Biochemistry

Kudos: Read about faculty, staff and student awards, appointments and achievements – Vanderbilt University News

(iStockphoto)

Kelsea Best, a Ph.D. student in Earth and Environmental Sciences, has been awarded a graduate student pursuit grant from the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center to study the human impacts of climate change. Best is leading a team of graduate students fromseveral universities across the U.S. to study connections between climate change and displacement of people in coastal areas of the United States, with financial support for travel, high-performance computational resources and stipends provided by SESYNC.

David Curie, a third-year physics Ph.D. student, has received anOffice of Science Graduate Student Research Fellowshipto conduct part of his dissertation research in a Department of Energy laboratory. Curies work focuses on single-photon sources, which can be used inquantum communicationsand possibly quantum computing.

E. Bronson Ingram College was named the Best Higher Education/Research project for 2019 by Engineering News-Record magazine.

Brandt Eichman, William R. Kenan, Jr. Chair in Biological Sciences and professor of biochemistry, will receive the 2021 International Award from the Biochemical Society, the United Kingdoms leading organization of biochemists. The award, whichrecognizes outstanding and independent research that demonstrates the importance of the molecular biosciences, is given annually to an early- to mid-career scientist who has conducted research outside the U.K. and Ireland.

Mary Jo Gilmer, professor of nursing, has been selected for induction into the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame by Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. The honor, which recognizes significant, sustained international achievement, is considered one of the highest honors in nursing research.

Kathryn Humphreys, assistant professor of psychology and human development, has received a 2020 Janet Taylor Spence Award from the Association for Psychological Science. The award recognizes early-career researchers who have made transformative contributions to the field of psychological science, such as establishing new paradigms within a subject area or advancing research that cuts across fields of study.

Karan Jani, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been recognized as an All-Star Alumnus by Forbes for his research on black holes. Jani was named to Forbes30 Under 30Science list in 2017.

Jonathan Metzl, Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Medicine, Health and Society, has received the 2020 Benjamin Rush Award from the American Psychiatric Association. The award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the literature on the history of psychiatry.

Dawool (Lauren) Nam, a senior majoring in chemistry, has received the 2019-20 Girls in STEM Scholarship Award from Girls Who STEM, the mission of which is to increase access and participation of girls in STEM fields and to promote and support girls and women in STEM projects, areas of study and professions.

Roberta Nelson, assistant director of the Office of LGBTQI Life, has received the Promising New Professional Award from the Consortium of LGBT Resource Professionals. The award recognizes a professional with less than five years of experience for outstanding service, innovative or creative effort within the profession, and demonstration of significant promise for leadership in the field.

Laura Nichols, a first-year physics Ph.D. student, has received a Computational Science Graduate Fellowship in overall support of her dissertation research in computational physics. TheCSGF fellowship, awarded to only about 30 individuals nationally per year, supports Ph.D. candidates in the computational sciencesthose who use computer programming to solve problems in scientific disciplines such as physics, biology and chemistry.

Sokrates Pantelides, William A. and Nancy F. McMinn Professor of Physics and professor of electrical engineering, was one of three international scientists honored with the 2019 Award for International Scientific Cooperation by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A pioneer in the field of semiconductor physics, Pantelides has carried out substantive cooperation with the CAS in developing new low-dimensional materials over the past two decades. In addition, Pantelides was named an honorary professor by Galgotias University in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, in conjunction with a talk he gave at an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers conference in nearby Lucknow.

Cleo Rucker, director of human resources consulting, employee and labor relations, has been appointed to the Metro Nashville Employee Benefits Study and Formulating Committee by Mayor John Cooper. The committees charge is to study and formulate a plan for employee benefits, including disability and retirement benefits, for Metro Nashville employees.

Keivan Stassun, Stevenson Chair in Physics and professor of astronomy and computer science, has been named an inaugural fellow of the American Astronomical Society, the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. The designation recognizes AAS members for extraordinary achievement and service, such as original research and publication, innovative contributions to astronomical techniques or instrumentation, significant contributions to education and public outreach, and noteworthy service to astronomy and to the society itself.

Steven Townsend, assistant professor of chemistry, has been named a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar for 2020. These faculty are within the first five years of their academic careers, have created an outstanding independent body of scholarship, and are deeply committed to education.

Kip Viscusi, University Distinguished Professor of Law, Economics and Management, has received the American Risk and Insurance Associations 2020 Kulp-Wright Book Award for Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society. The award recognizes a risk management and insurance book or monograph that advances the body of knowledge toward new frontiers.

