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[ad_1] Amidst the ongoing standoff between the Indian and Chinese forces along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), Indian soldiers will soon be able to decipher Mandarin into English. The Indian Army is also looking at possibilities of deploying new age disruptive technology Artificial Intelligence (AI) which will help the Indian soldiers in different terrains to deal with threats. For future warfare, it is looking at AI technology which will alert soldiers of mine-laden fields and robots to help in defusing them. Will there be robots fighting wars or replacing the boots on the ground? “The focus on AI driven technologies is growing and the Indian Army is keen to adopt them as it will help in dealing with the emerging threats in different terrains and hostile weather conditions,” said a senior officer who wished to remain anonymous. More about Mandarin Translator A device has been readied by a Bengaluru startup CogKnit which can be used as a Mandarin Translator and Voice recognition. The handheld device can be operated offline, is AI enabled and according to Anuroop Iyengar, Co-founder and MD “It can recognize voices at a distance of 5ft. And it can be very useful during Border Personnel meetings and at times during standoffs. It is a good tool for better communication.” Adding, “The device has been tested in the forward areas. There has been a lot of assistance from the Indian Army. Work is going on to bring down the current weight of the device from 600 gms to just 200 gms and to also increase its range from the current 5 ft to 15 feet.” And also work is in progress to make it wearable on the wrist, and besides English do conversion in Hindi too for the soldiers to understand. This along with two others are some of the devices and projects that were unveiled by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi on Monday. In all, 75 new Artificial Intelligence (AI) products/technologies meant for the Indian Armed forces and for Civil use were showcased at the first  ‘AI in Defence’ (AIDef) symposium and exhibition, which was organised by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Autonomous Robot Designed by the Army Design Bureau, the autonomous robot can be used as a soldier on patrol. It has the capability to identify friend or foe from a distance. According to Major Paras Kanwar, “This AI robot will store the data for future use and has the ability to be operated from a distance of more than 5 kms with wireless signals.” He is also part of an AI based offensive weapon project where the Army Design Bureau is creating a device which will help in locating, detecting and firing on the enemy. After clearing all trials, it will be ready for mass production. Trishul The Army is also working towards adopting Trishul. This is an AI-enabled and remotely-operated weapon station and has the capability to direct weapons and fire automatically, detect human movement. It can engage targets at 300 metres with 100 per cent probability of first round hits. What was unveiled? Several AI enabled products which included swarm drones, integrated command fusion, remote weapon station, robotic mine detector, intrusion detection system, remote weapon station, rail mounted robot, sensors for under water domain awareness, among others. Simulators/Test Equipment and speech/voice analysis using Natural Language Processing; AI Platform Automation; Autonomous/Unmanned/Robotics systems; Operational Data Analytics; Manufacturing and Maintenance; Intelligent Monitoring Systems; Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems; Logistics and Supply Chain Management; Intelligent Monitoring Systems; Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems; Cyber Security; Human Behavioural Analysis;  BlockChain-based Automation; Command, Control, Communication; Computer & Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance;; Intelligent Monitoring Systems; and Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Jan. 6 hearings: Live coverage and latest updates, Day 7  The Washington Post Here’s what the January 6 committee has revealed through its 6 hearings  CNN J-6 panel shifts focus to Trump ‘tweet heard around the world’  WGN News Jan 6 committee reschedules final prime time hearing after receiving new information  The Independent Tuesday’s January 6 hearing is focusing on extremist groups. Here are some names you might hear.  CNN View Full Coverage on Google News [ad_2]

[ad_1] The loan quality of mortgage pools backing private-label securitization (PLS) deals has remained solid this year through the end of June, even as deal volume slowed appreciably between the first and second quarters.  In addition, the average coupon for PLS note offerings so far this year has not yet caught up with current market rates, according to the Kroll Bond Rating Agency’s (KBRA’s) most recent RMBS Credit Indices report. The yield for both prime and nonprime PLS issuance, as measured by the weighted average coupon (WAC), fell below conforming mortgage rates as of June 2022, the period covered by the KBRA report. For the final week of June, the conforming 30-year fixed mortgage hovered in the 5.7% range.  