Features

WASHINGTON — A text-generating “bot” nicknamed Tobi produced nearly 40,000 news stories about the results of the November 2018 elections in Switzerland for the media giant Tamedia — in just five minutes.

These kinds of artificial intelligence programmes — available for nearly a decade — are becoming more widespread as news organisations turn to them to produce stories, personalise news delivery and, in some cases, sift through data to find important news.

Tobi wrote on vote results for each of Switzerland’s 2,222 municipalities, in both French and, German, for the country’s largest media group, according to a paper presented last month at the Computation + Journalism conference in Miami.

A similar automated programme called Heliograf has enabled The Washington Post daily to cover some 500 election races, along with local sports and business, since 2014.

“We’ve seen a greater acceptance of the potential for artificial intelligence, or robo-journalism, in newsrooms around the world,” said Damian Radcliffe, a University of Oregon professor who follows consumer trends and business models for journalism.

“These systems can offer speed and accuracy and potentially support the realities of smaller newsrooms and the time pressures of journalists.”

News organisations say the bots are not intended to displace human reporters or editors, but rather to help free them from the most monotonous tasks, such as sports results and earnings reports.

Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at The Washington Post, said Heliograf was developed as a tool to help the newspaper’s editorial team.

“The Post has an incredible team of reporters and editors and we didn’t want to replace them,” Gilbert told AFP.

‘Is this something we can automate?’

Gilbert said the bot can deliver and update stories more quickly as they develop, allowing reporters to concentrate on other tasks, and that reaction has been generally positive.

“The surprise was that a lot of people came up and said, ‘I do this story every week; is this something we can automate?’” Gilbert said.

“These weren’t stories that anyone wanted to do.”

Similar conversations are going on in newsrooms around the world. The Norwegian news agency NTB automated sports reports to get match results delivered within 30 seconds.

The Los Angeles Times developed a “quakebot” that quickly distributes news articles on temblors in the region and also uses an automated system as part of its Homicide Report.

The Associated Press has been automating quarterly earnings reports for some 3,000 listed companies, allowing the news agency to expand from what had been just a few hundred, and this year announced plans with its partner Automated Insights to deliver computer-generated previews of college basketball games.

Rival news agency Reuters last year announced the launch of Lynx Insight, which uses automated data analysis to identify trends and anomalies and to suggest stories reporters should write. 

Bloomberg’s computerised system called Cyborg “dissects a company’s earnings the moment they appear” and produces within seconds a “mini-wrap with all the numbers and a lot of context”, editor-in-chief John Micklethwait wrote last year, noting that one-fourth of the agency’s content “has some degree of automation”.

France’s Le Monde and its partner Syllabs deployed a computer programme that generated 150,000 web pages covering 36,000 municipalities in the 2015 elections.

One advantage of using algorithmically generated stories is that they can also be “personalised”, or delivered to the relevant localities, which can be useful for elections and sports coverage. 

Investigative

 robo-reporter?

While news professionals acknowledge the limits of computer programmes, they also note that automated systems can sometimes accomplish things humans can’t.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution used a data journalism team to uncover 450 cases of doctors who were brought before medical regulators or courts for sexual misconduct, finding that nearly half remained licensed to practice medicine.

The newspaper used machine learning, an artificial intelligence tool, to analyse each case and assign a “probability rating” on sexual misconduct, which was then reviewed by a team of journalists.

Studies appear to indicate consumers accept computer-generated stories, which are mostly labelled as such.

A report prepared by researcher Andreas Graefe for Columbia University’s Tow Centre said one study of Dutch readers found that the label of computer-generated “had no effect on people’s perceptions of quality”.

A second study of German readers, Graefe said, found that “automated articles were rated as more credible”, although human-written news scored higher for “readability”.

Robot apocalypse?

Even though journalists and robots appear to be helping each other, fears persist about artificial intelligence spinning out of control and costing journalists’ jobs.

In February, researchers at the non-profit centre OpenAI announced they had developed an automatic text generator so good that it is keeping details private for now.

The researchers said the programme could be used for nefarious purposes, including to generate fake news articles, impersonating others online, and automate fake content on social media.

But Meredith Broussard, a professor of data journalism at New York University, said she does not see any immediate threats of robots taking over newsrooms.

She said there are many positive applications of artificial intelligence in the newsroom, but that for now, most programmes handle “the most boring” stories.

“There are some jobs that are going to be automated, but overall, I’m not worried about the robot apocalypse in the newsroom,” she said.

Abuse during childhood may cause physical changes to the human brain that in turn may render adults more vulnerable to depression, research suggests. 

