Five design considerations for AI accelerators in data center chips

Here is what matters the most when selecting and reviewing hardware accelerators for AI-centric data center designs.

from Electronic Products Technology Center Articles https://ift.tt/2yhlwLT

New technique embeds sensors in clothing for vital sign monitoring

MIT researchers have developed a new textile platform to embed sensors into fabrics that enables vital sign monitoring.

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Friday CoronaBuzz, May 1, 2020: 40 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Friday CoronaBuzz, May 1, 2020: 40 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

Fox 17: New website could help you save money on medical bills. “It’s pretty straight forward and completely free to use, all you have to do is answer a few questions including your income, insurance status, and how much you owe at which hospital. In a couple minutes it will tell you if you qualify.” Applying for financial assistance is an additional step. You can do it on your own, or the site can help you for a fee of $29.

Brandeis NOW: How artificial intelligence is helping scientists find a coronavirus treatment. “More than 50,000 academic articles have been written about COVID-19 since the virus appeared in November. The volume of new information isn’t necessarily a good thing. Not all of the recent coronavirus literature has been peer reviewed, while the sheer number of articles makes it challenging for accurate and promising research to stand out or be further studied. Computer science and linguistics professor James Pustejovsky is leading a Brandeis team in creating an artificial intelligence platform called Semantic Visualization of Scientific Data — or SemViz — that can sort through the growing mass of published work on coronavirus and help biologists who study the disease gain insights and notice patterns and trends across research that could lead to a treatment or cure.”

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

Buzz IE: New website launched to help teachers support students online. “A new website, ‘Teacher Support’, has been launched by Hibernia College, one of Ireland’s leading teacher-training institutions, to support Primary and Post-Primary teachers who are teaching classes online during Covid-19.”

State of New Jersey: To Celebrate Earth Day, DEP Launches Online Stay-at-Home Activities, Learning Tools And Virtual Park Visits. “Visitors can also check in on active peregrine falcon and bald eagle nests through the live webcams maintained by the Wildlife Conservation Foundation of New Jersey, as well as the group’s many other interesting wildlife video and educational offerings. New Jersey’s Division of Parks and Forestry is also bringing New Jersey’s parks to visitors virtually. Its popular #IHeartNJParks campaign now connects with the public through virtual access through its Facebook and Instagram pages ( https://www.facebook.com/NewJerseyStateParks/ and https://www.instagram.com/newjerseystateparks). The campaign posts new content each day, including a special collection of park tours and projects, interviews with experts and never published historical photos. In addition, through a series of stunning, even inspiring, videos, families can make virtual visits to popular parks and historic sites from High Point to Cape May Point.”

TopGear Philippines: If your kids are starting to feel cabin fever, Porsche 4Kids might help. “If these kids have found something to immerse themselves in at home—such as books or art—then good for them (and for you). But if the kids keep asking what else they’re going to do at the start of each day, you’re in deep waters. We have a possible solution here for you, though, and it’s not the usual smartphone app, video game, or YouTube content that might first come to mind. This is Porsche 4Kids, a website filled to the brim with activities, games, and all sorts of enjoyable interactive content for children.”

PR Newswire: Discover Puerto Rico First to Offer Live Guided Tours Through Google Earth (PRESS RELEASE). “As most of us enter another week of shelter-in-place mandates, Discover Puerto Rico is the first destination to entertain and educate would-be tourists by transporting them through Google Earth on live guided tours throughout the Island. Jorge Montalvo from Patria Tours will be hosting a series of three live guided tours utilizing Google Earth, during National Travel and Tourism Week (May 3-9). Participants will feel like they are actually in Puerto Rico, seeing the Island’s natural wonders, off the beaten path experiences, and cultural offerings, with the ability to interact and ask questions along the way.” The tours are free.

The Statehouse File: Eiteljorg welcomes visitors for a virtual look at museum exhibits. “Even though the doors of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art are closed because of COVID-19, its online access allows visitors to enjoy the experience while remaining safe at home. The Eiteljorg Museum’s artworks from collections such as the Native American, Western and Contemporary are now accessible… The digital and interactive experiences allow families to stay at home and still see and learn about the museum’s exhibitions.

