Kel Guerin is the Founder & CTO of READY Robotics, creators of the world's first universal operating system for industrial automation, READY Robotics helps all manufacturers solve their labor challenges, boost output, improve quality, reduce costs, and augment their workforce through automation. What initially attracted you to robotics? I was interested in robots from an early age – I remember a particular book printed in the 80s I read as a kid that showed a bunch of fanciful images of what robots would be like. I also loved movies like Forbidden Planet and the original Lost in Space that showed robots as these helpful devices. I also understood from reading about robots like Dante 1 (a volcano explorer) and the robots we sent to Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island how important these devices were for tasks hazardous to people.

IBM is a multinational technology company founded in 1911 and operates in over 170 countries worldwide. Today, IBM offers a wide spectrum of products and services that includes software solutions, hardware architecture (server and storage architecture), business and technology services, and global financing solutions. As a data driven-company, IBM understands the importance of data and data analytics at every layer of organization to drive better business decisions. Also, a leading provider of Analytics and Cloud-based solutions, IBM offers a full stack of cloud-based products and services spanning across data analytics, storage, AI, IoT, and blockchain. Check out this article about the Microsoft Data Scientist interview!

SCI COMMUN### Politics The U.S. presidential race was upended in the first days of October as President Donald Trump tested positive for the pandemic virus and spent 3 days in the hospital. He was aggressively treated with two experimental medicines—monoclonal antibodies and the repurposed antiviral remdesivir—and a steroid used in severe COVID-19 cases. Trump returned to the White House on 5 October saying people should not fear the disease. But public health specialists voiced astonishment when he re-entered the building maskless, trailed by questions about his medical condition and a lack of information about how staff members would be protected from infection. All that followed a rancorous first debate on 29 September between Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Trump mocked Biden for having worn a mask at other times, despite evidence that the precaution reduces transmission of the virus. The president also left scientists puzzled when he described as a “disaster” Biden's role in the response to the H1N1 swine flu outbreak in 2009. Then-President Barack Obama, whom Biden served under as vice president, declared it a public health emergency 6 weeks before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. That flu killed an estimated 12,000 Americans—far fewer than the 210,000 U.S. deaths recorded so far from COVID-19. > “Very few don't have some sort of connection to Big Tech.” > > Doctoral student Mohamed Abdalla , in Wired , about a study he led of faculty members specializing in artificial intelligence at four leading research universities. He found 58% (48 of 83) had received a grant or fellowship from one of 14 large technology companies, which may distort research priorities. ### Conservation High-tech fake turtle eggs can spy on poachers and wildlife trafficking routes. The real eggs are a delicacy in Central America, and illicit trading of them adds to other hazards to the survival of turtle species that are threatened. Researchers slipped 101 decoy eggs with GPS trackers embedded (left) into nests on four Costa Rican beaches. The scientists tracked five eggs to learn where the poachers took them; the farthest ended up 137 kilometers inland, the multinational team reported on 5 October in Current Biology . The researchers did not share this information with authorities, noting ethical concerns; many poachers live in poverty, and in Costa Rica, buying the eggs is not illegal. But, the authors say, the study shows that law enforcement agencies could use the method. ### Public health Coronavirus guidelines issued last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) again stirred controversy and concerns that undue political pressure had influenced some of its decisions. CDC announced that on 31 October it will lift an order barring cruise ships from sailing despite a recommendation by its director, Robert Redfield, to extend the ban until February 2021. The industry shut down in March after severe COVID-19 outbreaks occurred on multiple ships. Last week, CDC also drew fire for its updated guidelines on when colleges should test students and faculty and staff members for the pandemic virus. The agency recommended different frequencies of testing, including just a single, initial one, depending on circumstances such as whether students lived in residences with others who tested positive. Critics said the new guidelines should have recommended more regular testing of asymptomatic individuals. CDC addressed another uproar this week by acknowledging evidence that the virus can travel by air and infect people standing more than 2 meters apart in indoor spaces. The agency was faulted last month after it posted, and then withdrew, a draft suggesting otherwise. ### Infectious diseases An international program to reduce the risk of new zoonotic diseases, allowed to expire by the U.S. government in 2019 but extended until last month, will get a successor. On 30 September, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a $100 million grant to help countries in Asia and Africa curb viruses jumping from animals to humans. The 5-year Strategies to Prevent Spillover program will have a different focus from its predecessor, PREDICT, whose termination was criticized by the scientific community: Rather than studying the drivers of spillover, it will seek interventions to reduce viral jumps, a USAID spokesperson says. A key goal is to “help partners at the country level build their expertise and ability to take action,” says veterinarian Deborah Kochevar of Tufts University, which leads a 13-institute consortium that won the grant. ### International affairs Yuri Orlov, the Russian physicist who championed human rights in the Soviet Union before being exiled in 1985, died on 27 September at age 96. Orlov helped organize the Soviet Union's branch of Amnesty International in 1973 and 3 years later co-founded the Moscow Helsinki Group, which monitored Soviet adherence to the civil rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords between the Soviet Union and the West. In 1977, Orlov was arrested and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor and exile in Siberia. After coming to the United States in a prisoner exchange, Orlov, an expert in particle accelerators, worked at Cornell University. He didn't think much of Russian President Vladimir