fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
How to implement Offline Mode in an Online-First React Native app
By: Emanuele Di Vizio
Tags: React Hook, React, Software Development, Offline First, React Native

Hoist the sails!

Your PM comes to you with shocking news, you’re to deploy to a less well-connected market, and your beloved app needs to perform reliably in adverse network conditions. While you might be tempted to curse your past self for lack of foresight, you remember that hindsight is 20/20 and that it’s time to go on deck and hoist some sturdy storm-sails.

Let’s now examine the problem at hand. Our app’s primary function is for our users to insert new data to the system, and we do not support bulk activations. Due to the nature of the system, data needs to come in in real-time, and we can have no downtime. This means that if the user is offline, he must be able to continue inserting data at the usual rate. How can we let our users do so?

Our first intuition might be to implement a bulk-insertion feature on the backend. You will then let the user know there is no network connection and proceed to gather data, to be later sent in bulk to the new endpoint when the connection is regained. Alas, the backend team has other priorities, and they are not able to implement a bulk insert endpoint in any useful timeframe.

After some discussion with the team, an agreement is reached: The app will store new data locally in a queue and will proceed to send each item in the queue to the backend when the connection is regained. While somewhat hacky, this approach works and can let the team ship the new feature rather soon.

We now have the goal; let’s see what we need to do to accomplish it.
YE ALI RELEASES ‘TALK LESS’
Tags: Bizness Boi, SoundCloud, Music, Ashanti, Ye Ali

Ye Ali releases the record of the summer, “Talk Less” featuring production by Jordon Manswell, Bizness Boi, and KRS. With an elegant flip of Ashanti’s “Rock Wit U.”

Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/ye-ali/talkless
The Salt Cave, Naples, Florida
By: Gina Pacelli
Tags: Self Improvement, Healing, Self, Travel, Health

The Salt Cave, Naples, Florida

4 benefits of this magical, healing experience

Photo by the author (Naples, Florida)

Curiosity piqued

When I lived in Delray Beach, Florida, I used to frequent the Salt Suite. I loved the feeling of serenity I experienced at the end of a session. I tried to expose as many friends, as possible, to the benefits of salt therapy.

According to Doctor Axe, salt therapy:

Improves respiratory ailments (e.g. asthma, the common cold) Helps skin conditions (e.g. aging, eczema) Acts as an immune system booster (e.g. improved lung function) Reduces inflammation (e.g. improves pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis)

When I discussed the Salt Suite with a friend, she asked me if I had ever been to the Salt Cave in Naples. I had not, so she enlightened me with a vivid description of this magical place of healing. My interest was piqued, and going to the Salt Cave became a Naples bucket list item for me. My mom lived in Naples, and I vowed to check this place out during one of my visits.

Life spins fast, and there is always next time. One day, I packed my bags and moved back home to Boston. I never checked this off my bucket list during my Florida days.

A pink cave of health benefits

My mom still lives in Southwest Florida. On one of my business trips to Orlando, I was able to visit her. I finally booked an appointment at the Salt Cave. I was giddy with excitement.

To enter the cave, you must wear a hairpiece. I thought this was to protect our hair from the salt. I was wrong. The net’s purpose is to keep the salt pure.

I inhaled the Himalayan magic, and the coziness of the pink cave lulled me into instant relaxation. My breath became deeper, sending me into a trance. The daily stresses of life melted off my body, as I tasted the salt on my lips. Farther down the rabbit hole I journeyed, to the core of my being.

When my session ended, I was engulfed in a peaceful daze. I licked the salt from my lips to stimulate my senses. I wanted to hang back and revel in the mystical, healing powers of the pink salt.

There was a special magic in the air, making this my favorite salt therapy destination. Maybe it was the pink salt or the cave-like setting. There was a vibe like no other. I hope to get back there someday, soon. To rejuvenate my soul in a pink cacoon of enchantment. To experience their other health offerings. To lose myself in a trippy bubble of healing.

“It’s all about finding the calm in the chaos.” — Donna Karen

Photo by the author (Naples, Florida)
Responding to Reviews Can Increase Your Conversion Rates
By: Paul Dughi
Tags: Business, PPC, Marketing, Search, Conversion Optimization

Location 3, a digital marketing agency, reviewed 16 months of AdWords campaign data, 93 million impressions, 32 months of historical user reviews on Google, 72,000+ reviews for more than 7,000 businesses.

The research showed a direct correlation between better reviews and ratings and improved performance. As stars increased, so did conversions.

Better Star Ratings, Better Conversions

Businesses in the lowest grouping had an average 3.31 stars, translating into an average conversion rate of 10.42 percent.

The best-rated segment had an average of 4.96 stars, translating into a 12.83 percent conversion rate.

“…if the lower-rated locations could convert at levels comparable to the top-performing segment, it would effectively mean 13,000 additional leads.” — Location 3 Study

More Responsive to Reviews, Better Conversions

The businesses that did a better job responding to reviews also experience higher conversion rates.

