Students inspired by ‘Hidden Figures’ NASA mathematician work to make history in space | Local - WSOC Charlotte

A group of students in Charlotte is trying to make history in space by Glenn Counts.

 Photo: Screenshot from WSOCTV's Video.

The Victory Christian Center School’s rocket team is getting ready for the national competition in May. If the students win, they will head to Great Britain for internationals.

“We just need to see ourselves, our abilities and that only. Nothing about race, nothing about gender. Just focus on what we’re able to do," said team member Michelle Cartwright.
Read more... 

Source: WSOC Charlotte

Ofsted watch: 10 providers achieve ‘good’ results | FE Week

Ten FE providers were awarded grade twos from Ofsted in a good week for the sector, as Yasemin Craggs Mersinogl, Reporter at FE Week reports.

Photo: FE Week

However, the college for HS2 and an independent learner provider were both hit with ‘inadequate’ ratings.

IT Skills Management Company Limited was one of the independent learner providers to receive a grade two after its first inspection by the education watchdog.

It has a partnership with Microsoft through which it delivers its apprenticeships within the digital sector using a variety of online teaching tools blended with more traditional delivery methods.

Inspectors found the 290 apprentices on roll “rapidly develop new skills and knowledge” and “benefit from the relationship the provider builds with their employer”...

All of its 500 learners are employed adults who attend lessons twice a week. The inspectorate reported that they enjoy how teachers bring lessons to life by drawing on their experience in the care sector.
Read more...

Source: FE Week

Universities must address regional inequalities with humility and collaboration | Times Higher Education (THE)

Working with actors in “left-behind” communities and recognising expertise beyond their walls will help close knowledge gaps on economic divisions, say Siobhan Morris, coordinator of UCL’s Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality and author of Structurally Unsound, Olivia Stevenson, Head of Public Policy at UCL and John Tomaney, The Bartlett School of Planning.

Photo: iStock

The political salience of regional inequalities has risen rapidly in the context of the UK’s December general election, the overall outcome of which rested decisively on the political realignment of voters in so-called “left-behind” places.

While divisions have become more prominent in recent years, concentrated and multiple forms of deprivation have accumulated over decades – even generations. Improving conditions in these areas requires finely tuned and well-evidenced policy approaches – with universities playing a key role...

To ensure place-specific inequalities are tackled (as well as the emerging social and political divisions across the UK), universities – particularly those within the “golden triangle” of London, Cambridge and Oxford – need to play a key role in addressing gaps in knowledge regarding the nature of inequalities, which are complex, multifaceted and often stubbornly entrenched in social structures. We need a richer understanding of the intersecting nature and multiplicity of inequalities and the trajectories of disadvantaged places, as well as the needs and aspirations, challenges and opportunities in particular disadvantaged areas. 
Read more...

Source: Times Higher Education (THE) 

One in five students lose money by going to university, IFS finds | Higher education - The Guardian

Men benefit more than women and creative arts provide worst returns, according to tax data, observes Richard Adams, Guardian's education editor.

Students graduating in Cambridge. Researchers found that women reached a glass ceiling on earnings growth in their 30s and 40s, even among Oxbridge graduates.
Photo: Hazy Pics/Alamy

One in five students would be financially better off if they skipped higher education, according to groundbreaking research that compares the lifetime earnings of graduates and non-graduates.

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found while 80% of former students gained financially from attending university, about 20% earned less than those with similar school results who did not attend, highlighting how some subjects, such as creative arts, offer negative financial returns.

The IFS research – which uses tax data to measure the earnings of those who went to university from the mid-90s onwards – found that after accounting for taxes and student loans, men gained on average £130,000 and women £100,000 over their careers, compared with their peers who didn’t enter higher education...

The Department for Education said the earnings data would define the benefits of higher education and “help students of all ages make smart choices about their future”.
Read more... 

Source: The Guardian

Learning to learn from data: Using deep adversarial learning to construct optimal statistical procedures | MATHEMATICS - Science Advances

Optimal statistical procedures are constructed using deep adversarial learning to optimize play in a two-player game by Science Advances.
 

