TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) has issued a request for proposals to develop a comprehensive, evidenced-based guide for bus operator workforce management from pre-employment through retirement. The guide should present both best practices and innovative practices that enhance and sustain public transit and support bus operators who provide fixed-route, flexible-route, and on-demand services. Proposals are due August 11, 2020 at 5:00 PM Eastern.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 39: Recommended Guidelines for the Collection and Use of Geospatially Referenced Data for Airfield Pavement Management offers recommended guidelines for the collection and use of geospatially referenced data for airfield pavement management. The guidelines provide a data schema, data collection methods, data quality requirements, and other relevant information required for developing specifications and standards for integrating geospatial data into...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 80: Guidebook for Incorporating Sustainability into Traditional Airport Projects describes sustainability and its potential benefits, and identifies different applications of sustainable initiatives in traditional airport construction and everyday maintenance projects. The printed version of the report includes a CD-ROM that includes an airport sustainability assessment tool (ASAT) that complements the guidebook and may be used to assist in identif...

EPA announced the availability of the Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment (hereafter "Guidelines"). The Guidelines present the current policies and practices of exposure assessors across the Agency and supersede the 1992 Guidelines for Exposure Assessment Edition.

Fast radio bursts last for such a short time that it is difficult to track down the source. Now astronomers have found one in our own back yard.

The post A Fast Radio Burst Has Been Detected From Inside The Milky Way appeared first on Universe Today.

Poor, dim-witted humanity. We used to think we were the center of everything. That wasn’t that long ago, and even though we’ve made tremendous advancements in our understanding of our situation here in space, we still have huge blind spots. For one, we’re only now waking up to the reality of interstellar objects passing through …

Continue reading "A Cool Idea to Catch Up With an Interstellar Visitor"

The post A Cool Idea to Catch Up With an Interstellar Visitor appeared first on Universe Today.

The September 2015 issue of TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Impacts on Practice explores how Philadelphia International Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and Changi Airport in Singapore applied guidance from ACRP Report 52 : Wayfinding and Signing Guidelines for Airport Terminals and Landside to help passengers find their way in and around an airport.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 163: Guidebook for Preparing and Using Airport Design Day Flight Schedules explores the preparation and use of airport design day flight schedules (DDFS) for operations, planning, and development. The guidebook is geared towards airport leaders to help provide an understanding of DDFS and their uses, and provides detailed information for airport staff and consultants on how to prepare one.

Incompatible land uses can threaten the safe utility of airports and expose people living and working nearby to potentially unacceptable levels of noise or safety risk. At the state level, all 50 states have enacted some form of airport zoning legislation since the 1950s. The majority of states (90 percent) have enacted laws mandating or enabling local governments to adopt, administer, and enforce airport zoning regulations. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 206: Guidebo...

The show's final season kicks off Wednesday, May 20.

The top real estate brokers at The Oppenheim Group are back and this season, the ladies deal with even more mind-blowing mansions, shocking new romances, and explosive truths that will change their lives, relationships and careers forever.

Tiny meteorites that fell to Earth 2.7 billion years ago suggest that the atmosphere at that time was high in carbon dioxide, which agrees with current understanding of how our planet's atmospheric gases changed over time.

Given all we know about facial recognition tech, it is literally jaw-dropping that anyone could make this claim… especially without being vetted independently.

A group of Harrisburg University professors and a PhD student have developed an automated computer facial recognition software capable of predicting whether someone is likely to be a criminal.

The software is able to predict if someone is a criminal with 80% accuracy and with no racial bias. The prediction is calculated solely based on a picture of their face.

There's a whole lot of "what even the fuck" in CBS 21's reprint of a press release, but let's start with the claim about "no racial bias." That's a lot to swallow when the underlying research hasn't been released yet. Let's see what the National Institute of Standards and Technology has to say on the subject. This is the result of the NIST's examination of 189 facial recognition AI programs -- all far more established than whatever it is Harrisburg researchers have cooked up.

Asian and African American people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men, depending on the particular algorithm and type of search. Native Americans had the highest false-positive rate of all ethnicities, according to the study, which found that systems varied widely in their accuracy.

