Credits : Eurekalert

Representing a group of successful biocontrol agents for various pest fruit flies, a parasitic wasp genus remains largely overlooked. While its most recent identification key dates back to 1969, many new species have been added since then. As if to make matters worse, this group of visually identical species most likely contains many species yet to be described as new to science.

Having recently studied a species group of these wasps in Central Europe, scientists Fabian Klimmek and Hannes Baur of the Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland, not only demonstrate the need for a knowledge update, but also showcase the advantages of modern taxonomic software able to analyse large amounts of descriptive and quantitative data.

Published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal, the team’s taxonomic paper describes a new species – Pteromalus capito – and presents a discussion on the free-to-use Xper3, developed by the Laboratory of Informatics and Systematics of Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University. The software was used to create an openly available updated key for the species group Pteromalus albipennis.

The fully illustrated interactive database covers 27 species in the group and 18 related species, in addition to a complete diagnosis, a large set of body measurements and a total of 585 images, displaying most of the characteristic features for each species.

“Nowadays, advanced computer technology, measurement procedures and equipment allow more sophisticated ways to include quantitative characters, which greatly enhance the delimitation of cryptic species,” explain the scientists.

“Recently developed software for the creation of biological identification keys like Xper3, Lucidor Delta could have the potential to replace traditional paper-based keys.”

To put the statement into context, the authors give an example with one of the studied wasp species, whose identification would take 16 steps if the previously available identification key were used, whereas only 6 steps were needed with the interactive alternative.

One of the reasons tools like Xper3 are so fast and efficient is that the key’s author can list all descriptive characters in a specific order and give them different weight in species delimitation. Thus, whenever an entomologist tries to identify a wasp specimen, the software will first run a check against the descriptors at the top, so that it can exclude non-matching taxons and provide a list of the remaining names. Whenever multiple names remain, a check further down the list is performed, until there is a single one left, which ought to be the one corresponding to the specimen. At any point, the researcher can access the chronology, in order to check for any potential mismatches without interrupting the process.

Being the product of digitally available software, interactive identification keys are not only easy, quick and inexpensive to publish, but they are also simple to edit and build on in a collaborative manner. Experts from all around the world could update the key, as long as the author grants them specific user rights. However, regardless of how many times the database is updated, a permanent URL link will continue to provide access to the latest version at all times.

To future-proof their key and its underlying data, the scientists have deposited all raw data files, R-scripts, photographs, files listing and prepared specimens at the research data Zenodo, created by OpenAIRE and CERN.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Credits : Cnbc

Microsoft has developed open-source software for crafting artificial intelligence models. But in recent months, the company has changed course, opting to work more closely with Facebook and contribute to the development of Facebook’s own flavor of free AI software.

Microsoft hasn’t made a big deal about the change. But it reflects a willingness to back software that comes from other major technology companies, rather than focusing only on its own platforms.

Google is the company behind the most popular open-source AI software, TensorFlow, which became available in late 2015. Microsoft put its Cognitive Toolkit, or CNTK, software on GitHub and gave it a more permissive open-source license in early 2016, and Facebook came out PyTorch, its answer to TensorFlow, later in 2016.

The Microsoft system has strengths, particularly for building speech recognition systems, but PyTorch has gained adoption quickly and has some interesting technical features of its own, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, told CNBC in an interview this week.

Last year, Scott met with Facebook’s chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, and decided it would be good for the companies to attempt to “defrag some of the complexity” in the ecosystem of software that people can use to train AI models. In Sept. 2017 Facebook and Microsoft together introduced ONNX, a piece of open-source software for exporting models trained with one AI software framework, like Microsoft’s Cognitive Toolkit, so that they can be used to make predictions with other frameworks, like Facebook’s PyTorch.

The reality is there are just too many AI frameworks out there, said Sai Soundararaj, cofounder and CEO of AI start-up FloydHub. The start-up’s cloud service has supported Microsoft’s Cognitive Toolkit, but it hasn’t gotten much use from customers, Soundararaj said.

