NewzIntel.com

Category: Science

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Korea-Malaysia summit (November 2024)

    Source: Government of the Republic of Korea

    Korea-Latvia summit (November 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Nov. 28 hosted a summit at his office for visiting Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics on raising bilateral cooperation and analyzing regional and international situations.

    Both leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in sectors such as bio and pharmaceuticals, national security and the defense industry.

    Korea-Malaysia summit (November 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Nov. 25 hosted summit talks in Seoul with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was on an official visit to Korea, and adopted a joint statement on their newly formed strategic partnership.

    Both leaders welcomed the resumption of negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement this year and agreed to accelerate efforts to conclude the deal next year. They also pledged to raise cooperation in infrastructure and supply chains for core minerals.

    Korea-Peru summit (November 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Nov. 16 held a bilateral summit at the Presidential Palace in Lima, Peru, and agreed to bolster cooperation in the defense sector and infrastructure.
    The two countries concluded memorandums of understanding on joint production of KF-21 fighter jet parts, development of naval ships (submarines) and cooperation in army ground equipment. 

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visits to Peru, Brazil for APEC, G20

    Korea-ASEAN summit (October 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Oct. 10 attended the 25th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit at the National Convention Centre in Vientiane, Laos, where he and ASEAN leaders agreed to form a comprehensive strategic partnership and launch joint projects in a range of sectors.

    They also agreed to stimulate trade and investment through a bilateral free trade agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, while creating a “conducive and favourable environment” for ASEAN and Korean business such as the ASEAN-ROK (Republic of Korea) Business Council.

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visit to 3 Asian nations

    Korea-Japan summit (October 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Oct. 10 held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at a hotel in Vientiane, Laos, their first talks since the prime minister assumed office on Sept. 1. 

    Both leaders agreed on the growing need to raise bilateral cooperation in regional and global issues and expand the horizons for such collaboration on the global stage.

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visit to 3 Asian nations

    Korea-Philippines summit (October 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol, on a state visit to the Philippines, on Oct. 7 agreed with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to form a bilateral strategic partnership at their summit held at the presidential Malacanang Palace in Manila.

    Both leaders also adopted a joint declaration on higher cooperation in all sectors including national security and economy like nuclear power plants. 

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visit to 3 Asian nations

    Korea-Czechia summit (September 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sept. 19 discussed with Czech President Petr Pavel in Prague cooperation in strategic sectors including nuclear power plants. Both leaders also shared opinions on developing their bilateral strategic partnership.

    Korea-New Zealand summit (September 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Sept. 4 at their bilateral summit adopted a joint statement on stronger bilateral relations in trade, economy, science, human exchange, national security and international cooperation.

    Both leaders also agreed to elevate their Partnership for the 21st Century concluded in 2006 to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

    Korea-Germany summit (July 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on July 10 in Washington held bilateral talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of the NATO Summit.
    President Yoon said he hopes to work more closely with Germany on global issues such as support for Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and the climate crisis. He also hailed Germany’s application to join the United Nations Command. 

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s US visit for NATO Summit

    Korea-Japan summit (July 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on July 10 in Washington held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the NATO Summit.
    President Yoon said, “The recent signing by Russia and North Korea of a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty and their accelerated closeness in military and economic ties are raising serious concern over global security as well as that of East Asia.”

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s US visit for NATO Summit

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Korea-Latvia summit (November 2024)

    Source: Government of the Republic of Korea

    Korea-Latvia summit (November 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Nov. 28 hosted a summit at his office for visiting Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics on raising bilateral cooperation and analyzing regional and international situations.

    Both leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in sectors such as bio and pharmaceuticals, national security and the defense industry.

    Korea-Malaysia summit (November 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Nov. 25 hosted summit talks in Seoul with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was on an official visit to Korea, and adopted a joint statement on their newly formed strategic partnership.

    Both leaders welcomed the resumption of negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement this year and agreed to accelerate efforts to conclude the deal next year. They also pledged to raise cooperation in infrastructure and supply chains for core minerals.

    Korea-Peru summit (November 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Nov. 16 held a bilateral summit at the Presidential Palace in Lima, Peru, and agreed to bolster cooperation in the defense sector and infrastructure.
    The two countries concluded memorandums of understanding on joint production of KF-21 fighter jet parts, development of naval ships (submarines) and cooperation in army ground equipment. 

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visits to Peru, Brazil for APEC, G20

    Korea-ASEAN summit (October 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Oct. 10 attended the 25th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit at the National Convention Centre in Vientiane, Laos, where he and ASEAN leaders agreed to form a comprehensive strategic partnership and launch joint projects in a range of sectors.

    They also agreed to stimulate trade and investment through a bilateral free trade agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, while creating a “conducive and favourable environment” for ASEAN and Korean business such as the ASEAN-ROK (Republic of Korea) Business Council.

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visit to 3 Asian nations

    Korea-Japan summit (October 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Oct. 10 held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at a hotel in Vientiane, Laos, their first talks since the prime minister assumed office on Sept. 1. 

    Both leaders agreed on the growing need to raise bilateral cooperation in regional and global issues and expand the horizons for such collaboration on the global stage.

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visit to 3 Asian nations

    Korea-Philippines summit (October 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol, on a state visit to the Philippines, on Oct. 7 agreed with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to form a bilateral strategic partnership at their summit held at the presidential Malacanang Palace in Manila.

    Both leaders also adopted a joint declaration on higher cooperation in all sectors including national security and economy like nuclear power plants. 

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s visit to 3 Asian nations

    Korea-Czechia summit (September 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sept. 19 discussed with Czech President Petr Pavel in Prague cooperation in strategic sectors including nuclear power plants. Both leaders also shared opinions on developing their bilateral strategic partnership.

    Korea-New Zealand summit (September 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Sept. 4 at their bilateral summit adopted a joint statement on stronger bilateral relations in trade, economy, science, human exchange, national security and international cooperation.

    Both leaders also agreed to elevate their Partnership for the 21st Century concluded in 2006 to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

    Korea-Germany summit (July 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on July 10 in Washington held bilateral talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of the NATO Summit.
    President Yoon said he hopes to work more closely with Germany on global issues such as support for Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and the climate crisis. He also hailed Germany’s application to join the United Nations Command. 

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s US visit for NATO Summit

    Korea-Japan summit (July 2024)

    President Yoon Suk Yeol on July 10 in Washington held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the NATO Summit.
    President Yoon said, “The recent signing by Russia and North Korea of a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty and their accelerated closeness in military and economic ties are raising serious concern over global security as well as that of East Asia.”

    • Current Affairs President Yoon’s US visit for NATO Summit

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Professor Cato Laurencin Recipient of 2025 Terasaki Innovation Award

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    UConn’s Cato Laurencin has a strong legacy of innovation, leadership, and a dedication to translating research into practical, life-saving medical solutions.

    Dr. Laurencin, the University Professor and Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, is the recipient of the Paul Terasaki Innovation Award, created in memory of renowned organ transplant innovator Dr. Paul Terasaki.

    The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the field of biomedical innovation through research, education, industry, translation, or clinical practice. Recipients also demonstrate exemplary efforts to transform their inventions to real-world solutions.

    Dr. Laurencin is recognized for his pioneering work in regenerative engineering, polymer science, and musculoskeletal repair and regeneration. Dr. Laurencin invented the Laurencin-Cooper ligament (LC ligament) for regenerating the anterior cruciate ligament and engineered grafts for shoulder rotator cuff tendon repair and regeneration.

    “The field of regenerative engineering has already led to the development of groundbreaking technologies that have positively impacted patients,” says Laurencin, who also serves the College of Engineering as professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, professor of materials science and engineering, and professor of biomedical engineering. “Our continued work in complex tissue regeneration promises even more transformative breakthroughs in the future.”

    Dr. Laurencin and Dr. Jun Chen of UCLA will receive Terasaki awards during the 3rd Annual Terasaki Innovation Summit in March.

    Laurencin’s work in regenerative engineering laid the foundation for several start-up companies, including Healing Orthopaedic Technologies, Soft Tissue Regeneration, and Healing Orthopaedic Technologies Bone. Through these companies and collaborations with industry, Dr. Laurencin has successfully brought soft tissue implants to the market. Additionally, his research has led to the development of products for bone regeneration and interference screw technologies. His contributions to science include over 500 scientific articles, and numerous patents and patent applications. He has written or edited 17 books.

    “Dr. Laurencin’s extraordinary work in regenerative engineering and his dedication to advancing human health exemplify the spirit of the Paul Terasaki Distinguished Scientist Innovation Award. We are honored to recognize a visionary leader whose achievements have transformed science and improved countless lives,” says Professor Ali Khademhosseini, director and CEO of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation. in the award announcement.

    Dr. Laurencin serves as the Chief Executive Officer of The Cato T. Laurencin Institute for Regeneration, an Institute at UConn created in his honor.

    He has received the highest awards of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Materials Research Society, and the American Chemical Society, which awarded him the Priestley Medal.

    In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Dr. Laurencin with the prestigious National Medal of Technology and Innovation, is the highest honor for technological achievement in the United States.

    Dr. Laurencin also is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine, and is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is the first surgeon in history elected to all four of these academies.

    Dr. Laurencin earned a BS in chemical engineering from Princeton University, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, Magna Cum Laude, and a Ph.D. in biochemical engineering/biotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Laurencin will receive the award during the 3rd Annual Terasaki Innovation Summit, to be held March 5-7, at the Terasaki Institute Research Headquarters in Woodland Hills, California.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Quantum effects make distant objects move together: new research finds this may happen with ripples in space

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Partha Nandi, Postdoc Fellow, Stellenbosch University

    Galaxies, planets, black holes: to most people, everything about our Universe sounds and feels enormous. But while it’s true that much of what happens millions of light years away is large, there are also processes happening at the quantum end of the scale. That’s the branch of science which explains how nature works at very small scales – smaller than atoms. At this level, things behave in surprising ways.

    Theoretical physicists Partha Nandi and Bibhas Ranjan Majhi explored the possibility that gravitational waves – ripples in space caused by massive objects moving or colliding – might exhibit quantum properties. They shared their findings with The Conversation Africa.

    What are gravitational waves?

    Simply put, they’re like tiny ripples in space, similar to the waves you see when you splash water. They occur when really heavy things in space, like stars or black holes, move around or crash into each other. These ripples then travel across space and carry energy.

    They’re also far more than that: they are a method of communication. They carry information about massive cosmic events, helping scientists to “listen” to space in a way that wasn’t possible before their existence was confirmed.

    In 1916 the legendary theoretical physicist Albert Einstein published a groundbreaking paper that laid out his theory of general relativity. He described gravity not as a force, but as the bending of space and time caused by massive objects. This bending affects how objects move, just like a heavy ball placed on a stretched rubber sheet makes smaller objects roll toward it.

    Einstein accurately predicted the motion of planets, black holes, and even how light bends around massive objects – and the existence of gravitational waves rippling in space-time when those massive objects move or collide.

    Read more: Curious Kids: what are gravitational waves?

    It took nearly 100 years for Einstein’s hypothesis about gravitational waves to be confirmed. That’s when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US detected these waves for the first time. It took such a long time because despite how huge they sound, gravitational waves are minute: they stretch or squeeze space by a factor 1,000 times smaller than the size of an atom. Special tools were needed to spot them and LIGO’s cutting-edge technology was up to the task.

    You argue that some gravitational waves are quantum in nature. What does that mean?

    “Quantum” is the branch of science that explains how nature works at very small scales – smaller than atoms. At this level, things behave in surprising ways.

    For instance, tiny particles can behave like waves. They can also exist in more than one state at the same time, which is called superposition. Additionally, they can be mysteriously linked so that a change in one instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. This is called entanglement.

    Read more: Quantum entanglement: what it is, and why physicists want to harness it

    Photons are a good example. These are particles of light, and scientists have proved that they behave in these “quantum” ways, such as being able to exist in superposition or becoming entangled with each other.

    Entanglement is a kind of connection but it’s much deeper than a simple link. When two objects are entangled, they share something called a quantum state. This describes everything about a particle or system. It’s like a blueprint, but instead of fixed details, it gives the chance of finding the particle under different conditions, such as its position or speed.

    When two objects share a quantum state, their behaviour becomes mysteriously linked. If you measure one object, the state of the other will immediately adjust to match, no matter how far apart they are. This is what makes entanglement so special and unlike anything we see in the everyday world.

    What did your research reveal?

    We hypothesised that gravitational waves could have both classical and quantum properties. The ones detected by LIGO so far follow classical behaviour, matching Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

    But the current LIGO detectors aren’t sensitive enough to detect quantum effects, and there’s been no way to know whether our hypothesis is correct. So we modelled a detector similar to the latest generation of LIGO, which has mirrors attached to arms that can move and vibrate.

    Classical gravitational waves cause the mirrors to move in specific ways, but in our study quantum gravitational waves – tiny ripples caused by particles called “gravitons” – affected the mirrors differently. They can make the mirrors’ oscillation modes become entangled: parts of the motion move together in ways that classical waves cannot create.

    To visualise this, imagine two wind chimes far apart, swaying in sync because of an invisible breeze. Here, the quantum gravitational waves are like that breeze. They make distant objects move together in a way that classical gravitational waves cannot.

    This suggests that at very small scales, gravitational waves may show quantum features, like entanglement, which can’t be explained classically. We’re not suggesting that all gravitational waves are quantum. However, this does not imply that all gravitational waves are quantum in nature. Instead, those originating from the early universe, approximately 13.8 billion years ago, may carry quantum signatures. These types of gravitational waves may encode information about the early universe, especially around the time of the Big Bang, and how they may have changed over time.

    Why is this an important finding?

    Confirming the quantum nature of gravitational waves bridges Einstein’s relativity with quantum mechanics, solving a puzzle that has challenged physics for decades: the difficulty of reconciling the principles of general relativity, which describes gravity on a large scale, with the laws of quantum mechanics, which govern the behaviour of particles at the smallest scales.

    This breakthrough could revolutionise our understanding of the universe. The quantum nature of gravitational waves could help advanced sensors detect faint cosmic signals and provide insights into the universe’s origins, black hole behaviour, and the fabric of reality. While LIGO has already made great progress in measuring gravitational waves, exploring their quantum side opens up a new field of physics.

    Read more: Gravitational waves: will the global south provide the next pulse of gravity research?

    It’s important to note that more research will be needed to test and replicate our findings in different experimental settings. We’re far from the only people studying these phenomena and we hope our findings will strengthen the efforts of South African institutions such as the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) and the Astrophysics Research Group at Stellenbosch University which contribute to gravitational wave astrophysics through data analysis, collaboration and theoretical work.

    Advances in technology will also play a key role in expanding quantum gravitational wave research opportunities. The LIGO-India observatory, due to become operational by 2030, will be one such possible experimental setting.

    – Quantum effects make distant objects move together: new research finds this may happen with ripples in space
    – https://theconversation.com/quantum-effects-make-distant-objects-move-together-new-research-finds-this-may-happen-with-ripples-in-space-245050

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Quantum effects make distant objects move together: new research finds this may happen with ripples in space

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Partha Nandi, Postdoc Fellow, Stellenbosch University

    An illustration of two black holes orbiting each other. Eventually they will merge, producing gravitational waves. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images

    Galaxies, planets, black holes: to most people, everything about our Universe sounds and feels enormous. But while it’s true that much of what happens millions of light years away is large, there are also processes happening at the quantum end of the scale. That’s the branch of science which explains how nature works at very small scales – smaller than atoms. At this level, things behave in surprising ways.

    Theoretical physicists Partha Nandi and Bibhas Ranjan Majhi explored the possibility that gravitational waves – ripples in space caused by massive objects moving or colliding – might exhibit quantum properties. They shared their findings with The Conversation Africa.

    What are gravitational waves?

    Simply put, they’re like tiny ripples in space, similar to the waves you see when you splash water. They occur when really heavy things in space, like stars or black holes, move around or crash into each other. These ripples then travel across space and carry energy.

    They’re also far more than that: they are a method of communication. They carry information about massive cosmic events, helping scientists to “listen” to space in a way that wasn’t possible before their existence was confirmed.

    In 1916 the legendary theoretical physicist Albert Einstein published a groundbreaking paper that laid out his theory of general relativity. He described gravity not as a force, but as the bending of space and time caused by massive objects. This bending affects how objects move, just like a heavy ball placed on a stretched rubber sheet makes smaller objects roll toward it.

    Einstein accurately predicted the motion of planets, black holes, and even how light bends around massive objects – and the existence of gravitational waves rippling in space-time when those massive objects move or collide.



