Biochemistry

Faculty member and his wife give $1 million to UCLA – UCLA Newsroom

Penny Jennings/UCLA

Michael Jung

Michael Jung, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the UCLA College, and his wife, Alice, have donated $1 million toward the establishment of the Michael and Alice Jung Endowed Chair in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery.

The gift was matched by the UCLA division of physical sciences for a total contribution of $2 million. The match was made possible by a program established after UCLA sold its royalty interest in Xtandi, a compound developed by Jung and his research team for the treatment of prostate cancer. With its share of the proceeds from the Xtandi transaction, UCLA has also made matching funds available for gifts that support undergraduate scholarships at UCLA.

Xtandi has not only saved lives; it has been a wonderful boost to UCLA due to the matching program, and we have Mike Jung to thank for that, said Miguel Garca-Garibay, dean of physical sciences. He and Alice have set a terrific example by endowing a chair in Mikes department, for which we are very grateful.

Jung is an authority on synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry. He is an inventor on 34 issued patents and 36 patent applications arising from both his consulting activities and his own research. He has more than 15 ongoing academic research collaborations and consults for more than 20 industrial laboratories in both biotech and pharmaceutical settings.

His current research holds promise for the development of new drugs for the treatment of various diseases and conditions, including for breast, lung and prostate cancer; antiviral diseases; muscular dystrophy; multiple sclerosis; osteoporosis; and even hair loss.

My wife and I hope that our gift will enable UCLA to hire a faculty member who could continue to do similar drug discovery research well into the future, with the hope of producing more useful drugs, Jung said.

A member of the UCLA faculty since 1974, Jung has published more than 345 research papers and presented more than 600 lectures on his research. He has supervised 92 doctoral and nine masters theses, and he has taught more than 130 postdoctoral scholars.

Among the awards he has received are the American Chemical Societys Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, UCLAs Glenn T. Seaborg Medal and Gold Shield Faculty Prize, and the 2015 Team Science Award from the American Association for Cancer Research. He also was elected to the National Academy of Inventors.

Without chemistry, we wouldnt have life-saving medicines like Xtandi, said Catherine Clarke, chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department and a professor of biochemistry. Thanks to Mike and Alice Jungs gift, the department will be able to pursue more breakthrough research in medicinal chemistry. Who knows how many more lives will be saved?

The department of chemistry and biochemistry was named No. 7 in the world in chemistry in the 2017 U.S. News and World Report Best Global Universities rankings, and three faculty members and four alumni have been awarded the Nobel Prizes in chemistry. The department has more than 50 faculty, 130 postdoctoral researchers, 350 graduate students and 1,400 undergraduates.

The gift is part of the $4.2 billion UCLA Centennial Campaign, which is scheduled to conclude in December 2019 during UCLAs 100th anniversary year.

View post:
Faculty member and his wife give $1 million to UCLA - UCLA Newsroom

Anatomy

London Theater Review: ‘Anatomy of a Suicide’ – Variety

The sins of the father revisited on the son its a stage staple that tracks back to Ancient Greece. From Captain Alving in Ibsens Ghosts to Arthur Millers arms-dealing Joe Keller in All My Sons, a mans acts live on. Feminist playwright (Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.) and screenwriter (Lady Macbeth) Alice Birch offers an alternative in this chilly triptych, now play at the Royal Court Theater. Not once, but twice, a mothers trauma rebounds on her daughter. Mental illness becomes a baton passed between three generations: a frazzled 1970s housewife, a 1990s riot girl, a detached doctor in 2033. Katie Mitchells clinical staging forces us to watch forensically, sifting for clues about causality. Is this nature, nurture or social structure?

Birch splits the stage in three, so that three women, decades apart, appear side by side. In 1971, Carol (Hattie Morahan) emerges from hospital with her wrists wrapped in bandages, her husband berating her for ruining the floorboards. In 1997, Anna (Kate OFlynn) wobbles on her feet, off her bloodied head, with one arm in a sling, as a male nurse checks her over and ticks her off. In 2033, a third woman holds her bleeding hand, a fishhook dug into the palm but its her expressionless doctor, Bonnie (Adelle Leonce), who assumes importance.

