An engineer from the Johns Hopkins Centre for Language and Speech Processing has developed a machine learning model that can distinguish functions of speech in transcripts of dialogues outputted by language understanding, or LU, systems in an approach that could eventually help computers “understand” spoken or written text in much the same way that humans do.
The new model identifies the intent behind words and organises them into categories such as “Statement,” “Question,” or “Interruption,” in the final transcript: a task called “dialogue act recognition.” By providing other models with a more organised and segmented version of text to work with the new model could become a first step in making sense of a conversation.
This new method means that LU systems no longer have to deal with huge, unstructured chunks of text, which they struggle with when trying to classify things such as the topic, sentiment, or intent of the text. Instead, they can work with a series of expressions, which are saying very specific things, like a question or interruption. My model enables these systems to work where they might have otherwise failed.
– Piotr Zelasko, Assistant Research Scientist, Johns Hopkins Centre for Language and Speech Processing
The researchers adapt some recently introduced language-understanding models with the goal of organising and categorising words and phrases and investigating how different variables, such as punctuation, affect those models’ performance.
In the industry working on human-to-human conversational analytics, the researchers noticed that many natural language processing algorithms operate well only when the text has a clear structure, such as when a person speaks in complete sentences. However, in real life, people seldom speak so formally, making it difficult for systems to ascertain exactly where a sentence starts and ends. Zelasko wanted to make sure his system could understand an ordinary conversation.
This model could eventually help companies that use speech analytics, a process that some businesses use to gain insights from analysis of interactions between customers and call centre customer service representatives. Speech analytics usually involve automatic transcription of conversation and keyword searches, providing limited opportunities for insight.
With the old approach, people might be able to say that highlights of a conversation involve whatever type of phone the customer owns, ‘technical issues,’ and ‘refund,’ but what if somebody was just exploring their options and did not actually request a refund? That is why the researchers need to actually understand the conversation and not simply scan it for keywords.
This model could also someday be used by physicians, saving them the valuable time they now spend taking notes while interacting with patients. Instead, a device using this model could quickly go through the transcript of the conversation, fill out forms, and write notes automatically, allowing doctors to focus on their patients.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, U.S. experts designed and evaluated programs, policies, and technologies to modernise government — have come to the aid of the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. In a study detailed in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, the RegLab team describes how it applied machine learning to transform contact tracing in Santa Clara County — and narrowed the health gap between the county’s Latino and other communities.
Contact tracers usually start with only the most basic information about the people they call, such as the patient’s name, address, date of birth and test result. Researchers combined that bare-bones data with demographic information from the census and other administrative data.
A machine-learning algorithm analysed and weighed data like census block group, age and name-based race and ethnicity information from census and mortgage data and identify patterns that would predict a language preference. Contacts were scored as to which language they would likely prefer before they were assigned to a tracer.
Experts believe that rapid digital transformation is the best way for the Vietnamese agricultural sector to recover and develop in the post-pandemic period, affirming its role as a key pillar of the economy. Amid challenges from climate change, market fluctuations, and changes in consumption trends, the sector is required to increase the proportion of digital agriculture in the economy.
Meanwhile, the data-driven digital transformation in agriculture and agricultural management is expected to help boost the sector’s growth through better market forecasting and planning. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Bui Thanh Son, noted that facing the adverse impacts of COVID-19, businesses and farmers are fully aware of strengthening the application of smart and digital technologies to maintain stability in production and farm produce supply.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Le Minh Hoan, stated that along with optimising advantages and local resources for the development of the multiple value agriculture and trademark building, Vietnam should build a data system and make its agricultural data and information more transparent to reach more markets and create a breakthrough for the sector. A representative from the Australian Business Association in Vietnam (Auscham) claimed that Australians are open to Vietnamese farm produce, which means the chance for Vietnam to export more agricultural products to the market is high.