In their study of people with major depressive disorder, two separate aspects of patients’ history were both linked with alterations in brain structure: childhood maltreatment, and more severe and recurrent depression. 

“It has been established for a very, very long time that childhood trauma is a major risk factor for the development of depression, and also that childhood trauma is associated with changes in the brain,” study author Nils Opel from the University of Münster in Germany told Reuters Health in a phone call. 

“What we did was to actually show that the alterations in the brain are directly connected to the clinical outcome. This is new.” 

The two-year observational study enrolled 110 patients, ages 18 to 60, who were hospitalised following a diagnosis of major depression. At the start, all participants had magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and answered a questionnaire that assessed the level of maltreatment they experienced as children. 

Over the next two years, more than two-thirds of participants experienced a relapse, according to a report in Lancet Psychiatry. 

The brain scans showed that abuse during childhood and recurring depression were linked to similar reductions in the surface area of the insular cortex — a part of the brain believed to help regulate emotion and self-awareness. 

“I think the most important implication of our study is that we can show that traumatised patients differ from non-traumatised patients in a way that they are at increased risk for more recurrent depression and that they are also different in terms of brain structure and neurobiology,” Opel said. 

It is unclear, however, whether the findings will eventually lead to new treatment approaches. 

Child and adolescent psychiatrist Morris Zwi, who recently retired from The Whittington Health NHS Trust in London, said that while the study results do not indicate whether changes in the brain observed can be reversed, they provide a starting point for more research. 

“There is a lot of interest in brain plasticity at the moment, a concept about the potential for brain cells to regenerate or change to meet the needs of the affected brain,” said Zwi, who was not involved in the study. 

“This is why it is important to know whether the changes observed in association with trauma and depression are transitory or permanent, which this study cannot show.” 

Zwi said therapy, or drugs targeting changes to brain structure, may hold some promise for these patients. 

Opel also sees potential in tailoring treatment to individual patients based on information from their brain scans. 

“What would be great in future is if we could use these data to predict which patient might need intensified or specialised care and then come up with personalised treatment approaches,” he said. 

America’s best selling truck with a history going back to 1948, the Ford F150 has also been the most advanced pick-up in its segment since the thirteenth generation was launched in 2015 with a lightweight aluminium body.

A staple work truck that popularly doubles as personal transport in the US and Middle East, the F150 model range has in recent years been expanding to include ever more luxurious, technologically advanced and well-equipped versions for comfort, convenience and pleasure, the latest face-lifted models now even feature a 10-speed automatic gearbox.

New twist, enduring recipe

Introduced last year and winner of this year’s Middle East Car Of the Year awards’ Best Truck category, the F150 update also includes new a flashier and more assertively bold exterior re-design, updated infotainment system and the new gearbox. With engines options carrying over mostly unchanged, the F150 range gains a new 3-litre turbo-diesel for select trim versions and a wider availability of the most powerful Raptor performance model’s 450BHP twin-turbo V6 petrol engine, which from 2019 will also be optionally available for the Limited trim model, alongside the 375BHP version featured here. 

A rugged workhorse that looks the part, the F150 features traditional body on frame construction, tough leaf spring and solid axle rear suspension, but is notable for being the only truck in its class to use military-grade aluminium body construction for a weight saving of up to 317kg, which in turn translates to improved efficiency, capability, handling and performance. A functional design, the F150, however, includes an aerodynamically honed cargo bed for improved airflow and reduced turbulence. Meanwhile, its big glasshouse and low waistline provides good road visibility for a vehicle of this vast size.

Rugged and responsive

An aggressive and evolutionary design highlighting a rugged persona with big Tonka truck chunkiness but without the clunky, clumsy and cartoonish aesthetic of some competitors, the F150 sits with a confident stance and has lots of presence, but nonetheless features a sense of dynamic tension. Featuring a ridged and stepped bonnet minimises the sheet metal from the top of the bonnet to the wheel-arch to reduce visual heft, the face-lifted F150’s chrome fascia is meanwhile dominated by a vast bonnet, while now features a huge horizontal bar that extends to partially bisect its similarly huge C-shaped headlight unit.

Advanced not just for its aluminium body in the truck segment, the F150’s availability of an advanced, downsized and prodigious direct injection twin-turbo 3.5-litre V6 ecoboost engine is just as forward thinking. Standard to the Limited specification model tested, the F150’s Ecoboost engine develops similar power and more torque than the model line’s more traditional 5-litre V8 Coyote engine. Producing 375BHP at a comparatively low 5,000rpm and a massive 470lb/ft torque at 2,500rpm, the F150 Limited is estimated to cover the 0-100km/h dash in around 6-seconds despite a hefty weight estimated at around 2,225kg.

