath the waves. This is low when compared with the loss of more than 200 vessels a year in the 1990s, but there have also been recent worrying trends such as attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. So far in 2024, four Red Sea seafarers have been killed by Houthi rebels from Yemem, with others injured and held hostage.
Desperation and war are also leading to deaths and risks elsewhere. A total of 3,155 migrants crossing the Mediterranean were recorded as missing or dead in 2023.
Nevertheless, such challenges and risks to life are increasingly being recognised and efforts are underway to address them. Importantly, better data collection and monitoring is in the pipeline.
An amendment to the 2006 international maritime labour convention is expected to come into force in December 2024. It will require countries that have agreed to the convention to report deaths of seafarers on an annual basis to the UN’s International Labour Office.
These will be published in a global register, and they will be investigated. It remains to be seen how such reporting will operate in practice and how deaths will be categorised – but it will be a good start.
My study shows how progress was linked to gathering better data, and recognising the risks of loading and unloading cargo. The counting and scrupulous categorisation of accidents helped identify the problems and appropriate safety measures.
In 1900, factory inspectors identified five causes of dock accidents, including falls (into the ship’s hold, or into the water), and shunting accidents involving trains. The docks were classified as one of the “dangerous trades” in the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901.
Under the dock regulations of 1904, “life-saving appliances” – chains or floats – were introduced to prevent drownings. Lifting machinery was also subject to stringent checks to prevent deaths from falling loads.
And more and more proactive inspections took place as the number of inspectors rose from 137 in 1900 to 320 by 1939. All these safety measures and others contributed to dock deaths falling from 115 a year in 1899 to 69 a year in 1939.
Today’s safety initiatives at sea often echo the work of those safety pioneers in the early 20th century. Together in Safety, a consortium of companies dedicated to improving safety in the maritime sector, suggests a three-step safety process – assess the situation, act to improve, appraise the progress – which replicates the work of those early legislators and inspectors.
Together in Safety’s clear and succinct golden safety rules show how to mitigate the risks of maritime work, including working over water and entering enclosed spaces.
What’s more, Lloyd’s Register Foundation – a charity that helps to protect life and property at sea, on land, and in the air – is undertaking work to “assure the safety of people as the ocean economy grows” as part of its Global Maritime Trends 2050 Research Programme.
Two million seafarers face daily dangers to keep the global supply chain operating smoothly. Doing more to highlight their safety will hopefully lead to a better understanding of the challenges they face. This, in turn, should lead to better safety procedures and practices to save lives at sea.
Guy Collender was commissioned and paid to research the history of dock safety in the UK for Hindsight Perspectives for a Safer World – a collaboration between History and Policy and Lloyd’s Register Foundation. He is currently employed by the University of Portsmouth on the ‘Sail to Steam, Carbon to Green’ research project, which is funded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Colin Alexander, Senior Lecturer in Political Communications, Nottingham Trent University
Vladimir Putin has spoken several times about using nuclear weapons since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, the initial attention and concern that global news media gave to Putin when he first spoke on the issue in September 2022 seemed to have largely dissipated over the past two years of conflict, perhaps because of the frequency with which he has threatened to resort to use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Now Putin has issued his strongest threat yet, saying that Russia would use nuclear weapons against any country attacking it, even with conventional weapons. This statement appears to be intended to influence the debate happening at the United Nations, where Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to persuade his country’s western allies to allow Ukraine to use the weapons they have provided against targets deep within Russia itself.
This has been a “red line” hitherto that Ukraine’s allies have been unwilling to cross. That may be about to change though and Russia’s reaction has been to reiterate a nuclear response.
For those interested in the study of propaganda, Putin’s threats appear to have moved from what American media scholar Dan Hallin called the “sphere of legitimate controversy”, where the validity of an utterance is urgently debated by journalists, politicians and academics, into the “sphere of consensus”, where there is broad agreement about the meaning of the message. This generally results in it receiving less attention.
To believe that Putin is not serious about using nuclear weapons is a dangerous assumption to make. But it provides a good opportunity to examine the political and public relationship with nuclear weapons in more detail.
The psychology of nuclear threat
Most adults know of the existence of nuclear weapons and understand the consequences of their use. Very few are simply ignorant of them or their immense power. But global annihilation is too overwhelming to think about other than fleetingly. As a result we tend to focus on less drastic futures.
These regular denials and self-deceptions affect political outlooks though. Every so often the leader of a nuclear-armed country is asked by a journalist or another politician about their readiness to press the nuclear button. They always say “yes”. When this question is asked in front of an audience there is usually enthusiastic applause.
This response – applauding an individual politician’s willingness to bring about the end of the world – is perhaps the most compelling evidence of the duality that the threat of nuclear war exists within. Rather than perceiving such a response as the worrying sign that a maniac has somehow manoeuvred their way into high office and should be immediately removed, the voter perceives the utterance as a signifier of leadership strength.