    Read more:
    Curious Kids: what are gravitational waves?

    It took nearly 100 years for Einstein’s hypothesis about gravitational waves to be confirmed. That’s when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US detected these waves for the first time. It took such a long time because despite how huge they sound, gravitational waves are minute: they stretch or squeeze space by a factor 1,000 times smaller than the size of an atom. Special tools were needed to spot them and LIGO’s cutting-edge technology was up to the task.

    You argue that some gravitational waves are quantum in nature. What does that mean?

    “Quantum” is the branch of science that explains how nature works at very small scales – smaller than atoms. At this level, things behave in surprising ways.

    For instance, tiny particles can behave like waves. They can also exist in more than one state at the same time, which is called superposition. Additionally, they can be mysteriously linked so that a change in one instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. This is called entanglement.



    Read more:
    Quantum entanglement: what it is, and why physicists want to harness it

    Photons are a good example. These are particles of light, and scientists have proved that they behave in these “quantum” ways, such as being able to exist in superposition or becoming entangled with each other.

    Entanglement is a kind of connection but it’s much deeper than a simple link. When two objects are entangled, they share something called a quantum state. This describes everything about a particle or system. It’s like a blueprint, but instead of fixed details, it gives the chance of finding the particle under different conditions, such as its position or speed.

    When two objects share a quantum state, their behaviour becomes mysteriously linked. If you measure one object, the state of the other will immediately adjust to match, no matter how far apart they are. This is what makes entanglement so special and unlike anything we see in the everyday world.

    What did your research reveal?

    We hypothesised that gravitational waves could have both classical and quantum properties. The ones detected by LIGO so far follow classical behaviour, matching Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

    But the current LIGO detectors aren’t sensitive enough to detect quantum effects, and there’s been no way to know whether our hypothesis is correct. So we modelled a detector similar to the latest generation of LIGO, which has mirrors attached to arms that can move and vibrate.

    Classical gravitational waves cause the mirrors to move in specific ways, but in our study quantum gravitational waves – tiny ripples caused by particles called “gravitons” – affected the mirrors differently. They can make the mirrors’ oscillation modes become entangled: parts of the motion move together in ways that classical waves cannot create.

    To visualise this, imagine two wind chimes far apart, swaying in sync because of an invisible breeze. Here, the quantum gravitational waves are like that breeze. They make distant objects move together in a way that classical gravitational waves cannot.

    This suggests that at very small scales, gravitational waves may show quantum features, like entanglement, which can’t be explained classically. We’re not suggesting that all gravitational waves are quantum. However, this does not imply that all gravitational waves are quantum in nature. Instead, those originating from the early universe, approximately 13.8 billion years ago, may carry quantum signatures. These types of gravitational waves may encode information about the early universe, especially around the time of the Big Bang, and how they may have changed over time.

    Why is this an important finding?

    Confirming the quantum nature of gravitational waves bridges Einstein’s relativity with quantum mechanics, solving a puzzle that has challenged physics for decades: the difficulty of reconciling the principles of general relativity, which describes gravity on a large scale, with the laws of quantum mechanics, which govern the behaviour of particles at the smallest scales.

    This breakthrough could revolutionise our understanding of the universe. The quantum nature of gravitational waves could help advanced sensors detect faint cosmic signals and provide insights into the universe’s origins, black hole behaviour, and the fabric of reality. While LIGO has already made great progress in measuring gravitational waves, exploring their quantum side opens up a new field of physics.



    Read more:
    Gravitational waves: will the global south provide the next pulse of gravity research?

    It’s important to note that more research will be needed to test and replicate our findings in different experimental settings. We’re far from the only people studying these phenomena and we hope our findings will strengthen the efforts of South African institutions such as the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) and the Astrophysics Research Group at Stellenbosch University which contribute to gravitational wave astrophysics through data analysis, collaboration and theoretical work.

    Advances in technology will also play a key role in expanding quantum gravitational wave research opportunities. The LIGO-India observatory, due to become operational by 2030, will be one such possible experimental setting.

    Partha Nandi receives funding from the University of Stellenbosch. as a posdoctoral fellowship.

    Bibhas Ranjan Majhi 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.

    – ref. Quantum effects make distant objects move together: new research finds this may happen with ripples in space – https://theconversation.com/quantum-effects-make-distant-objects-move-together-new-research-finds-this-may-happen-with-ripples-in-space-245050

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Explores ‘The State of STEM Education’ in New Survey

    Source: Samsung

    A new educator survey commissioned by Samsung Solve for Tomorrow reveals the growing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, showing both advancements and persistent challenges in preparing students for the future. Nearly all teachers (96%) believe AI will become an intrinsic part of education within the next decade, yet 97% say they lack the necessary resources to integrate emerging technology like AI and concepts like entrepreneurship into their curriculum.
    Samsung Solve for Tomorrow’s second “The State of STEM Education” survey, conducted in partnership with DonorsChoose, the leading education nonprofit for teachers, polled 1,039 U.S. public middle and high school teachers. The findings uncovered educators’ optimism about the value of AI in classrooms and the urgent need to modernize STEM education. In fact, 59% of teachers named professional development, updated curriculum resources, collaboration with tech industry professionals, or improved technology as a crucial need, with another 38% saying they need all of the above.
    Samsung Empowers Schools & Educators for an AI-Driven Future
    Samsung is working to close this gap. Through the annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition, which challenges students in grades 6-12 to use STEM to solve real-world problems in their communities, the Company has awarded over $27 million in technology and classroom supplies to more than 4,000 U.S. public middle and high schools. In addition, the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Teacher Academy has enhanced STEM teaching for hundreds of educators by providing professional development to help them implement AI strategies, design thinking, and social impact entrepreneurship in their classrooms—key skills for students navigating a rapidly changing world.

    The urgency for AI-focused education is clear. When Samsung Solve for Tomorrow conducted its first State of STEM Education survey in 2022/2023, AI was still an emerging factor in classrooms. Today, the impact is undeniable—42% of State Winners’ community projects from the current 2024/2025 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition leverage AI-driven STEM solutions, compared to just 6% in 2022/2023—a remarkable sevenfold increase. This surge in AI-driven projects reinforces the pressing need for resources to keep pace with STEM’s evolving landscape and better prepare students for tomorrow’s workforce. For instance, Mississippi’s 2024/2025 State Winner is creating an AI app to detect anxiety in students with autism, while Montana’s winners are using AI and VR to connect students with Native communities for immersive cultural learning.
    “Samsung is committed to bridging the resource gap in STEM education,” said Allison Stransky, CMO at Samsung Electronics America. “As AI reshapes industries and job markets, it’s essential to equip educators with the tools and training needed to integrate AI into their classrooms and prepare students for an AI-driven future. By fostering innovation and social impact through technology, we also inspire students to use their skills to improve their communities.”
    Drilling Down on AI in Education
    Samsung’s educator survey found that a majority (53%) are already using AI tools in their classrooms, with another 33% exploring possible uses for AI. Among AI applications respondents currently use are interactive learning tools (20%), personalized student learning experiences (22%), and data analysis to gain insights into student performance (11%).
    The survey also revealed a range of teacher concerns about AI in education. These include plagiarism (20%), insufficient training on AI education tools (15%), the potential to spread misinformation (13%), and reduced human interaction in learning (12%). Notably, only 5% of teachers expressed concerns about AI leading to job displacement, indicating a broader focus on the opportunities AI presents for teaching and learning.
    Encouragingly, 88% of teachers stressed the importance of educating students on the ethical use of AI, underlining its potential to shape responsible, tech-savvy learners.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Young Scientist from GUU Became a Laureate of the Moscow Government Prize

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –

    Maxim Rybachuk, a leading specialist at the Center for Strategic and Innovative Research at the Research Institute of Public Policy and Management of Industrial Economics at the State University of Management, has become a laureate of the Moscow Government Prize for Young Scientists for 2024.

    The Moscow Government Prize Competition for Young Scientists has been held since 2013. Awards are given annually for achieving outstanding results in fundamental and applied scientific research in the field of natural, technical and humanitarian sciences, as well as for the development and implementation of new technologies, equipment, devices, equipment, materials and substances that contribute to improving the efficiency of activities in the real sector of the economy and the social sphere of the capital.

    In total, over 8,000 applications were submitted for the awards during the competition, 1,332 of which were submitted this year. Awards were given to 758 young scientists, 78 of which were submitted this year.

    The award was presented to the laureates by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

    “We have never had so many competition applications – more than 1,300 works were submitted. And choosing you was not an easy task for us either. So these are truly well-deserved awards that you have earned with your talent, skill, and commitment to science. And of course, I hope that these awards are not the last in your life, but only the beginning of your great scientific career,” Sergei Semenovich addressed the young scientists.

    The mayor also announced a decision to double the bonus, which has not been indexed since 2019. The 2024 bonuses are also planned to be recalculated taking into account the increase. At the moment, it is 2 million rubles.

    A young scientist from the State University of Management, Maxim Rybachuk, received the award in the Social Sciences category for a series of nine previously published works on the topic of “Socioeconomic Ecosystems as a Core Component of the Systemic Transformation of the Russian Economy”. In his research, Maxim Aleksandrovich analyzed the landscape of the Russian ecosystem market, defined the criteria for ecosystems, key market players and their industry specifics. He assessed the impact of the development of the ecosystem structure of the economy on Russia’s GDP and put forward a number of recommendations in the field of economic policy to protect market participants from the unconstructive influence of ecosystems. In particular, it was proposed to create a national regulator that would combine functions similar to those of the FAS Russia and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in relation to the activities of ecosystems, because ecosystems are not subject to antimonopoly legislation.

    We congratulate Maxim Rybachuk on receiving the prestigious award and wish him further success in his scientific work for the benefit of the Russian economy.

    Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 02/18/2025

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI: John Snow Labs to Present Latest Advances in Healthcare Generative AI at HIMSS 2025

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    LEWES, Del., Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — John Snow Labs, the AI for healthcare company, today announced the details of its participation at the 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, taking place from March 3-6 in Las Vegas. The company’s CEO David Talby will speak about new, state-of-the-art capabilities in healthcare AI with partners Databricks, Carahsoft, and AWS, respectively.

    The largest gathering of healthcare technology professionals worldwide, HIMSS brings together more than 30,000 attendees to discuss global health topics shaping the next generation of healthcare. John Snow Labs will join partners on the show floor to demonstrate its part in this ecosystem in the following sessions:

    3pm PT, Tuesday, March 4: Unifying Multimodal Patient Data with Medical LLMs (Databricks booth #4360)
    This talk will explore a new capability that transforms diverse clinical data (EHR, FHIR, notes, and PDFs) into a unified patient timeline, enabling natural language question answering. Combining healthcare-specific LLMs along with a terminology service and scalable data ingestion pipelines, it excels in complex queries and is ideal for organizations seeking OMOP data enrichment.

    10am-12pm PT, Wednesday, March 5: The Medical Research Agent (CarahSoft booth #2216)
    David will demonstrate state-of-the-art accuracy of the Medical Research Agent medical LLM, automated systematic reviews, and question answering on private and public knowledge bases.

    9am PT Thursday, March 6: Automated DICOM Deidentification with AWS HealthImaging (AWS booth #4624)
    This talk will explore John Snow Labs’ turnkey, regulatory-grade DICOM image deidentification on AWS HealthImaging, including both metadata and pixel-level PHI, integrated with AWS HealthImaging to support compliance and scale.

    “With no shortage of AI solutions on the market, few can say they are delivering state-of-the-art results, updated daily with the latest research and advances in the field,” said Talby. “John Snow Labs is excited to showcase how we’re helping leading healthcare organizations leverage accurate, safe, and responsible AI, already making an impact on research, patient care, and operations.”

    Additional Resources:

    • Click here to book a meeting with John Snow Labs at the show
    • For media inquiries, contact gina@johnsnowlabs.com
    • For more information about John Snow Labs, visit https://www.johnsnowlabs.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn for the latest updates

    About John Snow Labs
    John Snow Labs, the AI for healthcare company, provides state-of-the-art software, models, and data to help healthcare and life science organizations put AI to good use. Developer of Spark NLP, Healthcare NLP, the Healthcare GPT LLM, the Generative AI Lab No-Code Platform, and the Medical Chatbot, John Snow Labs’ award-winning medical AI software powers the world’s leading pharmaceuticals, academic medical centers, and health technology companies. Creator and host of The NLP Summit, the company is committed to further educating and advancing the global AI community.

    Contact
    Gina Devine
    Head of Communications
    John Snow Labs
    gina@johnsnowlabs.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Franklin Access Appoints Ira Greenstein to Board of Directors

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    SAN DIEGO, Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Franklin Wireless Corp. (NASDAQ: FKWL) announces the appointment of Ira Greenstein to the Company’s Board of Directors, effective February 17, 2025.

    “We are pleased to welcome Ira Greenstein to the Company’s Board of Directors,” said OC Kim, President and CEO of Franklin Wireless. “Ira’s extensive legal, corporate, and government experience brings a new depth of knowledge, critical skills in strategic decision-making and governance to the board.”

    Mr. Greenstein is a Founding Partner of the Pierson Ferdinand LLP law firm. He previously served as Deputy Assistant and Strategist to the President during the first Trump Administration. Before his government service, he was President of IDT Corporation and Genie Energy Ltd.

    Mr. Greenstein holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and a Juris Doctor (JD) from Columbia University School of Law. He is currently a member of the board of Forafric Global plc. (NASDAQ: AFRI), where he serves on the Audit and Remuneration Committees.

    Mr. Greenstein will be replacing Gary Nelson on the Board as Mr. Nelson has decided to resign from the Board to enjoy more time with his family.

    About Franklin Access
    Franklin Access (NASDAQ: FKWL) specializes in integrated connectivity solutions powered by 4G LTE and 5G technologies. The company offers mobile device management (MDM), network management solutions (NMS), and innovative wireless products for the digital age. For more information, visit FranklinAccess.com.

    Safe Harbor Statement
    Certain statements in this press release constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to various factors.

    For media inquiries, please contact: marketing@franklinaccess.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Micron Redefines Performance for AI PCs, Gamers and Professionals

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    BOISE, Idaho, Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced the Micron 4600 PCIe® Gen5 NVMe™ SSD, an innovative client storage drive for OEMs that is designed to deliver exceptional performance and user experience for gamers, creators and professionals. Leveraging Micron® G9 TLC NAND, the 4600 SSD is Micron’s first Gen5 client SSD and doubles the performance of its predecessor.1

    The Micron 4600 SSD showcases sequential read speeds of 14.5 GB/s and write speeds of 12.0 GB/s. These capabilities allow users to load a large language model (LLM) from the SSD to DRAM in less than one second,2 enhancing the user experience with AI PCs. For AI model loading times, the 4600 SSD reduces load times by up to 62% compared to Gen4 performance SSDs3 ensuring rapid deployment of LLMs and other AI workloads. Additionally, the 4600 SSD provides up to 107% improved energy efficiency (MB/s per watt) compared to Gen4 performance SSDs,1 enhancing battery life and overall system efficiency.

    The 4600 SSD is the second Micron client SSD to incorporate the most advanced Micron G9 NAND technology, following the Micron 2650 NVMe SSD already in production.

    Why it matters
    Accomplishing more and cutting down wait time is more important than ever to gamers, creators and professionals alike. The 4600 leverages PCIe Gen5 technology and the Micron G9 TLC NAND to provide remarkable speed and energy efficiency.

    “With the 4600 NVMe SSD, users can load large language models in less than one second, enabling PC experiences in data-intensive applications, especially for AI,” said Prasad Alluri, vice president and general manager for Client Storage at Micron. “As AI inference runs locally on the PC, the transition to Gen5 SSDs addresses the increased need for higher performance and energy efficiency.”

    Gen5 SSD technology will grow rapidly in 2025 and 2026. The 4600 NVMe SSD is compatible with the leading-edge platforms such as AMD’s Ryzen™ 9000 Series processors, and the Intel® Core™ Ultra Desktop and Mobile (Series 2) processors, ensuring seamless integration for PC OEMs.

    “AMD is excited to collaborate on the validation of the Micron 4600 NVMe™ SSD with our latest Ryzen family of processors,” said Joe Macri, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Compute and Graphics at AMD. “The Micron 4600 NVMe™ SSD is anticipated to deliver exceptional performance and a best-in-class user experience for the most demanding professional applications and high-speed gaming.”