Businesses with the highest response rate (8.13 percent) saw an average conversion rate of 13.86 percent.

Businesses with the lowest response rate (5.73 percent) saw an average conversion rate of 10.42 percent.

“While we’ve long known that responding to customer reviews as a business owner (both positive reviews and negative reviews) can potentially improve the overall user experience and highlight your dedication to quality service, our test shows that engaging with customer reviews as a business owner has a positive correlation with improved conversion rates for paid search advertising.” — Location 3 Study

Read more
Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers; Techstars Music Class of 2018 Unveiled
By: Platform
Tags: Spotify, Apple Music, Streaming Music, Music

Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers — fortune.com

Apple’s Apple Music is adding subscriber accounts in the U.S. at a higher rate than Spotify, and is on track to pass the №1 streaming service this summer, according to people familiar with the services’ figures.

Supersonic Startups: The Techstars Music Class Of 2018 Unveiled — www.forbes.com

This year’s group consists of 10 startups and spans a range of music-related fields. In addition to audio playback (Mighty), biometrics (Blink Identity, Endel); artificial intelligence (Edison. AI, SecondBrain, Spark.DJ); ticketing (Hello Tickets, Seated); and streaming (Gimme Radio, Soundcharts).

Spotify adds songwriting and production credits to its desktop app — musically.com

Spotify is adding credits for songwriters and producers to songs on its service, although for now they’ll only appear within its desktop app.

Imogen Heap partners with Viberate — www.iq-mag.net

Blockchain pioneer Imogen Heap is to lend her support in an advisory role to Viberate, which is using the distributed ledger technology to connect the global live music industry.

South Africa’s Joox Takes On the International Music Streaming Brands With Local Content and Quality Streaming — allafrica.com

Once the biggest thing in town, South African media and entertainment giant Naspers is now playing the unaccustomed role of underdog with digital service.

Spotify Combining Artist Marketing and Artist & Label Services Teams — www.billboard.com

Spotify will be combining its artist marketing and artist & label services teams to create an artist & label marketing department led by Dave Rocco, formerly the global head of artist marketing.

Hi-res music: ‘The barrier is the understanding of the value of the proposition’ — musically.com

Major labels are very excited about upping the audio quality of music-streaming services, under the banner of ‘hi-res music’.

How will Sonos compete against Apple’s HomePod? — www.recode.net

CEO Patrick Spence explains Sonos’ answer to Apple, Amazon and Google on the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask.

Spotify won over Taylor Swift. Can it win over investors? — www.smh.com.au

The Swedish, streaming music service could set a new precedent with its unusual stockmarket debut.

How to Increase Your Chances of being Featured in Spotify, Beatport, Pandora, + More — blog.symphonicdistribution.com

This week, we’re back with the latest on presenting your best case to Partners for the topmost potential to land a feature

Deezer team up with Indonesian tel-co Tri to offer customers music streaming — routenote.com

Deezer have teamed up with Indonesian telephone company Hutchison 3 to offer streaming deals to Tri customers.

Warner Music Hits $1 Billion in First Quarter, Digital Revenue Up 20% — variety.com

Warner Music Hits $1 Billion in First Quarter, Digital Revenue Up 20%
Wear KPIs on Your Wrist
Tags: Data Visualization, Kpi, Business Intelligence, Analytics, Apple Watch

Wearables are changing the way we live and they are set to revolutionize the way we run our business as well.

That’s why we’re proud to announce that Databox is now available for your Apple Watch. Favorite metrics, daily scorecards, weekly summary, and other useful features are just a raise of your wrist away.

Apple Watch was designed for quick interactions that make the most of the display and its position on the user’s wrist. Information is quick and easy to access and dismiss. Designing a great Watch app required a focused approach and the key challenge was to provide essential information as quickly as possible. We have managed to achieve this in several ways: easy to consume watch app, daily scorecard and weekly summary notification interfaces, and a complication so you can see your most important metric in a split second.
दुनियाभर में इसे प्रसारित करने में हमारी सहायता करें
By: Mollie Pettit
Tags: Community, Data Visualisation, Dataviz, Outlierconference, Data Visualization

Sign up for The 'Gale

By Nightingale

Keep up with the latest from Nightingale, the journal of the Data Visualization Society Take a look
How the React Reconciliation Algorithm Works
By: Michael Krasnov
Tags: React, React Native, JavaScript, Programming, Computer Science

What Is So Hard About Drawing Some Buttons?

When developing with React, it is easy to forget (or not know at all) the imperative way of creating and managing the UI. As an analogy, React lets you “describe” the interface you want, while native libraries and frameworks have to “build” it using primitives. So while it looks like one return statement to you, that translates to hundreds of objects, assignments, and expressions in native code.

Updating a native (both DOM or platform) interface is not an easy process. Thankfully, we do not have to do it often. Most of the time, your app does not change the UI structure entirely on every render. Often, a button changes its color or a label gets updated text. On the few occasions when everything changes (navigating to another screen), we will just have to deal with it. But how does React know what the most efficient change to the underlying interface is? The reconciliation algorithm.

