Thursday 9 May 2019

An approach for securing audio classification against adversarial attacks

Adversarial audio attacks are small perturbations that are not perceivable by humans and are intentionally added to audio signals to impair the performance of machine learning (ML) models. These attacks raise serious concerns about the security of ML models, as they can cause them to make mistakes and ultimately generate wrong predictions.

* This article was originally published here

Amazon's Bezos unveils lunar lander project 'Blue Moon'

Jeff Bezos, who heads both Amazon and space company Blue Origin, unveiled on Thursday a lunar lander that he said would be used to transport equipment, and possibly human beings, to the south pole of the Moon by 2024.

* This article was originally published here

Apple's 'most ambitious' retail store set for US capital

Half store, half museum, Apple's new location in the US capital within a historic landmark is being described as the "most ambitious" project for its retail operations.

* This article was originally published here

Will MSC micropellets outperform single cells for cartilage regeneration?

Repair of cartilage injuries or defects is aided by the introduction of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which can be incorporated into hydrogels to amplify their effects. In a new report, researchers directly compared chondrogenic induction by hydrogels that were prepared using MSCs either as single cell suspensions or as 100-500-cell micropellets. The study is published in Tissue Engineering.

* This article was originally published here

Methane-consuming bacteria could be the future of fuel

Known for their ability to remove methane from the environment and convert it into a usable fuel, methanotrophic bacteria have long fascinated researchers. But how, exactly, these bacteria naturally perform such a complex reaction has been a mystery.

* This article was originally published here

Egg yolk precursor protein regulates mosquitoes' attraction to humans

Feeding mosquitoes sugar makes them less attracted to humans, a response that is regulated by the protein vitellogenin, according to a study publishing May 9 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Jessica Dittmer, Paolo Gabrieli and colleagues at the Università degli Studi di Pavia in Italy.

* This article was originally published here

Biomarker test predicts mild, serious IBD in newly diagnosed

(HealthDay)—A new test can predict the course of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in patients, according to a study published online April 27 in Gut.

* This article was originally published here

New model of measles-elimination progress may help target vaccination efforts

A country's progress towards measles elimination can be mapped on a "canonical path" that in turn can guide vaccination strategies, according to a study from scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

* This article was originally published here

Rideshare firms have snarled up San Francisco: study

The ride-hailing era ushered in by Uber and Lyft once promised to complement public transit, reduce car ownership and alleviate congestion.

* This article was originally published here

Increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder among children with immigrant fathers

Children born in Finland who had an immigrant father were two times more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD than those with two Finnish parents, discovered researchers from the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku in Finland. Researchers stress that schools and clinicians should become more aware of intergenerational transmission of trauma.

* This article was originally published here

Portrait of a Google AI art project as a poetic you

Roses are red violets are blue, AI writing poems? Can't be true. Or can it? And if so, how low can we go in expectations? Brush low expectations aside for now, as Google is on to something special, and that is, AI for self-portrait poetry.

* This article was originally published here

Opinion: Why Australia needs to kill cats

Introduced cats are a key threat to 123 of Australia's threatened species.

* This article was originally published here

Making a case for robotic objects as anger outlets

Coochi coo. Robots have undergone impressive designs and engineering for social use, manifested in puppy-like robots with expressive, blinking eyes, to little space robots. These little pals and helpers appeal to the home-confined elderly and children. These are social robots designed to understand and respond to cues.

* This article was originally published here

Road test proves adaptive cruise control can add to traffic jam problem

A new, open-road test of adaptive cruise control demonstrated that the feature, designed to make driving easier by continuously adjusting a vehicle's speed in response to the car ahead, doesn't yet solve the problem of phantom traffic jams.

* This article was originally published here

UN shifts response as Ebola outbreak in DR Congo drags on

The United Nations is stepping up its response to the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, now in its 10th month, and needs additional resources, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday.

* This article was originally published here

HIV epidemic stubbornly persists despite proven tool to prevent spread

The nation's HIV epidemic remains stubbornly persistent, with almost 40,000 new infections annually in the United States. That's despite the fact that physicians have a proven tool to prevent the spread of the virus among high-risk individuals. The question is: Why isn't pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, more widely prescribed?

* This article was originally published here

Facebook auto-generates videos celebrating extremist images

The animated video begins with a photo of the black flags of jihad. Seconds later, it flashes highlights of a year of social media posts: plaques of anti-Semitic verses, talk of retribution and a photo of two men carrying more jihadi flags while they burn the stars and stripes.

* This article was originally published here