    “The co-validation efforts with Micron in our Intel Folsom Open Labs have been instrumental to achieving today’s compatibility milestone. The Micron 4600 SSD, which has been designed for PCIe Gen5 platforms and offers fantastic performance and power efficiency, is now listed on the Intel PCL (Platform Component List),” said Todd Lewellen, vice president of Client Ecosystem Group at Intel. “The 4600 SSD is an ideal fit for AI PCs based on Intel Core Ultra processors, as well as future platforms.”

    “Lenovo will qualify the Micron 4600 SSD because of its industry-leading performance and its use of low temperature soldering (LTS) technology during SSD module assembly,” said Takashi Sugawara, director and principal engineer at Lenovo. “As a pioneer in LTS technology, Lenovo has been collaborating with Micron in the pursuit of reducing the amount of energy consumed in the SSD manufacturing process.”

    Level up to high-performing Gen5 storage
    The Micron 4600 NVMe SSD delivers up-to performance improvements over Gen4 SSDs:4

    • 14.5 GB/s sequential read speeds, 107%
    • 12.0 GB/s sequential write speeds, 71%
    • 2.1 million random read IOPS, 83%
    • 2.1 million random write IOPS, 83%

    Enhanced user experience
    Designed to elevate AI, scientific, gaming and content creation experiences, the Micron 4600 NVMe SSD unlocks best-in-class PCMark 10 benchmark scores:

    • Up to 38% better than Gen4 performance SSDs4
    • Up to 11% better scores compared to Gen5 competitors5

    The 4600 SSD provides exceptional user experiences over previous Gen4 drives for scientific, media and entertainment, along with a variety of other use cases, as demonstrated with the SPECwpc5 benchmark results on speed improvements:4

    • Media and entertainment applications: up to 61% faster
    • Energy industry applications: up to 59% faster
    • Product development applications: up to 45% faster
    • Life sciences applications: up to 38% faster

    Building upon prior ultra-secure features like TCG Opal, signed firmware and secure boot, the 4600 SSD includes the latest in advanced security features such as Security Protocol and Data Model (SPDM), Data Object Exchange (DOE) and Device Identifier Composition Engine (DICE), helping provide improved protection of user data.

    The Micron 4600 NVMe SSD is now available for OEM sampling globally. For more information, visit Micron 4600 NVMe SSD.

    Additional Resources:

    About Micron Technology, Inc.
    Micron Technology, Inc. is an industry leader in innovative memory and storage solutions, transforming how the world uses information to enrich life for all. With a relentless focus on our customers, technology leadership, and manufacturing and operational excellence, Micron delivers a rich portfolio of high-performance DRAM, NAND, and NOR memory and storage products through our Micron® and Crucial® brands. Every day, the innovations that our people create fuel the data economy, enabling advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and compute-intensive applications that unleash opportunities — from the data center to the intelligent edge and across the client and mobile user experience. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), visit micron.com.

    © 2025 Micron Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Information, products, and/or specifications are subject to change without notice. Micron, the Micron logo, and all other Micron trademarks are the property of Micron Technology, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

    Micron Media Relations Contact
    Kelly Sasso
    Micron Technology, Inc.
    +1 (208) 340-2410
    ksasso@micron.com

    ______________________________________________________

    1 Performance and power efficiency statements are based on comparisons to PCIe Gen4 Micron 3500 SSD vs. Micron 4600 SSD.

    2 The large language model (LLM) used in testing was the Llama2 with 13 billion parameters and 10.4GB file size.

    3 Statement based on a Llama2 with 13 billion parameter model load times using a 1TB Micron 3500 PCIe Gen4 SSD compared to the same model’s load times using a 1TB Micron 4600 PCIe Gen5 SSD.

    4 All performance statements in this section are relative to the claim made and are based on PCIe Gen4 Micron 3500 SSD vs. PCIe Gen5 Micron 4600 SSD comparisons.

    5 Comparisons are made to publicly announced client SSD suppliers with at least 10% client OEM SSD revenue share, excluding Apple® and gaming consoles, as noted in Forward Insights analyst report: SSD Supplier Status Q3/24 November 2024. Scores are based on benchmark testing in Micron labs with competitive drives available at the time of Micron 4600 SSD announcement.

    Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

    https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/77292e81-46a9-4efd-a11a-f6bf283c361c

    https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7bc4d23c-bb7d-4adb-93da-509efe70e80a

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Firing civil servants and dismantling government departments is how aspiring strongmen consolidate personal power – lessons from around the globe

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Erica Frantz, Associate Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University

    A leader bent on expanding his own power would see the government’s bureaucracy as a key target. Andry Djumantara – iStock/Getty Images Plus

    With the recent confirmations of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – two of the most controversial of President Donald Trump’s high-level administration nominees – the president’s attempt to remake government as a home for political loyalists continues.

    Soon after coming to office for a second term, Trump aggressively sought to overhaul Washington and bring the federal government in line with his political agenda. He is spearheading an effort to purge the government’s ranks of people he perceived as his opponents and slash the size of long-standing bureaucratic agencies – in some instances dismantling them entirely.

    At the helm of much of this is businessman Elon Musk, who is not only the world’s richest man but also the largest donor of the 2024 election and the owner of multiple businesses that benefit from lucrative government contracts.

    Musk – and a small cohort of young engineers loyal to him but with little experience in government – descended on Washington, announced their control over multiple government agencies, fired career civil servants, and even strong-armed access to government payment systems at the Treasury Department, where the inspector general had just been sacked.

    This unprecedented sequence of events in the U.S. has left many observers in a daze, struggling to make sense of the dramatic reshaping of the bureaucracy under way.

    Yet, as researchers on authoritarian politics, it is no surprise to us that a leader bent on expanding his own power, such as Trump, would see the bureaucracy as a key target. Here’s why.

    Elon Musk, standing next to President Donald Trump, explains his theory concerning government bureaucracy.

    Dismantle democracy from within

    A well-functioning bureaucracy is an organization of highly qualified civil servants who follow established rules to prevent abuses of power. Bureaucracies, in this way, are an important part of democracy that constrain executive behavior.

    For this reason, aspiring strongmen are especially likely to go after them. Whether by shuffling the personnel of agencies, creating new ones, or limiting their capacity for oversight, a common tactic among power-hungry leaders is establishing control over the government’s bureaucracy. Following a failed coup attempt in 2016, for example, Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdoğan fired or detained as many as 100,000 government workers.

    In the short term, greater executive control over the bureaucracy gives these leaders a valuable tool for rewarding their elite supporters, especially as diminished government oversight increases opportunities for corruption and the dispersion of rewards to such insiders. Erdoğan, for example, by 2017 had worked to fill lower-level bureaucratic positions with loyalists of his party, the AKP, to ensure the party’s influence over corruption investigations.

    In the long term, this hollowing out and reshaping of the bureaucracy is part of a broader plan in which aspiring autocrats usurp control over all institutions that can constrain them, such as the legislature and the courts. As we document in our book, “The Origins of Elected Strongmen,” attacks on the bureaucracy constitute a significant step in a larger process in which elected leaders dismantle democracy from within.

    Take control of bureaucracy

    The seemingly bizarre series of events that have transpired in Washington since Trump came to power are highly consistent with other countries where democracy has been dismantled.

    Take Benin, for example. Its leader, Patrice Talon – one of the wealthiest people in Africa – came to power in democratic elections in 2016.

    Soon after taking control, Talon created new agencies housed in the executive office and defunded existing ones, as a means of skirting bureaucratic constraints to his rule. The central affairs of the state were in the hands of an informal cabinet, initially led by Olivier Boko, a wealthy businessman considered to be Talon’s right-hand man despite not having any official position in government.

    Talon and his inner circle used this control over the state to enrich themselves, turning the country into what one journalist referred to as “a company in the hands of Talon and his very close clique.”

    Consolidating control over the bureaucracy was just one step in a larger process of turning Benin into an autocratic state. Talon eventually amassed greater power and influence over key state institutions, such as the judiciary, and intervened in the electoral process to ensure his continued rule. By 2021, Benin could no longer be considered a democracy.

    Purge civil service

    A similar dynamic occurred in Hungary. After governing relatively conventionally for one term, Prime Minister Viktor Orban was defeated in elections in 2002. He blamed that outcome on unfriendly media and never accepted the results as legitimate.

    Orban returned to office in 2010, bent on retribution.

    Orban ordered mass firings of civil servants and put allies of his party, Fidesz, in crucial roles. He also used the dismantling of bureaucratic constraints to pad the pockets of the elites whose support he needed to maintain power.

    As a Hungarian former politician wrote in 2016, “While the mafia state derails the bureaucratic administration, it organizes, monopolizes the channels of corruption and keeps them in order.”

    Likewise in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez had his cronies draw up a blacklist of civil servants to be purged for signing a petition in support of a referendum to determine whether Chávez should be recalled from office in 2004; government employees who signed were subsequently fired from their jobs.

    More than a decade later, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s current leader, would conduct his own purge of civil servants after they signed a petition to hold another recall referendum. After multiple rounds of government and military purges, Maduro was able to overturn an election he lost and jail his opponents, knowing full well the judges and generals would follow his orders.

    Benin’s leader, Patrice Talon, consolidated control over the bureaucracy as part of a larger process of turning the country into an autocratic state.
    Yanick Folly/AFP via Getty Images

    Foster culture of secrecy and suspicion

    Orban and Chavez, like Talon, were democratically elected but went on to undermine democracy.

    In environments where loyalty to the leader is prioritized over all else, and purges can happen at a moment’s notice, few people are willing to speak up about abuses of power or stand in the way of a power grab.

    Fostering a culture of secrecy and mutual suspicion among government officials is intentional and serves the leader’s interests.

    As a World Bank report highlighted in 1983, in President Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, the bureaucracy had been “privatized by the ruling clique,” creating a climate in which “fear and repression … prevented any serious threat from dissenting groups.”

    When leaders gain full power over the bureaucracy, they use it to reward and punish ordinary citizens as well. This was a tried-and-true tactic under the PRI’s rule in Mexico for much of the 20th century, where citizens who supported the PRI were more likely to receive government benefits.

    In short, when aspiring autocrats come to power, career bureaucrats are a common target, often replaced by unqualified loyalists who would never be hired for the position based on merit. Recent events in the U.S., as unprecedented as they may seem, are precisely what we would expect with the return of Trump, a would-be autocrat, to power.

    Andrea Kendall-Taylor is affiliated with the Center for New American Security.

    Joe Wright has received funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.

    Erica Frantz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Firing civil servants and dismantling government departments is how aspiring strongmen consolidate personal power – lessons from around the globe – https://theconversation.com/firing-civil-servants-and-dismantling-government-departments-is-how-aspiring-strongmen-consolidate-personal-power-lessons-from-around-the-globe-249089

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Tatyana Golikova presented the national project “Personnel” to the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Tatyana Golikova presented the new national project “Personnel” to the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs

    February 18, 2025

    Tatyana Golikova presented the new national project “Personnel” to the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs

    February 18, 2025

    Tatyana Golikova presented the new national project “Personnel” to the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs

    February 18, 2025

    Previous news Next news

    Tatyana Golikova presented the new national project “Personnel” to the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs

    Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova and representatives of the federal executive authorities presented the new national project “Personnel” to the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans’ Affairs. Tatyana Golikova and Minister of Labor and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov spoke about the prerequisites for the formation, main goals and directions of the national project. Representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs and the Social Fund of Russia also took part in the presentation.

    As Tatyana Golikova noted, in his Address to the Federal Assembly in February last year, the President named Russia’s entry into the world’s four largest economies by 2030 as one of the country’s development priorities. And one of the most important tasks associated with this is providing the economy with personnel.

    The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that currently there are 1.5 million vacancies available on the Rabota Rossii portal in the country, a third of which (471 thousand) are blue-collar jobs. At the same time, the unemployment rate at the end of 2024 did not exceed 2.3%. According to preliminary estimates, up to 3.1 million workers need to be additionally attracted to the economy by 2030 compared to 2022 as a basis. “This means that we need to additionally involve about 800 thousand people in the economy by 2030. But that’s not all, because during the same period, based on demographic trends that traditionally occur in the labor market every year, which we did not notice during the period of calm economic development, we will have to replace another 10.1 million people due to retirement. That is, the total estimate of both replacement and involvement in the economy today is 10.9 million people,” the Deputy Prime Minister explained.

    In the next five years, about 6.7 million graduates from universities and colleges will enter the labor market, and our task is to provide them with qualified advanced professional training in accordance with the labor market forecast. “On the one hand, this is our golden resource, and on the other hand, we must very clearly understand that the young people entering the labor market meet the needs of the labor market. This is the most difficult task, because in a number of industries and professions there is a discrepancy with the needs of the labor market. We see that the need for qualified labor today makes up 70% of the total need, the rest are specialists in higher education,” noted Tatyana Golikova.

    The established trends served as prerequisites for the development of a new interdepartmental national project “Personnel”.

    “Over 116 billion rubles will be allocated for the implementation of the national project in the next six years, of which over 113 billion rubles will come from the federal budget. We plan that as a result, a new model for managing the country’s personnel supply will be created, which will allow us to increase the rate of reduction of the personnel deficit by 2030 by increasing employment by 3.4%,” said Tatyana Golikova.

    The national project includes four federal projects: “Labour Market Management”, “Education for the Labour Market”, “Active Measures to Promote Employment”, and “The Working Person”.

    The first is aimed at managing the labor market. It is planned to create mechanisms and tools for effective involvement in employment. The average time of employment for citizens who applied to employment centers in search of suitable work will be reduced by 25%. This will be facilitated by the modernization of more than 1.5 thousand employment centers, the creation of new models of their work based on the annual updating of the forecast of the need of economic sectors for specialists for a five-year period, the development of services of the unified digital platform “Work in Russia”.

    The second federal project is aimed at creating a system for training personnel for priority sectors of the economy based on the forecast of demand. Other national projects are also aimed at training personnel, for example, “Youth and Children”, within the framework of which the “Professionality” project is being implemented.

    Within the framework of the national project “Personnel”, it is planned to create 298 career centers based at universities, and a routing of employment for graduates of both secondary and higher education will be introduced.

    The third federal project is aimed at creating an effective system of training, retraining and advanced training of personnel for priority sectors of the economy based on the forecast of demand for them. In parallel, issues related to providing opportunities for citizens experiencing difficulties in finding work will be resolved. Thus, the share of equipped workplaces for which people with disabilities are employed will be increased.

    The fourth federal project is a continuation of the policy of increasing the prestige of blue-collar jobs.

    Minister of Labor and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov emphasized that, based on the tasks set by the head of state, the main goal of the national project “Personnel” is to meet the economy’s need for personnel, primarily through our internal reserves. The main reserves of the labor market: increasing labor productivity; increasing the level of youth employment; increasing the employment of citizens with disabilities; involving citizens caring for loved ones in the economy; maintaining employment of workers with family responsibilities.

    One of the most important activities of the national project is the preparation of an annual five-year forecast of personnel needs and its linking with the target figures for admission.

    “The President set the task of calculating how many and what kind of specialists, in which regions we will need in order to ensure national development goals, technological leadership projects. We have formed a forecast of personnel needs for a five-year period. It took into account the forecast of socio-economic development, target economic indicators, projects included in strategic planning documents, demographic trends, and the rate of growth of labor productivity,” said Anton Kotyakov.

    Not only the new demand that arises due to the growth of industries was analyzed, but also the so-called replacement demand related to the annual retirement of workers. In addition, in order to break down the structure of demand in detail by skill levels and specialties, an all-Russian survey of employers was conducted, in which 260 thousand companies with 22 million employees took part. In preparing the forecast, experts processed 3 million unique job titles.

    “As a result of this large-scale and painstaking work, we have received for the first time a detailed forecast in the industry, regional and professional-qualification contexts. The forecast will be calculated annually and taken into account when forming the control figures for admission. Considering that the adaptation of educational processes to the needs of the economy does not happen at once, we understand that a longer forecasting corridor is needed. Therefore, from April 1, an all-Russian survey of employers on the prospective need of the economy for personnel will start for the next forecast. It is planned to calculate it for seven years at once – until 2032,” said Anton Kotyakov.

    In conclusion, Tatyana Golikova and representatives of the federal executive authorities answered questions from deputies regarding the national project “Personnel”.

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI: Karolinska Developments portfolio company Promimic publishes positive results on reduction of bacteria growth on HAnano Surface

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, February 18 2025. Karolinska Development AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: KDEV) today announces that its portfolio company Promimic has published positive results showing a reduction of bacterial growth on the company’s implant surface HAnano Surface. The results are published in the Journal of Functional Biomaterials.

    Promimic has previously seen an effect on reduced adhesion of bacteria on HAnano Surface, but the recent results also show a reduction of bacterial growth. The results indicate that the effect is bacteriostatic (hinders growth) and not bactericide (germicidal), which can decrease the risk of bacterial resistance.