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Kudos: Read about faculty, staff and student awards, appointments and achievements - Vanderbilt University News

Biochemistry

Meet the Inuk artist behind Twitter’s Indigenous month emoji – Nunatsiaq News

Komangapiks mock-ups of the icon before they were finalized, including an Inuk woman version with braids. (Image courtesy of A. Komangapik)

If you scroll through Twitter on your mobile device, you might have missed it.

But if youve saw hashtags for #IndigenousPeoplesDay or #IndigenousHistoryMonth, youd notice a tiny smiling Inuk person punctuating those Tweets.

Aija Komangapik, an Inuk artist based in Quebec, designed Twitters Indigenous emoji this month. This is the third year that Twitter has hired an Indigenous artist to create a themed emoji for the month of June, and the first year an Inuk emoji is being featured.

Komangapik, 21, was inspired by one of the original emojisa smiling face.

I wanted to do something cheeky and fun, so I thought, I should do that but with snow goggles, she said. I was trying to think of iconic Inuit images, but our whole culture shouldnt boil down to igloos and ulu.

The timing was just right for the first-year university student. Komangapik started a degree in biochemistry at Bishops University in Sherbrooke, Que., last September, but opted mid-year to move into arts administration.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and her in-person classes were cancelled, Komangapik said she finally had time to go back to a bunch of art projectsincluding the emoji design.

When youre in school, you dont really have time to do all the art you want to do, she said.

But during the pandemic, I had this big, creative explosion and did about 10 paintings.

Komangapik, who is the daughter of Nunavut sculptor Ruben Komangapik, first drew attention to her work in 2019 when she won first prize in the Indigenous Arts & Stories contest for her digital artwork called Drumdancer.

Shes back home in New Richmond, Que., for the summer months and hoping to have some more time to create.

Komangapik is new to Twitter and appreciates her newfound social media fameeven if the emoji is only available until the end of the month.

I enjoyed it. Art doesnt have to last forever, she said. It just feels like a I got a nice job and people like what I did.

Until the end of June, the emoji will pop up on Twitter every time you send a tweet using one of the following hashtags:

#IndigenousHistoryMonth

#MoisHistoireAutochtone

#IndigenousPeoplesDay

#JourneNationalePeuplesAutochtones

#IPDCanada

#JPACanada

#IPD

#JPA

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Meet the Inuk artist behind Twitter's Indigenous month emoji - Nunatsiaq News

Biochemistry

Senzer Strengthens Board and Executive Team Ahead of Commercialisation Phase – PR Newswire UK

LONDON, June 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

Highlights

Senzer, a respiratory pharmaceutical company, has expanded its Board with four new non-executive directors, appointed a new CEO and reshaped its executive team under changes aimed at bolstering its commercialisation strategy for COVID-19 and cannabinoid treatments.

Senzer's new chairman, Barbara Staehelin, is a serial entrepreneur who has founded four life science companies, and has had an executive role with Roche Diagnostics. She will be joined on the board by two other non-executive directors. Tim Corn is CMO at Izana Bioscience, and has wide-ranging pharmaceutical and regulatory experience. Andy Weymann served as CMO to Smith and Nephew, and will provide focus on commercialisation and clinical strategy.

Former CEO Alex Hearn, the founder and inventor of the unique inhalation platform at the heart of the Company, will remain actively involved in the business as Deputy Chairman and will continue to assist the Company on scientific and technical strategy. Adam Kelliher, who has been involved with Senzer for more than two years as Chairman and Executive Chairman, has strong commercialisation expertise and becomes CEO.

In three other moves on the executive team Matt McKevitt, a qualified doctor who has been with Senzer for four years, has been promoted to COO. Dr Andrew Saich, who was previously International Medical Director at GW Pharmaceuticals, will become CMO. Wendy Lloyd-Goodwin, who previously was head of legal and compliance at Bristol Myers Squibb (UK.EIR) will be Senzer's General Counsel. They will join the executive team with Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Nick Robbins-Cherry, who has more than 25 years' experience in US and UK public markets. Mssrs Kelliher, Robbins-Cherry and McKevitt will be executive members of the new board, along with the four non-executives.

Commenting on today's announcement, Adam Kelliher, CEO, said.

"We now have in place a highly experienced executive team and a very focused Board. These appointments are crucial as our unique respiratory offerings will soon be ready for patients and users, We all owe so much to Alex Hearn, under whose leadership Senzer has developed a remarkable product pipeline that enables us to now take the company into a commercial execution phase."

