Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2018

Pompeo Meets With Top North Korean Official In Hopes Of Reviving Singapore Summit

The secretary of state met for dinner in New York with former North Korean intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol, as the two sought to get a planned June 12 top-level summit back on track. (Image credit: Julie Jacobson/AP) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2xts4Wt May 31, 2018 at 09:36AM

Kilauea's Fast-Moving Lava Threatens Another Community, Volcanic Haze Reaches Guam

As eruptions continue to terrorize people in Hawaii, volcanic haze has drifted across 4,000 miles to bother residents of the Mariana Islands, officials say. (Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2IYwL03 May 31, 2018 at 04:18AM

State Releases Videos Made By Parkland, Fla., Shooting Defendant

Nikolas Cruz discusses his plans in cellphone videos made before the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He says he'll be the next school shooter of 2018. (Image credit: Taimy Alvarez/AP) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2J4TTFU May 31, 2018 at 02:24AM

House Split On Immigration Might Be Good Politics For Some Moderate Republicans

California Republican Rep. Steve Knight is pushing for a vote on bipartisan immigration legislation. This puts him at odds with GOP leadership in the House during an election year. (Image credit: Rich Pedroncelli/AP) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2srzZhd May 31, 2018 at 01:40AM

Hawaii's Volcanic Eruption Draws Scientific Interest

The eruption of Kilauea on Hawaii's Big Island is causing local devastation, but it is an exciting research opportunity for volcanologists. (Image credit: U.S. Geological Survey) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2LIgE4e May 31, 2018 at 01:16AM

Kardashian West Visits White House Seeking Freedom For A Grandmother Serving Life

Kim Kardashian West met with President Trump Wednesday. The reality star is advocating for the release of Alice Marie Johnson, who has spent more than two decades behind bars for a first-time offense. (Image credit: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2J0oadj May 31, 2018 at 12:57AM

Israelis Have A Love-Hate Relationship With Jerusalem

One small apartment building near the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is emblematic of Israelis' mixed attitudes about the city. (Image credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2LItM9y May 31, 2018 at 12:14AM

What Happens When Parents And Children Are Separated At The U.S.-Mexico Border

With stories of family separation at the border in the news, NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with Denise Gilman, the lawyer for a one woman who's in detention, thousands of miles from her two sons who crossed the border with her. News : NPR https://ift.tt/2H4IKmE May 31, 2018 at 12:06AM

Virginia State Senate Passes Medicaid Expansion

The Virginia State Senate voted Wednesday to expand Medicaid to 400,000 low-income residents. This comes after months of fierce political debates between Republicans. News : NPR https://ift.tt/2H4HsYV May 30, 2018 at 11:33PM

Behind That Bonkers Golden Knights Pregame Show: 'We Threw Everything On The Wall'

Sword fights. Neon-visored drum majors. A giant, firework-spitting helmet. The Vegas hockey team's spectacle is an anomaly in the stoic NHL — and that's just the way the team likes it. (Image credit: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2srDy75 May 30, 2018 at 11:33PM

For Some Hard-To-Find Tumors, Doctors See Promise In Artificial Intelligence

Scientists are training computers to read CT scans in the hopes that they can catch pancreatic cancer early. (Image credit: Courtesy of The Felix Project) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2kAwtxB May 30, 2018 at 11:33PM

Domestic Violence's Overlooked Damage: Concussion And Brain Injury

Women are at high risk for getting concussions from domestic violence. A neurologist and a social worker have paired up to try to get women the specific medical help and counseling that they need. (Image credit: MarkCoffeyPhoto/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2ITAfka May 30, 2018 at 10:23PM

1 Charge Against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens Dropped As He Resigns From Office

Greitens has faced possible charges from multiple prosecutors, in two separate scandals: one about alleged sexual misconduct and blackmail, the other about accusations of campaign finance violations. (Image credit: Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS via Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2xt7lSI May 30, 2018 at 09:49PM