    The results are based on in vitro tests on gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria on HAnano Surface, showing a reduction between 33-46 percent on the bacterial strains S. epidermidis and P. aeruginosa, which are common in implant infections.

    ”Bacterial infections associated with dental and orthopedic implants are a serious problem and there is a great need for implants that promote healing and reduce the risk of bacterial growth. Our portfolio company Promimic clearly demonstrates the benefits that surface modification can bring to implant treatment in healthcare and for the individual patient,” says Viktor Drvota, CEO of Karolinska Development.

    Promimic develops and markets HAnano Surface, a unique, nanometer-thin surface treatment that aims to improve the anchorage and healing of orthopedic and dental implants into bone tissue. The technology is well established and has so far been applied to over 1,8 million implants in clinical use around the world.

    Karolinska Development’s shareholding in Promimic, including indirect ownership by KDev Investments, amounts to 14% (2% and 12%, respectively).

    Link to the publication: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4983/16/2/66

    For further information, please contact:

    Viktor Drvota, CEO, Karolinska Development AB
    Phone: +46 73 982 52 02, e-mail: viktor.drvota@karolinskadevelopment.com

    Johan Dighed, General Counsel and Deputy CEO, Karolinska Development AB
    Phone: +46 70 207 48 26, e-mail: johan.dighed@karolinskadevelopment.com

    TO THE EDITORS

    About Karolinska Development AB

    Karolinska Development AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: KDEV) is a Nordic life sciences investment company. The company focuses on identifying breakthrough medical innovations in the Nordic region that are developed by entrepreneurs and leadership teams. The Company invests in the creation and growth of companies that advance these assets into commercial products that are designed to make a difference to patients’ lives while providing an attractive return on investment to shareholders.

    Karolinska Development has access to world-class medical innovations at the Karolinska Institutet and other leading universities and research institutes in the Nordic region. The Company aims to build companies around scientists who are leaders in their fields, supported by experienced management teams and advisers, and co-funded by specialist international investors, to provide the greatest chance of success.

    Karolinska Development has a portfolio of eleven companies targeting opportunities in innovative treatment for life-threatening or serious debilitating diseases.

    The Company is led by an entrepreneurial team of investment professionals with a proven track record as company builders and with access to a strong global network.

    For more information, please visit www.karolinskadevelopment.com.

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Global: EastEnders at 40: how a ‘public service soap’ became a national institution

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jamie Medhurst, Professor of Film and Media, Aberystwyth University

    Thirteen million people across the UK sat down to watch a brand new soap opera that burst onto their screens on February 19 1985. The first character to speak on EastEnders was Dirty Den, as he came to be known, played by Leslie Grantham. Breaking into a dingy flat with fellow characters Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) and Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih), Den uttered the words “Stinks in ‘ere, dunnit?”, before discovering the elderly Reg Cox (Johnnie Clayton) close to death.

    Up until this point, the BBC had not had much luck with the continuing serial drama, or soap opera, format. Its first serial, The Grove Family, ran for only three years between 1954 and 1957, for instance. Although The Archers had been running since 1951 on Radio 4, and the Welsh-language soap opera, Pobol y Cwm, began in 1974 (and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary), the BBC lacked anything comparable to ITV’s Coronation Street.

    Launched in 1960, Coronation Street demonstrated that there was a public appetite for drama which focused on the everyday lives of ordinary people. ITV’s second soap success, Crossroads which ran between 1964 and 1988, and later between 2001 and 2003, underlined that point, as did Emmerdale Farm, which was launched in 1972, becoming just Emmerdale in 1989.

    When Channel 4 launched with a gritty, realist soap opera, Brookside, in November 1982, the BBC had to respond. With that channel’s extra competition, and cable and satellite television being discussed as the next big thing, the BBC’s audience share was in danger of decreasing to the point where people may have questioned the justification for the licence fee.

    And so EastEnders was born and became an immediate success. Over the years it’s had its ups and downs in terms of viewing figures, but has still endured. So, in a broadcasting landscape where there is now so much competition from streaming services and a variety of platforms from which we can now engage with “content” (“programme” can feel like an old-fashioned word now), how has the serial retained it popularity?

    Realism meets melodrama

    Part of the answer lies in the ways in which soap operas are constructed. They focus on people and peoples’ relationships with each other. This gives us the audience an immediate connection. We can all relate to one or more characters. We are given an insight into their family lives, their work, their feelings and emotions.

    Drama can entertain and provide escapism. At the same time, it can prick the conscience and stir the soul. It can deal with complex ideas and flights of fancy, gritty social issues and controversial topics. It has the ability to both engage and alienate audiences and provoke wider public debate. EastEnders has done all of these things.

    Soap operas can also run multiple storylines that overlap. This means that if one story ends – such as a character leaving, or a conflict being resolved – there are other stories to carry the audience along, while new storylines are developed.

    Another characteristic of soap operas is that they aim to balance realism with just the right amount of melodrama. Those of us who remember the early years of EastEnders will recall Christmas day 1986 when more than 30 million viewers tuned in to see Dirty Den hand divorce papers to wife Angie (Anita Dobson) after discovering she had been faking a terminal illness.

    Dirty Den hands Angie divorce papers on Christmas Day 1986.

    And, of course, any successful soap opera like EastEnders requires a team of skilled writers and believable characters. Such was the popularity of characters like Dirty Den that the BBC brought him back from the dead in 2003 after an absence of 14 years in a bid to halt declining viewing figures. Den did eventually die “properly” to mark the 20th anniversary on February 18 2005. And 13 million people watched as his wife, Chrissie (Tracy-Ann Oberman), dealt the fatal blow.

    Grit, grime and real life

    EastEnders has not shied away from gritty or social-realist storylines.
    Communications scholar Anthony McNicholas has described EastEnders as a “public service soap opera”, by which he means that the stories featured often reflect values and issues in contemporary society.

    Some of the early storylines revolved around teenage pregnancy, rape and drug-taking. There were characters who had HIV/Aids at the time the subject was being widely discussed in the UK.

    Baddie Janine pushes husband Barry off a cliff in a famous scene from New Year’s Day 2004.

    The soap has also dealt with domestic abuse. It worked closely with the charity Women’s Aid on a domestic abuse story in 2020. This prompted the domestic abuse charity, Refuge, to praise the soap for drawing the issue to peoples’ attention. It noted that EastEnders had done a great job reflecting on screen what is a horrific reality for so many families.

    Dealing with controversial yet realistic storylines has sometimes led to the programme coming into conflict with the regulator, Ofcom, for broadcasting certain harrowing scenes before the 9.00pm watershed.

    As EastEnders reaches middle age, there’s no sign of it slowing down. The anniversary promises to be eventful and engaging, featuring a live episode. And there will always be a place for relatable storylines, drama, passion and characters that we can love and hate. Happy Birthday EastEnders and here’s to the next 40 years.

    Jamie Medhurst has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), British Academy, and The Leverhulme Trust.

    – ref. EastEnders at 40: how a ‘public service soap’ became a national institution – https://theconversation.com/eastenders-at-40-how-a-public-service-soap-became-a-national-institution-247060

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Can adults learn to develop absolute pitch? Our research challenges a longstanding myth

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yetta Kwailing Wong, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Surrey

    True Touch Lifestyle/Shutterstock

    Absolute pitch has long been viewed as a kind of musical superpower. It refers to the ability to identify or produce a tone, like an A or a C-sharp, without any provided reference point.

    With only 12 possible answers, naming the pitch of a tone may seem easy. However, it is somehow incredibly difficult for most musicians, including the professionally trained ones.

    Adding to this mystery, for gifted musicians and composers such as Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven, absolute pitch can feel as intuitive as recognising the colour red, reinforcing the widespread belief that absolute pitch – also referred to by many people as perfect pitch – is a rare, exceptional talent.

    For decades, many scientists and musicians believed that you either had absolute pitch – or you didn’t. If you are not the lucky ones who carry special genes and have started musical training during early childhood, you were thought to have missed the opportunity entirely. Our new research, however, suggests this isn’t actually true.

    Our research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that absolute pitch remains a learnable skill in adulthood – many adults can train their way to levels of performance comparable to individuals who naturally possess this skill in everyday life.

    Intense training

    To help adults progressively learn to identify tones, our research team designed an eight-week online training programme. On average, 12 musicians dedicated 21 hours and completed over 15,000 pitch naming exercises. These involved hearing a piano or guitar note (within three octaves) for 800 milliseconds and having to name it within a certain amount of time. The participants had to complete 25 hours of training online over eight weeks. The training included a total of 288 training levels, with 24 levels for each additional pitch.

    The training required really hard work – participants did not only learn to name the tones accurately, but also very quickly. Over time, the difficulty ramped up as more tones were introduced, and the time allowed for response was further tightened.

    We carefully avoided common pitfalls in previous studies. By including a wide range of tones, we ensured that they learned to identify the pitch class – the fundamental quality that makes a note sound like a C, D or E, regardless of whether the tone sounds high or low.

    This approach truly captures the essence of absolute pitch. We eliminated feedback during testing, so participants could not rely on their working memory as a crutch. To rule out “lucky guessing,” we required participants to repeatedly demonstrate their abilities with strict criteria for success.

    Effort vs talent

    By the end of the training, participants had made remarkable progress. On average, they could correctly identify more than seven musical notes almost every time, taking as little as one or two seconds to respond. Their ability to identify the correct notes more than doubled.

    Even when they made mistakes, their responses got 43% closer to the correct answer. These impressive gains were also found for notes they hadn’t been specifically trained to recognise, suggesting they were learning something deeper about pitch perception.

    Notably, two participants mastered all 12 pitches with performance comparable to that of possessors of absolute pitch in the real world.

    What made learning absolute pitch in adulthood possible now, given a century of unconvincing findings? The human brain and perceptual systems are highly adaptable, and this holds well into adulthood. Through practice and feedback, adults can improve their ability to recognise and distinguish sensory inputs, such as visual patterns and speech sounds.

    Our training takes advantage of this amazing potential of the human perceptual system to learn. What we have done differently from previous efforts was ultimately that we designed an effective learning experience, including the right learning materials, effective feedback and changes in difficulty for each learner – all while making it fun.

    Together with motivated learners, learning absolute pitch in adulthood was made possible.

    Music training and beyond

    The fact that absolute pitch was previously thought to be locked behind a genetic lottery or early musical exposure has sadly discouraged countless musicians and music educators from learning or teaching it.

    Our findings offer an encouraging counter-narrative – absolute pitch is not just for the lucky few. With a well-designed learning tool, it is a skill that many adults can cultivate.

    More broadly, our findings demonstrate how science can challenge deep-rooted assumptions about human abilities. Instead of being fixed by biology or early experiences, many skills can still be developed and improved well into adulthood.

    This shift in understanding could inspire us to adopt a growth mindset, showing that it is never too late to learn and improve, no matter what you think might hold you back.

    So, if you have ever dreamed of identifying musical notes like a virtuoso, it is not too late to work on it now.

    Yetta Kwailing Wong 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.

    – ref. Can adults learn to develop absolute pitch? Our research challenges a longstanding myth – https://theconversation.com/can-adults-learn-to-develop-absolute-pitch-our-research-challenges-a-longstanding-myth-248907

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Nat King Cole’s often overlooked role in the Civil Rights Movement

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Donna M. Cox, Professor of Music, University of Dayton

    Nat King Cole performs in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 1960. Ebbe Wrae/JP Jazz Archive/Getty Images

    Six decades after Nat King Cole’s death in 1965, his music is still some of the most played in the world, and his celebrity transcends generational and racial divides. His smooth voice, captivating piano skills and enduring charisma earned him international acclaim.

    One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Cole was not only a groundbreaking musician but also a quiet, yet resolute, advocate for social justice.

    As an African American sacred music scholar, I have been immersed in the inseparable link between music, culture and social change for over 40 years. Examining Cole through the lens of his activism uncovers the nuanced ways in which he challenged the status quo and contributed to the Civil Rights Movement.

    Beneath the polished veneer of his public image lay a deeply personal commitment to confronting racism and advocating for equality that is often overlooked.

    Formative years

    Nathaniel Adams Coles was born on March 17, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, to Perlina Adams Coles and Edward James Coles. Perlina served as the organist at the True Light Baptist Church and later the First Baptist Church of North Chicago, both pastored by Nathaniel’s father. She passed her love for music to her children, teaching them to play the piano and organ. Cole’s formative years were spent in church; gospel songs, hymns and spirituals formed the foundation of his musical education.

    Though Cole is primarily remembered for his jazz and pop hits, the emotive power, communal emphasis and uplifting nature of Black sacred music profoundly shaped his artistry throughout his career, despite his single sacred album, “Every Time I Feel The Spirit,” released in 1959. The influence of gospel music, in particular, can be heard in his soulful phrasing and heartfelt delivery, contributing to his remarkable ability to connect with audiences.

    Growing up in Chicago, he was also exposed to a rich tapestry of musical genres, including blues, classical and jazz. This eclectic upbringing laid the foundation for his versatile musical style and commercial success.

    Group portrait of singer Nat King Cole with his mother, Perlina, his younger brother, Ike, and his father, Edward, circa 1940.
    Nat King Cole photograph collection/New York Public Library

    While Cole’s music was not overtly political, his very presence in the mainstream was a statement. In an era of racial segregation, he was a Black man achieving unprecedented success in a predominantly white music industry. His impeccable diction, tailored suits and sophisticated performances countered the prevailing stereotypes of African Americans as uncouth or subservient.

    By embodying a poised and dignified persona, Cole communicated a powerful message: Black excellence and humanity could not be denied. As race scholar George Lipsitz writes in “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness,” “The cultural field … is a site of struggle where meanings are contested and power relations are negotiated.”

    Cole’s success challenged the structural racism that sought to confine Black artists to the margins and opened doors for future generations. He acknowledged the significance of his presence on national television, recognizing it as a potential turning point for Black representation. While hesitant to explicitly label himself an activist, he contemplated the impact of his success on breaking down barriers, believing that “when you’ve got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.”

    Confronting racism

    In response to critics who dismiss Cole’s legacy as apolitical, I argue that they overlook the complexity of his resistance. Several scholars have stated that in a society where overt defiance often resulted in violence or economic ruin, Cole’s ability to navigate the entertainment industry while maintaining his dignity was itself a form of activism.

    Though Cole never referred to himself as an activist, he confronted racism in both overt and quiet ways. Scholars such as cultural theorist Stuart Hall and researcher Laura Pottinger define “quiet activism” as modest, everyday acts of resistance – either implicitly or explicitly political – that challenge dominant ideologies and power structures. These acts often entail processes of production or creativity.

    Despite his commercial success, Cole faced relentless systemic and personal racism. In 1948, he purchased a home in the affluent Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, a move met with hostility; the local homeowners association attempted to expel him, and he endured threats and acts of vandalism.

    Yet Cole refused to be intimidated. His resolve was a courageous act of resistance that highlighted the pervasive inequalities of the time.

    Cole faced blatant discrimination in Las Vegas. He was often denied access to the same hotels and restaurants where he performed, forced to stay in segregated accommodations. One particularly notable incident occurred at the Sands Hotel. in Las Vegas. When the maitre d’ tried to deny service to Cole’s Black bandmates in the dining room, Cole threatened to cancel his performance and leave. This forced the hotel management to back down, setting a precedent for other Black entertainers and patrons.

    Cole quietly sued hotels and negotiated contracts that guaranteed his right to stay in the hotels where he performed, a significant step toward desegregation. He also made it a point to bring his entire entourage, including Black musicians and friends, to these establishments, challenging their “whites only” policies.

    ‘We Are Americans Too’

    Photo of Natalie Cole singing with her father, Nat King Cole, in 1957.
    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    Cole’s impact extended beyond the realm of music. In 1956, he became the first African American to host a national network television show, “The Nat King Cole Show.” This was a groundbreaking moment, as it brought a Black man into the living rooms of millions of white Americans every week.

    Though the show faced challenges with sponsorship due to racial prejudice, it marked a significant step toward greater representation and acceptance. As historian Donald Bogle notes in his 2001 book “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks,” “Television … became a new battleground for the image of the black performer.” Cole’s show, despite its short run, was a crucial battle in this war.

    When Cole was attacked onstage by white supremacists during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1956, it underscored the physical danger Black public figures faced and galvanized Cole’s commitment to the Civil Rights Movement.