The faces of African American women were falsely identified more often in the kinds of searches used by police investigators where an image is compared to thousands or millions of others in hopes of identifying a suspect.

Why is this acceptable? The report inadvertently supplies the answer:

Middle-aged white men generally benefited from the highest accuracy rates.

Yep. And guess who's making laws or running police departments or marketing AI to cops or telling people on Twitter not to break the law or etc. etc. etc.

To craft a terrible pun, the researchers' claim of "no racial bias" is absurd on its face. Per se stupid af to use legal terminology.

Moving on from that, there's the 80% accuracy, which is apparently good enough since it will only threaten the life and liberty of 20% of the people it's inflicted on. I guess if it's the FBI's gold standard, it's good enough for everyone.

Maybe this is just bad reporting. Maybe something got copy-pasted wrong from the spammed press release. Let's go to the source… one that somehow still doesn't include a link to any underlying research documents.

What does any of this mean? Are we ready to embrace a bit of pre-crime eugenics? Or is this just the most hamfisted phrasing Harrisburg researchers could come up with?

A group of Harrisburg University professors and a Ph.D. student have developed automated computer facial recognition software capable of predicting whether someone is likely going to be a criminal.

The most charitable interpretation of this statement is that the wrong-20%-of-the-time AI is going to be applied to the super-sketchy "predictive policing" field. Predictive policing -- a theory that says it's ok to treat people like criminals if they live and work in an area where criminals live -- is its own biased mess, relying on garbage data generated by biased policing to turn racist policing into an AI-blessed "work smarter not harder" LEO equivalent.

The question about "likely" is answered in the next paragraph, somewhat assuring readers the AI won't be applied to ultrasound images.

With 80 percent accuracy and with no racial bias, the software can predict if someone is a criminal based solely on a picture of their face. The software is intended to help law enforcement prevent crime.

There's a big difference between "going to be" and "is," and researchers using actual science should know better than to use both phrases to describe their AI efforts. One means scanning someone's face to determine whether they might eventually engage in criminal acts. The other means matching faces to images of known criminals. They are far from interchangeable terms.

If you think the above quotes are, at best, disjointed, brace yourself for this jargon-fest which clarifies nothing and suggests the AI itself wrote the pullquote:

“We already know machine learning techniques can outperform humans on a variety of tasks related to facial recognition and emotion detection,” Sadeghian said. “This research indicates just how powerful these tools are by showing they can extract minute features in an image that are highly predictive of criminality.”

"Minute features in an image that are highly predictive of criminality." And what, pray tell, are those "minute features?" Skin tone? "I AM A CRIMINAL IN THE MAKING" forehead tattoos? Bullshit on top of bullshit? Come on. This is word salad, but a salad pretending to be a law enforcement tool with actual utility. Nothing about this suggests Harrisburg has come up with anything better than the shitty "tools" already being inflicted on us by law enforcement's early adopters.

I wish we could dig deeper into this but we'll all have to wait until this excitable group of clueless researchers decide to publish their findings. According to this site, the research is being sealed inside a "research book," which means it will take a lot of money to actually prove this isn't any better than anything that's been offered before. This could be the next Clearview, but we won't know if it is until the research is published. If we're lucky, it will be before Harrisburg patents this awful product and starts selling it to all and sundry. Don't hold your breath.

Senator Richard Burr's potential insider trading issues, for which he's being investigated, may have gotten quite a bit worse this week. A new report notes that on the same day Burr sold off a "significant percentage" of his stock holdings (while also telling the public not to worry about COVID-19), it turns out his brother-in-law just coincidentally decided to dump a bunch of stock too. Amazing!

Sen. Richard Burr was not the only member of his family to sell off a significant portion of his stock holdings in February, ahead of the market crash spurred by coronavirus fears. On the same day Burr sold, his brother-in-law also dumped tens of thousands of dollars worth of shares. The market fell by more than 30% in the subsequent month.