Smooth and seamless

A gutsy engine with responsive quick-spooling turbos and little noticeable lag from idling, the F150’s Ecoboost delivers a broad and muscular mid-range sweet spot where overtaking is flexibly quick and effortlessly confident. Building to a potent top end, the F150 Limited’s power build up is underwritten by a wave of seemingly tireless and deep reservoir of torque. Driving all four wheels through a new 10-speed automatic gearbox in place of a 6-speed unit, the revised F150 is smoother, seemingly quicker and more versatile, with its broad and closely spaced ratios better utilising available output for enhanced response, performance, refinement, efficiency.

Better suited to hauling the F150’s not inconsiderable mass with greater ease and response, the combination of Ecoboost engine and 10-speed gearbox also provide a smooth shifts and a more seamless fluency of delivery. With one able to choose to drive in rear- or rear-biased 4WD Auto mode where power is sent to the front wheels when needed, the F150 deliver reassuring road-holding and seems well balanced through corners. Additionally, 4H mode locks four-wheel-drive for moderate off-roading, while 4L engages low ratios for more demanding routes, heavy towing, steep inclines and low traction surfaces.

Capable, convenient 

and comfortable

Refined, and stable at speed, the F150 rides comfortably and smoothly, and felt settled over imperfections and rebound for a truck with leaf spring rear suspension. With double wishbone front suspension and the lighter Ecoboost engine, not to mention lighter aluminium body, the F150 turns in with a tidier and more agile manner than expected. Leaning somewhat through corners, it nevertheless had good in class body control, and felt balanced and predictable, with slight easy managed oversteer if too much power is applied too early on exiting a corner. Meanwhile, steering was light and more intuitive than many similarly sized trucks and SUVs.

A capable truck with 238mm ground clearance, good off-road angles and optional electronically locking rear differential for off-road driving, the F150 can also haul a payload of 921kg in its 1,495-litre cargo bed, and tow up to 5,352kg. Spacious every which way inside with easy accessibility to its four-door Super Crew cabin, the F150 Limited features and automatically lowering running boards, the F150 also features intuitive layouts, and good quality leather upholstery, trim and dashboard textures.

Extensively equipped with huge levels of convenience, infotainment and safety features, the Limited specification includes standard lane-keeping assistance, 360 degree camera, Pro Trailer Backup Assist, while available equipment includes adaptive cruise control, blind spot warning, cross-traffic alert and pre-collision assistance including a pedestrian detection system. Limited specification also includes huge 22-inch wheels that proved smooth on Dubai roads, but one would expect that other available smaller wheels and higher tyre sidewalls would better suitable for Jordanian roads.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3.5-litre, all-aluminium, twin-turbo, in-line V6-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 92.5 x 86.7mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 24-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 10-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive, low ratio transfer case, optional locking rear differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 375 (380) [280] @5,000rpm

Specific power: 107.2BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 168.5BHP/tonne (approximately)

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 470 (637) @2,500rpm

Specific torque: 182.2Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 286.3Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: approximately 6-seconds (estimate)

Top speed: 170km/h (electronically governed)

Minimum fuel requirement: 91RON

Length: 5,889mm

Width: 2,030mm

Height: 1,962mm

Wheelbase: 3,683mm

Track: 1,717mm 

Seating: 5

Cargo bed height, length, width: 543, 1,705, 1,285-1,656mm 

Cargo volume: 1,495-litres

Fuel capacity, standard/optional: 87-/125-litres

Payload: 921kg

Gross Vehicle Weight Rating: 3,175kg (estimate)

Towing maximum: 4,854-5,352kg (depending on axle ratio)

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 15.57-metres

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones, coil springs/live axle, leaf springs

Brakes, F/R: Disc, 350 x 34mm/drum, 335 x 22mm

Brake callipers, F/R: twin/single

Tyres: 275/45R22

The Palestinians and British Perfidy; 

The Tragic Aftermath of the Balfour Declaration of 1917

C. W. Richard Long

Sussex Academic Press, 2018

This is the latest of a series of books that covered the Balfour Declaration and the performance of the British Mandate over Palestine 1920 – 1948. It also thoroughly discussed the controversial interpretation of the correspondence between Sharif Husayn and McMahon, and how the Sharif (and Arabs) were deceived by the British double talk and the French intrigue.