These women couldnt be more different, and yet their individual stories echo each other sometimes exactly, as phrases and gestures ripple through time. Carol sits at home, alone, infantilized by her stern, shambolic husband (Paul Hilton), smoking at the kitchen table, a child crying somewhere in the house. Anna rampages off the rails, a laddette with a heroin addiction partying through the millennium. Bonnie, meanwhile, shuts everyone out. She might seem the most sorted of the three, but shes not really. All three incur mental health problems of some form or another: a mix of anxiety, depression and detachment.

Its only gradually that we realise that theyre related three generations of the same family. As each individual narrative unfolds, it adds a little more context to the next. One womans life encompasses the others childhood, and so explains the issues they face in adulthood. Eerily, you intuit their deaths before they take place. Each is strangely absent from their daughters life and yet, equally, ever-present.

Its a beautifully organised play, an elegant information overload. Birch is an exacting writer; Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again proved her precision with language, but here, as in her recent film Lady Macbeth, she lets small slices of life assume momentous significance. As Carol smokes a sly cigarette at a childrens party, Anna crashes into a drug-induced coma. Bonnie stands outside a birthday bash, bottle in hand. Many of the micro-scenes have a painterly quality, a stark, unsentimental beauty.

Set designer Alex Eales encases the women in a grey concrete cell so that the world seems oddly absent, and only James Farncombes articulate lighting gives a sense of place. Melanie Wilsons soundscapes swim around like underwater echoes. Between scenes, as the years pass, the women stand, still as mannequins, as castmates undress and reclothe them. Fashions change, women dont, nor society neither any shifts are merely superficial. Birchs play is, among other things, a history of the care system. Patrician doctors become scrubbed-up careworkers, but the treatment prescribed is still the same: electric shock therapy.

As youd expect of the meticulous Mitchell, all three women are played with extraordinary clarity. Morahan wears a faraway frown as Carol, her eyes wide and watery, while OFlynn chews her words as if permanently brain-fuzzed and physically discombobulated. Leonce plays Bonnie with a clean-cut aloofness that almost borders on dissociation, as if to complete the cycle.

Theres something schematic in a play that works entirely through patterns. Birch asks us to compare and contrast, but the triptych form can feel like the complete-the-sequence section of an IQ test: A, B, ?. A mother who feels too little produces a daughter who feels too much. Her daughter, in turn, retreats to a numb silence. Sarah Blenkinsops costumes stress the point: Carol in red, Anna in green and black, Bonnie in white with hints of red. The driving concept is too close to the surface here, the causal chain too certain to ring true. That each woman is so of-their-own-era only exacerbates the problem. All three feel emblematic, rather than idiosyncratic individuals, and it can feel like Birchs thesis is leading her play.

Thats a small grumble, though, in an otherwise unflinching examination of motherhood and mental health, articulated with a sharp sense of theater.

Royal Court Theatre, London; 465 seats; 45, $57 top. Opened, June 8, 2016 reviewed June 8, 2016. Running time:2 HOURS.

A Royal Court production of a play in one act by Alice Birch.

Directed by Katie Mitchell; Set design,Alex Eales; costume design, Sarah Blenkinsop; lighting, James Farncombe; sound, Melanie Wilson; composer, Paul Clark.

Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Paul Hilton, Peter Hobday, Adelle Leonce, Sarah Malin, Jodie McNee, Hattie Morahan, Kate OFlynn, Sophie Pettit, Vicki Szent-Kirallyi, Dickon Tyrrell.

More:
London Theater Review: 'Anatomy of a Suicide' - Variety

Anatomy

Anatomy of Andrew Benintendi’s game-saving throw home – WEEI.com (blog)

This was no accident.

When Andrew Benintendi threw out Howie Kendrick at the plate with one out in the eighth inning, potentially saving the game for the Red Sox Tuesday night, it might have simply seemed like a nice toss home coupled with an ill-advised decision by the base-runner to try and score. (To see the play, click here.)

Butthere were a few more factors at play when considering what made Benintendi's throw possible.