Lifehacker: How to Watch the Virtual Kentucky Derby This Weekend. “The Kentucky Derby was originally slated to happen this weekend, but like most everything else worth getting excited about, it has been postponed to later in the year. This is only the second time the race has even been postponed in its storied 146-year history. (The first time was in 1945, in the final year of World War II.) While we won’t see an actual race this Saturday—that’s been rescheduled for September 5—Churchill Downs is hosting a number of Derby-related events this weekend to raise money for COVID-19 relief.”

WWLP: Music Fan Creates Online Schedule of Home Based Performances. “Do you love live music? Are you disappointed that you can’t get out to see some live performances? We have some great news for you. A local music fan has created an online database of local music performances you can enjoy from home.” Local (western Massachusetts) gigs at the top (a LOT of ’em), “Shows from Elsewhere” further down.

Hyde Park Herald: With ‘Spinning Home Movies,’ DJs bring Chicagoans a weekly dose of history. “Luther Vandross soundtracking a Greater Grand Crossing block party. Kids rollerblading over Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love?’ A young couple sitting and laughing with each other while Curtis Mayfield sings “I wanna go back, to the sweetness of time/I wanna go back, and reminisce what was mine.” These are small excerpts from the videos and music, often old-school R&B and soul, found in the mixes that make up ‘Spinning Home Movies,’ a new DJ series from the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) and Arts and Public Life at the University of Chicago. Broadcast over a Facebook livestream every Thursday at 7 p.m., each entry features a different DJ putting together a mix over footage from the SSHMP archive. ” BRILLIANT.

NEW RESOURCES – OTHER

SportTechie: Cornhole, the Popular Backyard and Tailgate Game, Goes Online and Global. “The American Cornhole League has launched ACL Virtual, a digital platform that allows athletes to remotely compete in tournaments via the internet. The platform enables international players to compete against American-based players for the first time. ACL Virtual can be accessed through the ACL Bags App. Inside the platform, players will be able to sign up for tournaments (singles, doubles, or blind-draw) and pay a registration fee. Once all players have registered for a tournament, an ACL director will notify all participants of the time they have to complete each round, which will typically be 24 hours. ”

Los Angeles Magazine: California Launches a New Child Care Portal for Essential Workers. “With schools closed, many essential employees across California have struggled to find safe options for child care when they need to go work–and as more businesses begin to reopen, the child care crunch may become even tougher. To address those concerns, the state has launched a new tool to match families with available, licensed providers.”

Wisconsin Law Journal: New ABA pro bono portal connects lawyers with volunteer opportunities. “The American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division’s Disaster Legal Services Program and Paladin, a justice tech company, launched the national disaster relief pro bono portal on Thursday. The online database is free to use. Lawyers can filter by practice area, community, type of engagement and ability to work remotely. Current highlighted opportunities include COVID-19 relief, Puerto Rico earthquake relief, FEMA and federal, and disaster-related unemployment.”

USEFUL STUFF

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options. “If you’re among those financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, you might be concerned about how to pay your mortgage or rent. Federal and state governments, as well as financial institutions and loan servicers, have announced plans to help struggling homeowners during this time. Keep reading to get information on what to do now, and what your options are for mortgage, rental relief, and utility disconnections.”

Book Riot: How To Find Bookish Joy In A Time Of Quarantine. “I have to make a conscious effort to finish a book, since I find myself easily swayed by the siren-like call of a new book. This means that my book cap goal has gone out the window. I haven’t listened to hardly any audiobooks, since I’m not commuting anymore. And my drinking has increased slightly since this all began. But, I am still trying to make lemonade margaritas out of the lemons being lobbed by life right now. I wanted to share some bookish things have brought me joy while grown-up grounded.”

UPDATES

USA Today: YouTube to roll out independent fact check feature for US users. “YouTube is rolling out information panels for search results aimed at providing fact checks for its users in the U.S. The fact check feature, already available in Brazil and India, includes independent information meant to offer additional context on a topic.”