It highlights the dedicated effort and the sophistication of the Zionist lobby lead by the well-connected Weizmann and the naivety of the Arab negotiators and leaders. All of which lead to the loss of Palestine and the dispersal of its indigenous population by a determined and persistent Zionist entity. Slowly but surely, it pursued its ambition not only to build a home (as the declaration called for) in the Holy Land, but also to control most of Palestine at the end of the mandate and complete its acquisition after the 1967 war.

The author Richard Long spent 26 years and most of his career in eight Arab Middle East countries with the British Foreign Office and the British Council, becoming subsequently director of the Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Therefore, he is familiar with the region, its culture and history. This is his fifth book; other books covered Egypt and Iraq where British rule played a leading role in shaping their future. He is honest in expressing what he terms the “grievous wronging of the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs in general by my own country [Britain]”. It has become an establish fact that one nation (Britain) solemnly promised to second nation (Zionists) a country of a third (Arab Palestine). Long is honest in his recording and interpretation of history in that the Balfour Declaration call for an undefined Jewish National Home sought to disguise its true aim and the United kingdom purpose in issuing it was to turn Palestine into a Jewish state. Although the declaration call for undefined National Home sought to disguise that “The United Kingdom purpose in issuing it was to turn Palestine into a Jewish state”.

The book goes into details about the issue of the future of Palestine in the McMahon’s response to the Sharif of Mecca. In here, there was some ambiguity. Although the Sharif understanding was clear, McMahon’s correspondence was less clear. The Sykes-Picot Agreement which followed rapidly over the correspondence dashed all the Arab hopes of an independent Palestine by decreeing that after the war the territory would be internationally administered by the United Kingdom, France and Russia. The Balfour Declaration eighteen months later took a further giant miss-step and awarded it instead to the Jews.

This book is the most detailed, honest and a well-researched study of the circumstances leading to the Arab Revolt in 1915-1916, the McMahon’s correspondence and their ambiguity and double interpretation. The Sharif of Mecca thought that Britain promised him it would support an independent Arab entity in the whole of the Middle East, McMahon had a different interpretations and an ambiguous wording. The book details the events leading to the Balfour Declaration, the declaration itself and its tragic aftermath. The Arab violent reaction and Jews careful planning which gradually over thirty years of British rule over Palestine 1918-1948 ended by the emergence of Israel and its acquisition over most Palestine and expelling Palestinians, the indigenous population out of their land. It all ended in one of the longest outgoing conflicts, which after almost 100 years is still going, and causing instability and injustice in not only the Holy Land, but also affecting the whole of the Middle East and beyond.

Long explains the British excuse for the declaration. Britain wanted to implement and construct in Palestine a base, a backup to the Egyptian gateway protecting the Suez Canal route to India and that can only be obtained was to be put in the charge of trust worthy and cooperative Jews. The need for them to take this role, while keeping the French out, and was the unadmitted excuse for the Balfour Declaration. Feeling no need to consult them , Britain snatched Palestine away to the Jews who deceived many of their backers and supporters with the beguiling claim that the territory whose population of some 600,000, with Palestinians making up 93 per cent and only 7 per cent Jews, was a land without people which would be made available for a people without land. In the end, and after thirty years in a successful effort after the declaration, had brought to Britain less than nothing. In 1948, Britain had no one to hand Palestine over to and had lost all the prestige and the Middle East as well as in Haifa Port, the operating oil pipeline and the railway to Iraq which it had formally hoped to secure as its reward for its sponsorship of a National Home for the Jews over someone else’s land.

The British Mandate kept the Palestinians defenceless while arming the Jewish community. Its armed wing, the Hagana, attained a condition of professionalism during WWII, which the politically weak and geographically divided Arabs (and Palestinians) could not begin to match. Correspondingly, the 1948 (and later 1967) wars ended in a resounding loss to the Palestinians.

Long blames much of the Palestinians setback to the Palestinian family rivalry between the leading two Palestinian families of the Husaynys and the Nasheshibis, which blocked continued Arab effort and weakened Arab unity. In the view of some of independent observers Sheikh Amin Husayny (Arab leader) insistence on priority of domestic rivals over national preparedness was to condemn most of the Palestinians to exile. The author also blames Arab lack of political experience and maturity, which they displayed at great disadvantage at political negotiations, and their lack of knowledge of English (Lawrence was the major translator). All this placed them at great disadvantage versus the sophistication of Weismann (later Ben-Gurion) and colleagues and their influential connections and power of persuasion and intrigue.

Now, after more than 100 years we are in the middle of an on going conflict which seems never ending, and one which the declaration conspirators never envisaged or possibly intended.

By Ghadeer Habash

Internationally Certified Career Trainer

Starting your own business can bring joy and fulfilment from the moment you start thinking about your project. 