Bill Browder, Kremlin Critic, Briefly Arrested In Spain For Murky Reasons

Browder says he was arrested on a Russian warrant via Interpol. Spanish police say they released him because the warrant was "invalid." And Interpol denies having issued a formal warrant at all. (Image credit: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2srzrb7 May 30, 2018 at 08:14PM

Texas Governor Lays Out School Safety Plan In Wake Of Santa Fe Shooting

Arming more teachers, creating new alarm systems and changing mental health rules are part of a wide-ranging list presented by Gov. Greg Abbott, nearly two weeks after 10 people died in the attack. (Image credit: Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images) News : NPR https://ift.tt/2L5KJto May 30, 2018 at 07:57PM

Top KDnuggets tweets, May 23-29: 10 More Free Must-Read Books for #MachineLearning and #DataScience

Also: What is the Difference Between Deep Learning and “Regular” Machine Learning?; Top 20 R Libraries for Data Science in 2018; Understanding LSTM and its diagrams #NLProc from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2H5t1E7 via IFTTT

Virtual Training Events Without Leaving Your Desk

Check out our lineup of upcoming virtual seminars, online learning courses, and customized training in your office. Space is limited, so reserve your seat early and score the best savings! from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2JgJMkN via IFTTT

Interview: How Seagate Technology Makes Great Use of Deep Learning – Last Call to Register for Deep Learning World

In anticipation of his upcoming conference co-presentation at Deep Learning World in Las Vegas, June 3-7, we asked Abbas Chokor, Staff Data Scientist at Seagate Technology, a few questions about his work in deep learning. from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2ss4WBZ via IFTTT

Memorial Sloan Kettering: Data Scientist

Seeking a Data Scientist / Senior Strategic Analyst (Communications & Marketing) who will serve as a champion for data-driven decision making within Communications, particularly for programs to strengthen MSK’s relationships with physicians and partners, from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2kC8cam via IFTTT

Cartoon: GDPR first effect on Privacy

New KDnuggets Cartoon examines the first unexpected effect of GDPR on Privacy. from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2H5mj0H via IFTTT

Introduction to Content Personalization

The basics of user experience and content personalization. The way to target your audience more precisely and effectively. from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2smecaE via IFTTT

Improving the Performance of a Neural Network

There are many techniques available that could help us achieve that. Follow along to get to know them and to build your own accurate neural network. from KDnuggets https://ift.tt/2L7R9Z1 via IFTTT

A pro-abortion rights group is asking candidates if they’ve been accused of sexual harassment

It’s a question a Massachusetts NARAL PAC is posing before offering its endorsement. If state candidates in Massachusetts want an endorsement from a women’s rights PAC, they’ll have to say whether they’ve ever been accused of sexual harassment. The #MeToo conversation about sexual harassment has roiled Capitol Hill and led to the resignations of lawmakers including Blake Farenthold, John Conyers, and Al Franken. The questionnaire, from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts , signals that some progressive groups want to hold politicians to a high standard — even if the 2016 presidential results suggest voters aren’t always deterred by accusations of sexual harassment. “Have you ever been formally accused of sexual harassment?” the candidate questionnaire asks. “If so, please explain.” Questionnaires are common for groups trying to find out more about candidates’ backgrounds and policy positions, but this is thought to be the first time an interest group has asked candidates about allegati...

Movies are blurring fact and fiction on purpose. What does that do to the audience?

American Animals is just the most recent example. Nonfiction and fiction have always bled into one another on the big screen — movies based on true stories, documentaries with staged scenes — but these days it feels increasingly difficult to separate the two, and sometimes not really worth the effort. Take Errol Morris’s recent Netflix docuseries Wormwood , which is about half interviews with the son and acquaintances of a man who died under suspicious circumstances, half dreamlike reenactments of the mental state of the man (played by Peter Sarsgaard) before he died. The reenactments are so pervasive and extensive — there are whole scenes with scripted dialogue, rather than just representation of something an interviewee is describing — that Wormwood feels like a truly hybrid work, not easily characterized as anything at all. Or consider last year’s runaway hit I, Tonya , which hinges partly on “irony-free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews” — according to the film’s...