Psychologically, it can be argued that the applause actually represents an outpouring of relief that this mass self-deception can continue.
‘Fear propaganda’ and confirmation bias
During the cold war, official propaganda placed great emphasis upon threat and preparedness for nuclear attack. The BBC film Threads first aired 40 years ago in September 1984 and depicted the aftermath of a nuclear strike. It was responsible for great alarm among the British public at a time when news media, movies and even official literature were also focused upon the threat of nuclear war.
Between 1974 and 1980, the UK government issued a booklet entitled Protect and Survive, accompanied by short films. The BBC, in its public service role, also ran documentary programming including a 1980 edition of Panorama called If The Bomb Drops. While US secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s 1957 study Nuclear War and Foreign Policy caused alarm for arguing that small-scale nuclear war using “battlefield” weapons might be possible.
Cold war communications like these served to focus the public mind towards the threat of nuclear attack above all other fears. And perhaps, at that time, they were right to do so. But more than 30 years have now passed since the end of the cold war and the emphasis within what is known as “fear propaganda” now focuses on other threats, such as extremism, pandemics and migration.
As such, Putin’s nuclear threats provide propaganda analysts like myself with a case study about the important role played by fear propaganda in determining what people are scared of. If taken within the wider history of the fear of nuclear holocaust, it is clear that political leaders cannot rely on their words alone to be taken seriously. They require a wider supportive propaganda environment – like the atmosphere created at the height of the cold war.
Putin the ‘madman’
Questions around how to understand Putin’s nuclear attack threats ought to be positioned as the latest in a long(ish) line of world leaders who have tried to convince global publics of their readiness to commit nuclear genocide.
Richard Nixon, for example, used what was referred to as “madman” tactics when trying to convince people of his readiness to push the button. Interestingly, the more recent depictions of Putin, Kim Jong-un and other authoritarian leaders as madmen by western tabloids can actually helps them by playing down the fact of their inferior military capabilities when compared to those of the Nato allies.
Don’t think for a moment though that any of this discussion of propaganda increases or decreases the actual threat posed by nuclear weapons. Indeed, there exists a degree of confirmation bias among politicians, journalists and other public commentators that because nuclear war did not happen during the cold war, it is unlikely to happen now. But this can’t be guaranteed. It may be that these conclusions are mistakenly based upon the intensity of the propaganda environment – not the actuality of the threat posed.
To this end, it ought to be remembered that the ability to press the button sits well within the capacity of the sane human mind. US president Harry S. Truman pushed the button in 1945. He was then given detailed reports of the death and destruction that his decision caused to Hiroshima. Then he pushed the button again to annihilate Nagasaki.
Colin Alexander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES (26 September 2024) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed an agreement with the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) that will enable at least $500 million in new concessional education funding for lower middle-income countries (LMICs) in Asia and the Pacific.
Under the financing partnership, IFFEd—a sovereign-backed Swiss foundation established in 2023 to invest in education and skills in LMICs—will guarantee $125 million of ADB’s sovereign loan exposure across all sectors, known as a synthetic portfolio, and provide an initial $50 million in grants.
By blending IFFEd’s guarantees to ADB with grants that will comprise 10% of every loan, the first-of-its-kind arrangement facilitates a four times leverage ratio of the guarantee, boosting the amount of capital ADB can lend while lowering borrowing costs for the bank’s developing member countries (DMCs).
“Education is the cornerstone of modern, prosperous, and inclusive societies, and we are pleased to announce this partnership with IFFEd,” said ADB Vice-President for Sectors and Themes Fatima Yasmin. “By pooling catalytic and concessional financing, this initiative means our lower middle-income DMCs can scale up their investments in education and skills—vital to building knowledge-based economies—along with other sectors at the same time.”
LMICs face an education crisis. More than 50% of students in these countries are not able to read simple text by age 10 despite attending school, and graduates do not have the skills to find jobs, leaving employers unable to fill vacancies.
As countries move from lower to lower middle-income status, they tend to get caught in a financing “missing middle” where they are no longer eligible to receive grants but cannot afford nonconcessional financing—forcing a difficult decision of where to invest, exacerbated by limited domestic financing.
By bringing concessional or grant resources to developing countries seeking to strengthen their education systems, the ADB–IFFEd partnership’s key innovation lies in the fact that—at a time of rapid change—it will help ADB’s DMCs prepare for a future characterized by digital transformation, climate change, demographic transitions, and rapid urbanization.
IFFEd’s sovereign donors include Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, while the Atlassian Foundation, Jacobs Foundation, Porticus, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Soros Economic Development Fund (the investment arm of Open Society Foundations) have provided seed capital. IFFEd, which benefits from a strong credit rating, will initially focus on Asia and the Pacific, and Africa, in collaboration with multilateral development banks (MDBs).