ONLINE COVER

Abstract

Traditionally, statistical procedures have been derived via analytic calculations whose validity often relies on sample size growing to infinity. We use tools from deep learning to develop a new approach, adversarial Monte Carlo meta-learning, for constructing optimal statistical procedures. Statistical problems are framed as two-player games in which Nature adversarially selects a distribution that makes it difficult for a statistician to answer the scientific question using data drawn from this distribution. The players’ strategies are parameterized via neural networks, and optimal play is learned by modifying the network weights over many repetitions of the game. Given sufficient computing time, the statistician’s strategy is (nearly) optimal at the finite observed sample size, rather than in the hypothetical scenario where sample size grows to infinity. In numerical experiments and data examples, this approach performs favorably compared to standard practice in point estimation, individual-level predictions, and interval estimation.

INTRODUCTION
Motivation and background

In most scientific disciplines, hypotheses are evaluated by applying statistical tools to experimental or observational data. Hence, the science of statistics plays a fundamental role in the process of scientific discovery, and innovations in statistical methodology have the potential to enable advances in the broader sciences.

Two distinct paradigms dominate the statistical landscape: the frequentist and Bayesian approaches. In the frequentist paradigm, probability statements describe the behavior of statistical procedures over independent repetitions of an experiment.
Read more...

Additional resources 
Science Advances  26 Feb 2020:
Vol. 6, no. 9, eaaw2140
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw2140

Source: Science Advances  

One of world's first online Masters in Machine Learning now open for enrolment | College and Campus - Imperial College London

Beginning on 14 September 2020, the degree is one of the first online courses that focuses on Machine Learning and its applications, inform Murray MacKay, Imperial College London.

Lightbulb ideas
Photo: Imperial College London

The online part-time degree will teach students in the computational, mathematical and statistical foundations of Machine Learning. Applications are now open on the College website.

Students will also have the opportunity to work with industry-standard tools like PySpark and PyTorch to develop and apply their Machine Learning and data science skills. Over the coming year a number of specialisation courses will be released which will give students the opportunity to explore these diverse areas.

This Master's course aims to accelerate learners' careers in engineering or data science, supporting them to choose a path that’s right for their skill set. This could be as a data scientist, a machine learning engineer, or a computational statistician...

Imperial is offering degrees on Coursera that provide students with flexible learning options.

“Degrees continue to be the most valuable credential in today’s job market, and this new program provides learners with critical machine learning skills businesses all over the world want to leverage,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera. 
Read more...

Source: Imperial College London 

Robots and drones on the virus frontline | Metro - SHINE

China's high-tech industry is working overtime in coming up with advanced technologies that can be employed in the prevention and control of the ongoing epidemic by Yao Minji, Chief Feature Reporter.

Robots and drones on the virus frontline
 Robots are being deployed to areas hardest hit by the virus to reduce the risk of human contact in the ongoing battle. 
Photo: Dai Qian / SHINE

He Zhengdao sent out the last batch of disinfection robots in stock to virus-hit areas

Then he called engineers to a meeting to discuss upgrading robots for use in preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The high-tech industry, particularly in robotics, the cloud and 5G, has been a key force in China’s efforts in fighting the novel coronavirus.

Like He, founder of Shanghai-based DG intelligence, many in the industry have been working overtime since the epidemic broke, wondering how they could contribute to the battle and, later, how the epidemic might affect their companies.

“This emergent scenario of the virus outbreak created new demands for contactless initiatives where our drones and robots can be quickly revised and applied,” He told Shanghai Daily, adding that the company had been revising its models for the outbreak regardless of cost...

One reason DG’s CEO He could quickly deliver his drones and robots was that they were initially designed for scenarios too dangerous or mundane for humans, such as firefighting, explosions, inspection of vast oil fields, and diagnosis of oil pipes. They have also been designed to multitask with cameras, equipment and speakers easily attached.

“The virus outbreak is essentially blocking physical contact and communications, where our devices are a natural fit,” He said.
Read more... 

Source: SHINE

A New Study Finds People Prefer Robots That Explain Themselves | Technology - Smithsonian.com

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 
Read the original article. 