According to a news report, currently, Vietnamese agricultural products are exported to many selective markets, and the Australian market is similar. However, for consumers in Australia, manufacturers in Vietnam need to build their own brand, with quality ensured, to win consumers’ confidence that Vietnamese products are safe and of high quality. To increase exports, closer coordination among ministries, sectors, and localities in strengthening digital transformation, trade promotion, and market connections is crucial.
However, many experts pointed to the need for Vietnam to focus more on preparing high-quality human resources. Many Vietnamese farmers are hesitant to renovate their cultivation practices and approach new farming techniques. The government needs to focus on developing digital agriculture while strengthening communication with farmers to help them understand the benefit of the process and equip them with more knowledge and skills in conducting online transactions.
Recently, OpenGov Asia reported that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) wants to finish linking 100% of its administrative procedures to the National Single Window (NSW) system in the first quarter of 2022. To carry out the national and ASEAN single-window mechanisms, MARD has connected 29 of the 33 administrative procedures at its subordinate units and granted digital licences to over 1.4 million dossiers via the NSW. In terms of administrative reform, in 2021, the Ministry updated and publicised 119 administrative procedures on the National Public Service Portal, abolished 58 others, and simplified three procedures related to natural disaster prevention and control. It proposed 429 of the 2,559 regulations on business activities be removed or simplified while reducing nearly VND219 billion (US$9.6 million), or 13.2%, of the compliance cost related to business activities.
In 2022, the Ministry plans to handle administrative procedures online to enhance transparency and save time and costs. It would deal with people and businesses’ opinions about problems related to the mechanisms, policies, and procedures within its remit online and overhaul the institutional system on agriculture and rural development.
An end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery and development company, under the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), and a leading innovation-driven international healthcare group in China announced that entered into a collaboration agreement to advance the discovery and development of drugs targeting several different targets globally through the use of AI technology.
This strategic collaboration includes an AI-driven drug discovery research and development (R&D) collaboration on four biological targets, as well as the co-development of the (AI)-driven drug discovery and development company’s QPCTL program. The company will receive a total upfront payment of US$13 million for the R&D collaboration projects and the co-development of the QPCTL program, potential milestone-based payments, and share commercialisation profits from the QPCTL program. In addition, Fosun Pharma will make an equity investment in the (AI)-driven drug discovery and development company.
The Founder and CEO of the drug discovery and development company stated that in partnering with the leading pharmaceutical company, the two will begin a new era of AI-powered end-to-end drug discovery and development as human-machine collaboration becomes the new normal in precision drug discovery and development.
The company previously demonstrated that AI can be used to discover novel targets and generate novel molecules that can be tested in humans in record time. Now, they are partnering with one of the leading scientific teams in the pharmaceutical industry to take this technology to the next level for the benefit of patients worldwide.
The Chairman and CEO of the leading innovation-driven international healthcare group stated that they are pleased to enter into a strategic collaboration with the drug discovery and development company. The healthcare group is committed to promoting innovative R&D and is oriented towards fulfilling unmet clinical needs and improving products’ accessibility.
They forward to working with the drug development company to leverage the technological and clinical development strengths of both companies, jointly improving the efficiency of innovative drug R&D, and benefiting more patients worldwide, he added.
The collaboration aims to combine the HKSTP partner company’s end-to-end AI-driven drug discovery platforms and the healthcare group’s clinical development and commercial expertise to discover and develop a portfolio of novel therapeutics.
Pursuant to the collaboration agreement, the company will take responsibility for delivering a preclinical candidate for the QPCTL program and advancing it to the IND stage, after which, the healthcare group will then conduct human clinical studies and co-develop the candidate globally. In parallel, the healthcare group’s R&D team will nominate four therapeutic targets to be assessed by the AI platform and R&D team, who are responsible for advancing drug candidates to the IND stage.
As part of the collaboration, the healthcare group will secure access to the company’s PandaOmics and Chemistry42 platforms to advance the healthcare group’s internal AI-powered discovery and development efforts.