Senzer is actively formulating treatments for COVID-19 using approved anti-viral pharmaceuticals that may be appropriate for targeted, topical application direct to the lungs. Senzer's core technology is a unique breath-activated inhaler which it has developed for delivering pharmaceutical cannabinoids, with the US approval pathway aimed at resolving its effectiveness for side effects linked to cancer treatment. The device will soon be offered in the UK as a special unlicensed medicine and it is to be supplied to the Twenty21 registry trial, a project that aims to get 20,000 patients taking cannabinoid therapy. The Company is also developing a health and wellbeing presentation that will allow consumers to easily inhale CBD derived from hemp.

Senzer's core technology is a unique breath-activated inhaler that allows efficient low dose inhalation therapies with targeted delivery directly to the respiratory tract.

Senzer Pharmacueticals and Critical Care divisions develop combination medicinal products using the company's proprietary inhaler technology. Senzer Pharma is developing a range of inhaled pharmaceutical cannabinoids with targeted clinical indications in oncology, psychiatry and addiction and in addition will engage in the UK's Twenty21 cannabinoid clinical registry project.

Senzer Critical Care is developing inhaled medicines using approved anti-viral pharmaceuticals for clinical trial use in COVID-19 and other respiratory viral infections

The Senzer Consumer division is focused on the commercialisation of a health and wellbeing presentation using Senzer's core technology that will allow consumers to inhale botanical CBD derived from hemp without a potentially harmful heating step.

Mr Kelliher has served as Senzer's Chairman since October 2017, more recently as an Executive Chairman, and so is fully across all strategic aspects of Senzer's operation. An entrepreneur with more than 20 years' experience in the life sciences sector, he has been CEO of three companies, two of which he took from foundation through to successful exit. He pioneered the use of the omega-3 space through his nutraceutical company, Equazen Limited, which was sold in 2007 to Swiss pharmaceutical company Galenica. His second company, Equateq Ltd, developed a unique means of pharmaceutical lipid manufacturing, and was sold in 2012 to BASF, the world's largest chemical company. More recently, he served as CEO of Avita Medical and oversaw the evolution of the regenerative medicine company from its home market in Australia towards US market entry.

Barbara Staehelinis a serial entrepreneur and professional board member. She has founded four companies in the life science sector, was member of the Global Executive Committee of Roche Diagnostics and currently serves as the head of the Audit and Risk Committee of Swiss health insurer, Assura. Her education includes a M.Sc. in biochemistry from ETH Zurich, an MBA from Insead Fontainebleau and several years of management consulting with McKinsey.

Tim Cornis currently CMO at Izana Bioscience and current board director at Reneuron plc. Tim Corn was formally CMO at EUSA Pharma Inc, until its acquisition by Jazz in 2012. He has held senior clinical and regulatory positions at GlaxoWellcome, MSD Research Laboratories, Athena Neuroscience and Elan, as well as in the UK regulatory agency. Tim qualified in medicine at King's College Hospital, London after gaining a Master's degree in biochemistry from Imperial College.

Andy Weymannis the former CMO of FTSE 100 company Smith & Nephew PLC, overseeing all clinical trials, commercial partnerships and part of their global executive leadership for eight years. He is a professional board member and life sciences entrepreneur, having co-founded two companies in the life science sector. Prior to joining Smith & Nephew in 2006, he trained and worked as an Orthopedic Surgeon. Andy is currently advising companies and institutions on COVID-19 responses.

Contact Senzer: Samantha Simpson +44(0)203-457-0453 press@senzer.com

SOURCE Senzer Pharmaceuticals

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Senzer Strengthens Board and Executive Team Ahead of Commercialisation Phase - PR Newswire UK

Human Behavior

Cape Coral teen already published author, continues to write and inspire others – Wink News

CAPE CORAL

This Cape Coral teen isnt old enough to drive a car, but hes already a published author.

If you really wanna do something, then dont really be scared to show it to people; if you wanna write a book, said Humberto Carralero.

The now 15-year-old wrote and published his own book at just 14 years of age.

Sometimes people dont believe me until I show them that I have published a book, he said.

His father says hes very proud. My son is a very intelligent boy and he did hard work with the book. He worked many hours, all day, all the time, he said.

Its about survival and how a humans moral compass can change and how they can be driven to a primitive state, which is why its called The State of Nature,' Carralero said.

He studied human behavior as he moved from country to country.

I was born in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. I then went to Cuba for a while. After that, I went to Spain; then I went to Canada, he said.