You might be familiar with a data structure called tree . Even if you are not, you work with it on a daily basis. A tree is a collection of nodes (components). Every node can have children that are themselves nodes. Basically, the JSX and HTML both can be described as trees.

Photo by the author.

The reconciliation algorithm, then, compares two trees and returns a set of operations to update the second tree so that it matches the first one. In the computer science world, this is called the Tree Distance Problem. Of course, it has a few general solutions, but their complexity is O(n³), which is completely inappropriate for user interfaces. In order to make it faster, the React team had to make some trade-offs.
女性向け市場分析
Tags: Research, Technology, Analytics, Engineering, Games

in In Fitness And In Health
The Stone Roses: 30 Years On From Spike Island
By: Eliza Laben
Tags: Music, Stone Roses, Rock, Anniversary, Indie

Today marks 30 years since The Stone Roses iconic Spike Island performance. On 27 thMay 1990, the Manchester band performed to 27,000 people on the toxic wasteland in Widnes. At the time, poor organisation of the event led to it being deemed a failure. But, several years down the line, the band made history. Now, the small island between the Sankey Canal and River Mersey estuary is home to one of the most famous gigs the country has ever seen.

Spike Island came at the height of The Stone Roses success; they hit UK number one, performed on Top of the Pops and won four NME awards in the years leading up to the gig. Frontman Ian Brown always had it in mind that he wanted to play venues that no other band had ever played, and what a better time to do it.

27 May 1990, thirty years ago today, the Stone Roses played Spike Island. The DJs were on that rickety structure in the middle of the field with the sound & lights team. I played St Etienne ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’, 808 State ‘In Yer Face’, & Bob Marley ‘Redemption Song’. pic.twitter.com/ggShgXdFUS

- Dave Haslam (@Mr_Dave_Haslam) May 27, 2020

Opening the stage with ‘I wanna be adored’, pictures and archive footage show a cloud of red dust rising from the ground as fans dance to their favourite band. The Stone Roses went on to play all the fan favourites including ‘Sally Cinnamon’ and ‘Made of Stone’. It will come as no surprise to any die-hard fans, that they closed the show with ‘I am the resurrection’.

However, the success of Spike Island didn’t come from the performance itself. It was from the celebration of youth culture that would later be known as “Madchester”.

In 1995, the band began to part ways. Starting with drummer Reni and shortly followed by guitarist John Squire, officially breaking up in 1996. Despite having successful music careers since the split, in 2011 rumours of a Stone Roses tour began to spread.

2012 was the year of the reunion. After a fifteen-year split, they were ready to take the world by storm again, headlining Manchester’s Heaton Park. Then in 2013, the film Spike Island was released, documenting the story of a group of teens attending the long-awaited event at Widnes. The band continued to tour until 2017, showing the world how history is made one last time.

Words by Eliza Laben
I Don’t Believe in Climate Change
By: Duncan Riach
Tags: Climate Change, Psychology, Religion, Leadership, Politics

I was driving to work this morning with Cindy in the passenger seat next to me. I don’t know who she was referring to when she said, “it annoys me that he doesn’t believe in climate change.”

I found myself responding, “I don’t believe in climate change either.” Then I stopped to consider whether that’s really true.

Yeah, I just don’t believe in it. How could anyone believe in it. It’s not something that warrants belief. The human-caused climate change hypothesis simply reflects a scientific consensus. The balance of evidence, as judged by the significant majority of experts in the field, seems to be that human activity has been causing climate change and, unchecked, that it will cause further climate change. That continued climate change will be catastrophic for life on Earth. Where is the need for any kind of belief in that?

It’s not a black-and-white thing. It’s not true or false. It’s an issue with a large amount of data that has been parsed and statistically analyzed producing a complex, nuanced, and constantly shifting set of conclusions and recommendations. There’s no room anywhere in that for black-and-white beliefs.

This hypothesis, the evidence gathered in relation to it, and the consensus opinion of the wisest next-steps given our best guesses of statistical probabilities is simply what is. On balance, I trust the scientific endeavor and the conscientiousness of the scientific community. If the recommended action is to reduce carbon emissions, for example, then as a trusted servant-leader, I would take that advice and simply execute on it effectively and quickly. And this is what pretty much all leaders worldwide have been doing and are doing; of course they are.

I think that framing the climate change issue as one of belief plays a game that is degrading to science; science is not a religion. When the religious right claims that it doesn’t believe in climate change, the adult response is simply, “it’s your right to believe anything you choose but we don’t set policy based on beliefs; we set policy based on the balance of evidence.”

The religious left is what elevates the discussion into an argument about beliefs. Those who worship at the altar of Scientism say, “you must believe in this!” and allow the conversation to be transformed into an argument about beliefs. When two religions with opposing beliefs enter into a battle to determine what is the “right” belief, the battle can never end. All we get is a never-ending gridlock of two opposing religions.

Climate change is simply a scientific policy matter. It has nothing to do with religion.