Even with big drop in rates in the first week of July — the sharpest decline since 2008, to 5.3% for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, according to Freddie Mac — the spread between the prime WAC and current conforming rates remains wide. For nonprime, the spread is much tighter when looking at the WAC in isolation, but that obscures the fact that nonprime loans in a normal market are priced considerably higher than the conforming rate. For the prime sector, the WAC as of June 2022, according to the KBRA report, stood at 3.36%. That’s down slightly from January’s mark of 3.44%. The nonprime WAC stood at 5.44% in June, KBRA data show, compared with the January average coupon of 5.87%.  Tom Hutchens, executive vice president of production at non-QM lender Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions, said previously, however, that for nonprime mortgages (or non-QM loans), the interest rate normally averages about 1.5 percentage points higher than the conforming rate — which would put the market rate for the newest 30-year fixed-rate loans near the 7% range. Jack Kahan, KBRA’s senior managing director of RMBS [residential mortgage-backed securities], said interest rates hit a low point in 2021 at or slightly below 3% and remained there much of last year. He added as new loans were securitized each month at those historically low rates, they were added to the KBRA index, effectively lowering the overall weighted average coupon measure because of the huge volume of loans involved — a majority of them refinances, a market that has since evaporated in the rising-rate environment.  Last year’s record low-rate loan volume continued to affect securitization volume and metrics into 2022 as well, helping to suppress the WAC figure. Evidence of the expanded loan volume moving through the PLS pipeline this year so far, compared to 2021, can be seen in the PLS deal data tracked by KBRA. Year to date through June 2022, KBRA data shows that 111 prime and nonprime securitization deals hit the market backed by loan pools valued in total at some $52.8 billion. Last year, over the same time frame, 97 PLS transactions were recorded backed by mortgage pools valued at $39.6 billion.  Also of note is that the bulk of the prime and nonprime PLS deal volume in 2022 so far is from the first quarter of this year — 67 deals valued at $33.9 billion. Volume dropped off in the second quarter, as rates continued to rise, to 44 deals valued at $18.9 billion, according to KBRA data,.  So, every new deal issued and added to the KBRA index that was backed by lower-rate loan pools from 2021 or at the start of the year, relative to future months, “was decreasing the WAC,” Kahan said, “and so many new [PLS] deals were added in 2021 [and into this year] that this was reflected in the average.” “You can also tell this [the ramp-up in deal volume] by looking at the WALA,” Kahan added. That latter measure is the weighted average loan age, or WALA, also known as the loan seasoning. It can serve as a measure of deal velocity — or the time between loan origination and securitization.  Kahan explained that starting in the second half of last year, new PLS deals backed by lower-rate loans “began to make up a significant portion of the outstanding deal count.” That deal velocity also affected the rolling measure of the average loan-seasoning age. The effect was most pronounced in prime deals, where loan seasoning averaged 41.7 months as of June 2021, nearly twice as high as the June 2022 average of 21.6 months. “In nonprime it’s a similar story, but to a lesser degree,” Kahan added, in explaining the KBRA index report. The WALA for the nonprime sector hit a high last year of 28.1 months in November, the KBRA report shows, and has continued to inch downward through June of this year, when it dropped to 24.4 months. The KBRA June 2022 report includes analysis from 415 outstanding prime transactions backed by mortgage collateral valued in total at $95 billion. It also includes 172 nonprime transactions valued at $32.1 billion. The KBRA rolling indices include data dating back to the fall of 2016. On other fronts, year to date through the end of June, the KBRA RMBS Credit Indices report shows loan-delinquencies, net losses, and loan prepayments all are trending downward since the pandemic’s peak in 2020 — with prepayments exhibiting the sharpest contraction.  “June remittance reports showed mostly stable credit performance across securitized residential mortgage pools,” the KBRA report states. “… Mortgage prepayment rates continued their multi-month decline, as the sharp rate rise over the past six months has greatly reduced any incentive to refinance. Since early January [of the year], 30-year fixed mortgage rates have risen from 3.3% to just under 6%, as of the end of June.” Prepayments in the prime category reached the mid-40% to 60% range between October 2020 and July of 2021 — during the refinancing boom. Since late summer 2021, however, the prime prepayment rate has declined steadily — down to at 8.7% as of June of this year, KBRA reports. The typical prepayment rate for a given mortgage pool, absent refinance pressure, “is typically 8% over the history of data — simply due to