Now, hes in Cape Coral and working on his next novel while watching this one reach people across the United States.

Most of the copies have been sold in Miami, he said. I saw one that sold in Detroit, Michigan, so thats really exciting.

Sharing stories and inspiring people to type toward their dreams.

The world traveler says hes considering a career in foreign affairs. Hes continuing to post chapters of his latest book on his website.

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Cape Coral teen already published author, continues to write and inspire others - Wink News

Human Behavior

Ugandas Ik are not Unbelievably Selfish and Mean – Newswise

Newswise The Ik, a small ethnic group in Uganda, are not incredibly selfish and mean as portrayed in a 1972 book by a prominent anthropologist, according to a Rutgers-led study.

Instead, the Ik are quite cooperative and generous with one another, and their culture features many traits that encourage generosity, according to the study in the journalEvolutionary Human Sciences.

The Mountain People,an ethnography by anthropologist Colin M. Turnbull,made a big splash for an academic work. The New York Times and Time magazine reviewed the book, which inspired a stage play, and physician Lewis Thomas included an essay about the Ik in his bestselling book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher.

The Ik live in the far northeast corner of Uganda, near its borders with Kenya and South Sudan. A Rutgers-led team of scientists studied them as part of The Human Generosity Project, a transdisciplinary effort to better understand generosity and other forms of cooperation among people around the world.

The scientists included the Ik in their project because of Turnbulls claim that, far from being generous, the Ik were extraordinarily selfish and mean. He attributed the selfish behaviors he witnessed to a culture of selfishness.

Lead author Cathryn Townsend, a former Rutgers post-doctoral scientist and faculty member now at Baylor University, spent 2016 with the Ik and returned briefly in 2017 and 2018. She discovered that their culture includes many traits that encourage generosity. For example, a favorite Ik saying istomora marang,which means its good to share, and many Ik believe that Earth spirits calledkijawikamonitor peoples behavior, punish those who fail to share and reward the very generous.

Townsendalso documented Ik generosity quantitatively using an experimental game, finding theyre no less generous, on average, than any of the hundreds of other groups of people in the world who have played the same game.

Why, then, did Turnbull observe so much selfishness among the Ik? Although Turnbull was aware that they experienced a severe famine while he was there, he failed to appreciate the impact starvation has on human behavior. Instead, he followed a common tendency among cultural anthropologists to attribute all human behavior to culture.

One implication of Townsends work is that we must always consider the possibility that factors other than culture, including but not limited to starvation, can also shape human behavior, said senior authorLee Cronk,a professor in theDepartment of Anthropologyin theSchool of Arts and SciencesatRutgers UniversityNew Brunswick.Another implication is that we can no longer use the Ik as an example of a society that has embraced selfishness. Far from being an exception, the Ik are just as cooperative and generous as other people around the world. They do not deserve the reputation they have been given by Turnbulls book.

Townsend plans to return to the Ik to continue her studies of how they cooperate. She will be looking in particular at how they are interdependent with one another.

Coauthors include Athena Aktipis at Arizona State University and Daniel Balliet at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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Ugandas Ik are not Unbelievably Selfish and Mean - Newswise

Human Behavior

How Coronavirus and Protests Broke Artificial Intelligence And Why Its A Good Thing – Observer

Until February 2020, Amazon thought that the algorithms that controlled everything from their shelf space to their promoted products were practically unbreakable. For years they had used simple and effective artificial intelligence (AI) to predict buying patterns, and planned their stock levels, marketing, and much more based on a simple question: who usually buys what?

Yet as COVID-19 swept the globe they found that the technology that they relied on was much more shakable than they had thought. As sales of hand sanitizer, face masks, and toilet paper soared, sites such as Amazon found that their automated systems were rendered almost useless as AI models were thrown into utter disarray.

Elsewhere, the use of AI in everything from journalism to policing has been called into question. As long-overdue action on racial inequalities in the US has been demanded in recent weeks, companies have been challenged for using technology that regularly displays sometimes catastrophic ethnic biases.

Microsoft was recently held to account after the AI algorithms that it used on its MSN news website confused mixed-race members of girlband Little Mix, and many companies have now suspended the sale of facial recognition technologies to law enforcement agencies after it was revealed that they are significantly less effective at identifying images of minority individuals, leading to potentially inaccurate leads being pursued by police.