Update: “They said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a ‘five-sigma’ level.”
Mocking Moment.js in Jest — A Simple, One-Line Solution
By: David Good
Tags: Jest, React, JavaScript, Testing

First Unit Test

Mocking a component’s call to Moment.js seems like a great candidate for our first unit test in Jest. However, it‘s not as straightforward as you might think. You could use a manual mock placed in a __mocks__ directory. But that’s not very elegant. Here, we show a simple, one-line solution in a basic test scenario.

Stateless Functional Component

To get started, we have a stateless functional component which calls Moment.js to get the current timestamp.

import React from 'react';

import moment from 'moment'; const Clock = () => {

return (<h1>{moment().format()}</h1>);

}; export default Clock;

Snapshot Test Case with Mock

We use React Test Renderer to compare the component to the previous snapshot. If we don’t mock the Moment.js call, the timestamp will change each time the test runs, and the test will fail.

The Jest documentation states:

jest.mock(path, moduleFactory) takes a module factory argument. A module factory is a function that returns the mock.

Therefore, the second argument to jest.mock needs to be a function (first arrow function) which returns a another function which corresponds to the moment() call (second arrow function). This returns an object with one element, the format function, which returns a fixed, arbitrary timestamp when called.

import React from 'react';

import renderer from 'react-test-renderer';

import Clock from '../../component/Clock'; // Return a fixed timestamp when moment().format() is called

jest.mock('moment', () => () => ({format: () => '2018–01–30T12:34:56+00:00'})); it('matches snapshot', () => {

const tree = renderer.create(<Clock />).toJSON();

expect(tree).toMatchSnapshot();

});

Same Test Case using Shallow Renderer

There are a lot of options available for shallow rendering React components, but the React Test Renderer’s shallow renderer works just fine and doesn’t require additional config or dependencies. This is the same test case as above except for the use of the shallow renderer.
Multi-class Classification: Extracting Performance Metrics From The Confusion Matrix
By: Serafeim Loukas
Tags: Machine Learning, Python, Scikit Learn, Classification, Data Science

Next, we will split the data into training and test sets before model fitting:



X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = # Split the data into a training set and a test setX_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split (X, y, random_state=0)

Next, let’s create the classification model (linear SVC) and fit the model using the training set:



classifier = # Fit the classifierclassifier = svm.SVC (kernel='linear').fit(X_train, y_train)

Now, we will predict the labels of the test set samples and we will build the confusion matrix of our 3-class classification problem:

# Predict the labels of the test set samples

predicted_labels = classifier.predict(X_test) # Build the confusion matrix of our 3-class classification problem cnf_matrix = confusion_matrix(y_test, predicted_labels) print(cnf_matrix)

#array([[13, 0, 0],

# [ 0, 15, 1],

# [ 0, 0, 9]])

To better read/understand the confusion matrix, let’s plot it:

The 3-class classification Confusion Matrix using our linear SVC model.

How to read it

On the x-axis we have the predicted labels and on the y-axis we have the true labels of out test set’s samples (remember that the prediction was done using only the test set ).

we have the and on the we have the of out (remember that the was done using only the ). Ideally, a perfect classifier would result in a confusion matrix where we have values only on the diagonal i.e. in a case where we classify correctly all the test samples for all the 3 classes/groups that we have.

would result in a where we have i.e. in a case where we classify correctly all the test samples for all the 3 classes/groups that we have. The values in the boxes are just counts. For instance, in our case, the upper left box has a value 13 inside and the next 2 boxes have 0 and 0. This means that we are able to correctly classify all 13 setosa test samples.
One Cardio Day a Week Will Lead to Better Health
By: Jordan Mendiola
Tags: Health, Fitness, Inspiration, Life, Running

2. Free-Weight Workouts

Not everyone has a gym membership, and that’s where free-weight workouts come in handy. It doesn’t require you to have any equipment, and you can get as hearty of a workout.

Free-weight workouts are convenient, free, and can be done in your bedroom. Form a list of exercises ranging from push-ups to situps, all the way to high-knees — anything to increase your heart rate.

If you start doing free-weight workouts, you’ll notice a little soreness, but soreness is good because it means your body is getting stronger.

3. Go for a Run

Running is the best form of cardio because, with every step, you’re engaging your core, your quads, your hamstrings, and nearly every part of your body.

You’re bound to break a sweat and have a clear mind from running. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can do a small sprint burst and really try to max out.

But if you’re starting, take it slow and try to be consistent by getting in at least one run a week. Your mind will thank you for getting you out into nature and putting some pressure on your body.
Build a Chrome Extension in less than 15 mins
By: Abhishek Srivastava
Tags: Google Chrome Extensions, Google Chrome, Google, Chrome Extension, Extension

So, What’s next..?

Now since you are familiar with the browser extension and how I can be useful for us in various test cases. Now let’s move the next part.

Have you ever thought of making one for yourself?

What!!, dude is that really possible, can I also have my personal extension!!, it would be really great!