Burr’s brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, who has a post on the National Mediation Board, sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares in six companies — including several that have been hit particularly hard in the market swoon and economic downturn.

Could this actually be a coincidence? Sure. Maybe. But the timing (the very same day...) does seem notable. As the ProPublica report notes, Fauth "is not a frequent stock trader." Burr insists that his sales were based on public information, though it's difficult to see how he could simply ignore the classified briefings he got concerning the rising pandemic issues, and base decisions entirely on public information. Indeed, this is why government officials should be required to hand off any equities like this to a blind trust where they have no visibility into how it's traded.

Even if this is all legal (which is not certain either way yet...), it again reinforces the belief that the powerful live by different rules and are able to game the system for personal advantage, even as they're supposed to be serving the public interest.

In this paper (winner of the eCrime 2019 Best Paper award), we consider the types of things that can go wrong when you intend to make things better and more secure. Consider this scenario. You are browsing through Internet and see a news headline on one of the presidential candidates. You are unsure if the … Continue reading Identifying Unintended Harms of Cybersecurity Countermeasures →

Microsoft, Cisco, Google etc gang up to form Open RAN Policy Coalition

Some of America’s super-corps have remembered how the US became the dominant global technology force it is, and have vowed to use innovation over threats to counter Chinese dominance in 5G markets.…

Lee Jae-yong ends dynastic control and will even let staff join a union

Samsung's heir has said that he will not pass down management of the South Korean conglomerate to his children, ending three generations dynastic rule.…

Multinationals' UK arms pair up to take on Voda and former state-owned telco

Telcos Telefónica and Liberty Global today confirmed plans to join their O2 UK and Virgin Media subsidiaries into one combined entity in a deal analysts branded a "blockbuster merger".…

I realize that sounds kinda nuts — why are we asking PARENTS to show us their KIDS being independent? Who, after all, is better at making videos? Mom or little Ava (who’s 5)? But legally we can’t ask anyone under 13 to do anything. So go document your children doing something new on their own, […]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finds Tesla's Autopilot cuts crashes by 40%. How cool is that? Autonomous vehicles are going to cause a huge decline in accidents and deaths. Even short of autonomous vehicles, when you get your next car try to get one that supports automatic braking on imminent collision detection. You could get a large fraction of the collision avoidance benefit at a much lower cost today. Check out Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ratings of collision avoidance systems in current cars. Watch a Tesla react to a crash in front of it: Watch a Tesla avoid hitting a reckless driver: A recent analysis finds that autonomous vehicles will allow 2 million disabled people to get...

Tumor-associated peptide–human leukocyte antigen complexes (pHLAs) represent the largest pool of cell surface–expressed cancer-specific epitopes, making them attractive targets for cancer therapies. Soluble bispecific molecules that incorporate an anti-CD3 effector function are being developed to redirect T cells against these targets using 2 different approaches. The first achieves pHLA recognition via affinity-enhanced versions of natural TCRs (e.g., immune-mobilizing monoclonal T cell receptors against cancer [ImmTAC] molecules), whereas the second harnesses an antibody-based format (TCR-mimic antibodies). For both classes of reagent, target specificity is vital, considering the vast universe of potential pHLA molecules that can be presented on healthy cells. Here, we made use of structural, biochemical, and computational approaches to investigate the molecular rules underpinning the reactivity patterns of pHLA-targeting bispecifics. We demonstrate that affinity-enhanced TCRs engage pHLA using a comparatively broad and balanced energetic footprint, with interactions distributed over several HLA and peptide side chains. As ImmTAC molecules, these TCRs also retained a greater degree of pHLA selectivity, with less off-target activity in cellular assays. Conversely, TCR-mimic antibodies tended to exhibit binding modes focused more toward hot spots on the HLA surface and exhibited a greater degree of crossreactivity. Our findings extend our understanding of the basic principles that underpin pHLA selectivity and exemplify a number of molecular approaches that can be used to probe the specificity of pHLA-targeting molecules, aiding the development of future reagents.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is clearly age-related and represents one of the deadliest cancer types worldwide. As a result of globally increasing risk factors including metabolic disorders, the incidence rates of HCC are still rising. However, the molecular hallmarks of HCC remain poorly understood. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) and NPY receptors represent a highly conserved, stress-activated system involved in diverse cancer-related hallmarks including aging and metabolic alterations, but its impact on liver cancer had been unclear. Here, we observed increased expression of NPY5 receptor (Y5R) in HCC, which correlated with tumor growth and survival. Furthermore, we found that its ligand NPY was secreted by peritumorous hepatocytes. Hepatocyte-derived NPY promoted HCC progression by Y5R activation. TGF-β1 was identified as a regulator of NPY in hepatocytes and induced Y5R in invasive cancer cells. Moreover, NPY conversion by dipeptidylpeptidase 4 (DPP4) augmented Y5R activation and function in liver cancer. The TGF-β/NPY/Y5R axis and DPP4 represent attractive therapeutic targets for controlling liver cancer progression.

