Daily Archives: November 1, 2024

Chinese and foreign scientists call for building global network for open science infrastructure

Photo: Courtesy of China Association for Science and TechnologyChinese and foreign scientists launched an initiative to call on joint effort to promote the construction of open science infrastructure at a thematic session during the World Science and Technology Development Forum (WSTDF 2024) held from October 22 to 24 in Beijing.The initiate, titled “Fostering Open Science Infrastructure Collaboration: A Vision for the Sciences Decade,” suggest building a global network, implementing open principles, promoting sustainable development, and enhancing mutual trust to deal with the challenges currently existing in the construction scale, political economy, technical standards, legal ethics, and other aspects of shared collaboration in open science infrastructure, according to Huang Jinxia, a professor from the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, when announcing the recommendations at the thematic session “Open Science Infrastructures: Building a Collaborative Platform for Sciences Decade (INFRASTRUCTURES) ” during the WSTDF 2024.Open science infrastructure is an important means to promote global scientific innovation and collaboration. Through a collaborative platform, the global scientific community can share data, resources, and technologies to jointly address global challenges such as climate change and energy crisis, Yang Wei, Professor from Zhejiang University, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Founding Chair of CAST UN Consultative Committee on Open Science and Global Partnership (CCOS), said at the session.Open science infrastructure supports researchers in building upon existing work, validating results, and generating new academic insights by promoting the public sharing of research findings. It was acknowledged as one of the key pillars of shared research infrastructure (virtual or physical) by UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.In alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and UNESCO’s Strategic plan for the implementation of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024-2033) (Sciences Decade), this initiative calls on the public, governments and infrastructure facilitators, to collaborate a highly open and high-quality network of open science infrastructure.In August 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the resolution Sciences Decade. This resolution offers a distinctive opportunity for humankind to advance and leverage science in the pursuit of sustainable development and cultivate a new science culture – to engage everyone to advance science further and equally benefit from it.As this year marks the first year of the resolution, the abovementioned thematic session was held to gather Chinese and foreign scientists to engage in in-depth dialogue focusing on open science infrastructure to promote global scientific collaboration, address major challenges, and advance sustainable development.Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Regional Office for East Asia Shahbaz Khan stressed in his speech at the session that open science is not only a key driving force for achieving global peace and sustainable development, but also an effective way to help scientists worldwide address global issues through the sharing of infrastructure, data, and knowledge.Open science infrastructure is highly aligned with the United Nations SDGs, particularly in tackling major challenges such as climate change and food security, where open science has unique advantages, he noted.Khan stressed the importance of international communication and cooperative platform like the WSTDF to promote the Sciences Decade. He said the key is to share knowledge with developing countries in the Global South to help them seek sustainable development, eliminate poverty and secure food safety.”How can we promote such knowledge to where it is needed? For example, for countries in need from Africa, developing countries, which are the Belt and Road Initiative partners like Pakistan and Afghanistan, this forum can help bring the benefits of science and technology to them for better livelihoods,” Khan told the Global Times.Echoing Khan, Yang said that sustainable development is the goal. Most of the UN’s SDGs focused on developing countries in the Global South. The level of sustainable development in these countries are relatively lagging behind.”There are many reasons for this, including lack of openness in scientific and educational knowledge, lack of food as well as diseases and lagging education systems. We hope to help these countries achieve SDGs through technology and other means. This is why we are dedicated to promoting open science,” Yang told the Global Times.Participants to the session also noted that open science infrastructure is crucial and urgent for promoting research innovation and global collaboration. They stressed the necessity to develop inclusive strategies tailored to the needs of different countries and institutions, ensuring the long-term operation of infrastructure through support from government, business, and philanthropic funding. To maintain the effectiveness of this infrastructure, it is essential to strengthen research ethics and integrity, ensuring the responsible use of open data, they said.