Yes, you can have your personal browser extension. Google Chrome allows you to create your own extension, test it, and publish it. Your personal extension can as simple as a button that redirects you, or it can also be a complex and advanced extension(it’s all up to you).

But for beginners my advice would be that it doesn’t need to be some new groundbreaking idea or complex extension, you can just do this for fun.

But Abhishek, I don’t have enough knowledge of how all this work, it seems to be complicated, and I doubt whether I have enough skills or not :(

Don’t worry, you should just be familiar with basic HTML/CSS syntax and that would be enough.

Ahh, I like this point of yours Abhishek, go on…

What are we going to build?

For the purpose of this tutorial, I am going to build a simple Profile Manager which launches all your profiles through a single click.

Sample of our project

I find this project user-friendly and simple for understanding how extensions are made, and the basic file structure

The Link of the Github repository will be provided at the end of the article, you can fork my Github repository and customize the same.
Beginner’s Python Financial Analysis Walk-through— Part 1
By: Keith Chan
Tags: Python, Coding, Stocks, Beginners Guide, Financial Analysis

Financial Analysis using Python

Intro

Hello and welcome to my first coding side project!

My name is Keith and I encourage you to read more about me to understand why I am sharing this code and who I aim to speak to.

About a year ago, I found myself caught in a coming-of-age experience that many new college grads experience. I sat there staring at my first pay check and wondered what to do with all that money! Without having much excess money as a student, I suddenly found myself needing to learn personal finance. Scouring the internet for advice, I came across the common suggestion of investing. What better way to make money than by passively using your money to make more money? Setting up a brokerage account was easy, but which stocks should I buy? What company was a safe-haven for my hard earned income? What is a “risk-return trade-off”? What do the complex squiggles in my stock app mean and how do I use them to make buying decisions? I didn’t know where to start.

In a painstakingly long research process, I learned some fundamentals of finance, but I found looking through spreadsheets of stock prices unfathomable and frustrating. Was there an easier way to summarize stock market data? Can I visualize the trends of each company to anticipate how they will behave in the future?

Image adapted from https://images.app.goo.gl/NcCP3op6pVLzGhh2A

If you find yourself asking any of these questions, you are right where you should be. There is no better time to start investing than the present. In just the past several months, stocks have rallied to new highs and the Dow has risen 50%+. In other words, every dollar you invested would have been returned 1.5 times! Imagine if you had a 1.5X salary! In this project, I hope to kickstart your investment journey and explain to fellow beginners some finance basics, use Python to wrangle and analyze data, and ultimately identify promising stocks to buy. The code was simple and the bulk of it was completed in two days (over two weekends), although admittedly, making it pretty took much longer.

To any computer scientist, this code contains nothing beyond Python fundamentals. To any financial analysts, this analysis is probably what they’ve learned in freshman year. However, the plain simplicity of this project is exactly what needs to be shared. This work highlights what can be done with just the basic understandings of Computer Science and Finance, and of course, a little interest.

So without further ado, I whole-heartedly welcome you to check out my very first side project!
Linear Programming with R
By: Roberto Salazar
Tags: Industrial Engineering, Engineering, Linear Programming, Operations Research, Programming

R for Industrial Engineers

Linear Programming with R

Exploring the “lpSolve” R package

Image by Arnold Francisca available at Unsplash

Operations Research

Operations Research is a scientific approach for decision making that seeks for the best design and operation of a system, usually under conditions requiring the allocation of scarce resources. The scientific approach for decision making requires the use of one or more mathematical/optimization models (i.e. representations of the actual situation) to make the optimum decision.

An optimization model seeks to find the values of the decision variables that optimize (maximize or minimize) an objective function among the set of all values for the decision variables that satisfy the given constraints. Its three main components are:

Objective function: a function to be optimized (maximized or minimized)

Decision variables: controllable variables that influence the performance of the system

Constraints: set of restrictions (i.e. linear inequalities or equalities) of decision variables. A non-negativity constraint limits the decision variables to take positive values (e.g. you cannot produce negative number of items x1, x2 and x3).

The solution of the optimization model is called the optimal feasible solution.

Modeling Steps

Modeling accurately an operations research problem represents the most significant-and sometimes the most difficult-task. A wrong model will lead to a wrong solution, and thus, will not solve the original problem. The following steps should be performed by different team members with different areas of expertise to obtain an accurate and greater view of the model:

Problem definition: defining the scope of the project and identifying that the result is the identification of three elements: description of decision variables, determination of the objective and determination of the limitations (i.e. constraints). Model construction: translating the problem definition into mathematical relationships. Model solution: using a standard optimization algorithm. Upon obtaining a solution, a sensitivity analysis should be performed to find out the behavior of the solution due to changes in some of the parameters. Model validity: checking if the model works as it was supposed to. Implementation: translating the model and the results into the recommendation of a solution.

