Government
Effect of Information Technology on Job Creation to Support Economic: Case Studies of Graduates in Universities (2023-2024) of the KRG of Iraq
Bapir, Azhi Kh., Maolood, Ismail Y., Abdullah, Dana A, Ameen, Aso K., Abdullah, Abdulhady Abas
The aim of this study is to assess the impact of information technology (IT) on university graduates in terms of employment development, which will aid in economic issues. This study uses a descriptive research methodology and a quantitative approach to understand variables. The focus of this study is to ascertain how graduates of Kurdistan regional universities might use IT to secure employment and significantly contribute to the nation's economic revival. The sample size was established by the use of judgmental sampling procedure and consisted of 314 people. The researcher prepared the questionnaire to collect data, and then SPSS statistical software, version 22, and Excel 2010 were used to modify, compile, and tabulate the results. The study's outcome showed that information technology is incredibly inventive, has a promising future, and makes life much easier for everyone. It also proved that a deep academic understanding of information technology and its constituent parts helps graduates of Kurdistan Regional University find suitable careers. More importantly, though, anyone looking for work or a means of support will find great benefit from possessing credentials and understanding of IT. The study's final finding was that information technology has actively advanced the country's economy. Not only is IT helping to boost youth employment, but it is also turning into a worthwhile investment for economic growth.
A Digital Shadow for Modeling, Studying and Preventing Urban Crime
Palma-Borda, Juan, Guzmรกn, Eduardo, Belmonte, Marรญa-Victoria
Crime is one of the greatest threats to urban security. Around 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries with high levels of criminality. Most of the crimes committed in the cities take place in their urban environments. This paper presents the development and validation of a digital shadow platform for modeling and simulating urban crime. This digital shadow has been constructed using data-driven agent-based modeling and simulation techniques, which are suitable for capturing dynamic interactions among individuals and with their environment. Our approach transforms and integrates well-known criminological theories and the expert knowledge of law enforcement agencies (LEA), policy makers, and other stakeholders under a theoretical model, which is in turn combined with real crime, spatial (cartographic) and socio-economic data into an urban model characterizing the daily behavior of citizens. The digital shadow has also been instantiated for the city of Malaga, for which we had over 300,000 complaints available. This instance has been calibrated with those complaints and other geographic and socio-economic information of the city. To the best of our knowledge, our digital shadow is the first for large urban areas that has been calibrated with a large dataset of real crime reports and with an accurate representation of the urban environment. The performance indicators of the model after being calibrated, in terms of the metrics widely used in predictive policing, suggest that our simulated crime generation matches the general pattern of crime in the city according to historical data. Our digital shadow platform could be an interesting tool for modeling and predicting criminal behavior in an urban environment on a daily basis and, thus, a useful tool for policy makers, criminologists, sociologists, LEAs, etc. to study and prevent urban crime.
New UK law would criminalize creating sexually explicit deepfakes
Bad actors have created deepfakes to imitate celebrity endorsements, President Biden and employers. But, one of the most heinous uses is making sexually explicit deepfakes of real people. Now, the UK government is taking new steps to deter their creation, introducing new criminal offenses for producing or sharing sexually explicit deepfakes. Only sharing deepfakes is currently an offense under UK law. "With these new measures, we're sending an unequivocal message: creating or sharing these vile images is not only unacceptable but criminal," said Baroness Margaret Beryl Jones, minister for the future digital economy and online safety.
Correcting Genetic Spelling Errors With Next-Generation Crispr
Sam Berns was my friend. With the wisdom of a sage, he inspired me and many others about how to make the most of life. Afflicted with the rare disease called progeria, his body aged at a rapid rate, and he died of heart failure at just 17, a brave life cut much too short. My lab discovered the genetic cause of Sam's illness two decades ago: Just one DNA letter gone awry, a T that should have been a C in a critical gene called lamin A. The same misspelling is found in almost all of the 200 individuals around the world with progeria. This story is from the WIRED World in 2025, our annual trends briefing.
British AI startup with government ties is developing tech for military drones
A company that has worked closely with the UK government on artificial intelligence safety, the NHS and education is also developing AI for military drones. The consultancy Faculty AI has "experience developing and deploying AI models on to UAVs", or unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a defence industry partner company. Faculty has emerged as one of the most active companies selling AI services in the UK. Unlike the likes of OpenAI, Deepmind or Anthropic, it does not develop models itself, instead focusing on reselling models, notably from OpenAI, and consulting on their use in government and industry. Faculty gained particular prominence in the UK after working on data analysis for the Vote Leave campaign before the Brexit vote.