The execution of the action could first be tracked back to the night before, when the Red Sox left fielder had scurried over to get a ball before hastily trying to pick it up with his barehand. That resulted in a bad throw. So when Benintendi approached the ricochet off the left field wall - which emanated from Maikel Franco's blast just a few feet shy of reaching home run distance - the memory of Monday night immediately flashed into his head.

"I was going to make sure I picked it up with my glove," Benintendi later said. "I didn't last time, and that didn't work."

The next piece of the equation was also a lesson learned, this one garnered during pregame activities. Prior to Tuesday night's game, Benintendi had joined the other outfielders in working on all their throws to the bases. They were drills that aren't done every day, but ended up being perfectly timed for this occasion, particuarly since it let the rookie get the kinks out.

"I was throwing all cutters. Not straight balls," Benintendi said of his practices tosses. "But the game is all that matters."

But perhaps what made the whole thing come together was simply a demeanor that many have referenced when describing the 22 year old. Throughout the chaos that came with the Red Sox' fate hanging in the balance, Benintendi remained remarkablycalm.

"I saw where the runner was and I saw how he had it gauged up. There was no sense in him panicking," said Red Sox center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr.. "He played the ball the way he was supposed to, but just got a hard kick. As he was running to get the ball I saw him pick his head up and kind of analyze where he was. That's why he knew the distance that he was wasn't very far and he able to throw a strike to home plate."

"To remain under control," said Red Sox manager John Farrell when asked what impressed him most about the play. "Hes got to chase that ball a long way after the carom. He comes up, throws a strike to home plate. Its the even temperament that he shows in probably every aspect of the game, particularly the final swing tonight."

That swing, of course, was Benintndi's first career walk-off hit, giving the Red Sox a 4-3, 12-inning win over the Phillies.

It's a swing that probably isn't made possible, however, if not for the outfielder's casual throw and catch with backstop Chritian Vazquez about an hour before.

Read the original:
Anatomy of Andrew Benintendi's game-saving throw home - WEEI.com (blog)

Anatomy

Technical Boost: PGIMER to set up state-of-the-art anatomy museum – The Indian Express

Written by Adil Akhzer | Chandigarh | Published:June 15, 2017 4:12 am PGI doctors maintained that the institutes collection of human organs dates back to the 1970s. Of the total preserved organs, the majority are of the human brain, numbering around 2,500. ( File Photo)

The Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) is planning to set up a museum for anatomy. Doctors said the proposed start-of-the-art museum would act as a teaching aid for medical students as well as serve as an attraction for visitors.

At present, PGI has an anatomy museum on the campus, but the new plan is for a manifold expansion. The proposal that has now been prepared would require an outlay of approximately Rs 2 crore. Our existing collection runs into thousands of organ specimens from the human body. It is probably the largest collection in India. These could be an excellent source of medical education for resident doctors and faculty of the institute and even other institutes of the country. With improved display and modernisation [in the new plan], it could be one of the best museums of Asia, PGI spokeswoman Manju Wadwalkar told the Chandigarh Newsline on Wednesday.

The museum, as it exists now, is located in a hall in the research block of PGI. Not all specimens in the collection are on display due to the shortage of space. The main visitors are PGIs medical students. The organ collection includes both healthy and diseased specimens, harvested from cadavers.

PGI doctors maintained that the institutes collection of human organs dates back to the 1970s. Of the total preserved organs, the majority are of the human brain, numbering around 2,500. The world over, teaching hospitals have museums that are as well known as the institute itself. The Gordon Museum of Anatomy at Guys Hospital in London is one such.

The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia at the non-teaching College of Physicians is famous for its exhibit of a piece of Albert Einsteins brain. According to the new proposal, PGI officials said the museum would be divided into zones spread over different floors.

The collection will be curated in the new museum in a manner so that the visitor can have a seamless learning experience of visiting the museum, said an official. There will be different zones, including one for histology (study of microscopic tissues), self-study area, conference space, childrens section and also a tunnel of reflection, he stated.

An additional mezzanine floor has been designed in the new plan to further connect via aerial bridge with the existing mezzanine, informed the official, adding that the new museum would remain open for the general public as well. A senior PGI official said: Huge money is involved and the proposal is under active consideration. Also, deliberations on the financial part of the project have begun.