But entrepreneurship is not as easy as it may seem as I learnt first-hand from building and developing my own business of custom designed artisan clothing and accessories. 

Here are my tried and tested tips for starting your small business.

How to start?

When exploring entrepreneurial ideas, think of: 

• What do you like to do most? Pursue your passion 

• What are you good at? What are your skills? 

• How is this idea different from available solutions in the market? 

• Why do you think it is a better idea? 

• How can you become better at what you are doing? 

• Check out YouTube videos, classroom and online training, read relevant books on the subject, talk to people with similar experiences, get exposure, travel to learn from similar initiatives in different countries

Skills you need to succeed

If you think that your hard skills and academic knowledge or background are all that you need to start a successful business, you are mistaken! You will soon discover that there is much more to starting a business than you imagine. Here are skills you may not have thought of: 

•Customer service (you will find yourself dealing with customers all the time!) 

•Selling and negotiating skills (customers tend to negotiate prices, payments and delivery) 

•Time and stress management (you cannot waste time – wasting time is wasting money)

•Crisis management (what if plan A does not work)? 

•Photography (your product is as good as the image you post) 

•Social media literacy (deciding which platforms are more suitable for your business and how to promote your work through them) 

• Social skills and relationship building 

• Anger management (to face unexpected disappointments!) 

• Basic marketing knowledge (you need to have a commercial name and a professional logo for example; some reading on proper branding is useful) 

• Basic financial knowledge (purchasing, pricing, profitability, calculating cost) 

• Communication skills (professional E-mail writing, presentation skills and so on)

What no one 

else will tell you!

• Build your network; connections and relationships can be the most important factor in your success 

• Do your own research and work hard to find your sources — no one will help you get the best raw materials or tell you about the best processes 

• You learn by experimenting and out of your own experience (never give up) 

• There are no shortcuts to success; you can only climb the ladder, one step at a time 

• Be ready to be copied! 

• Do not wait for the perfect product, do your best to produce a product that is as good as it can be and keep developing and improving it as you go 

• Invest in building your online presence and a professional brand image on the web 

• Test your product with the right audience (your mother or father will only say that you’re awesome!)

How to increase your chances of success

• Making sure that you are satisfying your customers’ needs and wants 

• Knowing your customers and talking to them (create an interactive customer’s database) 

• Creating a cohesive team 

• Never compromising on quality 

• Never overpricing or underpricing your product 

• Paying extra attention to marketing and sales 

• Participating in relevant workshops, events and exhibitions

As exciting as it sounds, being your own boss has its risks and challenges. Unfortunately, most new businesses do not make it to the fourth year! So my final advice to you is to never invest all your financial resources and never put all your eggs in one basket. 

An ideal scenario is to have another source of income while you build up your new business. And know that success takes time and includes a lot of trial and error to reach your desired outcome.

Good luck entrepreneurs!.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

People who suffer from conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, a Swedish study suggests, and the risk may be greatest in the months right after stress disorders are diagnosed. 

For the study, researchers examined data on 136,637 people diagnosed with PTSD, acute stress reaction, adjustment disorder or other mental health problems caused by stressful or traumatic events. They also looked at data for 171,314 siblings of these patients who were not exposed to stressful or traumatic events as well as almost 1.4 million other individuals without such exposure. 

None of the subjects had cardiovascular disease at the start of the study period. 

During 27 years of follow-up, researchers calculated what proportion of people in each group developed cardiovascular diseases every year. Among those with stress disorders, an average of 10.5 people per 1,000 were diagnosed each year with atherosclerosis, arrhythmias, embolisms, high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular conditions. That compares with an average of 8.4 per 1,000 among their siblings and 6.9 per 1,000 in the wider population without stress disorders. 

“The large majority of humans are at some point in their lives exposed to trauma or stressful life events, with a significant proportion developing severe psychiatric reactions such as PTSD or adjustment disorder,” said lead study author Huan Song of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. 

“Medical providers should be aware that these vulnerable populations may suffer heightened risks of various cardiovascular diseases, which calls for enhanced clinical awareness/monitoring and, perhaps, early intervention among patients with recently diagnosed stress-related disorders,” Song said by e-mail. 

The risk of severe and acute cardiovascular events, such as cardiac arrest and heart attack, was particularly high in the first six months after diagnosis of a stress disorder, and within the first year for other types of cardiovascular diseases, researchers report in The BMJ. 

And, there was a stronger link between stress disorders and cases of cardiovascular disease that developed earlier in life, before age 50, than for cases diagnosed later, the study found. 

The study was not designed to prove whether or how stress disorders might directly cause cardiovascular disease. 