“Investing in education and skills in LMICs—home to nearly half of the world’s children and youth—is key to powering long-term economic growth and making progress on global health, climate, and equity goals,” said IFFEd Founding Chief Executive Officer Karthik Krishnan.
“IFFEd has been recognized by the G20 MDB Capital Adequacy Framework Review as one of the most significant development finance innovations in the past decade and delivers seven times more impact than traditional grants. ADB played a key role in shaping the IFFEd instrument and as our first founding MDB partner, ADB is showcasing its unwavering commitment to alleviating poverty and powering economic growth in Asia and the Pacific,” added Mr. Krishnan.
The following ADB DMCs are currently eligible for IFFEd funding: Bangladesh, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam.
IFFEd-funded education projects can support ADB programs at any level of the education system—from early childhood development and school education to technical and vocational training, skills development and tertiary education.
ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today unveiled the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S10+, Samsung’s first tablets purpose-built for AI. Premium hardware includes 14.6-inch1 and 12.4-inch2 Dynamic AMOLED 2X displays — the ideal canvas for the intuitive S Pen bundled with both models. Performance upgrades for the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra3 include an 18% increase in CPU, 28% increase in GPU, and 14% increase in NPU compared to the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra.
This improved processing power enables faster and more responsive AI features, which are now easily accessible with written prompts using the new Galaxy AI Key on the compatible Book Cover Keyboards, helping users customize their AI assistant.4 Cutting-edge software includes features such as Note Assist5 and Drawing Assist6 optimized for the tablet form factor. The Galaxy Tab S10 series also acts as a home AI device, with a 3D Map View that provides a visual overview of the home and connected devices to streamline device management across the SmartThings ecosystem.7 Robust Samsung Knox security provides data privacy and control, keeping users’ information safe.
“The Galaxy Tab S10 series is packed with AI enhancements right out of the box, joining our portfolio of innovative Galaxy AI enabled devices,”8 said MC Lee, VP, Head of Galaxy Ecosystems Business Team, Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. “We’re proud to add to our seamless ecosystem of connected devices, bringing versatile experiences that only an AI tablet can offer through the Galaxy Tab S10 series’ blend of power and portability.”
Peak Performance on the Go
Built on Samsung’s legacy of providing powerful experiences, Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S10+ harness significant leaps in AI processing power to deliver a supercharged, lag-free experience. Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra includes a more than 18% increase in CPU, 28% increase in GPU, and 14% increase in NPU compared to Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. Coupled with long-lasting battery life and Super-Fast Charging,9 the Galaxy Tab S10 series allows the device to be used for long periods of time without needing a charge.
Elegant Build Quality, Mesmerizing Display
Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra’s 14.6-inch display and Galaxy Tab S10+’s 12.4-inch display both feature cutting-edge Dynamic AMOLED 2X technology and offer a vibrant yet natural viewing experience, even outdoors. Every detail remains clear from any angle and in any environment with advanced anti-reflective technology, minimizing distracting glare and reducing reflection rate. The series’ quad speaker setup is further enhanced with AI-powered Dialogue Boost, which amplifies voices over unwanted noise to create ultra-clear audio. And for use on the go, the Galaxy Tab S10 series offers uncompromised durability with an IP68 rating10 further protected by enhanced Armor Aluminium — built to use anytime, anywhere.
Work Smarter, Achieve True Creativity
The Galaxy Tab S10 series offers an efficient experience — enhancing productivity — and serves as the ideal canvas to let out your creative side.
With Note Assist and the intuitive S Pen, notetaking is a breeze on the tablet’s large display. Schoolwork, note-taking, and personal journaling become more efficient with automated transcriptions and summaries provided by AI. With PDF Overlay Translation, the Galaxy Tab S10 series can also seamlessly translate PDFs via an on-screen overlay. Handwriting Help cleans up untidy handwritten notes, too.
Galaxy AI’s Sketch to Image11 makes the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra perfect for turning imagination into reality, acting as the ideal creative assistant for overcoming mental roadblocks.
With Circle to Search12 with Google on the Galaxy Tab S10 series you can learn about almost anything without switching apps. Instantly translate anything you see on your tablet with Google, including any image, video, or text in two taps — allowing you to quickly get the info you need, then get right back to what you were doing. Circle to Search can even recognize and outline steps for solving physics and math problems.