The collaboration between the drug discovery and development company and the healthcare group create great synergies, bringing together leading lights in upstream AI-assisted drug discovery, and downstream clinical development. With such scale and depth of collaboration, we eagerly anticipate seeing what impacts it will bring clinically, according to the Head of the Institute for Translational Research of HKSTP.
Digital twins, which effectively create a workable computer model of a city at a point in time, are becoming popular tools for smart cities to study the impacts of development, climate change or other future events. The data-rich environments allow planners to observe the effects of changes in everything from temperature and emissions to traffic. To address its sustainability goals, Las Vegas announced plans to deploy digital twins to help the city model future energy use, emissions, mobility and emergency management.
The host city revealed a digital twin of a seven square kilometre stretch of downtown. Under a partnership between digital twin platform providers, which has developed an internet-of-things data monetisation platform, the project is expected to help officials visualise street-level data collected through the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and Las Vegas’ 5G network to inform sustainability decisions.
City officials are currently focusing on projects that will allow the city to review and experiment with the viability and validity of the technology. The tool could be used to model scenarios addressing sustainability, emergency management and mobility and will provide a more sophisticated look at how problems develop and could be addressed.
– Michael Sherwood, Las Vegas Chief Innovation Officer
To help reduce Las Vegas’ overall energy footprint, city planners will use the SmartWorldOS platform to simulate and optimise large-scale building projects using automated real-time energy monitoring and geo-tagged smart data layers. Initially, they are focusing on integrating these key technologies into this seven square kilometres area we have.
The company has already piloted its “Clean Cities – Clean Future” initiative in downtown Phoenix and the Navy Yard industrial park in Brooklyn. The programme is working with cities to help them to cut carbon emissions from commercial buildings, often the biggest culprits in terms of total emissions, accounting for 50-70% in larger metropolitan areas.
The Las Vegas digital twin is only in the very early stages of development, but the project will collect information on issues related to air quality, emissions, mobility, noise pollution and traffic. This will be wired into the actual city. That means that things happening on the streets, in the electrical grid, air quality and many other factors will be loaded into the digital twin. Eventually, this will allow control by the city itself.
For example, officials in the traffic department will be able to control the timing of streetlights in real-time. The digital twin of Las Vegas will also be driven by data coming from vehicles, electrical utilities, charging networks and municipal infrastructure and autonomous vehicles. Bringing together IoT, 5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the project intends to leverage the same core technologies in other cities throughout the U.S. and eventually, the world.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, U.S. cities can expect to save $280 billion by 2030 with the deployment and use of digital twins, according to a new report. A digital twin is a simulated model of a physical process, product or service that can increase efficiency.
A digital twin uses the best available models, sensor information, and input data to mirror and predict activities/performance over the life of its corresponding physical twin. According to research, this technology is the ultimate tool for urban planners and city governments to design and cost-effectively build their infrastructure.
While the cost-saving advantages of digital twins allow cities to achieve fast Return on investment (ROI), the increasingly complex nature of connected and smart urban infrastructure, especially in view of future smart urban concepts, will simply mandate the deployment of digital twins as critical, holistic management tools, similar to the role they play in other industries like manufacturing.
President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo emphasised the acceleration of national digital transformation for five aspects, one of which relates to accelerating the expansion of telecommunication access, increasing digital infrastructure and providing internet services.
In 2021, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of the Republic of Indonesia has built a digital infrastructure that includes all aspects. The Ministry also has reorganised the radio frequency spectrum to optimise the quality of 4G network services, develop 5G networks, and make the Analog Switch Off (ASO) program a success.
First, from the backbone layer, the Ministry has so far carried out the deployment of the Palapa Ring fibre optic cable network, both the West, Central, and East Palapa Rings, where 2021 is the year of evaluation of the utilisation of the Palapa Ring.