BACKGROUND Neurofibroma/schwannoma hybrid nerve sheath tumors (N/S HNSTs) are neoplasms associated with larger nerves that occur sporadically and in the context of schwannomatosis or neurofibromatosis type 2 or 1. Clinical management of N/S HNSTs is challenging, especially for large tumors, and established systemic treatments are lacking.METHODS We used next-generation sequencing and array-based DNA methylation profiling to determine the clinically actionable genomic and epigenomic landscapes of N/S HNSTs.RESULTS Whole-exome sequencing within a precision oncology program identified an activating mutation (p.Asp769Tyr) in the catalytic domain of the ERBB2 receptor tyrosine kinase in a patient with schwannomatosis-associated N/S HNST, and targeted treatment with the small-molecule ERBB inhibitor lapatinib led to prolonged clinical benefit and a lasting radiographic and metabolic response. Analysis of a multicenter validation cohort revealed recurrent ERBB2 mutations (p.Leu755Ser, p.Asp769Tyr, p.Val777Leu) in N/S HNSTs occurring in patients who met diagnostic criteria for sporadic schwannomatosis (3 of 7 patients), but not in N/S HNSTs arising in the context of neurofibromatosis (6 patients) or outside a tumor syndrome (1 patient), and showed that ERBB2-mutant N/S HNSTs cluster in a distinct subgroup of peripheral nerve sheath tumors based on genome-wide DNA methylation patterns.CONCLUSION These findings uncover a key biological feature of N/S HNSTs that may have important diagnostic and therapeutic implications.FUNDING This work was supported by grant H021 from DKFZ-HIPO, the University Cancer Center Frankfurt, and the Frankfurt Research Funding Clinician Scientist Program.

Dan Avidan, after years of dancing around topic of being a furry and which he would be, seems to have settled on his fursona of a cyberpunk wolf in a recently released music video. The video features animal characters with trans-humanist enhancements. The coloration has a signature bleed of 80s style animation.

The story portrays a pack of wolves seeking vengeance against a stag mogul after having their kin slaughtered at his hand. The style of animation and situation has some striking similarities to that of Caravan Palace's music video for Lone Digger.

This was brought to my attention by Majira Strawberry who asked why know one was talking about it. The answer to that in my case is object pertinence.

For those who are fans of cyberpunk and animation this is certainly worth the watch.

As governments restrict gatherings of people, furry conventions are being postponed or canceled. Here's a quick run down of events in April, May, and June and their status as of May 5 17:28 EDT (UTC-4) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic - updates to come.

A new section has been added for past events impacted for historical purposes.