Putin, writing in 2004 that “Russia is flying backward in time.” ### Governance Japan's new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has disrupted the process by which scientists are appointed to serve on the governing body of the country's leading academic society, the Science Council of Japan (SCJ). Researchers are criticizing the move as a threat to academic freedom. SCJ makes policy recommendations, promotes scientific literacy and international cooperation, and represents the interests of more than 800,000 scholars in virtually all academic disciplines. The prime minister customarily ratifies appointees recommended by SCJ for its governing body, the General Assembly. But according to an announcement last week, Suga withheld his blessing from six academics, in a list of 105 put forward, who work in the social sciences, law, and the humanities. All six had criticized legislation adopted by Japan's previous government, in which Suga was chief cabinet secretary. His failure to appoint them violated a law governing SCJ, said Satoshi Ihara, secretary general of the Japan Scientists' Association. ### Policy Mexican scientists this week blasted a move by the national legislature to eliminate 109 trust funds run by public research centers and government institutes, one-third of them devoted to science and technology. The government wants to use the money, some $3 billion in total, for the coronavirus pandemic. The funds support everything from student scholarships and emergency maintenance of equipment to major research projects at dozens of government centers. The money also helps pay for biosecurity and biotechnology research, fighting climate change, and disaster relief. On 6 October, Mexico's Chamber of Deputies approved a bill to terminate the funds, but with “reservations” that require further debate; it is expected to pass in the Senate. The plan is “a brutal blow” and the worst hit to Mexican science in 50 years, says Antonio Lazcano, an evolutionary biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, University City. ### Virology There's been a new case of infection with Alaskapox virus, a recently discovered pathogen that's related to smallpox. Alaska state health authorities reported on 30 September that they had found the virus in a woman from the Fairbanks area with a mild, gray skin lesion on one arm, similar to one seen in 2015 in the first known patient, also a woman from Fairbanks. Human infections with pox-viruses are on the rise, presumably because vaccination against smallpox—which offers some protection against related viruses—was halted after that deadly disease was eradicated 40 years ago. But the Alaska cases are no cause for alarm: There is no evidence the virus can be transmitted between humans—scientists think it came from wild mammals—and the lesions went away by themselves. ### Medicine prize goes to discoverers of virus that destroys the liver The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded this week for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, one of the most common causes of liver cancer. The prize went to Harvey Alter of the U.S. National Institutes of Health; Michael Houghton of the University of Alberta, Edmonton; and Charles Rice of Rockefeller University. The hepatitis C virus, transmitted via blood, can cause chronic inflammation of the liver that quietly destroys the organ over decades, ultimately leading to cirrhosis and cancer. The laureates did work over 3 decades to identify the virus and show it was responsible for unexplained cases of hepatitis in people who received blood transfusions. They also developed a test to screen blood donations for the virus, which has nearly eliminated the risk of hepatitis from blood transfusions. Their research ultimately led to a successful treatment for the disease, which has cured millions of people. But about 71 million people worldwide still have chronic hepatitis C, and transmission continues via contaminated medical equipment, sharing drug injection needles, and from infected mothers to newborns during birth. The disease causes few acute symptoms, and testing in many developing countries is limited. ### Black hole hunters receive physics prize The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded for pioneering discoveries regarding black holes—self-sustaining gravitational fields so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape. Roger Penrose, a mathematician at the University of Oxford, received half of the $1.1 million prize for his theoretical work, conducted in part with the late Stephen Hawking, that proved a black hole would be stable and thus could be a real astrophysical object and not a mere mathematical curiosity. Astronomers Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles, share the other half of the prize for deducing the presence of the supermassive black hole that lies in the heart of our Galaxy. Since the 1990s, Genzel and Ghez have led rival research groups that observed stars there, 26,000 light-years from Earth. They found ones orbiting a heavy, unseen object, called Sagittarius A*, at incredible speeds—some of the most convincing evidence for a behemoth black hole, with the mass of millions of Suns. ### Fauci: ‘Skunk at the picnic’ On 23 September, in the relative calm before President Donald Trump's coronavirus infection was revealed, Anthony Fauci relaxed at home after tangling earlier that day with U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R–KY) during a hearing on COVID-19. Fauci still had 200 emails in his inbox to read that night, but the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who also serves on the White House's Coronavirus Task Force, sat down with Science to discuss the pandemic and research on vaccines. (Read the full interview at [scim.ag/FauciOctober][1].) Some excerpts: On his showdown with Paul: “I said to myself, you know, ‘I'm sorry, I'm not gonna disrespect him, but I'm not gonna let him get away with saying things that are cherry-picked data.’” (Paul had suggested that the United States follow Sweden's COVID-19 policies because it had a lower death rate from the disease.) On speaking bluntly at the White House: “I'm walking a fine line of being someone who is not hesitant to tell the president and the vice president what they may not want to hear. There are some people in the White House, who, even when I first started telling it like it was in the task force meetings, they were like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ That's when I got that nickname ‘the skunk at the picnic.’ … I say, ‘I'm sorry, I'm not trying to undermine the president. But there is something that's called reality.’” On the state of the pandemic: “Yes, there are parts of the country that are doing well. But this country is a big forest, and when you have fires in some parts of the forest, the entire forest is at risk.” [1]: http://scim.ag/FauciOctober