While researchers did account for several factors that can contribute to cardiovascular disease like family background, medical history and underlying psychiatric conditions, it is still possible that some unmeasured stress-coping behaviours like smoking and drinking might have also influenced the results, the authors note. 

It is also unclear how treating stress disorders or underlying psychiatric issues might impact the chances of developing cardiovascular problems. 

“The evidence we have to date doesn’t show that treating psychological problems leads to reductions in heart disease,” said the author of an accompanying editorial, Simon Bacon of Concordia University in Montreal. 

“However, there are very few of these studies and there are some problems with the studies, so it is still possible that the right kind of treatments might actually reduce PTSD and the chances of developing heart disease,” Bacon said by e-mail. 

But patients should still seek medical attention if they feel like stress is affecting their physical or mental health, Bacon advised. 

“There are some really good treatments for these kinds of disorders and no one should suffer unnecessarily,” Bacon said. “It is also possible that by treating these disorders, the person might not only improve their mental health but also their physical health.” 

PARIS — At least one running argument among cat lovers is now over: Whiskers, Lucy and Tigger are definitely better off staying indoors, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Pet cats allowed outdoors, in fact, are nearly three times as likely to become infected with pathogens or parasites than those confined to quarters, they reported in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Two-legged house-mates should also take note because cats — a.k.a. Felis catus — can transmit some of those diseases to humans, the authors said. 

Intriguingly, the farther domesticated felines are from the equator, the more likely they are to be afflicted by some kind of bug or virus, if they spend time outdoors.

“Each degree in absolute latitude increased infection likelihood by 4 per cent,” said lead author Kayleigh Chalkowski, a researcher at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University in Alabama.

“You think of tropical regions as just having more wildlife, more parasites,” she told AFP. “But it turned out that latitude had the opposite effect.”

To settle the indoor-vs-outdoor question once and for all, Chalkowski and colleagues combed through nearly two dozen earlier studies, in which the prevalence of one or more diseases was compared across interior and exterior environments.

All told, the new study looked at 19 different cat pathogens in more than a dozen countries, including Spain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Pakistan, Brazil, The Netherlands and St Kitts.

‘Keep your cat indoors’

“This is the first time outdoor access as a risk factor for infection in cats has been quantified across a wide range of geographic locales and types of pathogens,” Chalkowski said.

The effects were consistent for almost all of the diseases, including feline roundworm and the single-cell parasite that causes toxoplasmosis, both of which can affect humans.

This held true regardless of how they were transmitted — whether from soil, other cats or prey such as mice and birds.

“Basically, no matter where you are in the world, keeping your cat indoors is a great way to keep them healthy from infectious diseases,” Chalkowski said by way of summary.

This is especially good advice, she added, “considering that many of the pathogens cats carry can actually be spread to humans”.

Other domesticated animals transmit disease to their caretakers — dogs, for examples, spread rabies, and cattle carry Cryptosporidium parvum, a parasitic disease that attacks the intestinal tract.

Wild cats were likely first drawn to human communities in search of rodents, and were domesticated some 5,000 years ago. In ancient Egypt, they were associated with gods and prominently featured in hieroglyphics.

There are 500 million pet cats worldwide .

It is now understood, the only way these days to enjoy modern-age digital audio-visual entertainment is to use live streaming over the Internet, whether it is to listen to music or to watch movies. In less than five years, the top sites providing these services have made major progress and ensured the subscription of tens of millions the world over.

In the USA alone the number of audio streams increased from 79 billion in 2014 to 611 billion in 2018, whereas video streams went from 85 up to 290 billion during the same period, according to statista.com figures.

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video lead in the film sector, with 140 million and 100 million subscribers, respectively. In the world of music, Spotify has 96 million paid subscribers and Deezer and Tidal about 10 million each. The number of non-paid, free subscriptions to these audio services is obviously higher.

If the overall trend is clear, there are essentially two main, significant differences between the worlds of audio and music streaming and that of video.

The first is that audio services offer free subscriptions for those who can live happily with good-enough audio quality, which statistically-speaking represents about one-third of the total number of users. Good-enough sound is equivalent to typical FM radio broadcast and to most of the music videos found on YouTube. Technically speaking this is MP3 sound encoded at 128 or 256Kbps. For higher quality one would have to move up to either MP3 at 320Kbps or to lossless (i.e. uncompressed) sound, both available only with paid subscriptions.

Video streaming services offer no options that would be similar to the above audio choices.