For all the latest Chandigarh News, download Indian Express App

Read the original post:
Technical Boost: PGIMER to set up state-of-the-art anatomy museum - The Indian Express

Anatomy

Sandra Oh Returns to TV as Series Regular … Just Not on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (Sorry, Fans) – Moviefone

Fun fact: Every five seconds, someone tweets "Come back to 'Grey's!" to "Grey's Anatomy" alum Sandra Oh. OK, maybe that's not a verified fact. It may even be too conservative a guess.

Oh recently teased fans by tweeting a photo with "Grey's" co-star Kevin McKidd (Dr. Owen Hunt), reviving the perpetual hope that Oh will bring Dr. Cristina Yang back to the ABC series. But before fans could get their hopes too high, Oh posted a link with news on her first post-"Grey's" series regular role -- leading the new BBC America series "Killing Eve."

Here's her "Grey's" reunion photo:

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

"Oh will take on the title role of Eve, a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn't fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Eve is pursued by Villanelle (uncast), an elegant, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her."

This marks Oh's first series regular role since leaving "Grey's Anatomy" after 10 seasons. She's had other roles -- recurring on "American Crime" and starring in movies like "Sideways" and the recent "Catfight" -- but this is her first full-time gig since playing Cristina Yang, and this time her character has her name in the title of the show. She's her own "person" now, Mer!

Fans replied to Oh's big news with ... dozens of requests for her to return to "Grey's." Sorry, but that's going to be her fate forever, or at least until she agrees to come back for the series finale or some other kind of closure. However, other fans are just happy to see more of this amazing actress on screen:

Want more stuff like this? Like us on Facebook.

More here:
Sandra Oh Returns to TV as Series Regular ... Just Not on 'Grey's Anatomy' (Sorry, Fans) - Moviefone

Human Behavior

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Posts – The White House (blog)

President Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key positions in his Administration:

If confirmed, Jessica Rosenworcel of Connecticut will serve as a Member of the Federal Communications Commission. Jessica Rosenworcel was recently a Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission from 2012 until January 2017. Previously, she was the Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, working for Senator Jay Rockefeller IV from 2009 to 2011, and Senator Daniel K. Inouye from 2007 to 2008. Before joining the Committee, Ms. Rosenworcel worked at the Federal Communications Commission from 1999 to 2007, serving as Legal Advisor and then Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Michael J. Copps (2003-2007), Legal Counsel to the Bureau Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau (2002-2003), and as an Attorney-Advisor in the Policy Division of the Common Carrier Bureau (1999-2002). From 1997 to 1999, she was a communications associate at Drinker Biddle and Reath. Ms. Rosenworcel received a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

If confirmed, Isabel Marie Keenan Patelunas ofVirginia will serve as Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of the Treasury. Ms. Patelunas is an accomplished member of the Senior Intelligence Service at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she has served since 1989. For the last 15 years, she has been in management positions at the CIA supporting the highest levels of government, including serving on rotation to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as Director of the Presidents Daily Brief staff. Ms. Patelunas previously served as Deputy Director of CIAs Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis, and as Director of the Advanced Analysis Training Program. She has also served in leadership positions in the National Counterproliferation Center and the Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Office. She holds an M.A. from the University of Maryland in International Relations, and a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame

If confirmed, Elinore F. McCance-Katz of Rhode Island will serve as Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use at the Department of Health and Human Services. Elinore McCance-Katz is the Chief Medical Officer for the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities, and Hospitals. She is also Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Previously, she served as the first Chief Medical Officer for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). She obtained her PhD from Yale University with a specialty in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and is a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She is board certified in General Psychiatry and in Addiction Psychiatry. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, and has more than 25 years of experience as a clinician, teacher, and clinical researcher.

View post:
President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Posts - The White House (blog)

Human Behavior

Freewheeling Uber faces major changes over "poor behavior" – CBS News

SAN FRANCISCO Uber grew into a huge company by operating as if there were no stop signs.

The ride-hailing service relied on corporate mantras that were used to justify "poor behavior," such as "Let Builders Build" and "Always Be Hustlin'," according to a report on the company's internal practices by attorney general Eric Holder.