The Galaxy S Pen’s Air Command with AI provides instant access to Galaxy AI Assistant features without toggling between menus. AI Assistant apps can also be easily launched by the Galaxy AI Key on the Book Cover Keyboards with written prompts, making it easier for users to access Galaxy AI. Users can even choose between Samsung’s Bixby and Google’s Gemini for a customized AI experience.13
Intelligent Home Device
The Galaxy Tab S10 series doubles as a Galaxy home AI device, simplifying device management. With large screen optimized features such as 3D Map View, it’s easy to see and take control of SmartThings enabled devices via the SmartThings widget. That means switching off the TV and lowering the lights from the table when it’s dinner time, turning up the air conditioning without getting off the couch, or getting notified when someone leaves the refrigerator door open — all on one powerful device. Users can also enable SmartThings Energy and AI Energy Mode to easily monitor their devices’ energy consumption. Galaxy AI doesn’t just enhance life on the go, it also takes the stress out of home life.
Expanded Third-Party App Ecosystem
The Galaxy Tab S10 series expands Galaxy’s unique connected experience and third-party app ecosystem, offering new and enhanced apps. The Tab S10 series provides access to leading third-party apps including Goodnotes,14 LumaFusion,15 Noteshelf3,16 Clip Studio Paint,17 PicsArt, and Sketchbook. Users can easily control speeds and add dramatic visual effects when editing videos on LumaFusion, or share their creative edits and re-created content with friends via PicsArt. With the Galaxy Tab S10 series’ extensive third-party app ecosystem, there’s something for everyone.
Secure Experiences, Powered by Samsung Knox
Samsung is committed to providing users with choice and control over their devices and their data. With Advanced Intelligence settings, users can choose to disable online data processing to ensure their data remains on-device. Samsung Knox’s real-time threat detection and collaborative protection keeps users safe, so they can live life to the fullest.
Availability & Offers
The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S10+ are available for preorder starting today, with general availability beginning October 3 at Samsung.com and national retailers.
Galaxy Tab S10+ will also be available in a 5G model at major carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
For those who pre-order Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra or Galaxy Tab S10+ at Samsung.com or Best Buy, Samsung is offering enhanced trade-in value up to $800 off either device.
Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra starts at $1,199.99, with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options.
Galaxy Tab S10+ starts at $999.99, with 256GB and 512GB storage options.
Both devices are available in Moonstone Gray and Platinum Silver.
For more information about the Galaxy Tab S10 series, please visit: https://www.samsung.com/us/tablets/galaxy-tab-s10/
Government funding for two leading cultural projects in Derby has been secured, paving the way for the restoration of the historic Guildhall Theatre, and Derby Theatre’s redevelopment project.
Sign-off of £20 million of UK Government funding, which was put on hold when the General Election was called, has now been confirmed by the Ministry of Communities, Housing and Local Government (MCHLG).
Partners Derby City Council, the University of Derby and Derby Theatre will now work to develop their plans for the two buildings.
Half of the funding, £10 million, will go towards bringing the Grade II listed Guildhall Theatre back into use. Further funding has been allocated from the Council’s capital budget, and opportunities for match funding are being explored.
Councillor Nadine Peatfield, Leader of Derby City Council and Cabinet Member for City Centre, Regeneration, Strategy and Policy, said:
It is fantastic news that this much-needed funding has been secured for our city. Now we can look towards restoring one of our historic buildings and create more space for community-led arts groups to perform right in the city’s cultural heart.
The other half of the funding will go towards a new accessible and flexible studio theatre adjoining the current building at Derby Theatre. In addition, a new Learning and Research Hub will develop further the undergraduate and postgraduate offer to study theatre in a professional setting and give more space to Derby Theatre’s expanding community programme.
Professor Kathryn Mitchell CBE DL, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Derby, said:
We are delighted that plans to develop Derby Theatre are progressing forwards.
The Theatre plays a vital role in the creative and cultural ecology of our city and is a key part of our university. As a professional, producing and learning theatre, it provides our students with a unique and valuable opportunity to study alongside professionals.
We are fully committed to supporting Derby Theatre and the regeneration of our city and look forward to continuing to work with partners on this project.
Sarah Brigham, CEO and Artistic Director of Derby Theatre said:
These new facilities will enable us to expand and embed our community programmes into the heart of the theatre, become a hot house for artistic talent in the city and develop work which suits a more intimate setting. At a difficult time for artists and cultural venues, we are delighted by this vote of confidence in Derby Theatre.
Sciences Po’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) programme centralises initiatives relating to the study and research on this region. On 26 September, a one-day launching event was organised on the topic of the wars in the Middle East and their repercussions on the MENA societies.
As an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting structure, the main mission of the MENA programme is to promote, coordinate, and enhance the institution’s activities relating to the Middle East and North Africa. By strengthening academic, scientific and cultural collaborations with partner universities, the programme supports student work at all levels (bachelor, master, doctorate), while creating a unique space for dialogue between researchers, artists and civil society members, thereby fostering an enriched understanding of the region.