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Engineers at UCLA explain how A.I. systems should be designed to both perform a task and win the trust of humans

UCLA researchers test a robot.jpg
UCLA researchers test a robot after it has learned how to open a medicine bottle from observing human demonstrators.
Photo: UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, CC BY-ND

Artificial intelligence is entering our lives in many ways – on our smartphones, in our homes, in our cars. These systems can help people make appointments, drive and even diagnose illnesses. But as AI systems continue to serve important and collaborative roles in people’s lives, a natural question is: Can I trust them? How do I know they will do what I expect? 

Explainable AI (XAI) is a branch of A.I. research that examines how artificial agents can be made more transparent and trustworthy to their human users. Trustworthiness is essential if robots and people are to work together. XAI seeks to develop A.I. systems that human beings find trustworthy – while also performing well to fulfill designed tasks.

At the Center for Vision, Cognition, Learning, and Autonomy at UCLA, we and our colleagues are interested in what factors make machines more trustworthy, and how well different learning algorithms enable trust. Our lab uses a type of knowledge representation – a model of the world that an A.I. uses to interpret its surroundings and make decisions – that can be more easily understood by humans. This naturally aids in explanation and transparency, thereby improving trust of human users.

In our latest research, we experimented with different ways a robot could explain its actions to a human observer...

Designing for both performance and trust
The most interesting outcome of this research is that what makes robots perform well is not the same as what makes people see them as trustworthy. The robot needed both the symbolic and haptic components to do the best job. But it was the symbolic explanation that made people trust the robot most.
 
This divergence highlights important goals for future A.I. and robotics research: to focus on pursuing both task performance and explainability. Only focusing on task performance may not lead to a robot that explains itself well. Our lab uses a hybrid model to provide both high performance and trustworthy explanations.
Read more...

Source: Smithsonian.com

Deep learning advances are boosting computer vision — but there’s still clear limits | Digital image - The Next Web

This story is republished from TechTalks, the blog that explores how technology is solving problems… and creating new ones.

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This article is part of Demystifying AI, a series of posts that (try to) disambiguate the jargon and myths surrounding AI.

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Ben Dickson, founder of TechTalks summarizes, Since the early days of artificial intelligence, computer scientists have been dreaming of creating machines that can see and understand the world as we do. 

Photo: JumpStory

The efforts have led to the emergence of computer vision, a vast subfield of AI and computer science that deals with processing the content of visual data.

In recent years, computer vision has taken great leaps thanks to advances in deep learning and artificial neural networks. Deep learning is a branch of AI that is especially good at processing unstructured data such as images and videos.

These advances have paved the way for boosting the use of computer vision in existing domains and introducing it to new ones. In many cases, computer vision algorithms have become a very important component of the applications we use every day...

Image editing and enhancement Many companies are now using machine learning to provide automated enhancements to photos. Google’s line of Pixel phones use on-device neural networks to make automatic enhancement such as white balancing and add effects such as blurring the background.

Another remarkable improvement that advances in computer vision have ushered in is smart zooming. Traditional zooming features usually make images blurry because they fill the enlarged areas by interpolating between pixels. Instead of enlarging pixels, computer vision-based zooming focuses on features such as edges, patterns. This approach results in crisper images.
Read more...

Source: The Next Web

Making Sense of Sound: What Does Machine Learning Mean for Music? | Features - Datanami

AI has proven to have a considerable impact on some major industries, says Alex Paretski, knowledge manager at Itransition, Denver, Colorado-based software development company.

Photo: whiteMocca/Shutterstock

While autonomous cars and virtual assistants are slowly becoming a reality, the creative industry has been experimenting with AI for several years already. Does it have meaningful implications and if so, what will it bring in the future?

It’s universally agreed that the first computer-assisted music score dates back to 1957 when composers Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson unveiled Illiac Suite for string quartet. Utilizing the interconnection between mathematics and music, Hiller was able to program the computer to come up with a stunning four-piece musical score.

One of the most notable AI-assisted music projects happened two years ago...

What’s Next? 
Thanks to AI-powered tools, we are likely to hear more music coming out. Both artists and audio engineers will have more time for creativity, leaving repetitive tasks to machines.