CNET: Facebook sees strong user growth as coronavirus pandemic creates uncertainty. “Facebook’s first-quarter revenue and user numbers beat Wall Street expectations Wednesday, even as the social media giant cautioned that the coronavirus pandemic has caused ‘unprecedented uncertainty’ for the future of its ad business.”

UC Today: Otter. ai Launches Meeting Transcriptions for Teams, Zoom. “‘Live Transcription,’ lets meeting attendees open transcripts during a live call and highlight, comment, as well as add photos to live meeting notes. Following a call, end users can leverage ‘Post-Meeting Transcription,’ the automatic downloading of Zoom cloud recordings for transcription. There’s even headset support, a feature that captures both sides of a conversation when using headsets or earbuds. Each feature does require organizations have an active Zoom subscription.”

Search Engine Journal: Google My Business Impressions Down 59%. “An analysis of COVID-19’s impact on local search finds Google My Business experienced a sharp performance drop. A study from Reputation.com of over 80,000 US listings finds that impressions are down an average of 59% across all verticals. However, there are signs that performance will turn around sooner than many might expect.”

CNN: With $2.2 trillion stimulus, lawmakers now see fixes they want to make. “Lawmakers responsible for passing a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill in a matter of days are now looking back with some buyer’s remorse, fearful that some of the programs they launched haven’t yet met their potential or have unleashed unintended consequences that could become a liability in the next election with each party already pointing the finger at colleagues across the aisle.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

BBC: Coronavirus: Serena Williams among stars to compete in Mario Tennis tournament. “Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka and Maria Sharapova are among the tennis stars who will compete in a live-streamed tournament of Mario Tennis Aces. Top tennis players will partner celebrities and play as characters from the game on Nintendo Switch.”

WISHTV: Nearly 900 at Tyson Foods plant test positive for coronavirus. “The Cass County Health Department on Wednesday afternoon said it has seen just under 1,200 positive COVID-19 cases. Almost 900 employees at the Tyson Food plant in Cass County’s Logansport have tested positive. The county had been working with Tyson on a plan to reopen the plant after the pork processing plant voluntarily closed for 14 days in an effort to contain an outbreak. Cass County Commissioner Ryan Browning has been working with Tyson and the health department to develop a workable reopening plan that has been thrown into high gear by President Donald Trump’s executive order to reopen meat processing plants shuttered by the virus.”

TimeOut: Google reveals the top recipes every state is searching for right now. “You can tell a lot about what’s going on in someone’s life based on their search history. And right now, we’re all turning to recipes to bide our time indoors and create comforting dishes. There’s data to back that up: Google recently revealed that the search interest around the term ‘recipe’ has reached an all-time high between 2004 and now. Of course, the wizards at Google can also tell us exactly what folks are searching for and break it down by geographical location.”

African Arguments: “It’s lucrative”: Zimbabwe’s farmers turn to social media to stop the rot. “Since Zimbabwe started lockdown measures on 30 March, farmers have been struggling to sell their produce. With restaurants closed and people staying away from markets, tonnes of tomatoes, avocados and other fruit and veg have been rotting in piles across the country. Since COVID-19, many farmers have recorded losses of thousands of dollars. Some, however, have adopted new strategies to sell their produce. In the past few weeks, marketing posters have increasingly been popping up across social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp advertising direct home deliveries.”

Washington Post: Watch my kids, please: Parents hire Zoom babysitters so they can shelter in peace. “Babysitting used to go something like this: A local teenager comes over to the house after school to play with the kids, then tucks them into bed and spends the remainder of the evening texting from the sofa. All so the parents can unwind after a long week of working in offices by eating and drinking in a crowded restaurant. Now, babysitting is something that happens over a Zoom or FaceTime call during the day, usually for an hour or less, a few feet from those same parents. But instead of downing margaritas and laughing, they’re taking conference calls, catching up on emails, helping their other kids with home schooling, or just locking themselves in the bathroom for a quick cry.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

BBC: Coronavirus: France offers subsidy to tempt lockdown cyclists. “France is encouraging people to cycle to keep pollution levels low once lockdown restrictions end. Under the €20 million (£17m; $21.7m) scheme, everyone will be eligible for bike repairs of up to €50 at registered mechanics. The funding will also help pay for cycle training and temporary parking spaces.”