Linear Programming

Linear programming (also referred as LP) is an operations research technique used when all the objectives and constraints are linear (in the variables) and when all the decision variables are continuous. In hierarchy, linear programming could be considered as the easiest operations research technique.
The Five Pillars of Why We Give a Fuck.
By: Reuben Salsa
Tags: Humor, The Bad Influence, Creativity, Ideas, Politics

The Bad Influence Presents

Our singular objective is:

TO CHANGE THE WORLD

With every follower and every opportunity to extend our reach, we grow stronger as a community.

Our aim is to reach critical mass so we can begin to overhaul the structures that have kept us in check for centuries. We’ll achieve this by submitting proposals to governments, congress, European Union and the United Nations. To succeed, all it takes is 10,000 (UK Government) to 100,000 subscribers (Congress, EU and UN) to table our submission and allow the submitter to speak on the political stage.

We aren’t just another publication.

Our house is built upon strong foundations. These are the five pillars we stand by and why it’s important people believe that in life, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
Improving the Monitoring of Asset Output With Data Analytics
By: Shaik Sameeruddin
Tags: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Data Science, Data Visualization

These facts point to the need at any stage of the operation for proper and effective asset performance management. Fortunately, for asset-heavy and asset-dependent companies, the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things ( IIoT) comes at the most important moment. In ways you didn’t think existed, combining IIoT with data analytics will empower your business. You will also begin to see and appreciate how all your assets are interrelated and interdependent, with the opportunity to obtain a comprehensive and clear overview of your asset operations. This allows you to predict interferences and interruptions better, which in turn gives you the ability to intercept and prevent unwanted downtimes and crashes of equipment.

Forecasting and managing needs for asset performance

gify

We all know about schedule equipment and maintenance of assets: preventive maintenance management initially seems to be a fairly automatic mechanism that can be entered, placed on a count loop or dependent on timed use of a calendar. Interestingly, however, only about 18 percent of equipment failures are resolved by this seemingly significant method, while a whopping 82 percent of failures are attributed to random incidents that have no visible trend on the surface.

Thus, while there is value in the success of preventive maintenance, it becomes crystal clear that even a quarter of possible asset failures that can haunt a company are not expected by this method, keeping it running below optimum performance levels. Clearly, once data analytics will come to the forefront to predict and avoid unforeseen asset failures, there is a demand to cover the majority of asset failures.

Predictive Maintenance employed

For this significant method, there is a term: predictive maintenance. The fact that up to 82 percent of traditional asset failures can theoretically catch and stop this makes it a mechanism whose time has clearly arrived.

Predictive maintenance uses condition tracking that aims to provide advance warning of probable or certain failure. This in turn helps the technical staff to alert the maintenance team so that before a malfunction happens, they can plan and execute ad hoc maintenance tasks. It is possible to break down the three most common methods of deploying condition monitoring as follows:
Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook
By: Jacquelyn Lynn
Tags: Self Publishing, Legal, Business, Book Review, Writing

Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook is a legal book that’s actually fun to read.

As an author (both traditionally and self-published) and a self-publishing consultant (who has ghostwritten and published books for clients in multiple genres), I can’t say enough good things about Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook by Helen Sedwick. It’s an invaluable resource that covers all aspects of independent publishing.

Image courtesy of the author

Helen Sedwick is a lawyer who doesn’t write like a lawyer. She explains complex legal topics in a clear, easy-to-understand way. She answers questions you know you have — and tells you things you didn’t know you needed to know.

The best reading approach is to skim the book so you know what it covers, then go back to read the sections you need as your publishing journey progresses.

Keep this book handy — you’ll be referring to it regularly.

Go here for a complete list of the resources we use and recommend.

This article was originally published on my site at CreateTeachInspire.com. You can reach me there or email me at jacquelyn@contacttcs.com.

You might also want to read:

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Three Different Things: April 6, 2020
By: Sean O'Brien
Tags: AI, Innovation

Three Different Things: April 6, 2020

Battle Covid–19 with AI, Apple Face Shields, and Tesla Ventilators

(FTA)

Several governments and hospital systems around the world have leveraged AI-powered sensors to support triage in sophisticated ways. Chinese technology company Baidu developed a no-contact infrared sensor system to quickly single out individuals with a fever, even in crowds. Beijing’s Qinghe railway station is equipped with this system to identify potentially contagious individuals, replacing a cumbersome manual screening process. Similarly, Florida’s Tampa General Hospital deployed an AI system in collaboration with Care.ai at its entrances to intercept individuals with potential Covid–19 symptoms from visiting patients. Through cameras positioned at entrances, the technology conducts a facial thermal scan and picks up on other symptoms, including sweat and discoloration, to ward off visitors with fever.

Someone train an AI on people contaminating things through touch — after the quarantine, we’ll look for this not just for healthcare, but for food services.

2. This Is Apple’s Most Important Product Ever, But You Can’t Buy One

Watch Tim Cook’s Twitter video to see the face shield at 1:09. After the quarantine it’ll be interesting to see what practices continue — could Apple keep producing face shields or other medical equipment and donate it for tax breaks? Healthcare capacity and improvement is the new carbon neutral.