The second difference is about the selection of material available. Here audio largely wins over video, and for more than one reason. Consider Netflix for instance. Despite the many good qualities of the service, the selection that is available to you varies depending on the country or region where you are. You can see it as “taste-driven guidance”, as straightforward, systematic regional censorship or simply as a matter of region-related copyrights. The fact remains that some movies are available to watch in a given region and not in another. There is no such restriction with the audio and music streaming services.

Moreover, movie selection seems somewhat limited. According to businessinsider.com the number of TV shows (or series) on Netflix increased from 530 to 1570 between 2010 and 2018, while for the same period the number of feature movies went down from 6750 to 4010. This confirms the extent to which the company is focusing on TV shows rather than on feature films, and that you have less and less chances to find that specific movie you really want to watch and that you may be looking for. On the other hand there is no such arbitrary choice in the audio and music world, with Spotify providing over an astounding 40 million music pieces of all kinds, and offering exactly the same catalogue to wherever in the world you may be.

Consumers who do not mind average audio-visual quality, invasive advertising and eventual interruptions, and who are not particularly keen to have a subscription — paid or otherwise — tend to prefer YouTube. At least the choice here is truly overwhelming, exceeding that of any other service and consists of billions of both audio and video programmes. The site merchdope.com estimates that: “By 2025, half of the viewers under 32 will not subscribe to a pay TV service”. The majority of those who access YouTube come to it for the music, more than for films or for these popular tutorials of all kinds.

In summary, audio and music streaming is more popular, more widely used, provides more options and overall is more open than video streaming.

Say goodbye to standing in long lines clutching boarding passes and other travel documents.

Step this way, instead. Look into the camera lens and off you go.

Sound convenient? Technology companies working with travel providers and the federal government to install facial recognition systems at airports and cruise terminals hope you think so.

But privacy advocates do not want you to become too comfortable. They worry that what we’re willing to accept for convenience sake today will soften our resistance to the idea of filling public spaces with cameras that can identify us and track our every move.

In South Florida, facial recognition systems are popping up at airports and seaports:

At the new Terminal 25 in Port Everglades, passengers heading for their Royal Caribbean cruises can breeze through check-in and boarding if they pre-registered at home, thanks to a system developed for the cruise line by California-based biometrics developer Tascent.

In its announcement heralding the system’s debut in November, Tascent called it a “next-gen biometric traveller experience” that enables “frictionless arrivals”.

At PortMiami, Royal Caribbean worked with another provider, IDEMIA, on a facial recognition system used to speed debarkation, the process of getting people off the ship. IDEMIA’s MFace high-speed 3D face capture technology scans faces of travellers leaving ships and instantly verifies their identities by matching the scans with images collected at the beginning of cruises.

Testing of the system at PortMiami and Cape Liberty in New Jersey, announced in 2017, is complete and the system is “now moving into commercial production at these ports”, an IDEMIA news release stated.

The release quoted Capt. Thomas Hinderhofer, Royal Caribbean’s director of northeast port operations, as saying the cruise line has received “very positive feedback” on the new system. “Innovative solutions that improve our guests’ total experience — including the final step of clearing Customs in a fast, secure, frictionless process — is Royal Caribbean’s way of the future,” he said.

Miami International Airport launched a biometric entry pilot program in November 2017 at its renovated Concourse E facility that is capable of screening up to 10 passengers a minute — reducing passenger wait times by 20 per cent to 80 per cent, the airport said on its website. The system works by comparing travellers’ scanned facial images to images on their passports.

At the airport’s Gate J17, Lufthansa fliers can forego boarding passes entirely and present just their faces. Additional airlines are expected to get the technology this year.

JetBlue offers a similar facial recognition system to speed boarding for select international flights at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

The new programs join other biometric scanning technologies, such as CLEAR, which identifies passengers using eye and fingerprint scans. That technology, which requires pre-enrolment, enables passengers to skip the document presentation line, but not the physical Transportation Security Administration inspection line. CLEAR is available at 28 US airports, including terminals E and H at Miami International and terminals 1 and 2 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, for $179 a year.

A free version is available to travellers at participating stadiums and sports arenas, including American Airlines Arena in downtown Miami.

Systems that scan fingerprints or eyes are not as threatening as facial recognition systems, which can identify and track people with cameras installed throughout the public realm, including atop buildings, utility poles, street signs and traffic signals, privacy advocates say.

Operators of the new facial recognition systems say they take travellers’ privacy concerns seriously.

Travellers can opt out of participating in the biometric checks and proceed through their check-in by presenting traditional documents, according to the US Customs and Border Protection, which is overseeing programs involving international travel.

IDEMIA says no images used by its MFace technology to speed cruise ship debarkation will be stored after trips are completed.