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[ad_1] The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, may survive on meat and fish products in the refrigerator or the freezer for up to 30 days, a study suggests. The research, recently published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, was conducted using chicken, beef, pork, and salmon, and surrogate viruses with spikes similar to those on SARS-CoV-2. The researchers stored the meat and fish products at both refrigeration (4 degrees Celsius) and freezer temperatures (minus 20 degrees C). “Although you might not store meat in the fridge for 30 days, you might store it in the freezer for that long,” said study first author Emily S. Bailey, an assistant profe The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, may survive on meat and fish products in the refrigerator or the freezer for up to 30 days, a study suggests. The research, recently published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, was conducted using chicken, beef, pork, and salmon, and surrogate viruses with spikes similar to those on SARS-CoV-2. The researchers stored the meat and fish products at both refrigeration (4 degrees Celsius) and freezer temperatures (minus 20 degrees C). “Although you might not store meat in the fridge for 30 days, you might store it in the freezer for that long,” said study first author Emily S. Bailey, an assistant professor at Campbell University in the US. “We even found that the viruses could be cultured after (being frozen for) that length of time,” Bailey said in a statement. The researchers undertook the study after learning that COVID-19 outbreaks were occurring in Southeast Asia prior community transmission. Reports from those communities “suggested that packaged meat products, produced in areas where SARS-CoV-2 was circulating, could have been the source of the virus,” said Bailey. “Our goal was to investigate whether or not similar viruses could survive in this environment,” she said. The research is important because SARS-CoV-2 can replicate within the gut, as well as in the respiratory tract, said Bailey. In the study, the researchers used one RNA virus with a lipid envelop, and two animal coronaviruses, murine hepatitis virus, and transmissible gastroenteritis virus as surrogates. All three viruses have previously been used as surrogates for SARS-CoV-2, generally with greater reductions in their numbers observed at refrigeration than at freezing temperatures. The reduction in numbers also varied according to the food item used. “Continued efforts are needed to prevent contamination of foods and food processing surfaces, worker hands, and food processing utensils such as knives,” the researchers noted. “The lack of, or inadequate, disinfection of these foods prior to packaging needs to be addressed,” they added. [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] Two members of the Delhi University’s Executive Council have written to Yogesh Singh, DU vice chancellor, urging him to make ‘amendments’ in the structure of the new curriculum. They further claimed that it may dilute ‘academic rigour’.  The new curriculum will be implemented from the academic year 2022-23. In February, the DU Executive Council had approved an Undergraduate Curriculum Framework-2022, or, UGCF-2022, as formulated by a National Education Policy (NEP 2020). A section of teachers have opposed the proposed structure of the UGCF.  In a letter to the VC, two EC members – Seema Das and Rajpal Singh Pawar — argued that the UGCF has been ‘haphazardly made’ by an ‘extra-statutory’ body – NEP cell. “The University of Delhi has been a premier institution, widely acclaimed for a high standard of teaching, learning and research. However, based on New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework (UGCF) 2022 has been haphazardly made by an extra-statutory body, ie NEP Cell leading to the dilution of academic rigour,” the letter read. According to them, the new curriculum will lead to a massive displacement of teachers, especially of those employed on an ad hoc basis. “As per authentic information, the student-teacher ratio is being doubled in comparison to the present student-teacher ratio across subjects/disciplines by the UGC and hence, the University of Delhi. This will drastically reduce workload leading to massive displacement of teachers, especially those working in ad hoc capacity,” the letter further added. “The total weightage of core papers in CBCS/LOCF (Choice Based Credit System/ Learning Outcome Based Curriculum Framework) is 70-75% but in the current UGCF 2022, it is merely 45-50 %. This will reduce the workload,” they said. The letter argued that the reduction of overall credit from 196 to 176 in four years and 148 to 132 in three years would lead to a significant decrease in the workload. The members also said that the NEP’s Multi Entry-Exit system (MEES) and Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) ‘institutionalised a fluctuating workload and roster’. According to them, the MEES will hamper the implementation of the constitutionally obligatory provisions of reservation for SC/ST/OBC/EWS in teaching jobs. “Removal of English as an option from AEC, or Ability Enhancement Courses, and as the compulsory language core in BA and BCom, will drastically reduce the workload of the English departments in colleges,” they said. With inputs from PTI. Read Also: University of Greenwich invites application for masters programme in Sustainable Development [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] The product development life cycle is going through a sea of change. Gone are the days when OEMs would be able to launch just a couple of products in a year and still attain growth. India is now the world’s fourth-largest automotive market and the customers today want the best of all worlds but at competitive prices. Speaking to Express Mobility, Vishwanath Rao, MD, Altair India agrees that time to market for products is shrinking. “Today most OEM’s are talking about 18-to-24-month development cycle from the time they conceive the product to the time they launch the product in the market. In the past that used to be 8-10 years, you know, as probably about 15-16 years back it came down to about 6-7 years, 5 years, 3 years, and today we’re talking about 18 months.” One of the key enablers for such product development is a simulation, an area where Altair dwells in. The company was founded in 1985 and basically focusses on three primary areas – physics-based simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), and high-performance computing. The vision is to help customers leverage the convergence of all three technologies in making accelerated enterprise-level decisions.  