New Zealand Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus: Government to provide $100,000 interest-free loans to businesses. “The Government will provide interest-free loans of up to $100,000 to small businesses grappling with the impacts of Covid-19, after banks failed to meet the Government’s expectations. The loans are available for a year and will be offered to businesses with 50 or fewer full-time equivalent staff. But the loans are only available to businesses which have had their revenue hit by more than 30 per cent due to Covid-19.”

Tampa Bay Times: Florida medical examiners were releasing coronavirus death data. The state made them stop.. “State officials have stopped releasing the list of coronavirus deaths being compiled by Florida’s medical examiners, which has at times shown a higher death toll than the state’s published count. The list had previously been released in real time by the state Medical Examiners Commission. But earlier this month, after the Tampa Bay Times reported that the medical examiners’ death count was 10 percent higher than the figure released by the Florida Department of Health, state officials said the list needed to be reviewed and possibly redacted.”

ProPublica: Texas Still Won’t Say Which Nursing Homes Have COVID-19 Cases. Families Are Demanding Answers.. “As elderly and vulnerable citizens continue to die from COVID-19 in closed-off long-term care centers around the country, many of their relatives have begged elected leaders to release the locations of these outbreaks. Their pleas have carried weight with governors in Georgia, New York, Oklahoma and Florida, among others, who mandated an accounting of where the virus had spread. Not in Texas. Despite more than 300 deaths in such facilities, Gov. Greg Abbott has not moved to make public where patients and caretakers have fallen ill or died.”

City A.M.: Google removes 2.7bn bad ads as it launches Covid-19 taskforce. “Google removed roughly 2.7bn so-called bad ads last year as the tech giant ramps up its efforts to block misleading and malicious campaigns actors on its platform. The search engine’s crackdown, which equates to 5,000 ads per minute, is an increase on the 2.3bn adverts removed in 2018.”

Washington Post: U.S. officials crafting retaliatory actions against China over coronavirus as President Trump fumes. “Senior U.S. officials are beginning to explore proposals for punishing or demanding financial compensation from China for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to four senior administration officials with knowledge of internal planning. The move could splinter already strained relations between the two superpowers at a perilous moment for the global economy.”

RESEARCH

EurekAlert: Researcher repurposes social networking models to predict COVID spread. “Since the COVID-19 epidemic began, there has been plenty of opportunity to observe how a vast array of truths, half-truths, and falsehoods can flare up and spread like wildfire across social media, swirl around, and just as quickly get buried and forgotten. It could serve as a fascinating case study for CSL and computer science professor Tarek Abdelzaher, who for years has studied how information propagates through social media. But he and his students Chaoqi Yang and Ruijie Wang have taken a big step further. They recognized that the dissemination of information through a population of online users is closely analogous to the transmission of a virus through a population of flesh-and-blood human beings, and that realization has inspired them to repurpose their information propagation models to predict COVID-19 spread. Furthermore, they have made the findings available to the public on an interactive website.”

Phys .org: Researchers offer ways to address life under COVID-19. “An international team of researchers has outlined ways to manage different facets of life under the spread of the COVID-19 virus, ranging from how we can combat racially driven bias and fake news to how we can increase cooperation and better manage stress. Its work, which appears in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, considers research stretching over the past half century to offer insights about how to address current circumstances.”

POLITICS AND SECURITY

Washington Post: Well-connected Trump alumni benefit from coronavirus lobbying rush. “As lobbyists blitz Washington for a piece of the massive federal response to the global pandemic, a group of former Trump administration officials and campaign alumni are in the center of the action, helping private interests tap into coveted financial and regulatory relief programs. Businesses hit hard by the virus and health-care manufacturers seeking approval for their products have rushed to hire Trump alumni, who are leveraging their connections in a variety of ways — helping get their clients designated as ‘essential’ services and securing meetings at the White House and federal agencies on their behalf, federal filings show.”