Interview with the programme’s two co-directors: Léa Albrieux, in charge of the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, the Gulf, and Pakistan at the International Affairs Office, and Bayram Balci, researcher at the Center for International Studies (CERI).
Can you tell us about your background and your interest in the Middle East and North Africa area?
We both studied the Middle East and North Africa as part of our studies and spent many years there. Our interest also stems from the fact that this region, its conflicts, but also its culture – including its cuisine – are present in our daily lives in France and even in Europe. So the desire to understand this region, whose conflicts have repercussions that go far beyond its borders, played a central role in our decision to focus on it. This area also forms a bridge between several continents, which makes it all the more interesting to explore collaborations with Sciences Po’s other regional programmes, covering Africa and South Asia.
What are the major contemporary challenges facing the region, and how does the new programme intend to tackle them?
The main challenge is to find a way back towards peace, stability, and democracy, which go hand in hand. As the cradle of three great religions, but also of several great cultures and civilisations, the region has been constantly confronted, since its emergence from colonial domination, with conflicts of varying intensity. Those security and political challenges regularly call into question the progress that has been made. Our programme is humble; it does not claim to resolve the tensions in the region concerned. Contributing to analyse and understand them, through research and teaching, would be our first step.
Can you explain your vision and ambitions as co-directors of the programme?
This structure gathers the diverse people who study and work on the region within Sciences Po’s departments, research centres, campuses, as well as its undergraduate and graduate schools. Its mission is to support and highlight all the institution’s scientific and educational activities and partnerships relating to the MENA area. To this end, we plan to develop a variety of activities combining teaching, research, and partnerships, as well as actions relating to the arts and culture of this region.
What topics will be highlighted at the launch event on 26 September?
Although the aim of our programme is not to comment on every event that shakes the region, the event on 26 September will be devoted essentially to the attack of 7 October 2023 and its effects on Middle Eastern societies. The unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel plunged the Middle East into a new phase of war. While this renewed violence is having profound effects on the regional balance, it is also having major consequences for local societies, in Israel and Palestine, but also in neighbouring countries. This conference will shed a light on this internal and local dimension of the ongoing conflict.
Sciences Po & MENA
Sciences Po has particularly strong ties to the vast region stretching from North Africa to Iran. This is reflected in its 35 institutional partnerships across 12 countries, and in a rich research output: with around 20 researchers as well as 20 PhD students and postdocs specialising in the area, Sciences Po is one of the leading European universities for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. The region is also present in academic programmes, for example through the Mediterranean-Middle East minor on the Menton undergraduate campus.
If 16 nationalities in the MENA region are represented within our student body, Sciences Po hosts about 700 students from the region every year. Meanwhile, about 120 Sciences Po students study abroad and 120 are on an internship in the region every year. At the end of their studies, 5% of our recent graduates employed abroad work in the area.
Cover image caption: Doha, Qatar, mars 2019. (credits: Jaanus Jagomägi / Unsplash)
In celebration of Climate Week, Governor Kathy Hochul today announced $7 million in competitive grant funding for community-based, not-for-profit, and tribal organizations to support the construction, or renovation of existing facilities, to create community environmental education centers, which will offer classes and programs on environmental awareness. The centers must be located within or serve a disadvantaged community or an environmental justice community and will help inspire exploration, discovery, and learning about the environment.
“New York State’s innovative work to protect the environment and address climate change’s disproportionate impacts on disadvantaged communities includes ensuring the next generation of environmental advocates have access to nature where they live, work and play,” Governor Hochul said. “Environmental education centers supported by this funding will equip visitors with the knowledge they need to join the charge against climate change, protect our environment for future generations, and encourage people to discover and support local cultural preservation.”
New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) recognizes that climate change doesn’t affect all communities equally and charged the Climate Justice Working Group with the development of criteria to identify disadvantaged communities to ensure frontline and otherwise under-resourced communities benefit from the state’s historic transition to cleaner, greener sources of energy, reduced pollution, cleaner air, and improved economic opportunities. Visit New York’s Climate Act website to view an interactive map and a list of disadvantaged communities statewide.
Funding for this grant opportunity is provided from the State’s Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) and is available to support capital costs of new construction or renovation proposals. Grants ranging from $250,000 to $3 million will be awarded to fund education centers that explore a broad range of topics such as urban ecology, environmental justice challenges, green technology, and urban environmental sustainability. Proposals may include capital costs, such as purchasing of building or land; construction or renovation; expansion or updating a facility; purchasing furniture, fixtures, and equipment; and purchasing technological hardware.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Interim Commissioner Sean Mahar said, “DEC recognizes that bolstering environmental education is critical to supporting real action to fight climate issues affecting disadvantaged and environmental justice communities statewide. Environmental education centers provide a variety of accessible programs and services for individuals, families, and groups and serve as valuable community assets where people gather to hold events, learn about cultural preservation and environmental stewardship, build community resilience, and engage in community climate action.”