The past month has brought many issues of racial and economic injustice into sharp relief, says Rediet Abebe, an incoming assistant professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. AI researchers are grappling with what our role should be in dismantling systemic racism, economic oppression, and other forms of injustice and discrimination. This has been an opportunity to reflect more deeply on our research practices, on whose problems we deem to be important, whom we aim to serve, whom we center, and how we conduct our research.

SEE ALSO: Artificial Intelligence Is on the Case in the Legal Profession

From the COVID-19 pandemic to the Black Lives Matter protests, 2020 has been a year characterized by global unpredictability and social upheaval. Technology has been a crucial medium of effecting change and keeping people safe, from test and track apps to the widespread use of social media to spread the word about protests and petitions. But amidst this, machine learning AI has sometimes failed to meet its remit, lagging behind rapid changes in social behavior and falling short on the very thing that it is supposed to do best: gauging the data fed into it and making smart choices.

The problem often lies not with the technology itself, but in a lack of data used to build algorithms, meaning that they fail to reflect the breadth of our society and the unpredictable nature of events and human behavior.

Most of the challenges to AI that have been identified by the pandemic relate to the substantial changes in behavior of people, and therefore in the accuracy of AI models of human behavior, says Douglas Fisher, an associate professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University. Right now, AI and machine learning systems are stovepiped, so that although a current machine learning system can make accurate predictions about behaviors under the conditions under which it learned them, the system has no broader knowledge.

The last few months have highlighted the need for greater nuance in AIin short, we need technology that can be more human. But in a society increasingly experimenting with using AI to carry out such crucial roles as identifying criminal suspects or managing food supply chains how can we ensure that machine learning models are sufficiently knowledgeable?

Most challenges related to machine learning over the past months result from change in data being fed into algorithms, explains Kasia Borowska, Managing Director of AI consultancy Brainpool.ai. What we see a lot of these days is companies building algorithms that just about do the job. They are not robust, not scalable, and prone to bias this has often been due to negligence or trying to cut costsbusinesses have clear objectives and these are often to do with saving money or simply automating manual processes, and often the ethical sideremoving biases or being prepared for changeisnt seen as the primary objective.

Kasia believes that both biases in AI algorithms and an inability to adapt to change and crisis stem from the same problem and present an opportunity to build better technology in the future. She argues that by investing in building better algorithms, issues such as bias and an inability to predict user behavior in times of crisis can be eliminated.

Although companies might previously have been loath to invest time and money into building datasets that did much more than the minimum that they needed to operate, she hopes that the combination of COVID and an increased awareness of machine learning biases might be the push that they need.

I think that a lot of businesses that have seen their machine learning struggle will now think twice before they try and deploy a solution that isnt robust hasnt been tested enough, she says. Hopefully the failure of some AI systems will motivate data scientists as well as corporations to invest time and resources in the background work ahead of jumping into the development of AI solutions we will see more effort being put into ensuring that AI products are robust and bias-free.

The failures of AI have been undeniably problematic, but perhaps they present an opportunity to build a smarter future. After all, in recent months we have also seen the potential of AI, with new outbreak risk software and deep learning models that help the medical community to predict drugs and treatments and develop prototype vaccines. These strides in progress demonstrate the power of combining smart technology with human intervention, and show that with the right data AI has the power to enact massive positive change.

This year has revealed the full scope of AI, laying bare the challenges that developers face alongside the potential for tremendous benefits. Building datasets that encompass the broadest scope of human experience may be challenging, but it will also make machine learning more equitable, more useful, and much more powerful. Its an opportunity that those in the field should be keen to corner.

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How Coronavirus and Protests Broke Artificial Intelligence And Why Its A Good Thing - Observer

Human Behavior

Perfectly Flawed founder to lead with compassion on new state committee – MyWebTimes.com

A local man will work toward decreasing opioid deaths in a role he was recently appointed to.

This week, Luke Tomsha announced his appointment to the Governors Opioid Overdose Prevention and Recovery Steering Committee.

Tomsha, who was a heroin user for over 14 years, will serve on the committee as a person with lived experience.

It's important to have people who understand the need to lead with compassion. For decades, weve criminalized this human behavior, and it has made problems worse," Tomsha said.

"Outside of adding to stigma which prevents people from asking for help, it actually increases the risk of overdose death and has created further barriers to people getting jobs, education, housing, financial stability, etc. We need to be reducing barriers to re-entry, understand the reasons people choose drugs, what's going on and why they use them.

"Most importantly, if people are actively using we need to make sure people are aware of the dangers and risk and know that they have caring people they can trust to support them when theyre ready for help.

"People dont realize the impact one death can have, not just on a family, but an entire community."