    It is important to note that Cole’s support for the Civil Rights Movement was often quiet and behind the scenes. He faced criticism from some who felt he should have been more outspoken. However, his actions demonstrate his commitment to the cause of racial equality. Cole, who died in 1965 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, was a member of his local NAACP branch. He also performed at benefit concerts for the organization, raising money to support their efforts in fighting racial discrimination.

    Shortly after the attack in Birmingham, Cole recorded his only song that is specifically political, “We Are Americans Too.” Recorded in 1956, the song was a powerful statement of belonging and a challenge to racial exclusion. Though it would not come close to reaching commercial success, it did serve as a powerful reminder that African Americans were, in fact, Americans. Over a half-century later, this song still resonates and speaks to the ongoing struggle for full inclusion and recognition for marginalized groups.

    The juxtaposition of the refrain “We are Americans too” against the backdrop of the treatment of Black people during the Civil Rights Movement gives this song emotional weight. The very act of having to assert “We are Americans too” highlights the injustice of the situation.

    It underscores the disconnect between the ideals of American democracy and the reality of racial inequality. In this context, the refrain “We are Americans too” is an act of resistance, a challenge to the prevailing social order. It highlights the hypocrisy of a nation founded on principles of liberty while denying those same liberties to a significant portion of its population. It’s a call for America to finally recognize the full humanity and citizenship of its Black citizens.

    ‘We Are Americans Too.’

    Great art, and great artists, are powerful witnesses of the times in which they live, love, work and play. Their commentary, both artistically and humanly, leaves an important record for generations. This is clearly evident in Nat King Cole.

    Donna M. Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Nat King Cole’s often overlooked role in the Civil Rights Movement – https://theconversation.com/nat-king-coles-often-overlooked-role-in-the-civil-rights-movement-248527

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: New Treatment Improves Bovine IVF

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    Up until the 1950s, scientists were scratching their heads trying to figure out why their experiments using perfectly healthy eggs and sperm to develop in-vitro fertilization (IVF) were unsuccessful.

    Then, they made a critical discovery — sperm capacitation.

    Maria Gracia Gervasi, assistant professor of animal science in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, is an expert on sperm capacitation and the application of assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF in rodent and bovine species. She is part of a team that recently developed a new method for sperm capacitation that makes bovine IVF more effective.

    Sperm capacitation is a set of processes mammalian sperm need to undergo while they are inside the female reproductive system before they can fertilize an egg.

    During capacitation, a series of molecular pathways are activated that cause the sperm to move differently, known as “hyperactive motility.” The sperm needs to be moving this way to successfully penetrate an egg to fertilize it. There are also changes to the sperm head that expose the part of the sperm that fuses with the egg during fertilization.

    The discovery of capacitation enabled the development of IVF technology, revolutionizing human and animal reproduction.

    Gervasi is part of a group of collaborators that published their findings in Theriogenology. Claudia E. Osycka-Salut, a researcher from the Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnologicas (IIBio-UNSAM-CONICET), Buenos Aires is the first author on the paper.

    In Gervasi’s previous lab, they worked on a study showing that using a calcium ionophore – a kind of chemical that binds to and help transport ions – improved sperm capacitation in mice. This led her to wonder if it would work in bovine species as well.

    When bovine sperm are capacitated in the laboratory, scientists put them in a medium containing calcium, bicarbonate, a protein called bovine serum albumin, and heparin.

    “All of these components are required for sperm capacitation in bovine species and IVF,” Gervasi says.

    When Gervasi and her team introduced the calcium ionophore, it increased calcium levels in the medium. This caused the sperm to stop moving. Then, when the researchers washed the calcium out of the medium, the sperm started moving again with hyperactive motility – indicating they had induced capacitation.

    In this study, they found that the ionophore achieved similar results as traditional IVF procedures without heparin.

    However, when they then tested the ionophore with heparin, there were significant improvements in fertilization rates and embryo development.

    The fertilization rate for sperm treated with the ionophore was 83%, compared to 70% in the untreated group. The rate of fertilized eggs that developed into embryos increased from 11% to 27%.

    “The difference is just adding this little sperm treatment before using it for IVF,” Gervasi says.

    This approach could have a significant impact on the bovine industry in the U.S. and globally as IVF is an increasingly popular method for breeding cattle. This is because it is much easier to take semen from a bull with characteristics a farmer wants to introduce into a herd and ship that semen or embryos rather than having to move the bull around.

    “The application of our treatment for in-vitro production to improve the capacitation and fertilization could have a huge impact on the industry because we could double the number of embryos,” Gervasi says. “It’s a big improvement.”

    This treatment could also improve fertilization and embryo development rates for cryogenically preserved semen that has already been sexed. The process of sexing the semen damages the sperm, leading to reduced fertilization rates.

    “Being able to test our treatment with those sperm would also be very applicable to what industry is using nowadays,” Gervasi says.

    Gervasi will follow up this work by seeing if embryos produced from sperm treated with the ionophore remain more successful than those produced without the ionophore once implanted in an animal.

    Gervasi is currently working on a separate sperm treatment that could be combined with the ionophore treatment to bolster the improvements demonstrated in this study. She is also interested in analyzing the genetic quality of the embryos produced using these treatments.

    “My lab here at UConn is focused on understanding how sperm and sperm treatments during capacitation can influence not only fertilization, but post-fertilization events like embryo development,” Gervasi says. “So, I will definitely be focusing a lot on embryo quality and what is the sperm bringing to it.”

    This work was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive #2022-67016-36302 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

    This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on Ensuring a Vibrant and Sustainable Agricultural Industry and Food Supply.

    Follow UConn CAHNR on social media

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Getting a Foot Up on Production Simulation and Streamlining

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    A creative collaboration between UConn’s Connecticut Manufacturing Simulation Center (CMSC) and ZANEEZ® Health in Glastonbury, Conn., is focusing on virtual prototyping of an innovative foot and ankle platform made from advanced thermoplastic polymers. This process reduces the time and cost associated with multiple rounds of physical testing, optimizing structural integrity and product performance before physical production begins.

    “AnkleSTONE®, developed by ZANEEZ® Health, represents a significant advancement in orthopedic rehabilitation devices,” says Jeongho Kim, principal investigator and CMSC director, and also a professor for the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering. “This partnership with CMSC allows our team to provide advanced technical expertise and simulation capabilities to enhance product development.

    “At CMSC,” Kim explains, “we have the tools and computational resources to assist companies like ZANEEZ® in overcoming limitations in physical prototyping. Our partnership enables them to analyze critical load capacities and structural performance, for example, helping refine the AnkleSTONE® design for maximum effectiveness and resilience.”

    The AnkleSTONE® team includes, from left, Jake Crane (strategic advisor, CONNSTEP), Dan Tangari, Marien Zanyk, and Jeongho Kim.

    Supported by the U.S. Economic Development Administration, CMSC provides technical assistance at no cost to small- and medium-sized manufacturers in Connecticut, fostering innovation and economic development in the state. The center offers a suite of high-performance computing-based modeling and simulation services, enabling companies to replace costly physical prototypes with virtual simulations that streamline the development process.

    Many small businesses, Kim adds, lack the specialized resources required for intensive prototyping. The center’s physics-based modeling and virtual prototyping approach, he says, allows companies like ZANEEZ® to develop cost-effective solutions efficiently.

    CMSC’s staff is currently engaged in virtual prototyping of the AnkleSTONE® foot and ankle platform, made from advanced thermoplastic polymers. This process reduces the time and cost associated with multiple rounds of physical testing, optimizing structural integrity and product performance before physical production begins.

    “Research and support from CMSC has made our development process more efficient, saving a tremendous amount of time and expense versus physical prototyping and destructive testing,” says Dan Tangari, a lead designer from Spark Design LLC, working with ZANEEZ®. Spark, Tangari explains, works with a diverse group of clients to help develop innovative products from initial concept through production.

    CMSC, says Tangari, has been assisting Marien Zanyk, ZANEEZ® founder and CEO, in refining her AnkleSTONE® product for injection molding. “This requires accounting for complex loads and stress that the product will encounter during use,” he explains. “This type of analysis is outside the scope of our capabilities. Partnering with Dr. Kim and CMSC was an invaluable step in the development process.”

    The Engineering Science Building houses the Connecticut Manufacturing Simulation Center (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

    Through Kim’s advanced structural analysis of the AnkleSTONE® product, potential weak areas were identified in the design for typical use-case scenarios, Tangari continues. “Our combined team was able to meet virtually at regular intervals to review new findings based on the latest simulations. This virtual prototyping provided insights that guided our design improvements, allowing us to iterate faster, and make much more informed decisions during CAD refinement. The collaboration between ZANEEZ® and CMSC allows us to feel confident moving forward that we have a proven design that is ready for production.”

    Since its inception in 2016, CMSC has collaborated with over 50 businesses, training more than 350 professionals, 2,400 UConn students, and 24 community students.  Other CMSC projects include partnerships with Aero Gear, PCX Aerospace, and Advanced Manufacturing LLC, focusing on complex simulation and optimization for Connecticut’s manufacturing sector.

    Located at the Engineering Science Building on UConn’s Storrs campus, CMSC continues to support the state’s manufacturing industry with cutting-edge computational tools and research. For more information, visit CMSC’s website or LinkedIn page.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How to be happy with what you have – and avoid the trap of comparison

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joshua Forstenzer, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Co-Director of the Centre for Engaged Philosophy, University of Sheffield

    Alphavector/Shutterstock

    In many ways, I feel like we shouldn’t be happy with what we have. We live in a world of tremendous inequality and cruelty, running towards an environmental wall. Not just that, but some of the best people I know are chronic persistors: they know how not to accept the unacceptable.

    But we also live in an economy that profits from and purposefully generates private feelings of lack, want, comparison and envy. Somewhat counter-intuitively, this envy often spurs on the feelings of lack and want, rather than the other way around. This is the genius of advertising: to generate “perceived” (aka fake) needs. I see someone living a “good” life – exciting, sexy, creative – and now I want what they have: the shoes, watch, holiday, you name it.

    Envy requires comparison. And comparison requires a scale by which to rank ourselves. Popular culture offers quite a few. Being the object of sexual desire (think of “matches” on dating apps) for example, or digital social connectivity (think of “followers” or “likes”). These can all play a role in shaping your sense of personal success or failure.

    Ready to make a change? The Quarter Life Glow-up is a new, six-week newsletter course from The Conversation’s UK and Canada editions.

    Every week, we’ll bring you research-backed advice and tools to help improve your relationships, your career, your free time and your mental health – no supplements or skincare required. Sign up here to start your glow-up at any time.

    Sometimes, these are presented in a unified pseudo-metric of success. Take for example the idea of a “high-value man”. The parts of the internet that use the concept tend to celebrate having money, a wide social network and being useful to others. This often veers into celebrating material wealth and superficial self improvement as the path to success and sexual attractiveness. The viral TikTok song I’m Looking for a Man in Finance is an only mildly exaggerated spoof of this ideal.

    The implicit assumption is that having more “good things” than others means being more valuable as a person. But behind this there are a host of hidden assumptions – not least that you can “own” the genuinely valuable things in life (as opposed to being them).

    These hidden assumptions usually reveal deep seated shame – the feeling that you are not enough as you are. And that you are not entitled to set the parameters that define the success or failure of your own life.

    Feeling bad about yourself is not always unhealthy. A healthy negative feeling lets you know if you have done something wrong, or acted in a manner that does not meet your own moral standards. This feeling calls for you to change your ways.

    Shame can be very psychologically painful.
    Alphavector/Shutterstock

    The unhealthy feeling, that I am calling “shame”, is not merely the feeling of embarrassment or moral doubt. Rather, it is (to follow vulnerability researcher Brené Brown’s definition) “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”.

    This feeling is so psychologically painful that you may reflexively do all you can to remain unaware of it. This denial means that you can start to see your own critical inner voice (itself shaped by past negative experiences) as animated by an “objective” social reality, telling you not just that you’re failing, but that you are a failure. This is often called “projection”.

    Other times, when you can bear to consciously feel this emotion, you may seek to negotiate with it and offer remedial actions to the universe to make up for recurrent feelings of worthlessness. In darker times still, shame can overtake your whole life, paralysing you and creeping into the quietest parts of your private self.

    How to combat shame and be happy with what you have

    Shame can be a remarkably sticky emotion. Identifying and interrogating it can be helpful. Working on revising how you understand your self and your relationship to others can also help. The options are many, but for the sake of illustration here are three that speak to me.

    1. Stoicism

    Stoics believed that your essential nature is stable and the project of life is to fulfil this nature and flourish. When making judgments, people ascribe value to an imagined state of affairs (“it would be really great if I were thinner”) and a belief that a specific course of action will make it a reality (“going without chocolate will return the figure I had in my teens”).

    A stoic approach means connecting with your community.
    Alphavector/Shutterstock

    Both of these can be false, because the things you desire can actually be bad for you, and you have less control over the future than you tend to think. Stoics thought people should try to get the relationship between their emotional state and the goods they pursue into harmony, seeking self-mastery in order to flourish.

    To this end, stoic ethics demand that you recognise and cultivate habits that put you in touch with your own nature within the wider world – starting from the self, expanding to the family, the community, the state, humanity and ultimately the cosmos.

    2. Existentialism

    In contrast, existentialism requires paying attention to the lack of any ultimate purpose in human life. No one thing can ever fully define who you are. Your capacity to reinvent yourself, to value something new, to start a fresh project, is yours alone.

    Existentialists define life’s meaning for themselves.
    Alphavector/Shutterstock

    The empty feeling of meaninglessness you sometimes encounter when you have finally achieved a long sought after goal (like getting that big promotion) can be dizzying. But this feeling is a reminder of the fact that nothing in your nature demands that you achieve any one thing. It’s up to you.

    You must face authentically the fact that you are free and therefore responsible for your projects and the meaning you give to them.

    3. Humanistic psychotherapy

    A humanistic psychotherapeutic perspective offers a middle way. It invites you to look upon yourself with compassion, seeing yourself as complex, responsible and yet also imperfect and vulnerable, always involved in a richly evolving tapestry of relationships that ultimately gives meaning and purpose to your life.

    In humanistic psychotherapy, our relationships give life meaning.
    Alphavector/Shutterstock

    This means that relationships and the recognition you give and derive from them provide the only solid basis for confronting that most important question – “who am I?” – ultimately seeing you through your darkest times. But this means that you need these relationships to be genuine, kind and honest so that you can see yourself and others for the frail, evolving and unique individuals that we all are.

    Joshua Forstenzer’s work receives funding from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture as part of its Templeton-funded Life Worth Living project (https://lifeworthliving.yale.edu/). He is also a consultant to North Consulting as part of the LIFE Erasmus+ project (https://www.kmop.gr/projects-vf/news-life-worth-living/) which uses text-based pedagogic methods to facilitate wellbeing conversations about meaning and purpose with teachers and school leaders in five European countries.

    – ref. How to be happy with what you have – and avoid the trap of comparison – https://theconversation.com/how-to-be-happy-with-what-you-have-and-avoid-the-trap-of-comparison-235476

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Surfer’s ear: the condition that might leave wild swimmers and surfers with hearing loss

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

    Surfer’s ear happens when growths develop on the bones of the auditory canal. speedshutter Photography/ Shutterstock

    Cold water swimming, paddleboarding and surfing are all popular pastimes – with millions of people in the UK regularly participating in at least one type of outdoor watersport each year.

    But those bravely breaking the waves may not realise they could actually be putting themselves at risk of hearing loss due to external auditory canal exostosis – better known as surfer’s ear.

    Surfer’s ear affects the auditory canal – the thin tube which conveys sound waves from our surroundings, channelling them towards the sensory organs which generate our sense of hearing.

    These inner portions of the ear are shielded by bone. This is because the anatomical structures that turn air pressure waves into sounds – the eardrum, ossicles and cochlea – are very small, very sensitive and would be easily and irreparably damaged if not protected.

    Ideally, our ear canals should be clear and unobstructed. Sure, sometimes they can get clogged up with wax and even sometimes foreign bodies can work their way inside (such as peas, plasticine or even bugs).



    Read more:
    What bodily secretions like blood, wax and tears can tell us about our health

    But surfer’s ear causes an obstruction of the ear canal in a different manner. Growths start to develop on the bone which lines the auditory canal.

    As these growths continue to develop, they push into the canal – effectively narrowing the space inside. In doing so, this can prevent the conduction of sound waves getting through to the eardrum. One symptom patients with surfer’s ear may notice as a result is hearing loss.

    Other associated problems may arise, too. The ear canal produces wax. Any narrowing of the canal will more easily retain wax, but also water – not just from swimming, but from wet weather or taking a shower. An accumulation of both in the canal can worsen hearing loss and raise the risk of developing an ear infection.