Chinese and foreign scientists call for building global network for open science infrastructure

Photo: Courtesy of China Association for Science and TechnologyChinese and foreign scientists launched an initiative to call on joint effort to promote the construction of open science infrastructure at a thematic session during the World Science and Technology Development Forum (WSTDF 2024) held from October 22 to 24 in Beijing.The initiate, titled “Fostering Open Science Infrastructure Collaboration: A Vision for the Sciences Decade,” suggest building a global network, implementing open principles, promoting sustainable development, and enhancing mutual trust to deal with the challenges currently existing in the construction scale, political economy, technical standards, legal ethics, and other aspects of shared collaboration in open science infrastructure, according to Huang Jinxia, a professor from the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, when announcing the recommendations at the thematic session “Open Science Infrastructures: Building a Collaborative Platform for Sciences Decade (INFRASTRUCTURES) ” during the WSTDF 2024.Open science infrastructure is an important means to promote global scientific innovation and collaboration. Through a collaborative platform, the global scientific community can share data, resources, and technologies to jointly address global challenges such as climate change and energy crisis, Yang Wei, Professor from Zhejiang University, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Founding Chair of CAST UN Consultative Committee on Open Science and Global Partnership (CCOS), said at the session.Open science infrastructure supports researchers in building upon existing work, validating results, and generating new academic insights by promoting the public sharing of research findings. It was acknowledged as one of the key pillars of shared research infrastructure (virtual or physical) by UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.In alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and UNESCO’s Strategic plan for the implementation of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024-2033) (Sciences Decade), this initiative calls on the public, governments and infrastructure facilitators, to collaborate a highly open and high-quality network of open science infrastructure.In August 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the resolution Sciences Decade. This resolution offers a distinctive opportunity for humankind to advance and leverage science in the pursuit of sustainable development and cultivate a new science culture – to engage everyone to advance science further and equally benefit from it.As this year marks the first year of the resolution, the abovementioned thematic session was held to gather Chinese and foreign scientists to engage in in-depth dialogue focusing on open science infrastructure to promote global scientific collaboration, address major challenges, and advance sustainable development.Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Regional Office for East Asia Shahbaz Khan stressed in his speech at the session that open science is not only a key driving force for achieving global peace and sustainable development, but also an effective way to help scientists worldwide address global issues through the sharing of infrastructure, data, and knowledge.Open science infrastructure is highly aligned with the United Nations SDGs, particularly in tackling major challenges such as climate change and food security, where open science has unique advantages, he noted.Khan stressed the importance of international communication and cooperative platform like the WSTDF to promote the Sciences Decade. He said the key is to share knowledge with developing countries in the Global South to help them seek sustainable development, eliminate poverty and secure food safety.”How can we promote such knowledge to where it is needed? For example, for countries in need from Africa, developing countries, which are the Belt and Road Initiative partners like Pakistan and Afghanistan, this forum can help bring the benefits of science and technology to them for better livelihoods,” Khan told the Global Times.Echoing Khan, Yang said that sustainable development is the goal. Most of the UN’s SDGs focused on developing countries in the Global South. The level of sustainable development in these countries are relatively lagging behind.”There are many reasons for this, including lack of openness in scientific and educational knowledge, lack of food as well as diseases and lagging education systems. We hope to help these countries achieve SDGs through technology and other means. This is why we are dedicated to promoting open science,” Yang told the Global Times.Participants to the session also noted that open science infrastructure is crucial and urgent for promoting research innovation and global collaboration. They stressed the necessity to develop inclusive strategies tailored to the needs of different countries and institutions, ensuring the long-term operation of infrastructure through support from government, business, and philanthropic funding. To maintain the effectiveness of this infrastructure, it is essential to strengthen research ethics and integrity, ensuring the responsible use of open data, they said.

Scientists, entrepreneurs from China and abroad discuss trends, challenges in AI industry at key forum in Beijing