The committee guides the work of the Illinois Opioid Crisis Response Advisory Council as well as overseeing the ongoing implementation of the Statewide Opioid Action Plan.

The ultimate goal of the action plan is to reduce opioid-related deaths, which Tomsha said is a bipartisan issue that affects everyone.

Fueled by the growing opioid epidemic, drug overdoses have now become the leading cause of death nationwide for people under the age of 50, the Statewide Opioid Action Plans website says.

There's so much you can learn by having people with lived experience in the conversation and help meet the needs of this population," Tomsha said. Its refreshing theyve welcomed our voice."

He said one of the major issues he wants to tackle in his role is achieving social equity and addressing the disparities that exist when it comes to opioid deaths statewide.

Tomsha acknowledges that his personal situation isnt universal.

"I have been very blessed with the luxuries of a supportive family, community, social support, access to education, job, healthcare, food, shelter, privileges and second chances that many arent ever allowed.

"My survival is just one example of what we can hope to see if we can achieve equality in our systems where everyone is given a fair and equal chance."

He had served on the states Illinois Opioid Crisis Response Advisory Council for the past three years. In this new role, hes representing the people of Illinois, he said, not the Perfectly Flawed Foundation of which he is the founder and executive director.

The nonprofit organization is based in La Salle with the mission of strengthening communities affected by addiction by investing in children, individuals and education" and has worked to provide youth enrichment, education, peer and family support, harm reduction, public health, advocacy and outreach.

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Perfectly Flawed founder to lead with compassion on new state committee - MyWebTimes.com

Human Behavior

The benefits of effective chatbots on customer experience – ClickZ

30-second summary:

The pandemic has put a tremendous amount of pressure on companies to wind down operations quickly in order to abide by national safety standards and then ramp them up back up in order to start rebuilding the economy. Financial services companies, rental car companies even Airbnb have all felt the effects of halting business operations while having to process and facilitate large amounts of information with customers and employees.This has resulted in a greater reliance on chatbots to communicate information quickly and provide customers and employees with answers to their questions.

During the early stages of the pandemic, businesses saw large numbers of employees contacting HR with questions about insurance, office attendance, and more.

Companies may utilize chatbots to help respond to customer and employees questions more quickly.

Therefore, this leads to a large shift in the automation of relative tasks such as helping answer a question, providing an insurance quote or placing an order and freeing up humans to handle larger tasks.

These larger tasks could include changing insurance plans or making changes to that takeout order that a chatbot may not have the ability to do.

Chatbots are here to respond to initial customer inquiries and help respond to any general questions, leaving room for humans to handle the more complex questions. They also help reduce redundancy and create efficiency in the customer journey.

As technology evolves, chatbots are becoming more useful in many different ways. They are seen providing insurance quotes, filling orders, and even solving tech issues.

Thats not to say theyre replacing humans but rather serving as a third helping hand in the customer journey.

Its important to remember that chatbots are not humans, and their intention should never be to replace humans. Instead, theyre reading and understanding customers better in order to resemble a human and allow for a more thorough conversation.

For example, lets say someone goes to book a doctors appointment, and they select a 2:00 pm time slot. A few weeks later, they decide to book another appointment. The chatbot remembers that they previously chose 2:00 pm last time.

The chatbot will then ask if they would like to book the same time slot because the chatbot has memorized this specific pattern and behavior of the user.

Chatbots have the ability to do this by using natural language processing. This allows chatbots to analyze human language and better predict their behaviors. Therefore, chatbots are able to respond to people better and more accurately.

Before you start building your chatbot its important to analyze the conversations your customers are having and understand the language and tone they use. This will ultimately help your chatbot better serve your customers and employees knowing they are aligning on their vocabulary.

In addition, make sure your team incorporates someone who is knowledgeable in user experience. In doing so, they will be able to advise on where you can provide the most value in the chatbot experience.

While having the right experience is important, you should also be watching how much time you build versus test your chatbot.

It is equally as important to build the architecture and ensure youre gathering as much information about your target audience as possible. Its recommended that you spend of your time testing and building.

If youre building a web-based chatbot, its important to make use of Conversational UI such as buttons, carousels, date-pickers etc to help users provide the chatbot with relevant information and streamline the process.

Referring back to the appointment booking example, be sure to incorporate time slot buttons for the patient so that they are not required to guess when the provider is available on a certain day.

Incorporating modern web development into your chatbot is important for making sure your bot works on multiple platforms. Always think mobile-first before expanding.