New York Times: Trump’s Disinfectant Talk Trips Up Sites’ Vows Against Misinformation. “At a White House briefing last week, Mr. Trump suggested that disinfectants and ultraviolet light were possible treatments for the virus. His remarks immediately found their way onto Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites, and people rushed to defend the president’s statements as well as mock them. But Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have declined to remove Mr. Trump’s statements posted online in video clips and transcriptions of the briefing, saying he did not specifically direct people to pursue the unproven treatments. That has led to a mushrooming of other posts, videos and comments about false virus cures with UV lights and disinfectants that the companies have largely left up.”

ZDNet: 5G mast arson, coronavirus conspiracy theories force social media to walk a fine censorship line. “There have been at least 61 suspected arson attacks against telephone masts in the United Kingdom alone in recent weeks, including against those serving local hospitals, and it is believed the uptake in vandalism is due to the deluge of 5G theories being shared across social media. The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Cyprus, and Sweden have also experienced mast arson attacks. While these theories have been debunked, with agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO), technology vendors, telecoms providers, and governments attempting to stop the spread of such misinformation, the conspiracy link between 5G and the novel coronavirus persists.”

Complex: Cops to Reportedly Crack Down on Large House Parties Using Social Media. “According to TMZ, police departments in major cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City are reportedly planning on cracking down on large social gatherings that are in direct violation of the social distancing requests that are currently in place. And in an effort to try and curb any large functions, cops are reportedly planning on keeping an eye on social media and live streams as a way of tracking whether or not people are breaking the rules.”

Bloomberg: Trump Hails Kushner’s PPE Airlift, But Details of Sales Are Secret. “A program created by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has airlifted millions of gloves, masks and other coveted coronavirus supplies into the U.S. from overseas — but it isn’t clear who’s getting them and at what price, or how much private-sector partners are earning through the arrangement.”

ABC News: Maryland hiding testing kits, purchased from South Korea, from US government: Hogan. “Maryland authorities were so concerned about the federal government seizing a shipment of COVID-19 tests destined for the state that they made special arrangements to receive and guard the tests until they could be distributed, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said Thursday. Hogan cited the fate of 3 million N95 masks purchased by the state of Massachusetts — all of which were confiscated in March by the federal government at the port of New York — as the main reason for taking extra precautions to secure his state’s order of 500,000 COVID-19 testing kits from South Korea.”

NBC News: British doctors warn some Chinese ventilators could kill if used in hospitals. “Senior British doctors have warned that 250 ventilators the United Kingdom bought from China risk causing ‘significant patient harm, including death,’ if they are used in hospitals, according to a letter seen by NBC News. The doctors said the machines had a problematic oxygen supply, could not be cleaned properly, had an unfamiliar design and a confusing instruction manual, and were built for use in ambulances, not hospitals.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment, send resource suggestions, or tag @buzz_corona on Twitter. Thanks!

May 1, 2020 at 06:41PM
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How piezoelectric transducers can improve haptic feedback

An introduction to piezoelectric haptics provides the pros and cons of each and details piezoelectric transducer principles, theory, and modelling along with a proprietary energy recovery process that greatly reduces input power requirements.

from Electronic Products Technology Center Articles https://ift.tt/2y7xFmG

How piezoelectric transducers can improve haptic feedback

An introduction to piezoelectric haptics provides the pros and cons of each and details piezoelectric transducer principles, theory, and modelling along with a proprietary energy recovery process that greatly reduces input power requirements.

source http://www.electronicproducts.com/Sensors_and_Transducers/Transducers/How_piezoelectric_transducers_can_improve_haptic_feedback.aspx

Thursday CoronaBuzz, April 30, 2020: 26 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Thursday CoronaBuzz, April 30, 2020: 26 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

Pro Bono Australia: The project filling in the coronavirus language gap. “There’s a lot of information out on how to keep safe from coronavirus, but if English isn’t your first language, it can be difficult to track down essential information. It’s an issue that Selena Choo is trying to fix. She has created Videos in Language: Coronavirus and Handwashing, a digital library of important coronavirus health information, videos, and tips, in 28 different Middle-Eastern, African and Asian languages.”