Photo: Courtesy of China Association for Science and TechnologyChinese and foreign scientists and entrepreneurs held lively discussions regarding technology trends in the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry during the 2024 World Science and Technology Development Forum (WSTDF), which held from October 22 to 24 in Beijing. They called for international cooperation to take full advantage of benefits from the development of the AI industry while enhancing global governance on AI development.Qiao Hong, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, highlighted 10 trends in the AI industry at a thematic session titled AI Governance Innovation: Building an International Trust Foundation for Cultivating the Ecology of Science and Technology Governance (INTELLIGENCE), during the WSTDF on Wednesday.AI has become an important driving force in today’s technological revolution. It is changing our ways of living and working at an unprecedented speed. From smart manufacturing, smart cities, and healthcare, to financial services, the applications of AI are essentially ubiquitous, with a profound and extensive impact. The subsequent question we face is, in which direction will AI develop? Qiao said at the session.The first trend outlined by Qiao is small data and high-quality data.The importance of data to AI cannot be overstated. If the data is toxic, it will fail to lead to a stable result; if the data is too big, it will consume too much in terms of computing resources; not to mention the privacy leakage risk related to data, Qiao stressed.”In this context, how can we reduce the use of data, ensure its quality, and minimize its impact on people’s lives? These have all become very core issues,” Qiao said.Other trends and AI-related challenges Qiao mentioned include embodied AI and generative AI. “As a whole, the development of AI is advancing technological and social transformation at an unprecedented pace. We see limitless possibilities and potential in cutting-edge fields such as AI, large models, embodied intelligence, and generative AI. These advancements bring us greater convenience and a more efficient life, drive our innovation and development, and inspire us with bigger dreams. Let us look forward together to a future filled with opportunities and challenges,” Qiao concluded.At the thematic session on AI, Wang Haifeng, Chief Technology Officer of Baidu and head of the National Engineering Research Center of Deep Learning Technology and Application, also shared his insights into the trends and developments of AI technologies and industry.Wang believes that large models bring hope for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in terms of the generality of AI technology and the comprehensiveness of AI capabilities.In terms of generality, large models are becoming increasingly effective at addressing various tasks, languages, modalities, and scenarios. In terms of comprehensiveness, understanding, generating, reasoning, and memory are the four foundational capabilities of AI. The stronger these four abilities are, the closer we get to achieving AGI, Wang told the Global Times.According to Wang, Baidu’s generative AI product ERNIE Bot (also known as Wenxin Yiyan) has accumulated more than 300 million users with daily usage hitting 700 million and an average daily processing of over one trillion text tokens.The recent announcement of the 2024 Nobel Prizes marked a historic moment, as both awards in Physics and Chemistry went to achievements related to AI, heralding the dawn of an AI-driven era in scientific discovery.Wang predicts that, as AI continues to engage with and empower various industries, future Nobel Prizes will increasingly recognize contributions related to AI. “This prestigious acknowledgment will draw greater attention and resources to the field, further accelerating the rapid advancement of AI technology. Ultimately, this progress will yield more sophisticated technologies that enhance human life and promote societal advancement,” he said.Wang also highlighted China’s distinct advantage in possessing a vast industrial system that offers a wealth of application scenarios for the deployment of AI.According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the scale of China’s core AI industry was an estimated 600 billion yuan ($84 billion) by the end of 2023, supported by over 4,500 enterprises.This positions China as having the largest application market and the most diverse range of application scenarios in the world, along with unique strengths in AI applications and business models, Wang noted.While hailing the benefits brought about by AI, Chinese and foreign experts also emphasized the need for the world to cooperate to promote global management of AI-related risks and challenges. “The most important thing is that AI should not be utilized in the wrong manner. We can draw parallels to the time when nuclear physics was first discovered; initially, there was great excitement. However, the development of nuclear weapons led to devastating consequences, such as the Holocaust, which left a bitter legacy worldwide. Therefore, we must approach AI with caution and adhere to ethical guidelines to prevent similar outcomes,” Ashok Kumar Basa, Executive Vice President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, told the Global Times.”The power of AI is immense,” said Huang Tiejun, Chairman of Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and Professor of the School of Computer Science, Peking University. Echoing Basa, Huang also stressed that “If AI is not jointly mastered by all of humanity, it will exacerbate the wealth gap and inequality issues. On the other hand, there is currently a possibility that AI could surpass human intelligence. It is essential for the international community to collaboratively explore governance solutions for artificial intelligence and to research technical means for its regulation.”Thus the WSTDF 2024 serves as a valuable opportunity to promote international exchange and cooperation.”Through open communication, barriers will gradually be broken down, and more and more consensus will be formed,” Huang said. “We need to join hands to address risks and challenges, as this concerns the common interests of all humanity.”

Scientists, entrepreneurs from China and abroad discuss trends, challenges in AI industry at key forum in Beijing