Microsoft hasn’t abandoned Cognitive Toolkit, even as it’s focusing more on other projects. The Microsoft software still receives updates.

But the direction is clear. “The momentum of community, really, is around PyTorch and TensorFlow, and so that’s where were throwing the bulk of our emphasis,” said Eric Boyd, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of AI platform. “Having community adoption is hugely important.”

The move around Cognitive Toolkit is part of a recent trend at Microsoft to embrace technology from outside the company. It has embraced Linux, making it accessible from within Windows 10 and creating a Linux version of its SQL Server database software. It has reduced its efforts around Windows for mobile devices and ramped up development of applications for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. And Microsoft stopped developing its own big-data software, Dryad, and threw its support around the Hadoop open-source tools.

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Credits : Gsmarena

The Honor Magic 2 got official at the end of last month with a mechanical slider design that lets it reach an 84.8% screen-to-body ratio. It’s a system that’s similar to that employed by Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 3 and it enables an almost entirely bezel-less look on the front.

The Honor Magic 2 is now receiving an intriguing software update. If you’re lucky enough to own one you’ll get a notification soon (if you haven’t already), which will prompt you to install software version 9.0.0.128 (C00E129R1P18).

This brings with it an unexpected switch from Huawei’s EMUI to something called Magic UI 2.0, which the company describes as being “a next generation AI-powered system”. It’s the first time we’ve seen Huawei sub-brand Honor depart from using EMUI in its smartphones.

Since this is its current aspirational flagship device though, it makes sense it would get a reimagined interface. You should apparently see a brand new color scheme, new icons and fonts, all part of “a new magical journey with Magic UI 2.0’s stylish interface, AI capabilities, and evolving YoYo smart assistant”.

The November 2018 security patches from Google are also built into the update, which will require a 214MB download.

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Credits : Leadingjournal

Web Design Market Report, Forecast to 2023 provides information on, market analysis, shares, Trends, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. The main objective of Web Design Market report is to define, and forecast the global market on the basis of types of applications, major sectors, deployment models, organization size, and regions.

The Web Design Market report contains an analysis of the major factors influencing the growth of the market (drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges). Web Design Market aims to strategically analyze the micro-markets with respect to individual growth trends, prospects, and their contribution to the market.

Web Design Market The Study Objectives Are:

• To analyze and research the global Web Design Market status and future forecast involving, production, revenue, consumption, historical and forecast.
• To present the key Web Design Market manufacturers, production, revenue, market share, and recent development.
• Web Design Market split the breakdown data by regions, type, manufacturers and applications.
• To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.
• To identify significant trends, drivers, influence factors in global and regions.
• Web Design market analyzes competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

Application Segment Analysis (Consumption Volume and Market Share 2013-2023; Downstream Customers and Market Analysis): Application 1, Application 2, Application 3

Web Design market Product Type Segment Analysis (Consumption Volume, Average Price, Revenue, Market Share and Trend): Product Type 1, Product Type 2, Product Type 3

In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Web Design Market:

• History Year: 2013 – 2017
• Base Year: 2017
• Estimated Year: 2018
• Forecast Year: 2018 – 2023

Web Design Market Regional Segment Analysis (Regional Production Volume, Consumption Volume, Revenue and Growth Rate 2018-2023):

Web Design Market report attempts to forecast the market size for 5 major regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America. It contains key vendor profiles and comprehensively analyzes their core competencies. The report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments, including partnerships, collaborations, acquisitions, new product developments, and R&D activities in the market.

Key Topics Covered in the Web Design Market:

1. Executive Summary
2. Web Design Market Outlook
3. Trade Dynamics
4. Channel Partner Analysis
5. Web Design Market Dynamics
6. Market Trends & Developments
7. Competitive Landscape
8. Strategic Recommendations
9. And More

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Credits : Windowsreport

Adecade ago, website creation was an area reserved only to those of us who had solid programming skills. Nowadays, anybody can build their own website.

There are a variety of website builders online – Wix, GoDaddy – that offer a wide range of options and templates, both free and paid, for your online businesses, galleries, blogs, etc.