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

Times of India: Gujarat: World’s largest image bank of Ravi Varma goes online. “Amid nationwide lockdown, works of India’s celebrated artist Raja Ravi Varma, who gave face to Hindu gods and goddess, have gone virtual.”

NEW RESOURCES – OTHER

Data Journalism: Verification Handbook. “The latest edition of the Verification Handbook arrives at a critical moment. Today’s information environment is more chaotic and easier to manipulate than ever before. This book equips journalists with the knowledge to investigate social media accounts, bots, private messaging apps, information operations, deep fakes, as well as other forms of disinformation and media manipulation. The first resource of its kind, it builds on the first edition of the Verification Handbook and the Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting.”

WBRZ (Louisiana): Ag Center creates tool to safely connect community with local farmers amid COVID-19 crisis. “Supporting your local farmers during the shutdown is just a click away with a new brand new tool. ‘Farms especially have lost a lot of their market, restaurants especially, even those that are open have very limited capacity and schools are a big one as well,’ Johannah Frelier with the LSU Ag. Center said. Frelier has compiled a state-wide list of local farms, butchers, and distributors providing farm-fresh food.”

WENY: NYS Bar Association to offer free legal aid for denied unemployment insurance applicants. “The Bar Association is helping people who have applied for unemployment insurance but were denied. The Bar Association President says people have a much better case to make while challenging that denial if they have an attorney in their corner, but as you can imagine, someone without a job may not be able to afford one. If you’re denied an unemployment insurance claim with New York, you can challenge it and get a hearing, if the ruling stands, you can then appeal it.”

Film News: BFI launches Britain On Lockdown a public call out to map the digital video response to Coronavirus. “Today the [British Film Institute] launches a public campaign, Britain on Lockdown, calling on the British public to recommend those online videos that best represent how Britain has experienced the impact of Coronavirus. From Joe Wicks to Boris Johnson, solidarity for NHS frontline workers and local communities coming together through to comedy parodies, public health videos about the importance of proper handwashing and charity campaign films, online video has played a key role in our collective experience of the lockdown in a way that has never been experienced before.”

USEFUL STUFF

Los Angeles Times: Teens are feeling lonely and anxious in isolation. Here’s how parents can help. “Normally adolescence, a developmental period marked by impulsivity and feelings of invincibility, is a time in which teenagers separate from their parents and bond with their peers. Now that families are confined at home, parents are in a peculiar position in which they have to balance the seriousness of the novel coronavirus with their teen’s desire for social interaction.”

UPDATES

New York Times: New York Attorney General Scrutinizes Amazon for Firing Warehouse Worker. “Amazon may have violated federal worker safety laws and New York State’s whistle-blower protections when it fired an employee from its Staten Island warehouse who protested the company’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a letter the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, sent the company last week.”

New York Times: Commissioner Resigns After He Threw a Cat During Zoom Meeting. “The city Planning Commission meeting in Vallejo, Calif., last week followed the same humdrum pattern of so many municipal meetings: There was the Pledge of Allegiance and a roll call, followed by various reports…. But things took an unexpected turn about two hours and 24 minutes into the session after one of the commissioners, Chris Platzer, was asked if he had any comments after reviewing a project application. ‘Yes, if I’m allowed to make them,’ he said, just after a cat could be heard loudly meowing offscreen, according to a video of the meeting.”

Marine Corps Times: Dozens test positive for COVID-19 at San Diego boot camp. “Nearly four dozen recruits within Bravo company aboard the recruit depot in San Diego, California, have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Marine official. Training at the depot has not been halted and there is no current pause in receiving incoming new recruits, the official said.”