Photo: Courtesy of China Association for Science and TechnologyChinese and foreign scientists and entrepreneurs held lively discussions regarding technology trends in the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry during the 2024 World Science and Technology Development Forum (WSTDF), which held from October 22 to 24 in Beijing. They called for international cooperation to take full advantage of benefits from the development of the AI industry while enhancing global governance on AI development.Qiao Hong, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, highlighted 10 trends in the AI industry at a thematic session titled AI Governance Innovation: Building an International Trust Foundation for Cultivating the Ecology of Science and Technology Governance (INTELLIGENCE), during the WSTDF on Wednesday.AI has become an important driving force in today’s technological revolution. It is changing our ways of living and working at an unprecedented speed. From smart manufacturing, smart cities, and healthcare, to financial services, the applications of AI are essentially ubiquitous, with a profound and extensive impact. The subsequent question we face is, in which direction will AI develop? Qiao said at the session.The first trend outlined by Qiao is small data and high-quality data.The importance of data to AI cannot be overstated. If the data is toxic, it will fail to lead to a stable result; if the data is too big, it will consume too much in terms of computing resources; not to mention the privacy leakage risk related to data, Qiao stressed.”In this context, how can we reduce the use of data, ensure its quality, and minimize its impact on people’s lives? These have all become very core issues,” Qiao said.Other trends and AI-related challenges Qiao mentioned include embodied AI and generative AI. “As a whole, the development of AI is advancing technological and social transformation at an unprecedented pace. We see limitless possibilities and potential in cutting-edge fields such as AI, large models, embodied intelligence, and generative AI. These advancements bring us greater convenience and a more efficient life, drive our innovation and development, and inspire us with bigger dreams. Let us look forward together to a future filled with opportunities and challenges,” Qiao concluded.At the thematic session on AI, Wang Haifeng, Chief Technology Officer of Baidu and head of the National Engineering Research Center of Deep Learning Technology and Application, also shared his insights into the trends and developments of AI technologies and industry.Wang believes that large models bring hope for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in terms of the generality of AI technology and the comprehensiveness of AI capabilities.In terms of generality, large models are becoming increasingly effective at addressing various tasks, languages, modalities, and scenarios. In terms of comprehensiveness, understanding, generating, reasoning, and memory are the four foundational capabilities of AI. The stronger these four abilities are, the closer we get to achieving AGI, Wang told the Global Times.According to Wang, Baidu’s generative AI product ERNIE Bot (also known as Wenxin Yiyan) has accumulated more than 300 million users with daily usage hitting 700 million and an average daily processing of over one trillion text tokens.The recent announcement of the 2024 Nobel Prizes marked a historic moment, as both awards in Physics and Chemistry went to achievements related to AI, heralding the dawn of an AI-driven era in scientific discovery.Wang predicts that, as AI continues to engage with and empower various industries, future Nobel Prizes will increasingly recognize contributions related to AI. “This prestigious acknowledgment will draw greater attention and resources to the field, further accelerating the rapid advancement of AI technology. Ultimately, this progress will yield more sophisticated technologies that enhance human life and promote societal advancement,” he said.Wang also highlighted China’s distinct advantage in possessing a vast industrial system that offers a wealth of application scenarios for the deployment of AI.According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the scale of China’s core AI industry was an estimated 600 billion yuan ($84 billion) by the end of 2023, supported by over 4,500 enterprises.This positions China as having the largest application market and the most diverse range of application scenarios in the world, along with unique strengths in AI applications and business models, Wang noted.While hailing the benefits brought about by AI, Chinese and foreign experts also emphasized the need for the world to cooperate to promote global management of AI-related risks and challenges. “The most important thing is that AI should not be utilized in the wrong manner. We can draw parallels to the time when nuclear physics was first discovered; initially, there was great excitement. However, the development of nuclear weapons led to devastating consequences, such as the Holocaust, which left a bitter legacy worldwide. Therefore, we must approach AI with caution and adhere to ethical guidelines to prevent similar outcomes,” Ashok Kumar Basa, Executive Vice President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, told the Global Times.”The power of AI is immense,” said Huang Tiejun, Chairman of Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and Professor of the School of Computer Science, Peking University. Echoing Basa, Huang also stressed that “If AI is not jointly mastered by all of humanity, it will exacerbate the wealth gap and inequality issues. On the other hand, there is currently a possibility that AI could surpass human intelligence. It is essential for the international community to collaboratively explore governance solutions for artificial intelligence and to research technical means for its regulation.”Thus the WSTDF 2024 serves as a valuable opportunity to promote international exchange and cooperation.”Through open communication, barriers will gradually be broken down, and more and more consensus will be formed,” Huang said. “We need to join hands to address risks and challenges, as this concerns the common interests of all humanity.”

A scientist who researches healthy aging shares how she eats and works out

Health

A scientist who researches healthy aging shares how she eats and works out

Serafina Kenny

2024-11-01T11:24:20Z

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Mary Ní Lochlainn is a healthy aging researcher who does strength training and takes vitamin D to maintain her health into older age.

Mary Ní Lochlainn

Mary Ní Lochlainn researches the habits that lead to better health in older age.She incorporates some of these habits into her own life to be as healthy as possible as she ages.She does strength training, takes vitamin D, and does intermittent fasting.