UFC boss to join board of Facebook owner Meta
"Dana, John and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with [artificial intelligence], wearables and the future of human connection," said Mr Zuckerberg in a statement. The social media giant also praised Mr White's role in turning UFC into a global business. In a post on Meta's Instagram, Mr White said he loves social media and is "excited to be a small part of the future of [artificial intelligence] and emerging technologies." Mr White has previously rejected any suggestion that UFC platforms hate speech, insisting he supports free speech. A year ago his tense exchange with a reporter who questioned why he allowed fighters to make anti-LGBT remarks went viral.
ChronoLLM: A Framework for Customizing Large Language Model for Digital Twins generalization based on PyChrono
Wang, Jingquan, Zhang, Harry, Slaton, Khailanii, Wang, Shu, Serban, Radu, Wu, Jinlong, Negrut, Dan
Project Chrono [1] is an open-source, physics-based simulation framework that supports the modeling, simulation, and analysis of complex systems. It is designed for high-performance, high-fidelity simulations and is widely used in research and industry. PyChrono [2] is the Python wrapper for Project Chrono, providing a user-friendly interface to the core functionalities of Project Chrono. It allows users to leverage the power of Project Chrono using Python, making it accessible to a broader range of users who prefer scripting in Python over C++. Project Chrono encompasses a wide range of features, and PyChrono inherits a subset of these capabilities: 1. Chrono::Engine: Provides core functionality for multibody dynamics and nonlinear finite element analysis, with robust treatment of friction and contact using both the penalty method and the Lagrange-multiplier method.
CONTINUUM: Detecting APT Attacks through Spatial-Temporal Graph Neural Networks
Bahar, Atmane Ayoub Mansour, Ferrahi, Kamel Soaid, Messai, Mohamed-Lamine, Seba, Hamida, Amrouche, Karima
Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) represent a significant challenge in cybersecurity due to their sophisticated and stealthy nature. Traditional Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) often fall short in detecting these multi-stage attacks. Recently, Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have been employed to enhance IDS capabilities by analyzing the complex relationships within networked data. However, existing GNN-based solutions are hampered by high false positive rates and substantial resource consumption. In this paper, we present a novel IDS designed to detect APTs using a Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network Autoencoder. Our approach leverages spatial information to understand the interactions between entities within a graph and temporal information to capture the evolution of the graph over time. This dual perspective is crucial for identifying the sequential stages of APTs. Furthermore, to address privacy and scalability concerns, we deploy our architecture in a federated learning environment. This setup ensures that local data remains on-premise while encrypted model-weights are shared and aggregated using homomorphic encryption, maintaining data privacy and security. Our evaluation shows that this system effectively detects APTs with lower false positive rates and optimized resource usage compared to existing methods, highlighting the potential of spatio-temporal analysis and federated learning in enhancing cybersecurity defenses.
From Newswire to Nexus: Using text-based actor embeddings and transformer networks to forecast conflict dynamics
Croicu, Mihai, von der Maase, Simon Polichinel
This study advances the field of conflict forecasting by using text-based actor embeddings with transformer models to predict dynamic changes in violent conflict patterns at the actor level. More specifically, we combine newswire texts with structured conflict event data and leverage recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to forecast escalations and de-escalations among conflicting actors, such as governments, militias, separatist movements, and terrorists. This new approach accurately and promptly captures the inherently volatile patterns of violent conflicts, which existing methods have not been able to achieve. To create this framework, we began by curating and annotating a vast international newswire corpus, leveraging hand-labeled event data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. By using this hybrid dataset, our models can incorporate the textual context of news sources along with the precision and detail of structured event data. This combination enables us to make both dynamic and granular predictions about conflict developments. We validate our approach through rigorous back-testing against historical events, demonstrating superior out-of-sample predictive power. We find that our approach is quite effective in identifying and predicting phases of conflict escalation and de-escalation, surpassing the capabilities of traditional models. By focusing on actor interactions, our explicit goal is to provide actionable insights to policymakers, humanitarian organizations, and peacekeeping operations in order to enable targeted and effective intervention strategies.
TOAST Framework: A Multidimensional Approach to Ethical and Sustainable AI Integration in Organizations
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology with the potential to revolutionize various sectors, from healthcare to finance, education, and beyond. However, successfully implementing AI systems remains a complex challenge, requiring a comprehensive and methodologically sound framework. This paper contributes to this challenge by introducing the Trustworthy, Optimized, Adaptable, and Socio-Technologically harmonious (TOAST) framework. It draws on insights from various disciplines to align technical strategy with ethical values, societal responsibilities, and innovation aspirations. The TOAST framework is a novel approach designed to guide the implementation of AI systems, focusing on reliability, accountability, technical advancement, adaptability, and socio-technical harmony. By grounding the TOAST framework in healthcare case studies, this paper provides a robust evaluation of its practicality and theoretical soundness in addressing operational, ethical, and regulatory challenges in high-stakes environments, demonstrating how adaptable AI systems can enhance institutional efficiency, mitigate risks like bias and data privacy, and offer a replicable model for other sectors requiring ethically aligned and efficient AI integration.