Possible uses or programming for a center include:
Education about indoor air pollution and modeling methods to reduce exposure to indoor air pollution;
Education about environmental justice challenges;
Cultural preservation and environmental stewardship;
Green jobs training and education;
Programs, information and exhibits that increase awareness and stewardship of the local environment;
Models of sustainable development, including LEED Green Building Certification, green infrastructure, and agriculture;
Extreme weather shelters with innovative architecture or engineering demonstrations;
Research and monitoring programs, focusing on watershed issues, combined sewer overflow, vehicle emissions, energy generation, solid waste transfer activities and/or other environment issues;
Community space for local community-based organizations, community events, and workshops;
K-12 educational programming in STEAM that may include ecology, environmental harms/risks/issues, green technology, and environmental sustainability;
College level electives in ecology, green energy technology and environmental sustainability; and
Outdoor components such as community gardens or farms.
The deadline for all applications is 3 p.m. on Jan. 22, 2025. The request for applications (RFA) is only available online through The Statewide Financial System of New York (sfs.ny.gov). Not-for-profit community-based organizations must be registered and prequalified in SFS to apply.
New York State’s Nation-Leading Climate Plan
New York State’s climate agenda calls for an orderly and just transition that creates family-sustaining jobs, continues to foster a green economy across all sectors and ensures that a minimum of 35 percent, with a goal of 40 percent, of the benefits of clean energy investments are directed to disadvantaged communities. Guided by some of the nation’s most aggressive climate and clean energy initiatives, New York is advancing a suite of efforts – including the New York Cap-and-Invest program (NYCI) and other complementary policies – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. New York is also on a path toward a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040, including 70 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, and economy-wide carbon neutrality by mid-century. A cornerstone of this transition is New York’s unprecedented clean energy investments, including more than $28 billion in 61 large-scale renewable and transmission projects across the State, $6.8 billion to reduce building emissions, $3.3 billion to scale up solar, nearly $3 billion for clean transportation initiatives and over $2 billion in NY Green Bank commitments. These and other investments are supporting more than 170,000 jobs in New York’s clean energy sector as of 2022 and over 3,000 percent growth in the distributed solar sector since 2011. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality, New York also adopted zero-emission vehicle regulations, including requiring all new passenger cars and light-duty trucks sold in the State be zero emission by 2035. Partnerships are continuing to advance New York’s climate action with more than 400 registered and more than 150 certified Climate Smart Communities, over 500 Clean Energy Communities, and the State’s largest community air monitoring initiative in 10 disadvantaged communities across the State to help target air pollution and combat climate change.
(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that his administration is making several changes to Connecticut’s early child care and education programs that will result in more children being able to receive access to these programs, while also lowering the associated costs to their parents.
“Access to child care and early education programs is massively important to the success of our state, not only because these programs provide valuable tools for children that will lead them to success in the future, but also because being able to enroll your child in care right now means that parents themselves can have an opportunity to obtain employment and earn an income that supports their family,” Governor Lamont said. “Right now, Connecticut is expanding access to child care for high-need communities to levels we’ve never experienced and I am determined to continue this trend. I appreciate the Biden-Harris administration for working with our state to make expanding access to child care a priority.”
Effective January 1, 2025, family fees for Care 4 Kids – the state program that supports low to moderate-income families with some of the costs of paying for child care – will be capped at 7% of household income, which is down from the current rate of 10%. This means that the fees required to participate in Care 4 Kids will decrease for all participating families. On average, it is estimated that this change will save families about $200 per month.
Additionally, effective October 1, 2024, in an effort to reduce the benefit cliff that families enrolled in Care 4 Kids can face, families participating in this program will be able to remain enrolled until their household income reaches 85% of the state median income, which is an increase from the current limit of 65%. This means that if a parent receives a promotion or pay raise from their employer, it is more likely they can accept the pay increase and not worry that it will prevent their child from continuing to receive this care.
Both of these changes bring Connecticut in alignment with federal requirements and can be implemented using existing federal funds.
An additional 1,500 children will be enrolled in Care 4 Kids, bringing the total number of children served under this program from 21,500 to 23,000, using existing state and federal funding.
In addition to the Care 4 Kids changes, the state is adding 900 new state-funded early care and education spaces for young children through the School Readiness and Child Day Care program by maximizing existing state funds.
These programs are administered by the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood.
“Connecticut continues to look for ways to leverage state and federal resources to increase access to affordable child care for families,” Connecticut Early Childhood Commissioner Beth Bye said. “Today’s announcement is about adding capacity and affordability. It’s good for families, good for child care programs, and good for Connecticut’s economy.”
