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Category: government – Page 127

Fighting The Opioid Epidemic with AI — Brian Drake, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) — Sable Spear

Today we are going to discuss the topic drug enforcement from a very interesting technological angle.

Brian Drake, is the Director of Artificial Intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) Directorate of Science and Technology. Mr. Drake works with the DIA’s Future Capabilities and Innovation Office, and he also leads an initiative to test the effectiveness of different applications of artificial intelligence at solving various mission problems, including using AI to combat the opioid crisis with a DIA program known as SABLE SPEAR.

Previous to this role Brian was a Senior Intelligence Analyst and Branch Chief in the DIA’s Americas and Transregional Threats Center (ATTC) and prior to joining ATTC, Mr. Drake was a Management Analyst with DIA’s Chief of Staff.

For DIA’s intelligence analysis mission, he has worked worldwide targets in narcotics, emerging and disruptive technologies, and weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Drake was stationed in the Pentagon as an Intelligence Briefer in the Executive Support Office, served on the Information Review Task Force, and has led several interagency technical and counterterrorism intelligence teams.

Prior to his time in DIA, Mr. Drake was a management consultant at Deloitte and Toffler Associates where he served commercial clients in various industries and government clients at the ODNI, FBI, CIA, NSA, and the US State Department.

Continue reading “Fighting The Opioid Epidemic with AI — Brian Drake, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) — Sable Spear” | >

Cybersecurity firm FireEye says it was hacked by a nation-state

FireEye, normally the first company that cyberattack victims will call, has now admitted it too has fallen victim to hackers, which the company called a “sophisticated threat actor” that was likely backed by a nation-state.

In a blog post confirming the breach, the company’s chief executive Kevin Mandia said the nation-backed hackers have “top-tier offensive capabilities,” but did not attribute blame or say which government was behind the attack.

Mandia, who founded Mandiant, the incident response firm acquired by FireEye in 2014, said the hackers used a “novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past” to steal hacking tools used typically by red teams, which are tasked with launching authorized but offensive hacking campaigns against customers in order to find weaknesses or vulnerabilities before malicious hackers do.

Mexican Senate Passes Bill To Legalize Marijuana Nationwide

Mexico’s Senate approved a bill to legalize marijuana nationally on Thursday.

Before it can become law it must also be passed by the other body of the country’s Congress, the Chamber of Deputies.

The legislation, which was circulated in draft form earlier this month, would establish a regulated cannabis market in Mexico, allowing adults 18 and older to purchase and possess up to 28 grams of marijuana and cultivate up to six plants for personal use.

U.S. banks handled trillions of dollars in “suspicious” transactions, report says

A congressional investigation into the 2016 U.S. presidential election has unearthed evidence that major banks processed $2 trillion in transactions despite suspecting they were connected to illegal activity.

So-called suspicious activity reports, filed by banks with government regulators, indicate the banks were concerned the transactions would help suspected terrorists, drug dealers, corrupt foreign officials and other bad actors move trillions of dollars around the world, as well as perpetuate investment frauds. The private reports, which covered 1999 through 2017, were obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The two organizations published their investigations into the documents over the weekend, but did not publish the complete reports. Both also declined to make public most of the information contained in the reports, including the customers who the banks suspected of illegal activity.

All About Electric Transportation

This Week in Engineering is multi-segment show that explores the latest innovations and tech trends across many engineering disciplines from academic institutions, government agencies and industry.

EPISODE SEGMENTS:
0:14 GM Unveils Massive Investment in EV’s.
2:30 UK’s Kar-go Autonomous Delivery Vehicle.

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Kar-go Autonomous Vehicle Begins Contactless Delivery to Care Homes:

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Postdocs need urgent financial support amid COVID conditions

Earlier in the year, many funders agreed to extend deadlines for research projects halted or delayed by the pandemic — but fewer offered extra funding to cover this period. Worryingly, most of the funders we approached still have no concrete plans to provide such additional financial support to postdocs. Many postdocs are not eligible for the government salary subsidies, or furlough schemes, that have been made available to many workers during the pandemic. Expanding access to such schemes is arguably the one intervention that could do the most to ease pressures at this time.

Most funders have no plans to provide postdoctoral researchers with additional pandemic funding. Society will pay a high price if this neglect continues.

Tasmania declares itself 100 per cent powered by renewable electricity

The Tasmania government has declared that it has become the first Australian state, and one of just a handful of jurisdictions worldwide, to be powered entirely by renewable electricity.

In a statement released on Friday, Tasmanian energy minister Guy Barnett said that state had effectively become entirely self-sufficient for supplies of renewable electricity, supplied by the state’s wind and hydroelectricity projects.

“We have reached 100 per cent thanks to our commitment to realising Tasmania’s renewable energy potential through our nation-leading energy policies and making Tasmania attractive for industry investment, which in turn is creating jobs across the State, particularly in our regions,” Barnett said.

Research provides new insights on health effects of long-duration space flight

Might interest some as it mentions telomeres.

The historic NASA Twins Study investigated identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly and provided new information on the health effects of spending time in space.

Colorado State University Professor Susan Bailey was one of more than 80 scientists across 12 universities who conducted research on the textbook experiment; Mark remained on Earth while Scott orbited high above for nearly one year. The massive effort was coordinated by NASA’s Human Research Program.

Bailey has continued her NASA research and now joins more than 200 investigators from dozens of academic, government, aerospace and industry groups to publish a package of 30 scientific papers in five Cell Press journals on Nov. 25.

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