Rao says that the company is involved in many projects with some of the largest OEMs around the world that come to Altair to solve some of their biggest engineering challenges today. “We are helping the automotive industry shrink their product development time cycle, reduce time to market and at the same time help accomplish a reduction in the cost by virtue of reducing consumption of material, making their designs much lighter, and improve the quality of the products by making them safer. The overall experience of the cabin for a car right from an occupant sitting inside the car to the driving experience that he/she gets in terms of the overall comfort and quality feeling; we enhance that by using our simulation tools,” he says. He states that simulation is the biggest driver in terms of reducing the lead time.  Simulation to cut weight and reduce development timeIt is no secret that OEMs are trying to reduce weight and development time. The reduction in weight enables the vehicle to give higher efficiency especially enabling the vehicle user to squeeze more mileage out of their vehicle.  Most of Altair’s simulation results are said to be within plus or minus 5 per cent. Rao says the simulation technologies have evolved to an extent where the accuracy of the results is within plus or minus 5-10 per cent as compared to a test scenario. Most of Altair’s simulation results are said to be within plus or minus 5 per cent, which enables customers to make the right decisions just by looking at the data.  One of the key adopters or beneficiaries of simulation in India have been new-age start-ups especially in the electric two- and three-wheeler space.  “Some of them (electric two-wheeler start-ups) have been extremely particular about how they engineer their products. They go deep and use simulation extensively to resolve all the problems before they have launched the products. There are some EV manufacturers in India, especially startups, who are importing designs from other countries and just trying to launch it in India, which is obviously resulting in some sort of issues because those products are not localised for Indian conditions. The local road conditions in India is very different to what it is in some other country. The climatic conditions are very harsh especially during summers, because of the kind of heat that we experience here. Whereas some of these products that are being imported from other countries and launched here are mostly engineered for their local conditions,” expresses Rao. He believes that a lot of localisation has to happen here, and “simulation is the biggest weapon that is available with all these companies today. Most of these startups want to launch product in 6-9 months only, nothing more than that.” In a what can be seen as David versus Goliath scenario, start-ups are banking on advanced simulations to skip the whole traditional development cycle that legacy players used to follow. Rao sees that simulation tools have helped start-ups to launch their products with “minimal capital investment, which was not possible earlier.” Domain knowledge coupled with simulation tools go hand-in-handAccording to the Altair India head, the understanding of the automobile domain is something that cannot be side-lined. The importance of understanding the automotive domain is key to developing the right product because the OEMs really needs to know how their products are going to be used, what kind of market are they trying to serve? Where will the product sell? Is it B2B or B2C?  Simulation alone cannot be a magic wand. The domain knowledge is equally important.  “Somebody who just knows a simulation software tool cannot sit and engineer a two-wheeler or a car; deep understanding of the automobile domain is very important. What simulation helps you do is of course it helps you explore various scenarios which would not have been possible in the past. Even if somebody does not have really, really deep understanding of the automotive domain, he can model some of those problems and replicate some of those field issues in simulation and ensure that they are going to market with the product which is of high quality,” adds Rao. When queried about the company’s India operations and performance, he said, “We are 25 years old in India. We have roughly about 650 employees in India, out of which about 450 or software developers who are primarily working on developing all these technologies. The simulation tools, AI tools, high-performance computing tools, a lot of those development happens out of our office in India, and the rest of the 200 people are the ones who are in business areas like sales, application, engineering, customer support, back end, IP support, finance, HR, legal and many other operational areas. In terms of our customer mix, I would say there is no

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