The contribution presents a study on figurative language of the first months of the COVID-19 crisis in Italian online newspapers. Particularly, we contrast topics and metaphorical language used by journalists in the first and second phase of the government response to the pandemic in Spring 2020. The analysis is conducted on a journalistic corpus collected between February 24th and June 3rd, 2020. The analysis is performed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, combining Structural Topic Modelling (Roberts et al. 2016), Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), and qualitative-corpus based metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004). We find a significant shift in topics discussed across Phase 1 and Phase 2, and interesting overlaps in topic-specific metaphors. Using qualitative corpus analysis, we present a more in-depth case study discussing metaphorical collocations of the topics of Economy and Society

Like the steam engine, electricity, or the internet, Artificial Intelligence is a general purpose technology – with the potential to revolutionise every aspect of our lives, help realise our ambitions to be a science superpower, and to foster economic growth across the UK. The UK excels at AI – from scientific research, where we rank third in the world for number of academic journal citations; to investment – receiving more investment in AI companies than France and Germany combined in 2021. As a Government, we are committed to unlocking the enormous benefits of AI across our economy and society. That is why we have invested over £2.3 billion in AI since 2014, which has been bolstered year-on-year by ambitious announcements such as the creation of the NHS AI Lab to drive use of AI in improving healthcare, to the creation of Turing AI World-leading Researcher Fellowships, to ensure the UK attracts and retains the best and brightest AI talent. Last September, we also published the National AI Strategy – a 10-year vision to ensure the UK is the best place to start and grow an AI business and to strengthen our position as a global AI leader.

There has been no better time to be in the world of artificial intelligence than now. AI has achieved an inflection point and is poised to transform every industry. Much has already been written about specific applications of AI. In this article, I take a step back to consider how artificial intelligence is poised to fundamentally restructure broader swaths of our economy and society over the next decade with five bold predictions that are informed by my expertise and immersion in the field. Important science--think large-scale clinical trials or building particle colliders--is expensive and time-consuming.

Artificial intelligence (AI) contains many subfields, including machine learning (ML), which automates analytical model building. It uses methods from neural networks, statistics, operations research and physics to find hidden insights in data without being explicitly programmed where to look or what to conclude. Real artificial intelligence applies machine learning, and other techniques to solve actual problems. Despite the covid-19 pandemic and the current economic climate, artificial intelligence has quickened its progress. AI has the ability to analyze big data sets – pulling together innovative insights and leading to predictive analysis. Here are five significant artificial intelligence trends that are transforming the future of our economies and society.

The Department of Computing and Mathematics is a large and successful academic community of students and staff in the Faculty of Science and Engineering that is committed to achieving high-quality teaching, research and enterprise. The Department delivers courses to over 1500 students across Undergraduate, and Postgraduate programmes and has over 70 members of academic staff with ambitious plans for growth. The Centre for Advanced Computational Science (CfACS) is a University's strategic research and knowledge exchange centre focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Data Science, AI ethics, Cyber Security, Mathematical and Computational Modeling and their cross-sector applications. Our ethos is to be highly innovative in both teaching and research. Our vision to provide the current and future needed talents and workforce in the transforming economy and society.

There is a growing consensus that artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally transform our economy and society.1 A wide range of commercial applications are being used across many industries. Among these are anomaly detection (e.g., for fraud mitigation), image recognition (e.g., for public safety), speech recognition and natural language generation (e.g., for virtual assistants), recommendation engines (e.g., for robo-advice), and automated decision-making systems (e.g., for workflow applications). While AI's potential benefits are huge, the concerns are substantial as well. Fears exist regarding potential discrimination, safety, privacy, ethics, and accountability for undesired outcomes.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) systems are rapidly being adopted across the economy and society. These AI algorithms, many of which process fast-growing datasets, are increasingly used to deliver personalised, interactive, 'smart' goods and services that affect everything from how banks provide advice to how chairs and buildings are designed. There is no doubt that AI has a huge potential to facilitate and enhance a large number of human activities and that it will provide new and exciting insights into human behaviour and cognition. The further development of AI will boost the rise of new and innovative enterprises, will result in promising new services and products in – for instance – transportation, health care, education and the home environment. They may transform, and even disrupt, the way public and private organisations currently work and the way our everyday social interactions take place.

This week, we caught up with Sean Culey, Author of "Transition Point: From Steam to Singularity" and Keynote Speaker on Thriving in the Digital Age: The Need for a Copernican Business Revolution at the upcoming Internet of Manufacturing UK event, taking place in Farnborough, May 14-15. Sean is a global keynote speaker on the topic of disruptive technologies and their impact on supply chains, businesses, the economy and society. He is the author of'Transition Point', a detailed look at the causes of technological disruption and the impact it has on our society, and how the current wave of technological change will completely disrupt our business models, economy and society at large. Sean is also the author of numerous articles published in magazines such as Forbes and The European Business Review. What are the key technologies that you believe will transform industry over the next 5 years?

Countries in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) are lagging behind with respect to robotics, artificial intelligence and technology infrastructure and skills acquisition. Jean Baptiste Mutabazi, the regional bloc's Director of Infrastructure, noted this during the COMESA Connect Industry Dialogue in Kigali themed "Smart Technologies for Sustainable Businesses." Held in Kigali, the meeting was organised by the COMESA Business Council and Rwanda's Private Sector Federation of Rwanda (PSF). While Egypt, Seychelles, Kenya and Mauritius lead in terms of internet penetration and mobile density and in trade in ICT services, Mutabazi said, the rest of the region largely lags behind in a number of ways, particularly with respect to robotics, artificial intelligence and technology infrastructure and skills acquisition. COMESA member states are; Burundi, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Sudan, Swaziland, Seychelles, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

For Thailand, Dell's vision is consistent with the government's "Thailand 4.0" initiative which focuses on the digital transformation of the Thai economy and society. Under this initiative, the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) covering parts of Rayong, Chon Buri and Chachoengsao provinces is a showcase example of smart cities and a new generation of industries and services. In his keynote speech at the 2018 Dell Technologies/World event in Las Vegas on April 30, Dell said big data is the new "rocket fuel", and when it is leveraged with AI and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities on the next 5G communication platform the results will be unprecedented. He cited smart cities and autonomous cars as examples of how massive data running to the tune of, say, 200 petabytes per day from just one city, and its IoT devices plus self-driving vehicles, can be used to improve the way people live, commute and do other activities. According to Dell, all stakeholders and businesses should benefit from the new digital infrastructure required to deliver unprecedented results as the use of cloud-based computing and storage facilities will be combined with the so-called "edge" computing capability such as that of autonomous cars and other smart devices.