The RAISE 2020 summit (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment) has brought issues around artificial intelligence (AI) to the centre of policy discussions. Countries across the world are making efforts to be part of the AI-led digital economy, which is estimated to contribute around $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. India, with its "AI for All" strategy, a vast pool of AI-trained workforce and an emerging startup ecosystem, has a unique opportunity to be a major contributor to AI-driven solutions that can revolutionise healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, education and skilling. AI is the branch of computer science concerned with developing machines that can complete tasks that typically require human intelligence. With the explosion of available data expansion of computing capacity, the world is witnessing rapid advancements in AI, machine learning and deep learning, transforming almost all sectors of the economy.

Samsung Electronics announced today that it will hold the Samsung AI Forum 2020 online via its YouTube channel for two days from November 2nd to 3rd. Marking its fourth anniversary this year, the forum gathers world-renowned academics and industry experts on artificial intelligence (AI) and serves as a platform for exchanging ideas, insights and latest research findings, as well as a platform to discuss the future of AI. On Day 1, which will be hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Samsung's R&D hub dedicated to cutting-edge future technologies, Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman & CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics will deliver opening remarks. Renowned AI experts will subsequently give presentations under the theme "AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World." This year, Dr. Inyup Kang, President of System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics will join the panel discussion with the presenters.

This week's blogs are inspired by our global connector Marisol Menendez Tell me about Responsive and what you guys are all about? We're an advice-centric FinTech that's focused on financial advisors with better decisions and actions, that helps them grow customer wealth and loyalty. We do that by performing behavioural analytics on data and providing the advisors with insights in real-time. For the time being, that's the model we believe in. At this stage, we think that's just too valuable a process to be left to automation when it comes to the complexities of life and the weight of these decisions.

Three scientists won this year's Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for advancing our understanding of black holes, the all-consuming monsters that lurk in the darkest parts of the universe. Briton Roger Penrose received half of this year's prize "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity," the Nobel Committee said. German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez received the second half of the prize "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy." The prize celebrates "one of the most exotic objects in the universe," black holes, which have become a staple of science fact and science fiction and where time seems to stand still, according to the committee. Black holes are perhaps the most mysterious and powerful objects in astronomy.

Why data? Good outcomes depend on good decisions, which depend on good data. The decision value chain is giving up its secrets. Let's have fun figuring out how.

Programming Skills like R, Python, and SAS are the most commonly used tools by the data scientists. Explore R vs Python vs SAS for Data Science and choose the most suitable tool to start your Data Science learning. Get your hands dirty with Data This field uses scientific methods and algorithms. And apply this approach in processing, cleaning and verifying the data. Good hands-on Machine Learning Skills As we have discussed above it is the driving force behind data science.

Olaf Witkowski is the Chief Scientist at Cross Labs, which aims to bridge the divide between intelligence science and AI technology. A researcher of artificial life, Witkowski started in artificial intelligence by exploring the replication of human speech through machines. He founded Commentag in 2007, and in 2009 moved to Japan to continue research, where he first became interested in artificial life. In his own words, Witkowski says, "artificial intelligence means that you are trying to copy human intelligence as best as possible. Artificial life says, okay, that's good, but let's try to understand human intelligence and recreate it from the fundamental knowledge we have acquired. It's a bit like the Richard Feynman quote: what I cannot create, I do not understand."