Moreover, with the advancement of tools like Amper, we will probably see more music hobbyists. Pascan Pilon, CEO at Landr, argues that our relationship to music will most likely be social media-based. With such moderate knowledge and skill barriers to writing music with AI, making music and getting ‘listens’ will become similar to posting photos on Instagram and getting likes.
Read more...

Source: Datanami

Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative? | AI - Forbes

We know machines and artificial intelligence (AI) can be many things, but can they ever really be creative? observes Bernard Marr, internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. 
   

Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative?
Photo: Adobe Stock

When I interviewed Professor Marcus du Sautoy, the author of The Creativity Code, he shared that the role of AI is a “kind of catalyst to push our human creativity.” It’s the machine and human collaboration that produces exciting results—novel approaches and combinations that likely wouldn’t develop if either were working alone.

Instead of thinking about AI as replacing human creativity, it's beneficial to examine ways that AI can be used as a tool to augment human creativity. Here are several examples of how AI boosts the creativity of humans in art, music, dance, design, recipe building, and publishing...

Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative? 

 
Music
If AI can enhance creativity in visual art, can it do the same for musicians? David Cope has spent the last 30 years working on Experiments in Musical Intelligence or EMI. Cope is a traditional musician and composer but turned to computers to help get past composer’s block back in 1982. Since that time, his algorithms have produced numerous original compositions in a variety of genres as well as created Emily Howell, an AI that can compose music based on her own style rather than just replicate the styles of yesterday’s composers.

In many cases, AI is a new collaborator for today’s popular musicians. 
Read more... 

Source: Forbes and Bernard Marr Channel (YouTube)

Who was Aristotle? | Universe Today

Matt Williams, Curator of Universe Today's Guide to Space writes, Philosopher, polymath, educator, synthesist, founder. These are just some of the words used to describe Aristotle, the 4th century BCE Greek luminary who (along with Plato) is known as the “father of Western philosophy.” 

Photo: Universe Today

With subjects ranging from physics, biology, and astronomy to logic, ethics, politics, and metaphysics, there is scarcely any field of study or subject that he did not have a significant and lasting impact on.

In fact, within the realm of astronomy and physics, Artistotle would be one of the leading authorities whose work would be considered canon for over two thousand years after his death. From Classical Antiquity to the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages and the Rennaissance, Aristotle would be considered the authoritative source on countless subjects.

In some respects, Artistotle’s authority was a mixed blessing. As modern scholars have noted, many of the Greek polymath’s theories (particularly in the realm of astronomy) were incorrect. Ergo, accepting them as canon had a limiting effect on scholarship until the “Scientific Revolution” – where developments in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry would cause many Aristotelian theories to be challenged...

The composition of objects is what imbued them with their natural motions. From this, Aristotle’s theories regarding astronomy and cosmology naturally emerged. In the cosmological model he espoused, the spherical Earth was at the center of the Universe and the Moon, the Sun, the then-known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter), and the “fixed stars” all revolving around it.

The outermost celestial sphere was particularly important, as it was here that Aristotle placed the “Prime Mover” of the Universe. This reflected Plato’s own model that was detailed in the Socratic dialog Timaeus, but with additions that were outlined in Metaphysics and On the Heavens (ca. 350 BC). Like Plato, Aristotle’s astronomical theories were not a predictive mathematical model, but an attempt to explain planetary motions.
Read more...

Source: Universe Today

It’s the actuaries who make the insurance sector sing | Business - The Daily Star

MetLife Bangladesh has taken a set of initiatives to popularise the actuarial profession with a view to making the inert insurance sector vibrant, said Andrew D Rallis, global chief actuary of the American insurer by AKM Zamir Uddin.

Photo: Andrew D Rallis

"Insurance is an important part of the economy, so there is an urgency to develop the actuarial profession," he told The Daily Star in an interview recently.  Rallis, who is based in the US, called in to Bangladesh earlier this month.

Inclusive economic growth of a nation has strong links with the insurance sector. As Bangladesh's economy is growing fast, the insurance sector should get a better shape.

There is an operational and business risk for insurance companies if they set premiums and reserves for clients without calculations by an actuary...

The number of actuary depends on the volume of a country's insurance industry.

Actuary is the core theme to develop the insurance sector because everything is dependent on data. Analysing data and statistics is an essential part for insurance companies.