WordPress is used by more than 60 million websites and it offers a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL that includes plugin architecture, a template system, and it’s used even in domains such as pervasive display systems (PDS).

Using WordPress‘s themes allows any user to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website without altering the site‘s core code or site content which comes in very handy.

WordPress also offers a wide range of plug-ins (55,286 available), allowing you to extend the features of any website or blog with ease. Using these plug-ins, the customization ability of your website is almost unlimited and you can use them for search engine optimization (SEO), client portals, content management ,features of content displaying and more.

Because of WordPress‘s popularity, most website builders let you set up your WordPress site easily and usually give you a more visualy pleasant experience with some added features.

So, let’s see what are the best website building software for WordPress.

Top 5 website design software options for WordPress

Credits : Customerthink

Imagine one time you came up with a great idea to create a website for your company. The first step to take in this case is to hire a web development team of professionals that can fit the project’s objectives. The selection of the project team is as important issue to plan as the website development cost and budgeting. So, don’t neglect it.

It is mistaken to think that a couple of programmers is all you need to build a site. If you want the future website to be a powerful tool for adding clients and building a customer loyalty, you should also think through digital marketing. Below, we’ll discuss the basic roles in web development and digital marketing teams.

Common structure

So, you’ve contacted a web dev company to build your website. Some companies can suggest a ready-made team, but others can not. The second scenario is common for narrowly focused or recently established companies.

The team structure in different companies can vary. A common web development team includes a UX/UI designer, a couple of Web developers, a Project Manager (PM), a QA Engineer, and a Requirement Analyst (RA).

Credits : Newindianexpress

Quality, innovation and speed are what this Kollam-based design agency ‘B4Creations’ is focused at. Easy to find, stylish, quick loading is all that you will find in a website created by this agency. This company founded by Ayyappan Sreekumar, Sahil Abdullah and Bilal Muhammed is probably the only web development company with a Google-certified partner, a YouTube partnership, Facebook partnership and giving digital marketing services at affordable rates.

In 2007, Ayyappan, with a passion for learning web development, started a blog. He started learning more about web development and how different techniques can be used to develop interesting websites. “I started creating websites for shops and organisations and got good reviews.

With this experience, I became a web developer,” said Ayyappan, the director of B4Creations.Ayyappan’s next challenge was to study the web developing techniques on Facebook. It was at this that he came to know about Sahil who was much experienced in this field. Bilal was doing events then. In 2012, the trio got together and started a  company ‘B4Creations’ with just four employees. Ayyappan says, “We struggled a lot at the beginning. Then we became director Blessy’s official media management partner. Through him, we got a lot of clients.”

 

 

Sahil has created about 30 Wikipedia articles and Ayyappan is an IMDb contributor who gives online database information related to films, television programmes.Now they are a design agency having 20 employees and creating an innovative website for different clients. They have designed their entire process and products around providing everything a small business needs when they are starting out.

This ensures a quick, easy and hassle-free experience working with them. Ayyappan says, “We give our clients full control of their website without a ridiculous price tag, and our friendly team offers their expertise even after the website is live.”

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Credits : Eurekalert

The world’s fastest supercomputer can now perform 200,000 trillion calculations per second, and several companies and government agencies around the world are competing to build a machine that will have the computer power to simulate networks on the scale of the human brain. This extremely powerful hardware requires extremely powerful software, so existing software code must be continually updated to keep up.

Sunita Chandrasekaran, an assistant professor of computer and information sciences at the University of Delaware, is perfectly suited for this challenge. Under a new grant from the National Science Foundation, she is designing frameworks to adapt code to increasingly powerful systems. She is working with complex patterns known as wavefronts, which are commonly found in scientific codes used in analyzing the flow of neutrons in a nuclear reactor, extracting patterns from biomedical data or predicting atmospheric patterns.

Chandrasekaran is an expert on parallel programming — writing software code that can run simultaneously on many multi-core processors. Parallel programming is an increasingly important discipline within computer science as more and more universities and companies use powerful supercomputers to analyze wide swaths of data, from scientific results to consumer behavior insights and more.