Its board is cracking down, its founder and CEO is stepping away indefinitely, and the company itself is coming to grips with measures intended to reform its toxic culture and aggressive business practices.

And it all started when Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, posted a personal essay in February that detailed the company's toleration of sexual harassment and discrimination. Had she not come forward in such a public manner, it's possible none of this would have happened.

"What she did took real courage," said Elizabeth Ames, a senior vice president at the Anita Borg Institute, a nonprofit founded to advance women in the technology business. "There are many women in companies and technical worlds (who) step up and talk about this problem. And often they are the ones that get tagged as being the problem."

Following Fowler's post, Uber hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate her charges. His law firm's subsequent recommendations, released Tuesday, aim to fix Uber's dysfunctional management, which allowed the male-dominated ride-hailing company to grow huge without even the most basic procedures to prevent sexual harassment, bullying and other bad behavior.

Also on Tuesday, Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick accepted responsibility for the company's state and told employees that he'd be taking an indefinite leave of absence. The company declined to say if Kalanick's decision was related to the report.

Play Video

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has announced he's taking some time off, following the death of his mother two weeks ago. This comes as the company is b...

But Kalanick wasn't the only Uber official sucked into the vortex unleashed by Fowler's essay. On Monday, the company announced that Emil Michael, vice president for business and a close Kalanick ally, was also leaving. Then Uber board member and hedge fund partner David Bonderman resigned Tuesday night after making what he called an inappropriate remark about women at a company meeting.

The 13-page document from Holder's firm Covington & Burling LLP did not outline the investigation's findings about Uber. But its recommendations implicitly expose a startup-turned-goliath that permitted misconduct, had few policies to protect employees and ran with little board supervision.

The recommendations, adopted unanimously by Uber's board, show clearly that the company's next incarnation dubbed Uber 2.0 by Kalanick will have to be radically different from version 1.0, which flouted regulations, actively misled public investigators , and disrupted the taxi business to become the world's largest ride-hailing company.

In her essay, Fowler wrote that she was propositioned by her manager on her first day with an engineering team. She reported him to human resources, but was told he would get a lecture and no further punishment because he was a "high performer," she wrote.

Fowler did not respond to emailed requests for comment. But on Twitter , she called Tuesday's moves "all optics" and wrote that she has gotten nothing but "aggressive hostility" from the company.

After interviewing 200 witnesses, Holder had to make such basic recommendations as setting clear policies to protect workers from harassment, and that the human resources department get a better handle on keeping records and tracking employee complaints.

The recommendations "definitely paint a picture of a company that was out of control and pretty chaotic," said Ames, the Borg Institute executive.

Play Video

Uber's Chief Business Officer Emil Michael resigned after a series of bullying and sexual harassment allegations against the ride-hailing company...

Holder also suggested that Uber change its written cultural values to promote positive behavior, inclusion and collaboration. That means doing away with values that justified poor behavior, such as "Let Builders Build," ''Always Be Hustlin'," ''Meritocracy and Toe-Stepping" and "Principled Confrontation."

Holder also called for trimming Kalanick's job duties, shifting day-to-day functions to a yet-to-be-hired chief operating officer. During Kalanick's leave, his leadership team will run the troubled company.

Kalanick wrote that he needs time off to grieve for his mother, who died in a May boating accident. He also said he's responsible for the company's situation and needs to become a better leader.

Uber's board said it would review Kalanick's responsibilities and reassign some to others.

Ames said the recommendations were strong but indicated Uber had few policies, and the ones it had were not followed.

The board unanimously approved the recommendations on Sunday, including a suggestion that a senior executive be tasked with making sure they are implemented. Apparently because of distrust of some leaders, Holder recommended that care be taken to make sure the executive "is viewed positively by the employees."

The company released only Holder's recommendations, not his full report, citing the need to protect employees who complained.

Liane Hornsey, Uber's chief human resources officer who started in January, said implementing the recommendations "will improve our culture, promote fairness and accountability, and establish processes and systems to ensure the mistakes of the past will not be repeated."

Holder also recommended adding independent directors and replacing the board chairman, co-founder Garrett Camp, with an independent person. The board currently has eight voting members, three from within the company.