If your chatbot can successfully assist your users via SMS, then it will be easy to make it work over the rest of the channels, including voice based conversations like Alexa.

In addition, this will make your chatbots more accessible, and as a result capable to cater to a much larger audience.

Living in a digitally forward time has resulted in customers and employees who want to be able to access information anytime anywhere. Making sure your chatbot is mobile-friendly will ensure that your audience can access the chatbot on their preferred device should that be a mobile device.

It can be difficult to make sure your chatbot covers all angles from day one, which could lead some conversations to a dead end. Companies can avoid this issue by providing an option for a person to take over the conversation when needed.

Additionally, companies should analyze conversation history on a regular basis, to look for conversations that might cause trouble, and update them to avoid the issues.

Were seeing an increase of chatbots used to connect and communicate with both customers and employees, almost acting as a helping hand to assist companies in solving customer and employee problems.

Common use cases where a chatbot comes in handy are assisting a customer who inquires about making a bill payment, getting an insurance quote, placing an order for food delivery, and contacting a bank for credit card management.

While internally, chatbots can be used to handle HR enquiries or manage internal help desk requests.

Although chatbots have grown in popularity and are using AI to become smarter and more efficient, there are many people who still prefer speaking with a human.

Its important that you always incorporate a human element into your chabot experience, whether that be eventually connecting the customer or employee to the representative on the other side of the chatbot or asking if they would like to be connected to the representative directly.

When built correctly and thoroughly, chatbots are a great tool for a business who is looking to streamline their customer service processes and provide a more successful customer experience.

Sebastian Witalec is a Senior Developer Advocate for Progress who specializes in Angular and NativeChat. He loves working on both serious and fun projects and one day he will use his robot army to conquer the world. You can connect with Sebastian on Twitter at @sebawita.

Rob Lauer is Senior Manager of Developer Relations at Progress and has a passion for mobile app development and the open web. You can find Rob rambling as @RobLauer on Twitter.

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The benefits of effective chatbots on customer experience - ClickZ

Human Behavior

Biologists say mass extinction event is accelerating: More than 500 species could disappear by 2040 – Study Finds

STANFORD, Calif. The extinction of any species is a tragic event. When dozens of species disappear from the environment, however, biologists say the impact is felt across the entire world.After warning that Earth was entering a sixth mass extinction eventin 2015, a new study says that crisis is speeding up and may take hundreds of animals from the world by 2040.

Biologists from Stanford University warn that more than 500 land vertebrates (animals with a backbone) are on the brink of extinction. The study blames much of the destruction on the wildlife animal trade and other man-made problems.

When humanity exterminates populations and species of other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system, says biologist Paul Ehrlich in a statement.

Researchers say at least 543 land vertebrate species went extinct during the 20th century. Ehrlich and his team now say that same number of animals could die out within the next 20 years.

The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences after a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged the White House to crack down on illegal wildlife trading and close markets that sell live animals.

Researchers blame most of the damage being done to the animal kingdom on humans. Population growth, the destruction of animal habitats, wildlife gaming and trading, and the effects of climate change are all contributing to the crisis.

The study says 515 species of land animals have fewer than 1,000 members left. Half of those species have a population of less than 250. Most of these dying species live in tropical and subtropical areas where human populations continue to close in.

If losing a species isnt bad enough, the researchers warn that extinction has a world-changing domino effect that may end up killing more species.

Extinction breeds extinction, the authors write.

As animal populations shrink, those animals are not able to perform their role for the planets ecosystem. The study explains how humans overhunting sea otters killed off the main predator of kelp-eating sea urchins. With no sea otters to eat the sea urchins, kelp patches were ravaged in the 1700s. The kelp-eating sea cow eventually went extinct with no kept to eat.

What we do to deal with the current extinction crisis in the next two decades will define the fate of millions of species, adds study co-author Gerardo Ceballos from the National Autonomous University of Mexico add.

Researchers are proposing a global agreement that would ban any trading of wild animal species. The study argues hunting and capturing these animals is actually doing harm to human health.

The authors point to the suspected origins of COVID-19, bats and wet markets, as evidence of the dangerous effect human behavior is having on the animal kingdom.

Its up to us to decide what kind of a world we want to leave to coming generations a sustainable one, or a desolate one, Peter Raven of the Missouri Botanical Garden said.