This added capacity brings the total number of children receiving municipal, state, and federally funded early childhood programs in Connecticut to 62,400, which is well ahead of the Connecticut Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Care’s goal of 60,000 children being funded in these programs by fiscal year 2026. With these new investments, 29% of children under 5 years of age will be enrolled in more affordable early childhood education programs in the current fiscal year.
“Child care is a necessity for Connecticut’s working families and the Biden-Harris administration commends the state for moving swiftly to implement a new federal rule to lower costs for families participating in the child care subsidy program,” Ruth Friedman, director of the Office of Child Care for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said.
“Few things are more frustrating for parents than trying to find affordable child care,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy said. “These new changes are going to make a big difference for thousands of families by lowering costs and opening up more spots in child care and early education programs. It’s a big deal for those kids’ development, but it will also give the state’s economy a boost. I’ll keep fighting to increase the federal government’s investment in child care in Connecticut.”
“I am thrilled to see federal funding be used to take bold steps that will make more child care slots available in our state and lower costs by capping fees for low and middle-income families receiving assistance at 7% of their household income,” U.S. Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01) said. “Under Governor Lamont’s leadership, Connecticut is leading the nation to ensure working families can access the child care they need to make ends meet. I will continue to work with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and the entire Connecticut Congressional delegation to build on this progress in Washington so every family can afford high-quality child care.”
“Affordable child care is essential for families to thrive,” U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) said. “And yet, they struggle with the high cost – making difficult decisions on their budget to ensure their children are cared for when they go to work. I am proud to have secured American Rescue Plan Act funding and Child Care and Development Fund dollars to help bring down the cost of childcare in Connecticut. Ensuring parents pay no more than seven percent of their income for childcare, will help families keep more of their hard-earned dollars.”
Governor Lamont made these announcements today during a news conference at the Enfield Child Development Center.
“We are very proud to serve families in our community who are working or attending training or college who are supported thorough the Care 4 Kids program,” Eileen Gardner, senior site manager for the Enfield Child Development Center, said. “These changes will help our families pay for child care and other critical household needs. We are also committed to partnering with the Office of Early Childhood to deliver state-funded high-quality early care and education services to our youngest children.”
“I began working at the Enfield Child Development Center two years ago as a teacher’s aide in the toddler program,” Ashley Plaza Torres said. “I have two children, 8 years old and 2 years old, and I am thankful to have the support of Care 4 Kids because it gives me the opportunity to work and afford child care for two children.”
These changes and their impacts on Connecticut’s workforce and its economy are projected to increase the state’s gross domestic product by $351 million and state revenue by $29.7 million. For every dollar invested in adding these child care slots, there is an expected one-year return of approximately $13.50 in total economic benefits. If it is assumed an additional slot enables on additional parent to join the workforce, even at minimum wage, this would add $33,000 in household earnings.
For information on Care 4 Kids, visitctcare4kids.com.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Michelle Steel (CA-48)
WASHINGTON – Representative Michelle Steel (R-CA) and Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) today sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona asking for an investigation into the alarming pattern of antisemitism among senior officials of the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD).
The letter builds upon the Committee’s work to fight against antisemitism and for Jewish students at all levels of education.
In the letter, Foxx and Steel write: “[W]e request that the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) open an investigation into these incidents to determine whether violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (Title VI) have occurred. At multiple meetings spanning the spring of 2023, the SAUSD Ethnic Studies Steering Committee (Committee) took collective action that deliberately excluded members of the school district’s Jewish community from involvement in constructing an ethnic studies curriculum. This likely violated California state law.”
The letter continues:“Senior officials of the Committee also discussed using Jewish holidays to approve courses so Jewish community members would not be able to attend. Specifically, two senior SAUSD officials discussed this matter over text. One stated, ‘We may need to use Passover to get all new courses approved,’ to which the other replied, ‘[T]hat’s actually a good strategy.’ Additionally, while discussing a potential meeting with the Jewish Federation of Orange County, a leader of the Committee stated that ‘someone has to guide [Committee members] or they will cave in to the racist Zionists.’ This alarming display of prejudice has no place in our communities, especially from the very educators entrusted with leading our public schools.”
The letter concludes:“Ongoing litigation has already revealed an alarming pattern of antisemitism at the highest levels of the SAUSD. It is also clear that certain individuals made a concerted effort to hide their prejudiced motives. For this reason, we are requesting that OCR open a formal investigation into this matter to ensure all wrongdoing is brought to light and that those responsible for perpetrating this discrimination are held fully accountable under federal law.We hope that we can work together on this issue to ensure that the protections afforded under the Civil Rights Act are vigorously enforced so that all students feel welcome.”
LEICESTER’S libraries are marking Black History Month this October with two free cultural events and plenty of suggestions for great books by Black authors.
Grenadian author and poet Merle Collins will be at the Central Library on 15 October to talk about her life and work.