Uber was also advised to make sure its workforce is more diverse. The company's diversity figures are similar to the rest of Silicon Valley, with low numbers for women and underrepresented minorities. In the U.S., less than a third of the company's workers are female.

In addition, the report says that diversity and inclusiveness should be a key value for Uber that's included in management training.

After Fowler posted her essay, Uber Technologies Inc. made changes in human resources and opened a 24-hour hotline for employees. Last week, the company fired 20 people, including some managers, at the recommendation of Perkins Coie, which separately investigated 215 employee complaints.

Under Kalanick, Uber has disrupted the taxi industry in hundreds of cities and turned the San Francisco-based company into the world's most valuable startup. As of late last year, Uber's private-market valuation had climbed to nearly $70 billion.

Besides the sexual harassment complaints, in recent months Uber has been threatened by boycotts, sued and subject to a federal investigation over its use of a fake version of its app to thwart authorities looking into whether it is breaking local laws.

Play Video

A racy rule book for Uber that includes guidelines for having sex with co-workers has surfaced. CBS San Francisco's Joe Vazquez has more.

A company can be aggressive yet have strong values, said Joseph Holt, a business ethics professor at the University of Notre Dame. He cited Starbucks as an example.

"Having a good reputation for ethics is a competitive advantage," Holt said.

A culture change at Uber may be more difficult than Holder envisions.

At an employee meeting Tuesday morning, Bonderman remarked that if a woman was added to the board that there likely would be more talking, according to a recording obtained by Yahoo.

By evening, Bonderman resigned and put out a statement saying the comment was careless and inappropriate. "I do not want my comments to create distraction as Uber works to build a culture of which we can be proud," the statement said.

Read the rest here:
Freewheeling Uber faces major changes over "poor behavior" - CBS News

Human Behavior

This backflipping noodle has a lot to teach us about AI safety – The Verge

AI isnt going to be a threat to humanity because its evil or cruel, AI will be a threat to humanity because we havent properly explained what it is we want it to do. Consider the classic paperclip maximizer thought experiment, in which an all-powerful AI is told, simply, make paperclips. The AI, not constrained by any human morality or reason, does so, eventually transforming all resources on Earth into paperclips, and wiping out our species in the process. As with any relationship, when talking to our computers, communication is key.

Thats why a new piece of research published yesterday by Googles DeepMind and the Elon Musk-funded OpenAI institute is so interesting. It offers a simple way for humans to give feedback to AI systems crucially, without the instructor needing to know anything about programming or artificial intelligence.

The method is a variation of whats known as reinforcement learning or RL. With RL systems, a computer learns by trial-and-error, repeating the same task over and over, while programmers direct its actions by setting certain reward criteria. For example, if you want a computer to learn how to play Atari games (something DeepMind has done in the past) you might make the games point system the reward criteria. Over time, the algorithm will learn to play in a way that best accrues points, often leading to super-human performance.

What DeepMind and OpenAIs researchers have done is replace this predefined reward criteria with a much simpler feedback system. Humans are shown an AI performing two versions of the same task and simply tell it which is better. This happens again and again, and eventually the systems learns what is expected of it. Think of it like getting an eye test, when youre looking through different lenses, and being asked over and over: better... or worse? Heres what that looks like when teaching a computer to play the classic Atari game Q*bert:

This method of feedback is surprisingly effective, and researchers were able to use it to train an AI to play a number of Atari video games, as well perform simulated robot tasks (like picking telling an arm to pick up a ball). This better / worse reward function could even be used to program trickier behavior, like teaching a very basic virtual robot how to backflip. Thats how we get to the GIF at the top of the page. The behavior you see has been created by watching the Hopper bot jump up and down, and telling it well done when it gets a bit closer to doing a backflip. Over time, it learns how.

Of course, no one is suggesting this method is a cure-all for teaching AI. There are a number of big downsides and limitations in using this sort of feedback. The first being that although it doesnt take much skill on behalf of the human operator, it does take time. For example, in teaching the Hopper bot to backflip, a human was asked to judge its behavior some 900 times a process that took about an hour. The bot itself had to work through 70 hours of simulated training time, which was sped up artificially.