Links go to statements if available, or to their Twitter feed or site. See also: Furry Fandom and the Internet forced back to roots by viral outbreak

read more

On the Young Turks, Cenk Uygur quotes passages from Bob Woodward's book, "The Price of Politics", quoting statements made by President Obama proving that he intends to cut entitlements like social security, medicare, and medicaid. Continue reading →

Linda McMahon is running for the US Senate in Connecticut. For twenty (20) years, she ran World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) with her husband, Vince McMahon. A few years ago, a documentary film examined the WWE's celebration of violence against women. Her campaign doesn't want Connecticut voters to see that film. Watch these excerpts from the film to see why. Continue reading →

After being elected in 2008 on "hope and change", "change you can believe in", and "change the way Washington works", President Obama now says that he cannot change Washington from the inside? Then why should we re-elect him in 2012? Continue reading →

Barack Obama promised to change the way things work in Washington, and after four years, nothing has changed: Corporate money controls President Obama and Congress. We need real change: vote for Rocky Anderson. Continue reading →

Glenn Greenwald predicts over the next four years that "it's all going to get much worse", with President Obama shifting politically more to the right while the Democratic base continues to support him. Continue reading →

Is your standard charge for a speech $300,000?  According to an article appearing on the website of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and a May 31, 2013 email, Clinton’s standard contract usually includes: Round-trip transportation on a chartered private jet “e.g., a Gulfstream … Continue reading →

William Brighenti, who founded the Berlin Property Owners Association, argued that the town can’t afford a new police headquarters, and police should look to clear space in their current building. He thinks one way to accomplish this is to get rid of tactical gear. Continue reading →

Even though Corporate America has anointed Hillary Clinton as its next President, Senator Bernie Sanders' populist message is already in a week's time raising individual contributions totaling millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of people! Continue reading →

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warns not to underestimate him in the 2016 Democratic race for the White House. Sanders, who is formally launching his campaign Tuesday, said he has a strong message. Continue reading →

“Thank you all very much for being here and for all the support that you have given me over the years: as the mayor of this great city, as Vermont’s only congressman and now as a U.S. senator. Thanks also … Continue reading →

The evidence is adding up that this election is a SHAM! Exit polls do not add up on the Democratic side and regularly predict better results for Bernie than the voting machines are telling us! The mainstream media won't even come close to touching this, and in fact they're even attacking Lee Camp for bringing it up. Don't miss this segment of Redacted Tonight! Continue reading →

'Lesser of Two Evils' argument is not resonating with DNC protestors. Salon.com's Ben Norton says grassroots movements will be more mobilized under a Republican candidacy. "There?s no question that Trump would be horrific as a candidate but if we have 4 or 8 years of Clinton of more wars, of more austerity, of another economic crisis, and potential bailouts of banks and large corporations etc., you know you think Trump is bad now? Wait for what we'?ll see in 4 or 8 years." Continue reading →

"And you know, we have to stop looking beyond this election cycle and see that this corporate driven ideology, you know, this commodification of the culture, this constant extracting of blood from us as citizens to pay what in essence were private debts of the banks which engaged in casino capitalism, has political consequences. History has taught us that. And Hillary Clinton is only going to further that process." Continue reading →

Questions surrounding Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation continue to grow. On Sunday, Democratic National Committee interim chairperson Donna Brazile defended Clinton’s meetings as secretary of state with Clinton Foundation donors, saying, "When Republicans meet with their donors, with their supporters, their activists, they call it a meeting. When Democrats do that, they call it a conflict." Donna Brazile’s comments come in response to an Associated Press investigation revealing that while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, more than half of the private citizens she met with during the reporting period had donated to the Clinton Foundation. The AP investigation comes after a three-year battle to gain access to State Department calendars. The analysis shows that at least 85 of 154 people Hillary Clinton had scheduled phone or in-person meetings with were foundation donors. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept. His most recent piece is headlined "Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the Clinton Foundation?" Continue reading →

"Trump didn’t hijack the populism, the Democratic Party made a gift of it to him. And he simply accepted it. … that elite … made a decision that in the midst of a global insurrection against political corruption and economic oligarchy that Hillary Clinton’s 'pay to play' politics in global finance capitalism would somehow play better than Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialism. … they ignored every poll they had, all the data they had, and even all the anecdotes they could possibly have accumulated in order to reach the conclusion that Hillary was a stronger candidate than Bernie. … And I remain certain that if anyone other than Clinton - and certainly if you accept for just one moment that when all the polls said the right things by such wide margins for so long they might be right - Bernie Sanders could have won this had he been the nominee, like Roosevelt took out Landon." Continue reading →