"Everyone needs to understand the importance of insurance in order to realise the merit of the actuarial profession."
Read more...

Source: The Daily Star

Should Robots Have a Face? | Technology - The New York Times

As automation comes to retail industries, companies are giving machines more humanlike features in order to make them liked, not feared by Michael Corkery, reporter at The New York Times.

Employees powering up Marty, a robot that detects supermarket spills, at the Badger factory in Memphis.
Photo: Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times

When Tina Sorg first saw the robot rolling through her Giant supermarket in Harrisburg, Pa., she said to herself, “That thing is a little weird.”

Programmed to detect spills and debris in the aisles, the robot looked like an inkjet printer with a long neck.

“It needed personality,” said Ms. Sorg, 55, who manages the store’s beer and wine department.

So, during one overnight shift, she went out to a nearby arts and craft store, brought back a large pair of googly eyes and, when no one was looking, affixed them on the top of the robot...

This robot was designed without a face, because its developers did not want customers to think they could interact with the device. But many of the robots have names, given to them by store staff. Some also wear name badges.

“We want the associates to have an attachment to it and want to protect it,” said Sarjoun Skaff, a co-founder and the chief technology officer at Bossa Nova. Walmart said it planned to deploy the robots in 1,000 stores by the end of the year, up from about 350.

Read more...

Source: The New York Times 

Artificial intelligence will kill design’s ‘Hippos’ | Design & Branding - Marketing Week

Ben Davis, blog editor at Econsultancy explains, Anyone who has worked on design knows how human the process can be, but artificial intelligence can help bring some rigour to what can be seen as a subjective area.

Photo: Shutterstock

At an Econsultancy breakfast briefing at the start of this year, I was struck by what panellist Gregor Young said about artificial intelligence (AI). Young, who is currently leading the transformation of Channel 4’s digital marketing strategy and capabilities, emphasised how widespread he believes AI will become and spoke of how frequently he encountered processes or problems where he wished he could apply some form of AI.

Young’s enthusiasm made me revisit an article I wrote last year, in which I asked, ‘Why are marketers kidding themselves that AI is about more than sales?’.

At the time I was simply making the case for a very pragmatic approach to machine learning, given that many of its current uses – recommendations, product categorisation, personalisation, copywriting – are all about optimising for conversions.

But what I didn’t cover was a swathe of algorithms being used in digital and graphic design...

Microsoft interaction designer Jasmine Oh writes in a blog post: “While AI will replace designers, it will replace the designers of today, not the designers of tomorrow.
“AI will become a design partner and tool that designers can use to meet ever-evolving workplace demands. And when nurturing any relationship, let’s learn what our partner can and can’t offer.”
Read more...

Source: Marketing Week 

Machine learning technology gives Dubai university building "a brain" | Energy - SmartCitiesWorld

A pilot test of Honeywell’s machine-learning-based smart buildings technology has reportedly helped Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (HBMSU) in Dubai achieve an initial 10 per cent in energy savings by Sue Weekes, News editor - Smart Cities World.

Dubai's smart university is driving down energy usage.
Photo: courtesy HBMSU

The cloud-based Honeywell Forge Energy Optimisation machine learning solution continuously studies a building’s energy consumption patterns and automatically adjusts to optimal energy saving settings without compromising occupant comfort levels. Honeywell describes the technology as giving buildings "a brain".

University becomes even smarter
HBMSU is the first accredited smart university in the UAE and is known for its technology and innovation programmes...

As part of the pilot programme, HBMSU students taking courses like Innovation and Environmental Management will have access to Forge technology.
Read more...

Source: SmartCitiesWorld

Bringing deep learning to life | School of Engineering - MIT News

MIT duo uses music, videos, and real-world examples to teach students the foundations of artificial intelligence, according to Kim Martineau, MIT Quest for Intelligence.

The instructors and a cadre of teaching students are on hand to help with questions after class. Here, Ava Soleimany explains back propagation.

Photo: Gretchen Ertl

Gaby Ecanow loves listening to music, but never considered writing her own until taking 6.S191 (Introduction to Deep Learning). By her second class, the second-year MIT student had composed an original Irish folk song with the help of a recurrent neural network, and was considering how to adapt the model to create her own Louis the Child-inspired dance beats.