For some simple tasks, says Oxford Robotics researcher Markus Wulfmeier (who was not involved in this research), it would be quicker for a programmer to simply define what it is they wanted. But, says Wulfmeier, its increasingly important to render human supervision more effective for AI systems, and this paper represents a small step in the right direction.

DeepMind and OpenAI say pretty much the same its a small step, but a promising one, and in the future, theyre looking to apply it to more and more complex scenarios. Speaking to The Verge over email, DeepMind researcher Jan Leike said: The setup described in [our paper] already scales from robotic simulations to more complex Atari games, which suggests that the system will scale further. Leike suggests the next step is to test it in more varied 3D environments. You can read the full paper describing the work here.

See original here:
This backflipping noodle has a lot to teach us about AI safety - The Verge

Genetics

Select Sires Inc., and Accelerated Genetics to join forces – Wisconsin State Farmer

Subscribe today for full access on your desktop, tablet, and mobile device.

Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about

Select Sires will acquire the assets of Accelerated Genetics, joining forces of employees and independent sales representatives.

Try Another

Audio CAPTCHA

Image CAPTCHA

Help

CancelSend

A link has been sent to your friend's email address.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

Wisconsin State Farmer 4:57 p.m. CT June 13, 2017

Select Sires Inc., and Accelerated Genetics will join forces this summer.(Photo: Select Sires Inc.)

BARABOO, WI - Two well known A.I. organizations will join forces this summer.

The board of directors for Select Sires Inc., and Accelerated Genetics reached a unanimous decision to unify the two cooperatives. Under the planned agreement, Select Sires will acquire the assets of Accelerated Genetics, joining together employees and independent sales representatives in each of their geographical member organizations.

This decision coincides with an already collaborative business relationship that began in 2001, where each shares ownership of World Wide Sires, Ltd. World Wide Sires serves as the international marketing arm for both companies in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Oceania.

On June 22, 2017, Accelerated Genetics delegates will come together to cast the final vote on the direction of the cooperative. The goal is to create a unified cooperative that is second-to-none in the market place dedicated to the producer, according to company officials.

This impending endeavor is expected to create a well-rounded genetics program and solution-based animal health care product line that will fit the needs of dairy and beef producers worldwide. Producers can expect to continue working with highly qualified, passionate individuals, who know and understand the cattle breeding industry.

Based in Plain City, OH, Select Sires Inc. is North Americas largest A.I. organization and is comprised of nine farmer-owned and -controlled cooperatives

Read or Share this story: http://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/state/2017/06/13/select-sires-inc-and-accelerated-genetics-join-forces/394333001/

Excerpt from:
Select Sires Inc., and Accelerated Genetics to join forces - Wisconsin State Farmer

Genetics

Discoveries in Genetics Are Changing the Way Drugs Are Tested – WCAI

Cystic fibrosis is a common genetic disease, relatively speaking. About one in 25 to 30 Caucasians are carriers of a cystic fibrosis mutation. But there are more than 1,700 mutations of the cystic fibrosis gene that can result in different disease symptoms.

Researchers and companies working on cystic fibrosis treatments are increasingly paying attention to which mutations a patient carries, and tailoring drugs to certain mutations.

Just recently, the FDA expanded its approval for one cystic fibrosis drug called Kalydeco. It had been approved for use in the case of ten of the mutations. Now its approved for 33.

They did it without a full clinical trial. The reason: each mutation is so rare, there just arent the hundreds of people a lab needs to do a clinical drug trial.

You just cant do it, said Art Caplan, Professor of Bioethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center.

Some of the things we usually see, like a randomized trial with hundreds or thousands of subjects, are not going to work because of the ability to pick out genetic differences among subjects, making it harder to do the big studies, he said.

Another fundamental shift in this area of medicine has to do with how drugs are used. Labs are now investigating how a the same drug might treat a wide range of maladies.

Some diseases that we dont even think of as related -- lets say, ALS, muscular dystrophy, and severe depression they may turn out to have the same chemical pathway that you can block with a drug, Caplan said.

It is huge and it is the future.

Originally posted here:
Discoveries in Genetics Are Changing the Way Drugs Are Tested - WCAI