– Dedy Permadi, Spokesperson, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology
Increasing the utilisation of the Palapa Ring still requires the deployment of fibre optics to connect unconnected fibre optic points, both on land and at sea. Meanwhile, for infrastructure in the middle mile layer through the provision of satellite capacity, Indonesia currently uses 9 telecommunications satellites equivalent to 50 Gbps and 55%of them are used by the Ministry.
To meet the increasing need for satellite capacity, in 2021, there was a series of construction processes for the SATRIA-I multifunction satellite with a capacity of 150 Gbps, including the construction of satellite and rocket components in France and America, as well as 11 earth stations in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, at the last-mile layer, the Ministry together with cellular operator partners have started the construction of Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) in 12,548 villages that do not yet have 4G access. The total number of BTS construction includes 9,113 in the 3T area by BLU BAKTI of the Ministry and 3,435 BTS in the non-3T area by cellular operators.
In addition to massive digital infrastructure development, the Ministry also continues to ensure the quality of telecommunications services in Indonesia. Therefore, the Ministry has completed the construction of a Telecommunication Monitoring Center which will measure Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE), and follow up services on public complaints related to service interruptions in real-time. in 514 regencies/cities.
The Ministry will continue to develop telecommunications infrastructure under the plans in the Digital Indonesia Roadmap. In 2022, the Ministry will focus on completing development at the backbone layer up to the last mile.
As part of the development evaluation in 2022, there are several challenges in developing digital infrastructure which includes limited funding, especially for development in the 3T region (underdeveloped, outermost, and underdeveloped). Therefore, the Ministry made a breakthrough through a blended financing scheme.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, Airlangga Hartarto, the coordinating minister for Economic Affairs, remarked in a statement that digitalisation is one of the strategies to accelerate the transition to a new economy. Digital technology, he claims, has enabled increased coordination among economic stakeholders to speed up trade, create jobs, and improve access to public services. “This momentum must be used to push the digital transformation process,” he said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations economy has surpassed $100 billion in value. According to the minister, it is expected to triple in size by 2025, reaching more than US$ 300 billion. E-commerce has been the most significant contributor to the ASEAN digital economy, followed by transportation and food delivery, online media, and travel. Apart from that, he highlighted that healthtech and edutech have emerged into promising fields. Indonesia’s digital economy is valued at US$ 44 billion, the most in ASEAN, and is expected to rise eightfold by 2030.
Stronger tech innovation capabilities are facilitating industrial growth in China, which will help further the high-quality development of the nation’s sprawling manufacturing sector. The remark came after China’s industrial output increased 9.6% on a yearly basis in 2021, 1.5 percentage points higher than GDP growth, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Meanwhile, China’s research and development expenditure rose 14.2% year-on-year last year, four percentage points higher than that in the previous year, accounting for 2.44% of the GDP. Tech innovation has played a bigger role in driving growth, and the manufacturing sector has recorded relatively fast growth.
Specifically, output from high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing rose 18.2% and 12.9% year-on-year, respectively, 8.6 percentage points and 3.3 percentage points higher than that of overall industrial output. China’s innovation capabilities have continued to grow, which are fueling the expansion of emerging industries and new products.
More capital is going to the high-tech sector, which will also fuel the in-depth integration of the digital and real economies, and facilitate the high-quality development of manufacturing in China. Last year, investment in high-tech industries increased by 17.1%, 12.2 percentage points faster than total investment. Among the total, investment in high-tech manufacturing and high-tech service industries increased 22.2% and 7.9% year-on-year, respectively.
China’s industrial economy maintained relatively good performance in 2021. In addition to constant upgrades in industrial structure, the proportion of manufacturing in China’s GDP increased by 1.1 percentage points to 27%. That marked a major reversal to the past decade when the proportion of manufacturing in GDP had been gradually declining, Yao said. Experts warned earlier that a decline of manufacturing’s role in China’s GDP risked dragging down current economic growth and affecting urban employment.