3. Tesla shows how it builds ventilators using Model 3 parts

Tesla’s ventilator looks legit. But not as legit as Dyson’s
The best Low-Code Machine Learning Libraries in Python
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, AI, Low Code, Automl

The best Low-Code Machine Learning Libraries in Python

Discover Machine learning through Low-code ML libraries — Less barrier.

Photo by callme_gohann on Unsplash

Machine learning(ML) is hard to learn; especially it’s algorithms, data preprocessing and training models.

It is not the case anymore!

With the rise and availability of both no-code and low-code machine learning libraries and platforms, there are fewer barriers to use and apply machine learning models on your applications.

Low-code/No-code platforms and libraries enable users to run machine learning models easily by providing a ready-to-use code and functions. You can access these functions either through a web interface or writing minimal code.

While no-code platforms are the easiest way to train a Machine Learning model through drag and drop interface, they lack flexibility.

On the other hand, the low-code ML is the sweet spot and middle ground. They offer both flexibility and easy to use code. You still have to write some code, but that is bare minimum compared to other typical machine learning libraries.

In this article, I will highlight some of the best low-code ML libraries in Python, their functionalities and how you can get started. In the final section of the article, I will share my final thoughts on the overall trend of Low-code ML platforms and the best strategies.
Accessibility webinars and virtual events in May 2020
By: Brian Grellmann
Tags: User Experience, Accessibility, Design, Software Development, Product Development

Normally around this time of the year, I am getting ready to host and present a number of talks and workshops for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). This year, for reasons related and not-related to COVID-19, I’m not sure if I’ll have the time to prepare a virtual GAAD event.

So instead, I thought I’d share some of the online webinars that are happening this month. I’ll update this page if I see any others.

The list includes webinars and virtual events from Microsoft, Level Access, Deque Systems, GDS, A11yTO, UsableNet, AccessibilityOz, WebAIM, and others.
2021: ManoMano IT Odyssey - Part I
By: Laurent Brisse
Tags: Microservice Architecture, Architecture, Technical Architecture, Design, Software Development

“Our ambition is to truly transform the way we do e-commerce in our industry. To do so, we must have the best tech teams in Europe. Our pro-European company is the ideal place for tech talents to imagine the new face of e-commerce and to enjoy daily challenges,” explain Philippe de Chanville and Christian Raisson, Founders of ManoMano.”

From the birth of Manomano in 2013, our IT ecosystem has evolved from a monolith developed from scratch by a handful of talented developers to a distributed system interconnecting in-house development and SaaS solutions. If today you ask someone in ManoMano about a current piece of code, it seems that a couple of decades have passed since its writing: it’s all moving so fast… That’s why we want to tell you the story of IT’s journey.

We could have begun with “Once upon a time…” but we prefer to use another metaphor based on a cult and futuristic movie from last century (damn, my year of birth!).

So we have named this series of blog posts the “2021 ManoMano IT Odyssey”, by roughly following the movie’s storyline.

Enjoy reading about how our Manas & Manos are enjoying working together to scale up our IT ecosystem in-line with our hypergrowth.

Laurent — Solution Architecture Lead
SMS is back in Gmail/Google Talk?
By: Robert Merrill
Tags: Communication, Apps, Google

For a while, SMS heaven seemed to rest lightly on all users of gmail and it’s in-browser gtalk client. keeping up with people who were not “online” but mobile was as easy as pie. Changing between SMS and gTalk chat was clear and simple. All was well in the universe, until the SMS gods at google removed their goodwill in March of this year.

But, what is this? Could it be possible that we have been found worthy of their blessings once again? It appears so. Check the screen clips. Do you see this in your gmail, too?

Below, see that your contacts in Gmail’s chat sidebar, who have a mobile number, show up with a mobile phone icon when they are not online.

Clicking “Send SMS” in the window above, pops open the chat box where you can send and receive SMS messages from the user:

If the user comes “online” (signs into gTalk) then you have the option of switching to Instant Messaging, and no-longer sending your messages via SMS.

*It would be nice if I could redirect SMS that goes to my phone’s number to gTalk… and if I am not online, then it just goes straight through. Interesting possible app there…
The Simple Lesson Steve Jobs Used to Make Apple Successful
By: Aaron Schnoor
Tags: Social Media, Business, Entrepeneurship, Advertising, Marketing

Lessons at Pixar

Steve Jobs could have called it quits then, but he didn’t. Instead, the entrepreneur started NeXT, a company that made personal computers. Then, in 1986, Jobs funded the creation of Pixar and became the film company’s CEO and owner.

It was at Pixar that Jobs began to understand the importance of one simple thing: a story.

By talking to Pixar’s writers and creative staff, Jobs learned that what he had been missing with Lisa was telling a story to consumers. Jobs had been so focused on the product itself and the details surrounding it, and he had mistakenly believed that he could convince consumers to buy Lisa if they knew everything about the computer.