The Moscow Times: Nurses Quit En Masse From Russia’s Top Coronavirus Hospital: Reports. “Nurses have quit en masse from Russia’s top coronavirus hospital in Moscow over poor working conditions and low wages, the investigative news website Open Media reported Monday. A former nurse who said she quit the Kommunarka hospital after almost two months told the outlet that more than a dozen nursing staff had left in that period. They reportedly quit because they were denied clean protective gear, food and adequate accommodations, and were not paid bonuses promised by President Vladimir Putin.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Geo Awesomeness: 10 ways people are using this amazing Google tool to create custom COVID-19 maps. “Google is witnessing a huge surge in the number of people using its custom mapmaking tool, My Maps, during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Google, there have been nearly 3 billion creations, edits, and views in My Maps between December 2019 and April 2020. In the same time period last year, that number was only 2 billion.” Nice roundup but minimal annotation.

The Print (India): Zoom, Google Meet classes ‘next to impossible’ as J&K students struggle with 2G speed. “Schools and colleges, among the worst affected by the lockdown to contain Covid-19, are now increasingly resorting to online classes to salvage their academic sessions. But that has proved a problem for educational institutions in Kashmir where an internet blackout was only recently lifted. In the first week of March, the Jammu and Kashmir government lifted the seven-month long ban on the internet but restricted the speed to 2G, creating hurdles for those who might want to attend online classes.”

The Star: FOMO is dead, and social media influencers are sputtering. “COVID-19 has turned a lot of brick-and-mortar businesses upside down, but it’s upending virtual occupations, too. Suddenly social media influencers — i.e. professional jet-setters who, pre-COVID, chronicled their lives from tropical beaches and elite parties — have nothing to do but sit around at home and wait out the plague like the rest of us.”

The Daily Free Press: Coronavirus brings unseen effects even when sleeping. “In this unprecedented time, many people quarantined in their homes have turned to sleep for relaxation and escape from the daily stress of the coronavirus. Yet these worries in one’s waking life are now carrying over to the unconscious, producing vivid and often illogical dreams. As a result of newfound concerns and societal shutdowns, many are reporting increasingly detailed dreams. This phenomenon is tied to rising cortisol levels and emotion-associated neurotransmitters, Sanford Auerbach, associate professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine, said.”

Daily Beast: Meet the Out-of-Work Women Stripping on Instagram for Celebs During the Pandemic. “For Munni, a 23-year-old Manhattanite, things were looking particularly dire. She was laid off from both of her jobs—cashier at a bagel shop and hostess at a Japanese restaurant—in mid-March, and had just $60 to her name. ‘I was late on my rent and got laid off from my job a few days before the pandemic really hit New York,’ she tells The Daily Beast. ‘It was really scary for me, and I was stressed out about how I would make ends meet.’ Then a friend told her about Demon Time, a roving virtual strip club on Instagram Live, where women could dance anonymously (in a ski mask, or by leaving their head out of the frame) for an online audience of thousands, including celebrities ranging from The Weeknd to Kevin Durant, and rake in thousands of dollars a night.”

Washington Post: ‘What happens if you and Daddy die?’. “Some health-care workers have moved away from their families, and many others have isolated in spare bedrooms or basements, trying to explain to their kids that they can no longer hug them because the consequences of even a single touch could be dire. Most of all, parents have wrestled with how much to divulge, because what their children do and don’t know about the pandemic could consume them. In many cases, it already has: Kids have endured nightmares and recorded their anguish in journals, written parents goodbye letters and created detailed plans of what they’ll do in case they never see their mom or dad again.”

The Appeal: Black Women Have Long Faced Racism In Healthcare. Covid-19 Is Only Amplifying It.. “Across the United States, Black women like [Rana Zoe] Mungin have long faced significant social, economic, and racial barriers to receiving healthcare. Wage disparities, lack of access to hospitals and doctors’ offices, and the chronic stress of racism and implicit biases from providers all contribute to worse healthcare outcomes for Black women versus their white peers. Now, doctors and policymakers are concerned that those factors are compounding in the COVID-19 pandemic, creating greater gaps in care, and potentially increasing the virus’s spread.”