Chandrasekaran is looking at scientific applications to see how they were written, how they have been performing on outdated architectures, what kind of programming models have been used, and what challenges have arisen.

“Most of the time the programming models are created in a broad stroke,” she said. “Because they are generalized to address a large pool of commonly found parallel patterns, often the models miss creating features for some complex parallel patterns, such as wavefronts, that are hidden in some scientific applications.”

A wavefront allows for the analysis of patterns in fewer steps. The question is: How do you get the programming model to do that?

One such example is Minisweep, a miniapp that models scenarios within a nuclear reactor by “sweeping” across a grid with squares that represent points in space and are used to calculate the positions, energies, and flows of neutrons. This parent application to Minisweep is used to reduce the odds of a meltdown and to safeguard engineers who work around the nuclear reactor from radiation exposure. Earlier this year, Chandrasekaran and doctoral student Robert Searles demonstrated how they modified the miniapp to perform 85.06 times faster than code that was not parallelized. This work was recently presented in the premier Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing (PASC) 2018 conference and published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

“We wondered: Is this pattern specific to Minisweep?,” she said. “Or is it going to exist in other codes? Are there other codes that could benefit if I were to put this type of pattern in a programming model and create an implementation and evaluate it?”

For example, Chandrasekaran discovered that some algorithms in bioinformatics, the study of large sets of biological data, contained similar patterns. She suspects that by adapting the software written for Minisweep, she can make great strides toward improving the code. She will try this with data from Erez Lieberman Aiden, assistant professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine and assistant professor of computer science at Rice University. Chandrasekaran met Aiden when he visited UD to give a talk titled “Parallel Processing of the Genomes, by the Genomes and for the Genomes.”

Chandrasekaran was inspired by Aiden’s work with DNA sequences. He uses a computing tool to find long-range interactions between any two elements on the same chromosome, in turn showing the genetic basis of diseases. Chandrasekaran suspected that she could utilize existing patterns and update the code, allowing for faster analysis of this important biological data.

“The goal is not to simply create a software tool,” she said. “The goal is to build real-life case studies where what I create will matter in terms of making science easy.”

Directive-based parallel programming models such as OpenACC and OpenMP will be explored to do this.

Chandrasekaran aims to maintain performance and portability as she redesigns algorithms. She will also keep the scientists who use the algorithms in mind.

“You can’t create a programming model by only looking at the application or only looking at the architecture,” she said. “There has to be some balance.”

This project will benefit scientific application developers who are not necessarily computer scientists. “They can concentrate more on the science and less on the software,” said Chandrasekaran. Scientists come to her with data sets and problems that take hours, days, sometimes months to compute, and she figures out how to make them run faster, thus enabling newer science.

Chandrasekaran will analyze data supplied by Aiden at Baylor and physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab. Searles will also work on the project, and Chandrasekaran is looking for an additional graduate student with an aptitude for parallel programming to help with this project.

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Credits : Lifehacker

Coding school App Academy has opened a free online interactive version of its 12-week curriculum. That’s a pretty good deal, since the Academy’s in-person classes in San Francisco and New York can cost as much as a semester in college. The online version involves less direct human interaction, but it includes online mentors and access to a community Slack chat.

At first glance, App Academy Open looks kind of like the popular free coding course Codecademy. An introductory course teaches basic coding concepts in a split-screen instruction interface and sandbox coding environment. Later lessons are structured as freeform assignments with text instructions, as the student works in their own development environment.

The major departure from Codecademy is in the curriculum. App Academy founder Kush Patel tells Lifehacker that while Codecademy is a good resource for all sorts of programming, App Academy Open is focused on “teaching folks web dev skills to get them a software engineering job.” (At the in-person school, tuition is tied to the student’s post-graduation salary.)

After an introduction to programming, an “alpha” course teaches concepts like arrays and debugging. The rest of the curriculum teaches the “full stack:” a course each in Ruby, SQL, Rails, Javascript, and React. Each course takes one or two weeks of full-time work.