“It was cool,” she says. “It didn’t sound at all like a machine had made it.” 

This year, 6.S191 kicked off as usual, with students spilling into the aisles of Stata Center’s Kirsch Auditorium during Independent Activities Period (IAP). But the opening lecture featured a twist: a recorded welcome from former President Barack Obama. The video was quickly revealed to be an AI-generated fabrication, one of many twists that Alexander Amini ’17 and Ava Soleimany ’16 introduce throughout their for-credit course to make the equations and code come alive...

“There’s still work to be done, but I’m excited by how far I was able to get in three days,” he says. “Having easy-to-follow examples in TensorFlow and Keras helped me understand how to actually build and train these models myself.” He plans to continue the work in his current lab rotation with Bonnie Berger, the Simons Professor of Mathematics in EECS and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)...

With 350 students taking the live course each year, and more than a million people who have watched the lectures online, Amini and Soleimany have become prominent ambassadors for deep learning. Yet, it was tennis that first brought them together. 
Read more... 

Source: MIT News

You don’t have the choice anymore… Go full on Mobile Learning | Moodle Workplace - Moodle

Júlia Verdaguer insist, Futureproof your workforce leveraging mobile devices to give your team flexibility, self-direction and meaningful learning experiences. 

Photo: Moodle

Mobile learning is becoming the norm of eLearning, and this makes complete sense in a world with 
5.1 billion unique mobile users¹.

While just a few years ago, mobile phones were not allowed in training sessions and everyone was checking their whatsapp under the table, nowadays the paradigm has shifted and our workforce expects us to embrace the ‘always on my Smartphone’ and ‘always connected’.

When implementing a mobile learning strategy, we need to leverage the mobile-based social behaviour to create effective learning experiences that, moreover, resonate with our employees... 

Conclusion 
Companies need to rethink how they design learning experiences to be more employee-centric in order to retain talent and close skill gaps. In today’s mobile-centric world, smartphones are not only an additional tool when it comes to learning and development, but they should be part of our overall L& strategy if we want to adapt to the changing needs of companies, employees and digital behaviours. So today, having a mobile learning strategy is not a nice to have anymore, it’s a must. 
Read more... 

Source: Moodle

Best digital learning providers for HR to get in touch with | Learning and Development - Human Resources Online

When making changes or implementing newer technologies such as e-learning and mobile learning, a number of HR leaders have expressed the need to step up their communication to allay fears and make employees understand why these are needed, and how they will benefit, says Aditi Sharma Kalra, Human Resources Online.

Photo:  HR Vendors of the Year 2019, Singapore

The platforms featured here facilitate digital learning in a way that is timely and relevant for client learners. They offer them a way for knowledge-sharing, performance enhancement and better stakeholder management. More importantly, these e-learning and mobile platforms are meaningful, memorable and motivational, as stamped off by our jury, tailored to engage and provide flexible learning on the go.
Read more... 

Source: Human Resources Online

New report from Future of School highlights why students choose online learning | Virtual Learning - PRUnderground

Innovation in education report reviews the reasons students choose online learning and how it meets their needs by Castle Rock, CO.

Download Now

Researchers for a new study on online learning, Pioneers in Education: A Closer Look at How Technology Is Catalyzing Schools Across America, reviewed the reasons that students chose online or blended learning, and how their school responded to their needs and 
interests.

The students highlighted in this report were scholarship recipients from Future of School. This report is a compilation of why these individual students chose online/blended learning and how or why their schools made these opportunities available...

Future of School is an organization of the people, by the people and for the people that calls on students, parents, educators, and employers to band together to embrace and inspire the future of our society and prepare the workforce of tomorrow. Join the movement at futureof.school. 

Future of School. (2020, February). Student Perspectives onBlended and Online Learning.
 
Future of School writes in the Introduction "In 2016, Future of School (FoS)1 commissioned a study to better understand why students were selecting online and blended learning options, with a goal of helping educators, policymakers, and others to better understand the value of new school and course opportunities"...