    But what causes surfer’s ear in the first place?

    The cause appears to lie in repeated exposure to cold water and high winds – which most surfers encounter while riding a wave, or tumbling off one. It appears to be a problem unique to humans, perhaps because of the configuration of their ears.

    While researchers aren’t entirely sure why cold exposure causes the bone to grow abnormally, it’s possible that the ear’s natural response to prolonged cold (which irritates the eardrum) is to create a bigger shield for it. Cold water and wind may stimulate bone cells called osteoblasts, causing new bone to grow – offering more protection.

    It’s important to note that surfer’s ear is different from swimmer’s ear – a condition which you may be more familiar with. Though both can arise from water immersion.

    Swimmer’s ear, also called otitis externa, is a form of ear infection. It typically results in pain and discharge, and can arise from water accumulating in the ear canal, which then acts as a breeding ground for bacteria. Narrowing of the ear canal can worsen the problem, so swimmer’s ear can also be associated with surfer’s ear.

    Surfer’s ear is distinct from swimmer’s ear, where water accumulates in the ear canal.
    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/ Shutterstock

    It’s estimated that 3-6% of the general population may have some form of exostosis. But the condition does appear to overwhelmingly affect surfers – with one systematic review finding the condition affected an average of around 68% of surfers.

    However, surfer’s ear is not unique to surfers. Any sport which exposes an athlete to cold water and wind might result in the same effect. These include wild or outdoor swimming, windsurfing and kayaking.

    There’s also a cultural and geographical difference in prevalence across the globe. It’s estimated that 10% of Australians surf, and potentially raising the risk.

    You don’t even have to venture into the water to develop surfer’s ear, either. Some research suggests people living near the coast have an increased risk of developing surfer’s ear as they’re more likely to be exposed to cold winds. Other cases have been observed in patients without a clear cause.

    The condition might also be more common in males – though this may be due to a larger proportion of men participating in both the sport and the research.

    Preventing surfer’s ear

    Some research suggests that using earplugs while in the water can help reduce cold exposure to the ear and lower the risk. There are also specialised hooded wetsuits and bands that can worn as further protective measures.

    Surfer’s ear appears to be a long-term complication, and is more likely to develop from regular exposure, not just an occasional cold water dip. More than ten years of surfing appears to be associated with a greater risk, and more severe canal obstruction.

    For patients who develop severe symptoms – such as hearing loss and persistent ear infections – surgery may be required. The operation, called a canalplasty, involves chiselling or drilling away the excess bone to widen the canal again. Surfers should avoid heading back into the waves for two to three months after the operation until the site has properly healed.

    There’s some indication surfer’s ear may be on the rise – though this could also be because we’re getting better at diagnosing it and nowadays more surfers are aware of the condition.

    The risk of developing surfer’s ear in one or both ears is sadly real. Unfortunately, it appears that only by abstaining from surfing can the condition be averted.

    So if you do plan to go out into the wind and water – whether that’s surfing, paddleboarding or wild swimming – don’t forget your earplugs.

    Dan Baumgardt 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.

    – ref. Surfer’s ear: the condition that might leave wild swimmers and surfers with hearing loss – https://theconversation.com/surfers-ear-the-condition-that-might-leave-wild-swimmers-and-surfers-with-hearing-loss-249201

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The Polytechnic celebrated the Eastern New Year

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –

    The Eastern New Year, the year of the Green Wooden Snake, was celebrated in the Polytechnic Tower. The main organizer of the event was the Humanitarian Institute together with the Higher School of International Educational Programs. Representatives of various Polytechnic institutes and St. Petersburg universities took part in the concert program

    This year, the celebration was held for the first time at the Youth Trajectory Center, in the Polytechnic Tower. The hosts were Ksenia Kolomeitseva, a student at the Higher School of International Relations, and Artem Kuzmin, a student at the Higher School of Law and Forensic Science.

    The Director of the Humanitarian Institute Natalia Chicherina and the Assistant Vice-Rector for International Activities Pavel Nedelko delivered welcoming remarks.

    In our multinational student family, we can celebrate the New Year several times. Today, we have a unique opportunity to learn about the bright traditions of this holiday together with representatives of China, Indonesia and Vietnam, – noted Natalia Chicherina.

    Polytechnicians talked about the cultural characteristics of their countries, held an interactive competition with souvenirs for the participants. A student of the Higher School of Linguistics and Pedagogy Li Junying gave a presentation in Russian about the traditions and culture of China. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Mai from IPMET represented Vietnam, a postgraduate student of the Higher School of Physics and Materials Technology of IMMIT Tegu Imanulla gave a report about Indonesia, in which he spoke about national dishes, dances, symbols, good luck charms and much more.

    Ye Zizhou, a student at the Graduate School of International Relations, performed a traditional Chinese number symbolizing the wisdom of the Green Snake. Together with Viktoria Dyshko, she showed a modern dance in the K-pop style. Mao Yiling from the Graduate School of Linguistics and Education demonstrated traditional martial arts with a sword.

    Sofia Kononova from the Higher School of International Relations recited a poem in Chinese. Students from the Higher School of Linguistics and Pedagogy performed two Chinese songs: “Gen Wo Yi Qi Zuo” and “Gongxi Ni”. Students from the Higher School of International Relations sang the composition “Flawless Heaven and Earth” in Chinese.

    IMMIT postgraduate students Nguyen Van Tu Anh and Tran Thanh Cong performed the Vietnamese song “Hoa co mua suan”, which translates as “Spring flowers and grasses”, with a guitar.

    A master class on making magical aromatic sachets in national herbal bags was held by Li Peiyun from the Graduate School of Linguistics and Education. The art of Chinese calligraphy was taught by Yuan Fengxia from the Graduate School of Linguistics and Education. The Chinese tea ceremony was demonstrated by Zhang Yuwen and Mao Yiling from the Graduate School of Linguistics and Education. The secrets of Chinese knotting and making paper lanterns were shared by Xie Zhaoying from the Graduate School of Linguistics and Education.

    Celebrating the Eastern New Year is a good tradition of the Polytechnic University. Such events allow us to better understand the culture of other countries. We still don’t know each other very well, so many thanks to all the organizers for the opportunity to communicate with the guys and immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of the East, – shared Pavel Nedelko.

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The secret behind Temu’s rock-bottom prices

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Henri Isaac, Maître de conférences en sciences de gestion, Université Paris Dauphine – PSL

    Temu has made a remarkable entry in the global e-commerce landscape, quickly becoming the fifth largest online marketplace in France. Critics claim Temu’s ultra-competitive pricing relies on unfair practices. Yet its success stems from the powerful—and proven—business model of its parent company, Pinduoduo, which started as an online marketplace for fresh fruit…

    In just two years, the Chinese e-commerce platform Temu has emerged as a key contender in the global marketplace. In France, it ranked as the fifth most-visited online commerce platform in October 2024. At the heart of this remarkable achievement are its ultra-low prices, which many observers argue are made possible only through questionable practices, such as poor product quality, dumping, aggressive marketing, and deceptive trade tactics.
    Despite widespread skepticism over its long-term viability, Temu continues to invest heavily in advertising and market penetration, challenging an e-commerce sector where no new player has made a significant breakthrough in the past decade. While other online retailers, like AliExpress and the fashion giant Shein, have disrupted Western markets with similar cutthroat pricing strategies, only Temu has done what few believed possible: outperforming Amazon, the long-standing gold standard for competitive pricing.

    From factory to global store

    Temu’s pricing policies are not revolutionary in China. The platform closely follows the business model of its parent company, Pinduoduo (or PDD Holdings). As Pinduoduo’s international arm, Temu represents China’s ambition to transition from being the world’s factory to becoming the world’s store. Its low prices are not a temporary launch tactic but a fundamental pillar of its long-term strategy.

    Established in Boston in September 2022, Temu is an offshoot of the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, founded in 2015 following the success of Pinhaohuo. Introduced by Colin Huang in April that year, Pinhaohuo used WeChat’s group-buying model to sell bulk orders of fresh fruit. Its rapid growth led to the creation of Pinduoduo, which disrupted China’s e-commerce market—long dominated by JD.com and Alibaba—before expanding globally through Temu. Today, Temu operates in 79 countries.

    Reverse auctions and consigned inventory: driving down prices

    At the heart of Temu’s pricing strategy is the Consumer-To-Manufacturer (C2M) model, introduced by Pinduoduo in March 2023. This approach utilizes reverse auctions, where Temu solicits bids from manufacturers, forcing suppliers to compete by offering the lowest possible prices. PDD Holdings sets final product prices and profit margins, and manufacturers deliver products directly to Pinduoduo’s warehouses in China, eliminating the need for Temu to purchase or hold stock. Instead, manufacturers bear storage costs and must take back any unsold items. Payments are typically made quarterly, further easing Temu’s financial burden. In essence, Pinduoduo operates a consigned inventory model.

    Reverse auctions enable Temu to secure the lowest possible prices from the outset, with Pinduoduo’s logistics expertise allowing for rapid order consolidation, creating economies of scale that particularly benefit smaller manufacturers who, without Pinduoduo, would struggle to achieve such demand levels. Additionally, by pooling shipping logistics, Pinduoduo further reduces total product costs compared to direct manufacturer sales.

    Creating a buzz on social media

    On the consumer side, Pinduoduo deploys its group-buying model to drive sales through social media trends. The name Pinduoduo roughly translates as “together, more savings, more fun,” reflecting its core strategy: the more buyers in a group purchase, the lower the price. This tactic has propelled Pinduoduo to become the world’s leading social commerce platform by user numbers, with 694 million users in China alone as of June 2024, according to XQuestMobile China.

    Beyond group purchasing, Pinduoduo has leveraged gamified (gamification) shopping features–widespread in Chinese business culture–to encourage impulse buying, a challenge for most online retailers.

    The company entered the market by strategically targeting overlooked consumer segments, focusing on lower-income shoppers in smaller cities and rural areas, rather than competing for wealthier urban customers dominated by JD.com and Alibaba. This approach led to rapid growth and profitability by 2021. By 2023, Pinduoduo, including Temu, reported $34.879 billion in revenue and a net income of $8.267 billion.

    A commission-free revenue model

    How does Pinduoduo generate revenue? By charging manufacturers for end-customer shipping logistics and marketing services such as product promotion, visibility, and platform placement. Logistics revenue accounts for 38% of the platform’s total earnings, while marketing services contribute 62%.

    Unlike Amazon and other online marketplaces, Pinduoduo does not take commissions on sales. Instead, it operates as a logistics and marketing service provider, facilitating distribution for manufacturers and managing logistics flows.

    This proven revenue framework is key to Pinduoduo’s highly competitive prices. Additionally, the company benefits from a favorable corporate tax rate in China–15% compared to the standard 25% for traditional businesses. By leveraging bulk purchasing, optimized marketing and logistics, and a commission-free structure, Pinduoduo can sustain its low-cost pricing strategy—much like its Chinese e-commerce rival, Shein.

    Favorable customs regulations

    Temu is duplicating the Pinduoduo model abroad. Within this framework, Temu benefits from the U.S. customs tariffs (Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930), that exempts goods valued under $800 from customs duties. The EU provides a similar exemption for items under €150 (Article 23 of Regulation 1186/2009). Most of Temu’s products fall below these thresholds, allowing them to be shipped duty-free.

    Within two years, Temu has onboarded over 200,000 retailers, shipped 4 million packages daily from 60 warehouses in China and attracted 467 million users worldwide by offering products 40% to 60% cheaper than Amazon. To rapidly grow its customer base and achieve self-sustaining critical mass in Europe and the U.S., Temu is investing heavily in product subsidies.

    Its online advertising strategy is equally aggressive, with substantial investments in social media ads on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, as well as search engine ranking. While exact figures for these campaigns remain undisclosed, annual reports from PDD Holdings, show its marketing spend–including Temu’s–increased by 34% to approximately €10.7 billion in 2023, with an estimated $4 to 5 billion allocated to Temu alone.

    Temu’s marketing strategy and its slogan, “Shop like a billionaire,” follow the playbook of major digital platforms, where sustained subsidies drive demand and fuel viral engagement. In such models, economies of scale are directly tied to consumer demand—a concept known as the demand-side economy of scope.

    High logistics costs

    Expanding the Pinduoduo model internationally comes with logistical challenges, particularly due to the higher shipping costs of air freight delivery from China, making the current international model vulnerable to potential losses.

    To address this, Temu began transitioning to a new operating model in March 2024, gradually shifting from its initial fully managed approach to a semi-managed one. Under this model, Temu-represented merchants ship products via ocean freight to U.S. warehouses for local distribution.

    Additionally, Temu has engaged the Chinese diaspora in the U.S. to operate “family warehouses” from their homes, including apartments and garages, providing storage, labeling, and shipping services at competitive rates. This strategy attracts smaller merchants who cannot afford large warehouse facilities. It also demonstrates how retailers are adapting to Temu’s evolving logistics model, with the platform primarily managing purchasing and pricing.

    However, Temu has introduced a traditional model, where sellers set their own prices much like eBay, AliExpress, and Amazon. Already rolled out across several European countries, including the UK, Germany, Spain, and France, the model could challenge Temu’s ability to sustain its ultra-low prices.

    If Temu transitions into a more conventional marketplace, how will its low-cost offerings stack up against Amazon? Temu has disrupted the online retail landscape, but can its aggressive pricing strategy stand the test of time?

    Henri Isaac est membre de Renaissance Numérique.

    – ref. The secret behind Temu’s rock-bottom prices – https://theconversation.com/the-secret-behind-temus-rock-bottom-prices-249231

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How to win an election? Focus on persuasion, not policy

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Robert Danisch, Professor, Department of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo

    Ontario residents will soon elect a new government, and Canadians should expect a federal election this spring.

    Elections matter. They are opportunities for democracies to enact the bedrock principle that leaders are accountable to the citizenry — and for citizens to examine how communication practices inhibit or enhance democratic life.

    For politicians, elections pose a specific, clear communication challenge: How does a politician persuade a voter?

    Persuade voters

    Success in an election requires persuasion. Too often, though, politicians misunderstand the process of persuasion. The most common mistake is to believe that explaining a specific policy proposal will influence voters.

    Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie began her campaign, for example, touting platform doors for Toronto subway stops. This is a sure sign Crombie will fail to persuade a plurality of voters.

    Why? Because Crombie is mistakenly thinking about communication as a process of transmitting information — transmit the right information or policy idea and the public will nod in agreement. That’s not how communication works.

    Science communicators call this the “deficit model” of communication (the public lacks information; once they get it, they change their behaviour).

    Motivate voters; control the narrative

    There’s little evidence that information sharing is persuasive, and popular policy positions routinely fail to persuade voters (a casual look at the last presidential election in the United States demonstrates this). Politicians, of course, want to talk about policy, but policy is how one governs — not how one persuades.

    Politicians need to motivate voters, not inform them. Ancient orators like Demosthenes and Cicero knew this, as did former U.S. president Barack Obama and even authoritarian leaders like Hugo Chavez.

    Explaining policy positions is not how to win an election.

    Crombie’s proposal for platform edge doors reveals a deeper communication problem. A policy like this implies a frame, or a map, through which people are invited to see the world.

    Crombie’s policy proposal suggests that the world is a dangerous place. If we accept that frame, then we are likely to feel fear for our safety and imagine the government as our protector — this is the likely effect of her policy talk.

    This is exactly the frame that conservative politicians often promote. In elections, the party that controls the frame wins.

    The frame implied by any policy matters more than the content of the policy in an election. Another way to understand the power of language is to think of a simple phrase like “tax relief.” For years, left-leaning political parties have advocated for middle class “tax relief.”

    But this frame assumes that taxes are a burdensome infringement (the word “relief” signifies some burden that we need relief from). That is the assumption of right-leaning political parties.

    The more politicians on the left continue to portray taxes this way, the more persuasive the parties on the right become.

    Whose values?

    The important lesson here is that politicians need to have the conversation they want, not the conversation their opponents want. Donald Trump’s most powerful communication skill is forcing the media and his opponents onto his conversational terrain.

    Trump’s oppenent, Kamala Harris, tried to talk values. But her messaging was often too confusing, too complex and too varied to be persuasive, especially compared to Trump’s repetitive drumbeat of value-based accusations.

    Consider the broader frame that government’s job is to help the economy. Some have argued “the economy” is a fiction, a rhetorical construction that suits right-leaning political parties. Whenever the left advocates for a policy that intends to help “the economy” (a higher minimum wage, for example), they recirculate and reaffirm a conservative frame.