China’s industrial sector is facing more positive factors this year than in 2021. For instance, stabilising investment has become an important point for the macroeconomy due to tech innovation. With positive factors ahead, monthly industrial output figures in 2022 are likely to be better than their counterparts seen last year.
Minister of industry and information technology, China’s top industry regulator, said earlier that stabilising industrial growth will be the ministry’s top priority in 2022, and it will ratchet up resources to boost the manufacturing sector’s innovation capabilities.
The future of the Chinese economy lies in innovation. With its pool of younger workers shrinking, China can no longer rely on imitation if it hopes to grow and support its ageing population. It will have to rely on tech innovation instead.
China now has at its disposal a resource that no other country has: a vast population that has lived through unprecedented amounts of change and, consequently, has developed an astonishing propensity for adopting and adapting to innovations, at a speed and scale that is unmatched elsewhere on earth.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, more than a dozen experiment racks and an extravehicular experiment platform will be installed to support hundreds of research projects in fields such as astronomy, space life science, biotechnology, microgravity, basic physics and space materials. China is aiming to boost global collaboration in this regard.
China is considering the launch of a faster supercomputer. The Chinese team that won the 2021 award described in their winning paper a yet-to-be-published powerful machine that can achieve a sustained performance of 1.2 exaflops of single-precision computing power.
Such a device could be used to screen out therapeutical molecules and to simulate the chaotic planet climate which could help slow down global warming. Although many complex problems in the real world cannot currently be solved through the quantum computer, its performance continues to rapidly improve. In 2021, Chinese scientists launched two superconducting quantum computing systems, Zuchongzhi and Zuchongzhi 2.1 within a half year, making China one of the world leaders in the field.
Workforce Singapore (WSG), Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and Republic Polytechnic (RP) have launched the Career Conversion Programme (CCP) for the Agri-tech Sector, the first programme for the sector. Benefitting 100 individuals over two years, the CCP would attract and build a local talent pipeline to complement the Singapore Green Plan and “30 by 30” goal to build capability and capacity to produce 30% of Singapore’s nutritional needs locally by 2030.
The agri-food sector is an exciting new field in Singapore. As Singapore works towards achieving the “30 by 30” goal, higher-value jobs will be created in the high-tech agriculture industry in the longer term. By 2030, it is projected that about 4,700 new and redesigned jobs would be created. Of these, about 70% of the jobs are expected to be filled by skilled workers and Professional, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs). The future workforce will require a good understanding of urban food production and multi-disciplinary expertise in science, engineering, and info-communications.
To build capabilities in the future Agri-tech workforce, it is timely for WSG to introduce the CCP for Agri-tech now to help Singaporeans secure jobs in this growth sector, which offers diverse career opportunities. We are happy to partner SFA and RP in this programme to ensure that the Agri-tech sector is supported by a strong Singaporean core.
– Tan Choon Shian, Chief Executive, WSG
To plug the demand for the skills gap, the CCP, therefore, provides an alternative pathway for companies to meet the increasing manpower demands by reskilling mid-career individuals, who possess transferable skillsets, with the relevant knowledge and skills.
There are two pathways for the programme. PMETs will undergo six months of structured class training on top of On-the-Job training and will enter the programme as an Agri-tech Specialist, whose job roles includes farm manager/engineers/technologists, produce specialists, crop scientists and agronomists. An Agri-tech Operator, on the other hand, will undergo three months of training and will include job roles such as supervisors, farm technicians and operations executives.
Some of the modules which individuals will go through include Sustainable Agriculture: Clean and Green Standard for Urban Farms, Plant Factories with Artificial Lighting and Smart Farming Technologies, which will equip participants with the knowledge of cleaner and sustainable farming practices, integration of technology such as Internet-of-Things to enable precision farming and designing indoor vertical farming with technologies.