Conclusion
Although educators working with online/blended schools and courses are generally aware of why students selected those options, for most educators their understanding has been based on limited experience from their own schools. This study provides findings based on a larger, more diverse data set, demonstrating the wide range of reasons that students are selecting new learning opportunities.
Download Now
Read more...

About Evergreen Education Group
 

Evergreen Education Group is a digital learning research and advisory company and has been widely recognized as a leading authority for market and policy intelligence in the K-12 digital learning field. We deliver digital learning-related insight to the industry and are the publishers of the annual report Keeping Pace with K-12 Digital Learning, national reports on the digital learning landscape, and state-level reports for states such as Missouri and Maryland. Evergreen is a valuable partner to legislators, state boards of education, state education agencies, non-profit organizations, publishers and many companies serving the K-12 education industry. Evergreen was founded in 2000 and is based in Colorado. 
See more at http://www.evergreenedgroup.com.

Source: PRUnderground

Top Universities To Study Mathematics, 2020 | Business Education - CEOWORLD magazine

I guess, 90% of the students don’t like mathematics in their school curriculum but it’s of prime importance in everyday life, recommends Ryan Miller, Senior associate editor at ​the CEOWORLD magazine. 

Photo: CEOWORLD magazine

Mathematics helps in making our lives orderly and in preventing disarray. It also nurtures in us the power of reasoning, critical thinking, abstract, creativity, problem-solving ability, and effective communication skills. If you’re interested in studying Math from the world’s best university, here is a compiled list of top universities for you.
Read more

Source: CEOWORLD magazine

Learn math, is the core of today's technology | Technology - Up News Info

Mathematics is the basis of computer science and India should focus much more on rigorous training in mathematics, directly from the secondary level, says Professor Yadati Narahari, who teaches computer science (CS) and automation at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). 

Learn math, is the core of today's technology 
Photo: Up News Info

Mathematics, he says, has become the basis of everything that is currently happening."If you want to become a designer of new tools, an architect of new sensational products, create new knowledge and prove future theorems, then the mathematical and conceptual bases are the key," he says.

Narahari, president of the electrical, electronic and computer science division of the world-renowned institute in Bangalore, says that theoretical computing is essentially mathematical, and subjects such as probability, statistics, linear algebra, graph theory, combinatorics and optimization are in the Heart of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data science and CS in general. At IISc, CS students must take mandatory math courses as part of their research preparation. "This is very crucial to maintain the rigor and quality of the research," says Narahari...

“In a typical CS department of an undergraduate engineering university, faculty members are those who have not found work in the IT sector and, therefore, have settled for teaching positions. This is the story of most engineering universities in India, except some select ones such as IITs, NITs and some other prominent institutions. But that (last) number is probably only 5% of the total engineering university count, ”he says. He believes that one solution could be to make the teaching profession more attractive by offering remuneration comparable to the payment packages of the IT industry.
Read more... 

Source: Up News Info

Engineers Propose a New 'Detonating' Rocket Engine, And It's as Wild as It Sounds | Space - ScienceAlert

This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.

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Matthew Williams - Writer, Curator, Universe Today reports, In the current era of space exploration, the name of the game is "cost-effective". 

The experimental rotating detonation engine developed by the UW team.
Photo: James Koch/University of Washington

By reducing the costs associated with individual launches, space agencies and private aerospace companies (aka NewSpace) are ensuring that access to space is greater.
And when it comes to the cost of launches, the single greatest expense is that of propellant. To put it simply, breaking free to Earth's gravity takes a lot of rocket fuel!

To address this, researchers at the University of Washington recently developed a mathematical model that describes the workings of a new launch mechanism: the rotating detonation engine (RDE).

This lightweight design offers greater fuel-efficiency and is less complicated to construct. However, it comes with the rather large trade-off of being too unpredictable to be put into service right now.
The study that describes their research, Mode-locked rotating detonation waves: Experiments and a model equation, recently appeared in the journal Physical Review E...

Koch and his colleague's research was made possible thanks to funding provided by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research.

While it is too soon to say, the implications of this research could be far-reaching, resulting in rocket engines that are easier to produce and more cost-effective. All that is needed is to ensure that the engine design itself is safe and reliable.
Read more... 

Source: ScienceAlert