    Read more:
    Why Donald Trump’s words work, and what to do about it

    At the core of these frames are often a set of values: freedom is good, government can’t be trusted, the economy matters most. Messaging that focuses on why is much more effective than messaging that focuses on what and how.

    When politicians talk about values more than they provide information, they are more likely to get attention and cause reactions. Values talk — about what’s good or bad, right or wrong — tends to target the more primal, limbic part of our brain, which can cause people to feel motivated to act.

    Crombie, therefore, needs to explicitly articulate her values, why she is running for office, and make sure to implicitly frame any policy suggestion through attention to those values. Right now, she is implying conservative values through liberal policies — that won’t work.

    Stories reinforce the frame

    Values tend to come wrapped in the stories we tell about ourselves and our moment. Marshall Ganz, Harvard sociologist and community organizer, trained Barack Obama’s campaign volunteers in a form of storytelling, based on values, that was intended to motivate people.

    Good stories have villains and heroes, along with challenges or choices. Most importantly, good stories create a feeling of identification — a “we” that navigates a set of challenges or choices.

    Stories that make people feel hope, confidence, solidarity, anger and urgency are particularly adept at motivation. And these stories are also able to reinforce the frame through which we view the world, causing a story to “feel true” for voters even if it contains factual inaccuracies.

    The story that resonates most powerfully creates a sense of identification and makes a specific frame seem true drives electoral outcomes.

    Vision of the future

    The very best stories have a clear vision of the future. Too often politicians fixate on, and lament, problems. All of that problem talk can inhibit motivation. A clear picture of an ideal future shows the citizenry how a story ends.

    These imagined futures can be inspiring in ways that drive action. Painting a compelling tomorrow is a central part of political persuasion.

    These aspects of persuasion have been true for centuries. Our moment, however, adds a complicating element — our social media systems.

    Scholars of rhetoric have long known that repetition is persuasive. Social media amplifies the power of persuasion. This might not improve democratic decision-making, but politicians must still recognize how slogans, memes and sound bites all become the resources for repetition and the grounds in which specific frames or stories begin to dominate conversations.

    Controlling what gets repeated and using figures that are repeatable are necessary contemporary considerations.

    To be clear, if you want to win an election: control the frame, talk about values more than policy, tell a compelling story, paint a bright future, and find ways to repeat, repeat, repeat.

    Robert Danisch 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.

    – ref. How to win an election? Focus on persuasion, not policy – https://theconversation.com/how-to-win-an-election-focus-on-persuasion-not-policy-248733

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI NGOs: Cuba: One month after releases were announced, hundreds remain in prison

    Source: Amnesty International –

    On 14 January, the Cuban authorities announced that “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025” and following talks with Pope Francis, they would release 553 people from prison. At the same time, the United States government announced that, among other measures, it would remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Although both countries denied any agreement, White House sources confirmed that a significant number of people would be released following the announcement, particularly those linked to the protests of 11 July 2021. To date, Cuban human rights organizations have registered the release of more than 171 persons who had been arbitrarily detained for political reasons. In this regard, Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, stated:

    “The release process has been marred by irregularities and a lack of state transparency. The Cuban authorities have not acknowledged the existence of individuals detained for political reasons, nor have they provided a list of the names of those to be included in the process. They have also been unwilling to guarantee the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo, Loreto Hernández, Roberto Pérez Fonseca and Saylí Navarro. These individuals and all those imprisoned simply for speaking out must be released,” added Ana Piquer.

    “The release process has been marred by irregularities and a lack of state transparency. The Cuban authorities (…) have also been unwilling to guarantee the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo, Loreto Hernández, Roberto Pérez Fonseca and Saylí Navarro. These individuals and all those imprisoned simply for speaking out must be released”

    -Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International

    The releases have been characterized by the exclusion of the victims and their families, and the absence of guarantees that they will not be detained again if they are perceived to be dissenting voices or opponents of the government. Those released and their families were given only a few hours’ notice of their release, usually at night. In many cases, the authorities informed them that they had been granted a prison benefit – in most cases conditional release – with no explanation or guarantees as to the conditions or their legal status.

    “Hundreds of families have been torn between anguish and hope, waiting for a phone call or other form of communication, without any criteria or element that would allow them to know if their relatives would be released. The continuing context of repression and failure to acknowledge the arbitrariness and injustice of the legal proceedings against these people place them in a situation of extreme violation of their rights,” said Ana Piquer.

    Hundreds of families have been torn between anguish and hope, waiting for a phone call or other form of communication, without any criteria or element that would allow them to know if their relatives would be released. The continuing context of repression and failure to acknowledge the arbitrariness and injustice of the legal proceedings against these people place them in a situation of extreme violation of their rights

    -Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International

    The Cuban authorities have not provided a list of those who may be released. They have insisted that such releases do not constitute a pardon, and that those released would receive the prison benefits established in Cuban law.

    The organization Justicia 11J has verified the release of 172 persons and reported that a further nine people who had already been released from prison were informed that the legal benefits originally granted to them had been changed. Most of those released were serving sentences for their participation in the 11 July protests, having been charged with “public disorder”, “contempt” and “assault”, offences typically used by the Cuban authorities to punish peaceful protest and the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and association.

    While prisoners of conscience José Daniel Ferrer, Félix Navarro, Luis Robles and Donaida Pérez Paseiro are now with their families, they have all denounced restrictions on the exercise of their human rights as part of the conditions of their release.

    Prisoner of conscience Pedro Albert, for example, who was released on parole in November 2024, was informed that his benefit was to be changed to conditional release and told that failure to accept the change would risk his return to prison. On 21 January 2025, Pedro Albert was arbitrarily detained for a few hours, interrogated and then fined for visiting the offices of the Damas de Blanco.

    Similarly, prisoner of conscience Donaida Pérez Paseiro reported that her husband, prisoner of conscience Loreto Hernández, was informed that his possible release would only be granted if she renounced her activism and refrained from speaking to the media, as she has denounced prison conditions and expressed her intention to continue defending human rights following her release.

    Opposition leader and prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García was released on 16 January, having spent over three years in prison. Since then, persons close to him have been threatened for visiting him and the mobile phones they lent him for his initial communications have had their internet access blocked. José Daniel Ferrer told Amnesty International that he had refused to sign the conditions of his release and that he had been removed from the prison premises without being allowed to collect his personal belongings.

    On 20 January 2025, Donald Trump’s administration repealed the measures taken by the government of then-President Biden, including the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Although the Cuban government has insisted that the release process was a sovereign and unilateral decision, organizations monitoring the process have reported that no new releases have taken place since 21 January.

    “The possible cancellation or pause in releases is alarming, as it would seem to indicate that political prisoners have once again been dehumanized and used as bargaining chips in a political game, with no regard for their lives, their physical integrity or their rights,” said Ana Piquer.

    The possible cancellation or pause in releases is alarming, as it would seem to indicate that political prisoners have once again been dehumanized and used as bargaining chips in a political game, with no regard for their lives, their physical integrity or their rights

    -Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International

    Given this situation, Amnesty International urges the Cuban authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those unjustly imprisoned in Cuba for exercising their human rights. “While these releases were taking place, political activists and human rights defenders have been arbitrarily detained and have suffered harassment and intimidation because of their work. The Cuban government must repeal repressive laws and cease these systematic practices of repression against dissidents,” concluded Ana Piquer.

    MIL OSI NGO –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Cookies, Cream, and Crumbling Cores

    Source: NASA

    Perseverance’s drives over the last few weeks have doubled back several times. Why such an unconventional route? Team scientists have been delighted to find new kinds of rocks that could be the oldest ever found on Mars and are eager to collect samples.
    Perseverance embarked on the Crater Rim Campaign in search of ancient uplifted rock, to better understand the geologic processes occurring early in Mars’ history, and search for ancient habitable environments. Recent discoveries have not disappointed: so far in this portion of the rim, every outcrop that the rover has taken a close look at using the science instruments on its robotic arm has ended up being something new. As explained in the previous update, after acquiring the “Silver Mountain” core, which is rich in the mineral pyroxene, Perseverance approached a nearby rock that had signatures of the mineral serpentine, fittingly nicknamed “Serpentine Lake.” Following this, the rover used its abrasion tool to clean the rock of dust and coatings for detailed scientific interrogation, and the team was wowed by the intriguing rock texture, which resembles “cookies & cream” dessert (see photo above), and the very high abundance of minerals like serpentine, which form in the presence of water.
    After finishing that investigation, the operations team decided to have Perseverance head back along its path once more to the site of its first abrasion in this part of the rim, named “Cat Arm Reservoir,” to acquire a sample. Results from that earlier analysis showed a rock texture with coarse pyroxene and feldspar crystals consistent with an igneous origin. However, the sample tube turned up empty. What happened? Perseverance has encountered this problem before: flashback to our first ever coring attempt. It’s not a common occurrence, but sometimes the rocks Perseverance tries to sample are so weak that upon coring they essentially disintegrate into a powder instead of remaining in the tube. The rover drove to a nearby spot and tried again, but when a second attempt to core this rock did not retain any sample, the team decided to move on.
    This week, Perseverance will return once again to the site of the Serpentine Lake abrasion patch to acquire a core of this fascinating rock, which records intense alteration by water. The team hopes that it will prove strong enough to acquire a core, and if successful, Perseverance may perform more scans on the abrasion patch. Afterward, the plan is to drive downhill to an area called “Broom Point,” home to a spectacular sequence of layered rock, where I’m sure more surprises and exciting scientific discoveries await.
    Written by Athanasios Klidaras, Ph.D. student at Purdue University

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: University awarded funding to create a new ‘Aberdeen Tapestry’ The University of Aberdeen has been awarded funding for a new piece of contemporary art that will enrich UK public collections and inspire conversations about cultural identity, history, and belonging.

    Source: University of Aberdeen

    Sekai Machache with Lively Blue Tapestry by Dovecot Studios. Image (c) Dovecot Studios. Photo by Phil WilkinsonThe University of Aberdeen has been awarded funding for a new piece of contemporary art that will enrich UK public collections and inspire conversations about cultural identity, history, and belonging.
    It is one of two projects to be supported by a new partnership between Art Fund and Jerwood Foundation – Jerwood Art Fund Commissions – and will see one of the UK’s most exciting contemporary artists, Sekai Machache,create anew tapestry for the Sir Duncan Rice Library.
    The Zimbabwean-Scottish visual artist will work with Dovecot Studios,the world-renowned tapestry studio in Edinburgh, to create a new piece drawing inspiration from the University’s extensive collections which span Scottish history, archaeology, science and global cultures.
    The University has been selected for the commission, which has the working title ‘The Aberdeen Tapestry, alongside Tate Liverpool in partnership with the International Slavery Museum which will work with by poet, filmmaker, and visual artist Julianknxx.
    Jerwood Art Fund Commissions programme aims to further artists at pivotal stages in their careers, while enriching public collections through new contemporary art, ensuring they remain dynamic and representative of contemporary society.
    The commissions build on Jerwood Foundation and Art Fund’s long-standing, shared commitment to fund new art and highlight the transformative power of collections in keeping museums vibrant spaces of engagement, learning, and artistic ambition.
    Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund, said:“Commissioning contemporary artists to create new work brings a fresh dynamic and perspective to museum collections. In today’s challenging economic landscape, dedicated support for commissions is more important than ever. Art Fund is delighted to be working in partnership with Jerwood Foundation to support these two ambitious inaugural commissions, which will inspire audiences in Aberdeen and Liverpool with powerful and thought-provoking storytelling.”
    Sekai Machache is a visual artist, film-maker and curator based in Glasgow. Known for her interest in spirituality and imagination, her practice often engages with themes of history, identity, and the visibility of Black communities in Scotland.
    Dovecot Studios and Sekai Machache began collaborating in 2022 with a tapestry for the exhibition Scottish Women Artists: 250 Years of Challenging Perception. The new commission is an opportunity to develop their collaborative practice and take inspiration from the University of Aberdeen Collections, recognised as a Nationally Significant Collection by the Scottish Government.
    Machache and Dovecot will initially work with the University teams to investigate and to engage with the Collections, which span Scottish history and archaeology, the natural, medical and physical sciences, and World Culture. This research will inform both the artist’s and the Dovecot weavers’ approach to the commission and provide opportunities for wider public engagement.
    Once Machache’s design for the tapestry is agreed, visitors to Dovecot in Edinburgh will be able to observe the weaving process, as the tapestry is created live in the Studios’ public viewing space. The tapestry will be unveiled at the University of Aberdeen’s Sir Duncan Rice Library by early 2026.
    Lisa Collinson, University of Aberdeen Collections, said:“This is an exciting opportunity for the University to work with a contemporary artist with a growing reputation and to collaborate with the artists at the world-renowned Dovecot Studios. We look forward to Sekai exploring the University’s collections as well as thinking about the challenging legacies they embody.
    “The project also offers the chance for the University community to engage with the process of creating a new work of contemporary art inspired by the collections and we look forward to displaying the finished piece – and incorporating it into the collections so it can inspire generations to come.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Director-General of Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises visits Auckland and Sydney to promote Hong Kong’s advantages (with photos)

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    Director-General of Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises visits Auckland and Sydney to promote Hong Kong’s advantages (with photos)
    Director-General of Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises visits Auckland and Sydney to promote Hong Kong’s advantages (with photos)
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         The Director-General of the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES), Mr Peter Yan, today (February 18) began his visit to Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia, to promote Hong Kong’s latest developments and new opportunities in the innovation and technology (I&T) industry. These include sectors of artificial intelligence and data science, life and health technology, advanced manufacturing and new energy technology, and financial technology, with the aim of attracting potential strategic enterprises to establish their presence in Hong Kong.           Upon arrival in Auckland today, Mr Yan met with various senior representatives of local I&T enterprises to gain insights into the latest local technological developments and trends, and exchange views on potential collaboration opportunities between Hong Kong and Auckland. Mr Yan also shared OASES’s unique role and support functions with the business leaders, and discussed with them their intentions and plans for setting up or expanding in Hong Kong.           During the meetings, Mr Yan said, “Hong Kong is the world’s freest economy, the third-largest international financial centre, and the seventh-most digitally competitive city globally. Additionally, Hong Kong is the only Asian city with five universities in the world’s top 100, and features world-class research institutions, top-notch professional services and a highly skilled talent pool. On top of these unique advantages, Hong Kong also embraces the role of connecting both Mainland China and overseas countries, serving as a ‘super connector’ and ‘super value-adder’, making it the most convenient and efficient gateway for New Zealand and Australian enterprises to enter Mainland China.”           Tomorrow (February 19) and February 20, Mr Yan and an OASES representative will meet with more I&T enterprises in Auckland and Sydney. They will also visit industry chambers, I&T investment and financial institutions, and professional services organisations in both places to discuss opportunities for financial and investment exchanges as well as I&T collaborations between Hong Kong and the two cities to foster interaction between talent and industries within the I&T sector.           Through these meetings, Mr Yan aims to reinforce OASES’s connections with Auckland and Sydney, and encourage more strategic enterprises to establish a presence in Hong Kong.           Mr Yan will depart for Hong Kong in the afternoon on February 20 (Sydney time).

     
    Ends/Tuesday, February 18, 2025Issued at HKT 19:00

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    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: India-Qatar Joint Business Forum held to Strengthen Bilateral Economic Ties

    Source: Government of India (2)

    India-Qatar Joint Business Forum held to Strengthen Bilateral Economic Ties

    The Forum epitomised the strength of the India-Qatar relationship built on shared interests and mutual respect

    Economic collaboration for a shared future, promoting trade, energy security, technology, and sustainability formed the cornerstone of discussions

    Posted On: 18 FEB 2025 3:20PM by PIB Delhi

    On the sidelines of the visit of H.H. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Amir of Qatar to India from 17-18 February, Confederation of Indian Industry, in partnership with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) organised the India-Qatar Joint Business Forum on 18th February 2025 in New Delhi. The Joint Business Forum was graced by Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and H.E. Sheikh Faisal bin Thani bin Faisal Al Thani, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, State of Qatar, who delivered keynote address at the Business Forum.

    Speaking in the Inaugural session of the Joint Business Forum, Union Minister, Shri Piyush Goyal reaffirmed India’s ambition to become a USD 30-35 trillion economy by 2047, in alignment with the Viksit Bharat vision. He emphasized that while India and Qatar share a long history of successful energy trade, the future of this partnership extends beyond hydrocarbons to cutting-edge sectors like AI, quantum computing, IoT, and semiconductors etc.