Her latest book, Ocean Stirrings – which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for political fiction – will be available for sale after the event.
Admission to both events is free of charge but places can be booked in advance by contacting the library on 0116 454 0290 or central-library@leicester.gov.uk
Assistant city mayor Cllr Vi Dempster said: “Black History Month is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about Black history, music, culture and art.
“Throughout October, our libraries will be celebrating the work of Black authors and helping to bring Black history to life for visitors for all ages.
“There are lots of themed events taking place at our libraries, including crafts for children and a ‘Book Detectives’ treasure hunt.
“Pop into your local library or download an eBook or audiobook from our OverDrive page and discover an author you’ve never discovered before – and mark Black History Month with a great book.”
A list of titles suitable for children, teens and adults has been specially curated by library staff to mark Black History Month.
David Olusoga’s Black and British and Barack Obama’s Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters are two of the books on the children’s list, while Kamala Harris’s autobiography The Truths We Hold: An American Journey and Troy Jackson’s biography of Martin Luther King, Becoming King, are on the list of suggested reading for adults.
The list of themed titles for Black History Month can be viewed at Leicester Libraries’ OverDrive page at leicesteruk.overdrive.com
Events and activities taking place at Leicester Libraries can be found here
Opal 22’s exhibition Black Lives is on display at Highfields Library until 31 October, while other events taking place in Leicester to mark Black History Month include an exhibition featuring portraits of 100 Black women with connections to Britain and Ireland, led by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, and an evening of live music at the African Caribbean Centre.
Parents and carers in York are being reminded that there is a wide range of free courses to help support them and their children, many of which are available online.
The courses are run by both national and local providers and cover a wide range of topics from pregnancy and newborns, to teenagers or children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
The website also has details of local support groups for parents and carers. Parents and carers come together to share their experiences and help each other.
These support groups offer a safe place to talk about new challenges and celebrate success; a chance to learn new tips and to meet people who understand what you’re going through.
Cllr Bob Webb, the council’s Executive Member for Children and Young People, said:
We know that raising children can be tough for anyone and parents may welcome a bit of low-stakes, low-pressure support at times, as well as an opportunity to build a supportive community of friends.
“This offer provides a wide range of courses depending on your needs, so if you’d like to connect with other parents and carers, you can do so by joining a group course, but you can also pick courses that you do in your own time. This really is an offer to families to pick from to help create something that works well for them.”
Parents and carers of new babies can also access information about services and support available locally in a dedicated booklet – Supporting you parenting journey in York – which is available to all parents via their midwife and/or when they register their child’s birth. The booklet is also available online.
On September 26, 2024, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, announced the appointment of two new representatives to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC).
BiographiesMr. Michael CarrollRepresentative for Alberta
Dr. Michael Carroll is a historian of twentieth-century diplomacy, specializing in Canadian-American foreign relations, United Nations peacekeeping, and Canadian history. He holds a Master of Arts (History) from Carleton University and a PhD (History) from the University of Toronto. He has been Chair of the Department of Humanities at MacEwan University since 2019, where he has taught since 2007. He previously taught at the University of Victoria and Seiwa University in Japan.
Dr. Carroll has a special interest in public history and has devoted over twenty years to the recording and preservation of oral histories. The collegial governance at MacEwan University has also afforded him the opportunity to participate actively on university and community committees, as well as on committees serving the broader historical profession. He is the author of numerous publications, including Pearson’s Peacekeepers: Canada and the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956-1967.
“Canada’s history is anything but boring: from extraordinary exploits that inspire us to cases of collective shame from which we must learn, and everything in between. I am honoured to represent Alberta and excited to be part of the effort to make our nation’s history accessible and alive for all Canadians.”
Mr. Michael CarrollMember, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Alberta
Ms. Karen AirdRepresentative for British Columbia
Ms. Aird is a member, through her mother, of the Saulteau First Nation in northeastern British Columbia, and now resides in Kamloops. Since 2018, she has been the Heritage Manager with the First Peoples Cultural Council, a program she developed from the ground up that provides grants, resources, research and training to First Nations in British Columbia.
Ms. Aird began her career as an archaeologist, overseeing large-scale archaeological projects. She later owned a consulting firm specializing in cultural heritage management. In 2012, she co-founded the National Aboriginal Heritage Circle and served as its president for two terms.
Her experience includes participation in national and international conferences, high-level government meetings and negotiations, and community-based cultural heritage research. She has served on several boards, such as the Royal BC Museum and the Parks Canada Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Circle.
Ms. Aird holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Victoria and a master’s degree in cultural heritage management from Athabasca University.
“Canada has a rich and varied history, etched in the landscapes, events and people of the past. As a representative of British Columbia, I am honoured to join the committee to support the recognition and commemoration of our collective heritage.”
Ms. Karen AirdMember, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, British Columbia
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.