Excerpt from:
Biologists say mass extinction event is accelerating: More than 500 species could disappear by 2040 - Study Finds

Human Behavior

Playing dumb is way smarter than actually being dumb – CapeGazette.com

Gimme Shelter - The last thing the young lacrosse players wanted to hear after three months of shutdown was a long horn blast indicating take shelter. But thats what happened at 5 p.m., June 22, at DE Turf. There was one dark cloud off to the west, but no thunder or lightning. Coaches checked weather apps and shrugged, Well, maybe its over the Chesapeake. I quickly composed a photo of whoever was there so I had something. Finally, three short blasts signaled the all-clear on a cloudy evening. Practice was humming along, then another long blast, but no thunder and no official people to verify. Im just playing dumb, said coach Jack Frederick, also my son, to which I added, Playing dumb is way better than being dumb. At least you know why youre not doing what others may reasonably expect you to do. Later, off to the east over the Delaware Bay, thunder could be heard but no horn sounded. I guess the horn guy had either gone home or was launching his Sunfish (no Captain Safety letters, please. Im just a crazy grandfather telling funny stories).

Humanities forum - Sports and society sounds like one of those graduate classes where everyone gets a B just for showing up. I always knew that all of human behavior is a blended mixture of all disciplines, including sports. But the current pool chemistry is out of balance. Its best to shock the system and close it down for a couple of weeks. I have survived as a columnist for 38 years mostly by being on the edge of the nerves of some readers, but not most. Readers wont put up with a writer who takes himself too seriously or who pitches a tent on the moral high ground overlooking the ocean. Allow me to kick the real. If I see a group of reporters chasing the same story, I go someplace else. If I see the fishing fleet all heading to Brandywine Light, Im going to drift along the outer wall or toggle into the rock pile just so I can use the word toggle. Let me say, I wouldnt talk to Donald Trump if he walked sideways through my kitchen door. And I wouldnt join the Bidens around the North Shore breakfast nook if invited. Its just crazy out there, from Bubba to baseball to mascots and images. People are attacking statues. I was raised Catholic we own the sports god and the inside of the church was rimmed with statues. They were draped with violet covers from the first Sunday of Lent until Easter Sunday. But it wasnt necessary, because we grammar schoolers had no clue how to ID a statue.

Reductio Ad Absurdum - Finding a faded garage door pull on a dirt floor and deducing its a symbolic noose sending a message of intimidation to a race car driver is absurd because anyone that sneaky and sick would have been way out and gone a long time before that gesture. I am friends with two very different people, attorney Bill Schab and electrician Doc Pepper. Each has the knack of breaking down the elements of a story, often concluding, It may be true, but doesn't seem likely. This NASCAR story is partly a mainstream media thing, but more of a social media thing. Bubba Wallace is a 26-year-old, good-looking, affable kid my granddaughters about to be 25. He's a mixed-race person. How he self-identifies is part of his journey. I followed the story, but dont blame it on the media. Its better to blame it on Google searches that will tell you what stories the masses are chasing.

Snippets - Billy Lorah and Ralph Karl, members of Capes 1979 state championship football team, drove to Florida two weekends ago to see coach Jim Alderman. They were not permitted access to the hospital because of COVID-19, so they turned around and drove back. Alderman is now out of hospital, but hes still struggling with his medical issues, so Billy and Ralph are flying down to Tampa on Friday to spend time with him over the weekend. We have to go, the boys said. Coach Alderman is one of the most important people in our lives. Its not about the championship. He really was like a father to us. Dick Buerkle, a Villanova cross country and track walk-on, passed away June 22 at the age of 72. Buerkle was a 1976 and 1980 Olympian in the 5,000 meters, and he broke the world indoor mile record in 1978 with a time of 3:54. He was ranked among the top 10 Americans in the 5,000 seven times, and in 1974, he was the top-ranked American and fourth in the world. He won the 5,000 at the AAU Championships in 1974 and 1976 as well as at the Olympic Trials in 1976. Villanova boasts 42 runners in its storied track history who have broken the four-minute mile. Villanova track coach Marcus O'Sullivan has broken the four-minute mile 101 times. Coach Steve Spence, who coaches track and cross country at Shippensburg University, has broken five minutes in the mile each year for the last 45 years. That is just all the way crazy. Pete Dimitri, known as the Omelette Man at Arenas on the Highway down by Big Fish, was on the Lincoln High baseball team that won the Philadelphia Public League title before losing to St. James 2-1 in the championship game. Former Penn State baseball coach Joe Hindelang was lead pitcher on that team. Joe is a Temple buddy of mine just a small-world story. Go on now, git!

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Playing dumb is way smarter than actually being dumb - CapeGazette.com