Virginia’s state Senate just voted to expand Medicaid

It’s nearly a done deal now. The Virginia state Senate voted Wednesday to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, with four Republicans crossing party lines to join all Senate Democrats in backing the move. The House of Delegates, which already passed a version of Medicaid expansion, will need to vote again to make expansion a reality, but the odds now seem overwhelming that Virginia will become the 33rd state to expand Medicaid (Washington, DC, has also expanded). That’s big news for about 400,000 poor and near-poor Virginians who will gain access to affordable health insurance, and a big deal to the state’s health care providers, who’ll get an injection of clients and money — an important topic for residents of rural areas writ large since expansion helps ensure that hospitals can stay in business, which helps even people who aren’t directly assisted by Medicaid expansion. In political terms, expansion is a huge victory for the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, w...

Calendars and continued fractions

Calendars are based on three frequencies: the rotation of the Earth on its axis, the rotation of the moon around the Earth, and the rotation of the Earth around the sun. Calendars are complicated because none of these periods is a simple multiple of the other. The ratios are certainly not integers, but they’re not even fractions with a small denominator. As I wrote about the other day in the context of rational approximations for π , the most economical rational approximations of an irrational number come from convergents of continued fractions. The book Calendrical Calculations applies continued fractions to various kinds of calendars. Ratio of years to days The continued fraction for the number of days in a year is as follows. This means that the best approximations for the length of a year are 365 days plus a fraction of 1/4, or 7/29, or 8/33, or 23/95, etc. You could have one leap day every four years. More accurate would be 7 leap days every 29 years, etc. The Gregorian ca...

“Not statistically significant” != 0, stents edition

Doug Helmreich writes: OK, I work at a company that is involved in stents, so I’m not unbiased, but… https://ift.tt/2h5I4GP and especially https://ift.tt/2h6Zrao The research design is pretty cool—placebo participants got a sham surgery with no stent implanted. The results show that people with the stent did have better metrics than those with just the placebo… but the difference was not statistically significant at 95% confidence, so the authors claim there is no effect! (the difference was significant at 80% confidence). So, underpowered study becomes ammunition in the “stents have no material impact” fight. Here are the relevant quotes. From the press release: Coronary artery stents are lifesaving for heart attack patients, but new research suggests that the placebo effect may be larger than previously thought. . . . “Surprisingly, even though the stents improved blood supply, they didn’t provide more relief of symptoms compared to drug treatments, at least in this patient ...

6 Essential Skills Every Big Data Architect Needs

Big Data that is both structured and non-structured. While it presents many opportunities for organizations of all sizes, handling it is quite difficult and requires a specific set of skill sets . Big data is handled by a big data architect , which is a very specialized position. A big data architect is required to solve problems that are quite big by analyzing the data, using Hadoop , which is a data technology. A big data architect is required to handle database on a large scale and analyse the data in order to make the right business decision. An architect of this calibre is needed to be a strong team leader; he should have the ability to mentor people and to collaborate with different teams. It is also crucial for them to build relationships with various companies and vendors. The 6 Skills required to pursue a career as a big data architect Becoming a big data architect requires years of training. You need a wide range of competencies, which will grow over time as the field ev...

Film producer Weinstein indicted for rape: New York prosecutor

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Movie producer Harvey Weinstein was indicted on Wednesday on charges of rape and a criminal sexual act, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said, the first case to emerge from a slew of sexual misconduct allegations against him. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2Jkv6kD May 31, 2018 at 02:04AM

U.S., North Korea enter second day of nuclear talks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and high-ranking North Korean official Kim Yong Chol enter a second day of meetings in New York on Thursday as they try to settle nuclear weapons disagreements and set the stage for an historic summit between their two leaders. Reuters: Top News https://ift.tt/2Jia3za May 31, 2018 at 08:07AM