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The bunker door will be opened because the igniter, also called nitrocellulose, burns very rapidly and is only explosive when confined, Brian Salvatore, chairman of the chemistry and physics department at Louisiana State University in Shreveport and a member of the Camp Minden citizens’ advisory committee, said last week.

A magazine holding 114,000 pounds of igniter is scheduled for burning Saturday. Another one holding 84,000 pounds of igniter and 40,000 pounds of M6 artillery propellant is to be burned Oct. 29.

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In Brief:

  • The United States’ current levels of R&D spending on AI are one-half to one-quarter of the levels that would be best for economic growth.
  • Lagging behind in AI research could put the U.S. at a disadvantage if other countries get the opportunity to dictate how the technology is used.

The U.S. may be trailing behind China in artificial intelligence (AI) research — or at least in journal articles that mention “deep learning” or “deep neural network” — according to the White House’s National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan.

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In the near future, we’re going to see an increasing number of Collision Avoidance System-equipped cars on the roads. Stated simply, the technology uses an integrated forward-looking radar system to alert drivers when they’re rapidly approaching obstacles such as other vehicles. If those other vehicles are bicycles, however, their rear profile can make them difficult for the radar to detect. That’s where iLumaware’s Shield TL comes in.

Inventors Chris Mogridge and Alexis Stobbe created the device by analyzing how stealth technology works, then essentially going in the opposite direction – whereas stealth vehicles are designed to evade radar signals, the Shield is made to catch those signals and reflect them back to the cars. It does this purely via its unique shape, not emitting any actual signal itself.

In field tests, it boosted bicycles’ radar signature by up to 100 percent, and thus increased the distance at which they could be detected by Collision Avoidance Systems.

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