And the Customs and Border Protection says it retains images of US citizens and exempt non-citizens no more than 12 hours after their identities are verified. Images of non-citizens can be retained up to 14 days except under certain circumstances required by law. Images that fall under those exceptions will be retained by the Department of Homeland Security “as a biometrically-confirmed arrival or departure from the United States”.

Even if travellers’ photos are deleted after they return to the US, federal and state agencies retain photos of citizens’ passports, visas and driver licenses in their databases that could used at any time to identify faces recorded by surveillance cameras.

That is the capability that worries privacy advocates, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union.

At thousands of locations across the country, law enforcement agencies capture and store licence plate numbers photographed by surveillance cameras positioned along city streets. Law enforcement agencies freely share their databases showing whose cars were where, when, and how many times, the EFF reported.

Faces also are photographed by police body cameras, the ACLU pointed out in a letter last year urging Amazon to stop licensing its surveillance system, Rekognition, which can recognise persons of interest in real time, to law enforcement agencies.

“People should be free to walk down the street without being watched by the government,” the ACLU said in the July letter. “Facial recognition in American communities threatens this freedom.” Amazon continues to market the product to police agencies, CNBC reported in December.

What makes facial recognition different from other biometrics “is that it’s very easy to collect from a person without their noticing”, said Adam Schwartz, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a story published in The Hill in December 2017.

The story pointed out that the FBI already has 412 million images in its facial recognition database to which surveillance cameras can be easily linked if the government chooses.

We are more likely to accept that choice if we first learn to appreciate facial recognition as a time-saving convenience, Schwartz told The Hill.

“There’s a fear we have of increased normalisation of this,” he said. “Once people start doing facial recognition on an airplane, they’ll get used to it in a supermarket. And then all of a sudden our lives become more and more on display.”

Back pain during pregnancy is not surprising, but it still deserves attention. You are gaining weight, your centre of gravity changes, and your hormones are relaxing the ligaments in the joints of your pelvis. Often, however, you can prevent or ease back pain during pregnancy. Consider seven ways to give pregnancy back pain the boot.

1. Practice good posture

As your baby grows, your centre of gravity shifts forward. To avoid falling forward, you might compensate by leaning back — which can strain the muscles in your lower back and contribute to back pain during pregnancy. Keep these principles of good posture in mind: 

—Stand up straight and tall.

—Hold your chest high.

—Keep your shoulders back and relaxed.

—Do not lock your knees.

When you stand, use a comfortably wide stance for the best support. If you must stand for long periods of time, rest one foot on a low step stool — and take time for frequent breaks.

Good posture also means sitting with care. Choose a chair that supports your back, or place a small pillow behind your lower back.

2. Get the right gear

Wear low-heeled — not flat — shoes with good arch support. Avoid high heels, which can further shift your balance forward and cause you to fall.

You might also consider wearing a maternity support belt. Although research on the effectiveness of maternity support belts is limited, some women find the additional support helpful.

3. Lift properly

When lifting a small object, squat down and lift with your legs. Do not bend at the waist or lift with your back. It is also important to know your limits. Ask for help if you need it.

4. Sleep on your side

Sleep on your side, not your back. Keep one or both knees bent. Consider using pregnancy or support pillows between your bent knees, under your abdomen and behind your back.

5. Try heat, cold or massage

While evidence to support their effectiveness is limited, massage or the application of a heating pad or ice pack to your back might help.

6. Include physical 

activity in your daily routine

Regular physical activity can keep your back strong and might relieve back pain during pregnancy. With your health care provider’s OK, try gentle activities — such as walking or water exercise. A physical therapist also can show you stretches and exercises that might help.

You might also stretch your lower back. Rest on your hands and knees with your head in line with your back. Pull in your stomach, rounding your back slightly. Hold for several seconds, then relax your stomach and back — keeping your back as flat as possible. Gradually work up to 10 repetitions. Ask your health care provider about other stretching exercises, too.

7. Consider complementary therapies

Some research suggests that acupuncture might relieve back pain during pregnancy. Chiropractic treatment might provide comfort for some women as well. However, further research is needed. If you are considering a complementary therapy, discuss it with your health care provider. Be sure to tell the chiropractor or acupuncturist that you are pregnant.

Know when to consult your healthcare provider

If you have severe back pain during pregnancy or back pain that lasts more than two weeks, talk to your health care provider. He or she might recommend medication such as acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) or other treatments.

Keep in mind that back pain during pregnancy might be a sign of preterm labour or a urinary tract infection. If you have back pain during pregnancy that’s accompanied by vaginal bleeding, fever or burning during urination, contact your health care provider right away.