INSTITUTION / CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT

Sydney Morning Herald: Google races to replace Zoom as live video app of choice. “Google says its Meet service is more secure because it’s a part of the company’s existing portfolio of accounts and services, which is subject to stringent security testing. The Meet service has, until now, been offered as part of the company’s G-Suite services that businesses and schools pay for. However, Google has now started rolling it out gradually to everyone with a personal or business Google account.”

Philadelphia Tribune: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Black churches aid free testing. “It was early last Friday morning when Andrea Lawful-Sanders, an on-air personality at WURD Radio, witnessed dozens of cars waiting to get into the parking lot of the Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ. People were waiting at the 6401 Ogontz Ave. church for COVID-19 tests administered by the Black Doctors COVID19 Consortium, which had organized yet another one of its free-of-charge community testing events. Lawful-Sanders was there to drop off face masks.”

ProPublica: Health Insurers to Investors: We’re Good. Health Insurers to Lawmakers: Please Help.. “Executives at Cigna, the health insurance giant, have signaled to investors that the coronavirus pandemic isn’t hurting the company’s business and might actually be a boon. But that hasn’t stopped the trade group that represents Cigna and other health insurers in Washington from asking lawmakers for aid.”

RESEARCH

New York Times: Data on Gilead Drug Raises Hopes in Pandemic Fight, Fauci Calls It ‘Highly Significant’. “The top U.S. infectious disease official said Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental antiviral drug remdesivir will become the standard of care for COVID-19 after early results from a key clinical trial on Wednesday showed it helped patients recover more quickly from the illness caused by the coronavirus.”

Washington Post: Scientists know ways to help stop viruses from spreading on airplanes. They’re too late for this pandemic.. “On March 14, 1977, a woman with the flu climbed aboard a 737 and headed for Kodiak, Alaska, with 53 other passengers and crew. After an engine failed, most of them sat on the runway with the cabin doors shut, and the ventilation system off, for two hours. Within three days, 38 more people were sick. More than four decades after state and federal epidemiologists showed how easily viruses spread from person to person on airplanes, the novel coronavirus has decimated global aviation. Daily passenger screenings are down 95 percent, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Though there have been significant advances since the 1970s, and airlines spent weeks touting the safety of flying and their steps against the coronavirus, passenger cabins still pose a danger for the spread of infectious diseases, experts said. It is a problem of biology, physics and pure proximity, with airflow, dirty surfaces and close contact with other travelers all at play.”

POLITICS AND SECURITY

The Daily Beast: Fake Utah Doc Peddled ‘Ingestible Silver’ as a Bogus COVID Cure: Feds. “Gordon Pedersen says his ingestible silver products can ‘destroy’ the coronavirus and help protect people from contracting the deadly illness. The Department of Justice says that is flat-out wrong and has taken legal action to stop him.”

BuzzFeed News: A Judge Sided With Native American Tribes Challenging How The Trump Administration Is Handling Coronavirus Relief Money. “The Trump administration cannot distribute coronavirus relief money intended to help Native American communities respond to the coronavirus pandemic to certain for-profit Native corporations, a federal judge ruled Monday evening.”

Vanity Fair: Inside Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s Two Months of Magical Thinking. “On the afternoon of Thursday, March 19, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office obsessing over the beaches in Florida. CNN footage of shirtless spring breakers packed onto the sand while the coronavirus pandemic raged sparked national outrage—and pressure on Trump to act. The next morning, New York governor Andrew Cuomo would announce strict stay-at-home orders for residents, but Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis refused to close his state’s beaches, a position even Florida’s Republican senator Rick Scott called reckless.”

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April 30, 2020 at 09:24PM
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Power modules add new current ratings

Infineon’s 1200-V TRENCHSTOP IGBT7 module family offers power solutions up to 11 kW in PIMs and up to 22 kW in six-pack topologies for industrial-drive applications.

source http://www.electronicproducts.com/Power_Products/Power_Semiconductors/Power_modules_add_new_current_ratings.aspx