With Singapore working towards its ‘30 by 30’ goal, this is a timely programme and one which will be welcomed by the agri-food industry as our future high-tech farms would require a workforce with multi-disciplinary expertise in science, engineering, and info-communications.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, agri-tech is more crucial than ever in agriculture during this COVID-19 times. It is a growing industry that employs modern technologies to increase production yield, improve food quality, and promote sustainability in the agri-food value chain.
The NUS Agritech Centre is one of Singapore Science Park’s latest innovation and incubation facilities, powered by NUS Enterprise. The NUS Agritech Centre, housed in the Cavendish building, is a one-of-a-kind fusion of art and technology – a sandpit for researchers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to present challenges, experiments, and market-based solutions in agriculture.
The establishment of this centre is consistent with Singapore’s “30 by 30” goal of producing 30% of the population’s nutritional needs locally by 2030. The centre is designed to support start-ups from growth to post-harvest, building capabilities in serving up urban farming food options from lab to table.
The centre is one of the first in NUS to offer such specialised support for agri-tech start-ups, employing cutting-edge tools and controls to create an optimised infrastructure and environment for urban farming innovation and production.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has established a new institution for cutting-edge technology and policy research in solid waste recycling issues, a critical area in achieving carbon neutrality to tackle climate change. The Research Centre for Resources Engineering towards Carbon Neutrality (RCRE) will focus its efforts on four research directions, including policy and society, environmental and economic impact, waste-to-resource technology, as well as recycling and sustainable construction.
In Hong Kong, waste is one of the top three sources of carbon emissions. The HKSAR Government aims to reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Meanwhile, China has also pledged to attain national carbon neutrality by 2060.
RCRE pools top researchers from various disciplines, covering most of the solid waste spectrum, including construction waste, waste asphalt, tyres, glasses, incineration residuals, food waste, textiles, waste management policy, and life cycle environmental cost analysis. They will combine their efforts to support the Government’s carbon neutrality strategy, including minimising the waste required to be disposed of at landfills.
RCRE’s recent research includes using sea-sand and seawater eco-engineered panels to enhance marine biodiversity along Lantau’s coastline, developing biochar-enhanced construction materials, and upcycling waste plastics into sustainable asphalt pavements, to name but a few.
The Centre will also leverage the University’s advanced research platforms in water and waste, transport and highway engineering, road, concrete materials, and bioenergy, as well as PolyU’s joint laboratory on solid waste science with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics.
At the online inauguration ceremony of the new centre, Hong Kong’s Secretary for the Environment noted that technological development plays a pivotal role in achieving carbon neutrality. He noted that the Government supports local universities and private enterprises to develop low-carbon and green technologies. A $200 million Green Tech Fund was set up to provide better and more focused funding support for R&D projects which can help Hong Kong decarbonise and enhance environmental protection, as Hong Kong strives to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050.
At the same time, according to the Waste Blueprint for Hong Kong 2035 with the vision of waste reduction, resources circulation and zero-landfill, the Government will also continue to step up promotion of innovation and technology development, promote the R&D and trial of decarbonisation technologies, and consolidate and strengthen downstream recovery, recycling and waste-to-resource capabilities.
The President of PolyU stated that as a university with a strong emphasis on societal impact, PolyU started researching solid waste management in the early 1990s. PolyU now has the largest research team and facilities among all the universities in Hong Kong focusing on resources engineering towards carbon neutrality and has established a strong track record and recognised reputation in the waste management research community.
RCRE, which is part of the PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research, will fulfil the University’s motto of ‘To learn and to apply, for the benefit of mankind, he added.
The Director of RCRE, Chair Professor of Sustainable Construction Materials and Head of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering noted that waste reduction and resources circulation are key to driving carbon reduction, and often require complementary policies to facilitate the wide and efficient application of these cutting-edge decarbonisation technologies. RCRE aspires to become a leading global research centre in solid waste recycling issues, promoting Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area as models of resources engineering towards a circular economy.