    He emphasized that as geopolitical dynamics shift and cybersecurity threats intensify, alongside the challenges of climate change, self-reliance i.e. Atmanirbharta has become a key priority. With each country possessing distinct competitive advantages, he stressed that India and Qatar are in a position to complement each other’s strengths and can be partners in driving innovation and shape the industries of tomorrow. As both nations embark on a transformational transition, this partnership will rest on the pillars of entrepreneurship, technology, and sustainability.

    He further highlighted India’s key reforms in reducing the cost of doing business and enhancing Ease of Doing Business (EoDB), positioning it as an oasis of credibility and consistency for global investors. Inviting Qatar to explore opportunities in India’s dynamic and resilient economy, he emphasized that India’s Vision 2047 and Qatar’s National Vision 2030 will shape a new era of strategic economic cooperation. He also suggested creating a Joint Working Group on sectors of mutual interest and further invited Qatari businesses to explore opportunities in GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tech-City).

    Speaking during the inaugural session, H.E. Sheikh Faisal bin Thani bin Faisal Al Thani, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, State of Qatar echoed the sentiments and highlighted that the relationship between Qatar and India is not just a transaction, it is a tradition built on mutual respect, shared interests and a commitment to bolster economic cooperation. India-Qatar trade partnership has flourished with India becoming Qatar’s third largest trading partner. He further emphasized that Qatar remains a diverse, dynamic, and investor-friendly destination, warmly inviting Indian investors to explore the vast opportunities within Qatar’s economy and infrastructure.

    Shri Jitin Prasada, Union Minister of State of Commerce and Industry, Government of India highlighted India’s dynamic economic growth and innovation-driven ecosystem. He emphasized that India has attracted USD 709 billion in FDI inflows over the last decade, supported by 40,000 compliance reforms. He also emphasised upon India’s leadership in innovation, with over 1,55,000 startups across various industries, ranging from space technology to agriculture.

    He further stated that India Stack is revolutionizing digital access, financial inclusion, and internet democratization. The Qatar National Bank (QNB) – National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) partnership will further enhance digital payments through QR Code-based UPI transactions. The Minister also highlighted the National Manufacturing Mission, which focuses on increasing industrial capability and delivering high-quality products. Additionally, he invited the Qatari delegation to participate in the upcoming Startup Mahakumbh in India, fostering deeper collaboration in the tech and innovation ecosystem.

    H.E. Dr. Ahmad Al-Sayed, Minister of State for Foreign Trade Affairs, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, State of Qatar, highlighted that India and Qatar are well-positioned to navigate the evolving global trade landscape. He emphasized the importance of enhancing the collaboration between two countries beyond traditional energy sector to explore into emerging industries such as electric vehicles (EVs), manufacturing and other non-oil & gas sectors.

    To support global investors, Qatar has established the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC)—a key initiative to attract businesses and facilitate private equity investments. He reiterated that Qatar stands as one of India’s strongest global partners, offering unparalleled access to international markets. Additionally, Qatar Science & Technology Park will serve as a foundation for research and development, while Media City in Qatar aims to attract top media companies, and Qatar Free Zone is designed to drive investment across key sectors.

    With India’s prowess in digitalisation, and Qatar’s ambitious plan for digital transformation, India is in a very unique position to provide technology and scale for digital transformation to Qatar. The discussions highlighted India’s position as a gateway to South Asia and Qatar’s role as a hub for the Middle East. There is high potential for collaboration between India and Qatar in high quality solar grid polysilicon manufacturing, among others, noted panelists.

    The India-Qatar Joint Business Forum convened business leaders, policymakers, and industry experts to explore new avenues of collaboration in relevant sectors. With bilateral trade surpassing USD 15 billion in FY 2023-24, investment flows have increased—ranking among the top three GCC investors in India—but there remains significant untapped potential. To solidify this growing partnership, two key Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed during the event:

    • Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Qatar Business Association
    • Invest India and Invest Qatar

    These agreements aim to facilitate business cooperation, enhance investment flows, and foster long-term collaboration in strategic sectors of mutual interest.

    Shri Sanjiv, Joint Secretary, DPIIT, emphasized that the India-Qatar business delegation will serve as a catalyst for stronger partnerships. He welcomed Qatar’s participation in Startup India Mahakumbh 2025, scheduled for April 3-5, 2025, which will serve as a landmark initiative fostering deeper startup collaborations and attracting Qatari investments into India’s technology and innovation ecosystem.

    Mr. Sanjiv Puri, President, CII, highlighted key areas for economic cooperation, including energy security, agriculture, the startup ecosystem, and skill development. He further emphasized Qatar’s crucial role in India’s energy landscape and stated that CII is committed to facilitating partnerships between Indian and Qatari entities as both nations plan their respective renewable energy goals.

    The event was also addressed by H.E. Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim Al Thani, Chairman of Board of Directors, Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry and H.E. Sheikh Hamad Bin Faisal Al Thani, Board Member of the Qatari Businessmen Association. The Business forum showcased three panel discussions on investments, logistics and advanced manufacturing and futuristic areas such as AI, innovation, sustainability, etc.

    The India-Qatar Business Forum reaffirmed the unwavering commitment of both nations to advancing trade, investment, and technology collaboration. As India and Qatar strengthen their economic ties, they are set to drive prosperity, innovation, and sustainable growth, unlocking a new chapter in their historic partnership.

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    Abhishek Dayal/Abhijith Narayanan

    (Release ID: 2104334) Visitor Counter : 20

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Thermal structure of solar coronal holes and their magnetic fields unveiled

    Source: Government of India

    Posted On: 18 FEB 2025 4:27PM by PIB Delhi

    A new study has accurately estimated the physical parameters of thermal and magnetic field structures of solar coronal holes which have significant influence on space weather that affects satellites, as well as the Indian summer monsoon rainfall.

    Coronal holes, which are dark regions in X-ray and extreme ultraviolet images of the Sun, have open magnetic field lines and are hence important for understanding the interplanetary medium and space weather. The latitude dependence of temperature and the magnetic field strengths of these coronal holes have now been characterised accurately by astronomers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

    Discovered in the 1970s by X-ray satellites, “coronal holes” in the sun’s atmosphere are dark in the X-ray and EUV wavelengths, and are low-density regions that have open magnetic field structures in the interplanetary space. These solar activity phenomena are intense sources of fast (450-800 km/sec) solar wind—streams of charged particles that escape from the sun, more easily into space.

    At present, this high-speed solar wind can interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, causing disturbances like geomagnetic storms. Effects of sunspots on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate are well recorded.

    Interestingly, a recent physics-based study came to the conclusion that, in addition to influence of sunspots, parameterized study of radiative effects of coronal holes explains satisfactorily the variability of Indian Monsoon rainfall. Moreover, occurrences of coronal holes are associated with disturbances in the Earth’s ionosphere, the layer of the atmosphere that reflects and modifies the radio waves, leading to further communication issues.

    Considering these imminent dangers of space weather effects and long-term influence of the solar coronal holes on the Indian Monsoon rainfall it is important to study their thermal, magnetic field structures and their origin. Thermal means, estimation of temperature, radiative flux and energy of the coronal holes that emanate on the sun and at Lagrangian point at space, near the Earth. If one knows the temperature structure of coronal holes, from their latitudinal variation on the sun, one can estimate their depths of origin during their initial evolutionary stage in the deep solar interior.

    On the other hand, estimation of radiative flux and energy of the coronal holes will be useful for estimation of input of this thermal energy into the interplanetary space.  Moreover, information of latitudinal variation of temperature structure of coronal holes indirectly leads to estimation of magnetic field structure of coronal holes that ultimately give the clue for understanding the formation of coronal holes.

    Keeping these important facts in mind, astronomers of Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute of Department of Science and Technology, used eight years of full-disk calibrated images observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) space probe to study these coronal holes. These were unambiguously detected and physical parameters of thermal and magnetic field structures of coronal holes were accurately estimated.

    “The study published in published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics also offers a comprehensive understanding of how these near-equatorial coronal holes evolve as they traverse the solar disk. In addition to estimation of different physical parameters of coronal holes, two important findings emerged from this study,” said Dr Manjunath Hegde of IIA, and lead author of the study.

    “We found that there is no latitudinal variation of temperature structure of coronal holes and also that there is a latitudinal variation of strength of magnetic field structure of coronal holes that increases from the solar equator to the pole. The first result suggests that coronal holes are likely to originate from the deep interior, whereas the second result suggests that coronal holes might have formed from the superposition of Alfven wave perturbations”, said Dr K.M. Hiremath from the same institute.

    Figure 1a & 1b

    (a): full-disk SOHO/EIT 195 Å image of 04-01-2001, 00:00:11 UT with detected CHs.   (b): contour map of the southern CH with a given threshold.

    Figure 2

    Corona hole temperature variation (shown as blue triangles) across latitudes. The continuous red line represents a least-squares fit and dashed red lines depict one standard deviation error bands computed from all data points. While χ2 serves as a measure of the goodness of fit.

    ***

    NKR/PSM

    (Release ID: 2104369) Visitor Counter : 60

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Speech by SJ at opening ceremony of National Training Course for Talents Handling Foreign-related Arbitration (Hong Kong) (English only)

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

    Speech by SJ at opening ceremony of National Training Course for Talents Handling Foreign-related Arbitration (Hong Kong) (English only)
    Speech by SJ at opening ceremony of National Training Course for Talents Handling Foreign-related Arbitration (Hong Kong) (English only)
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         Following is the speech by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Paul Lam, SC, at the opening ceremony of the National Training Course for Talents Handling Foreign-related Arbitration (Hong Kong) today (February 18):      Director Yang (Director of Bureau of Public Legal Services Administration of Ministry of Justice, Mr Yang Xiangbin), Secretary Jiang (Council Chair of the China University of Political Science and Law, Mr Jiang Zeting), Director Liu (Director of China Legal Service (H.K.) Limited, Ms Liu Changchun), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,           Good afternoon, and a warm welcome to you all to the National Training Course for Talents Handling Foreign-related Arbitration (Hong Kong). It is my pleasure to address such an accomplished gathering of professionals in foreign-related arbitration.       The Course           This Course is the first specialised training programme on arbitration under the Hong Kong International Legal Talents Training Academy. I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Ministry of Justice and the China University of Political Science and Law and also the China Legal Service (H.K.) Limited for their unwavering support in making this Course a reality. This Course in fact marks an important milestone to implement the record of meeting between the Ministry of Justice and our Department signed in July 2023 when Ms He Rong visited Hong Kong, to further deepen exchanges and co-operation on talent nurturing and legal and dispute resolution services between the Mainland and Hong Kong.           To contribute to the national strategy of developing foreign-related rule of law, it is our collective goal to cultivate a team of foreign-related arbitration professionals with a global vision, good understanding of international rules, and capability in providing specialised services in the cross-border legal service market.           This Course will provide a comprehensive overview of arbitration in Hong Kong, including comparative analyses with the Mainland and international frameworks. In addition to the informative lectures, there will be exchange sessions with arbitration institutions, professional legal bodies, and visits to barristers’ chambers, international law firms and also court visits, during which participants will have the chance to interact directly with experienced legal professionals, and gain first-hand experience of the legal and arbitration practice in Hong Kong. I hope that by the end of this Course, you will have developed a deeper understanding of international arbitration and its intricacies, and the various topics that we will explore together.           We are truly privileged to have a distinguished line-up of speakers who are prominent practitioners in the field of arbitration. I am confident that their expertise, insights, and practical experiences can be effectively applied and incorporated into practices. As talent handling foreign-related arbitration with different backgrounds, each of you brings a unique perspective to this Course. The diversity of experiences in this room is a tremendous asset that enriches our discussions and learning experience. In this regard, I invite you to actively engage in discussions, raise questions that come to mind, and share your thoughts. This Course offers more than just an opportunity to learn from our esteemed speakers; it is also about fostering an interactive learning atmosphere where we can all benefit from each other’s experiences and perspectives.           Furthermore, the lectures in this Course are primarily conducted in English. English is one of the official languages in Hong Kong, and is frequently the language of choice due to its global prevalence in business and legal matters. Many arbitration proceedings are conducted in English, particularly those involving international parties. As a bridge between East and West, Hong Kong’s bilingual proficiency facilitates cross-border transactions and dispute resolution, making it an attractive venue for international arbitration. By engaging with the lectures and course materials in English, you will have the opportunity to practise English in legal and business contexts, unlocking unparalleled opportunities for advancement for yourselves in the field of global arbitration.      Arbitration in Hong Kong           In fact, a significant number of our legal and dispute resolution professionals are bilingual, or even multilingual, and many are qualified in multiple jurisdictions. This ensures that that parties involved in arbitration can readily find suitable representation or arbitrators for their proceedings.           Hong Kong is a leading global hub for international arbitration, and one of the most preferred seats of international arbitrations worldwide. With the strong support from the Central People’s Government, the National 14th Five-Year Plan, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) all explicitly endorse Hong Kong’s development into a centre for international legal and dispute resolution services in the Asia-Pacific region.           While Hong Kong legal practitioners are trained in the common law, many have developed significant expertise and experience in handling issues involving Mainland elements. In particular, since 2020, the Central Authority has launched a pilot scheme permitting eligible Hong Kong and Macao legal practitioners to practise civil and commercial matters in nine Mainland cities in the GBA after passing the GBA Legal Professional Examination, and completed some practical training.           While we are confident in the depth and breadth of Hong Kong’s existing legal talent pool, participation of overseas professionals in international arbitrations conducted in Hong Kong is essential. The nationalities or qualifications of arbitrators or legal representatives are not restricted in any way under our Arbitration Ordinance. In other words, clients are completely free to choose their preferred arbitrators or legal representatives. We have put in place a scheme to further facilitate the participation of non-Hong Kong residents in arbitral proceedings on a short-term basis by offering immigration convenience, enabling all visitors to come and participate in arbitral proceedings in Hong Kong without any employment visa as arbitrators, counsel, and factual or expert witnesses.           Furthermore, two measures are introduced to the CEPA Agreement on Trade in Services to facilitate Hong Kong investors. First of all, Hong Kong-invested enterprises registered in the pilot cities of the GBA may adopt Hong Kong law or Macao law as the applicable law in their contracts. Secondly, Hong Kong-invested enterprises registered in the nine Mainland cities in the GBA may choose Hong Kong or Macao as the seat of arbitration. The expansion of these measures will not only facilitate the internationalisation of the GBA’s business environment and benefit the collaborative development of its legal and dispute resolution sectors, but also, more importantly, encourage Mainland enterprises to leverage Hong Kong as a springboard for overseas expansion and empower foreign investors to utilise Hong Kong as a gateway to the Mainland.           In recent years, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has actively pursued a range of initiatives to enhance its arbitration-related legal framework, for example the funding options for arbitration, attract leading international arbitration institutions to establish regional offices in Hong Kong, and host major international legal and dispute resolution events, with an aim of promoting Hong Kong as a premier centre for international legal and arbitration services.           Looking ahead, we anticipate sustained growth in demand for HK’s legal and dispute resolution services, especially in the GBA and in the Belt and Road region, and hence there is a growing need for nurturing talent for a sustainable supply of legal and dispute resolution professionals.       The Hong Kong International Legal Talents Training Academy           In this connection, the Chief Executive announced in his 2023 and 2024 Policy Address to establish the Hong Kong International Legal Talents Training Academy. Through the Academy, Hong Kong can build on the unique advantages and position in connecting our country to the rest of the world at the interface of the rule of law, contributing to the country’s efforts in training foreign-related legal talent and actively participating in the next decade of the Belt and Road Initiative as a capacity building hub.           The Academy will make good use of Hong Kong’s bilingual common law system and international status, and organise practical training courses, seminars, international exchange programmes to promote exchanges among talent in the regions along the Belt and Road. Training programmes will cover topics including international law, common law, civil law and national legal systems of other Belt and Road countries.           As this Course is the Academy’s first training programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, we value your insights and encourage you to share your honest feedback on what worked well and what could be improved in this Course. Your input will directly shape the future of our training programs, ensuring they meet the evolving needs of the arbitration community.      Conclusion           Ladies and gentlemen, this Course is not just about acquiring knowledge about international arbitration; it is also about connecting with fellow professionals in Hong Kong and finding out why Hong Kong is a prime venue for dispute resolution in the world. I also encourage you to discover all that Hong Kong has to offer, from its bustling streets to its stunning views, before and after all the lectures and visits on each day.           In closing, I wish to reiterate my appreciation to the Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China, the China University of Political Science and Law, the China Legal Service (H.K.) Limited, and to each and everyone of you for taking part in this Course. I look forward to the inspiring and productive training in the coming week. Thank you.

     
    Ends/Tuesday, February 18, 2025Issued at HKT 13:39

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