What consumers want, though, is a good story. Consumers want to feel that they must have the product and that by having the product their lives will somehow be better. They don’t want all the details, nor do they want to hear technical jargon about the product. They don’t want to struggle to understand what is being sold — they want a quick, simple, enticing story.

Jobs embraced this mindset, and he took the lessons to heart.

In 1987, Apple acquired NeXT for $429 million. Steve Jobs was suddenly back with the old company he had helped to create.

A few months later in the year, Jobs convinced Apple’s board to name him as interim CEO. He then launched a new product campaign — the iMac.
Christmas Carol
By: Matthew Donnellon
Tags: Relationships, Creativity, Fiction, Life, Short Story

Names are a funny thing.

Sometimes you see someone and their name just fits like a fine leather glove slipped over a hand.

That person is the name.

And that name is the person.

Sometimes though, things are different.

This is the story of a woman named Carol and a cruel, cruel world.

Carol grew up like most kids.

Her parents decided to name her after the girl’s deceased grandmother.

And so young Carol began life like many others. She had by all accounts a happy childhood, with two loving parents.

He spent her days with her dad and they both greeted mom when she got home from work.

It was generally great all around.

Like many young children, Carol had a special affinity for Christmas. It is always more magical through the eyes of a child.

Each year Carol ran to the living room to see if there were presents. And lucky enough there always were.

One year she got a doll.

The next a fire truck. It lit up and everything.

Despite having it pretty good, Carol finally reached the age where she started going to school.

She liked school well enough, but like most children would have preferred to stay home.

She did well in school. She made friends. Things were going well.

Until her first December.

Christmas was coming and usually this meant good things for Carol. But now she was in school and had to deal with other children. And sometimes children are cruel.

Like many others, Carol picked up a nickname during this time of the year.

All the little kids knew it, “Christmas Carol. Christmas Carol. Christmas Carol,” they all sang.

It followed her through school.

Each year around Christmas time the little chants would start.

And it went on and on.

It followed her to college when she let one of her friends know about the nickname. The woman told all the people in the dorm, and so the chorus began anew.

“Christmas Carol,” the all said.

Carol hated it.

Hated them.

It drove her mad. She wished they’d all just go away.

But the new year came and people forgot about it and returned to the alcohol fueled stupor that is college life.

Carol thought she was safe. For nearly a year it went away. But the nickname returned at Christmas time like a ghost determined to haunt her favorite holiday.

Carol graduated a year early just to make sure she didn’t have to hear it again.

She took a job on the other side of the state where no one knew her, and didn’t answer any friend requests from her old life.

She had a good job at a nice firm.

She did well and was going to get promoted when the new year came,

Then it happened.

It was the firm’s Christmas party.

She heard again as her boss made a joke that Christmas Carol would be the new manager.

She ran to an abandoned room.

She fought back tears.

No.

No.

No.

It couldn’t happen again.

She wouldn’t let it.

Carol realized she was in the janitor’s closet and found a bottle on the floor.

When she came out she spied the punch bowl.

She would never hear that again.

No more Christmas Carol.

This time they would all go away.
How AI Will Make Nuclear Energy More Affordable
By: Priya Aggarwal
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Nuclear Energy, Technology, Climate Change, Clean Energy

Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear Energy

The field of AI is vast and researchers are trying to make nuclear technology more efficient by predicting accidents, material interactions, and radioactive leaks.

It’s not just researchers who are interested; some of the biggest nuclear plant designers like GE are also exploring machine learning techniques for predictive maintenance. They are coming up with 'digital twins' that can might help to bring down O&M costs by up to 10 times.

Here are some other examples of the many applications being studied.

Due to high temperatures and radiation that can damage a material, the reactor needs to be constantly inspected. This is a tedious yet highly skilled task that requires humans to watch hours of video footage. Reactor parts could also be underwater, which makes analyzing videos all the more difficult and prone to errors since cracks can be tiny and hazy. The study to make visual detection simpler with different algorithms claims to have noticed a 98.3% accuracy.

Neutrons are produced as part of the nuclear reaction. Over time, constant bombardment by neutrons can degrade the reactor vessel and impact its performance. There is a limit to how much a material can take before needing replacement. Much effort has been spent on predicting these changes and to develop more radiation-resistant materials to extend a reactor's life, but this remains a challenge. Using machine learning, researchers are trying to predict the neutron 'dose' a metal can take before swelling starts and understand key factors that contribute to it.

It is surprising how un-roboticised nuclear industry is, given its unconventional nature. But things may be changing. With more sophisticated robots trained to do specialized tasks like identifying, handling, and decommissioning waste, robots can carry out time-consuming tasks in zones where it is better to limit human access as radiation levels are high. Robots are also being trained for imaging radioactivity that can help in identifying residual contamination in facilities on walls, floors, etc.

Argonne National Lab is trying to use machine learning to simulate the underlying mechanics that govern a nuclear reactor and then use it to improve safety and operations when designing a new reactor. For example, many thermal-hydraulic processes can be difficult to predict because of heavy computation requirements, but machine learning can help identify key factors influencing heat flow with faster running models.