All posts tagged: systems

Food 2040 and the challenge of scaling sustainable food systems

Food 2040 and the challenge of scaling sustainable food systems

Published by skeptic

The European Commission is putting greater emphasis on turning food innovation into practice. From manufacturing and school meals to public procurement, evidence shows what it takes to translate promising ideas into lasting improvements across the food system. Europe is putting greater emphasis on what happens after food research produces a promising result. The European Commission’s new Food 2040 framework focuses on translating knowledge into practical solutions, connecting experimentation with investment and wider uptake. Its scope stretches across processing, distribution and consumption, including packaging, food services and waste. That breadth matters. A new food-processing technology must fit a manufacturer’s equipment and budget. A change to school meals must work for kitchen staff and pupils. A sustainable purchasing policy needs suppliers capable of responding to tenders. Each involves decisions that a successful laboratory experiment alone cannot resolve. Evidence from European projects and intervention studies suggests a useful test for this agenda: whether an innovation continues to deliver benefits under ordinary operating conditions. Establishing those conditions, and understanding where results fail to transfer, could determine how much public …

Mercury lost its crown, and isn’t our Solar System’s hottest planet

Mercury lost its crown, and isn’t our Solar System’s hottest planet

Published by Jenni Sidey

In terms of power, the only body of note in the Solar System is the Sun. Planets, in general, reflect, absorb, and re-radiate energy emitted by their parent stars, and the Sun is the only parent star any of the planets have here in our Solar System. To an excellent approximation, the Sun keeps not only Earth, but all the planets at a temperature well above what they’d be without it, which is just a few Kelvin. (Without an external heat source, most planetary temperatures would equilibrate at the same temperature as the cosmic microwave background, or -270 °C / -455 °F.) Therefore, you’d think that proximity to the Sun, or the planetary order of our Solar System, would be the overwhelming factor in determining a planet’s temperature. Indeed, this works incredibly well for nearly all of the planets in our Solar System. Neptune, the most distant planet from the Sun, is also the coldest planet. Moving inward: Uranus is hotter than Neptune, Saturn is hotter than Uranus, Jupiter is hotter than Saturn, Mars is hotter …

Is Olympus Mons really the Solar System’s highest mountain?

Is Olympus Mons really the Solar System’s highest mountain?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Planet Earth possesses many impressively large mountains. This map shows the number of bodies located near the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest point above sea level on the surface of planet Earth. Although it was long thought that terrain would be the most significant contributing factor to deaths on the mountain, the distribution of bodies shows that the main culprit is not terrain, but rather elevation that is the determining factor. Credit: pointofnoreturn.org Mount Everest represents the surface’s highest point, peaking 8.849 km (29,032 feet) above sea level. Even as viewed from space, captured here from the International Space Station, Mauna Kea’s summit is an incredibly impressive site. From sea level, it rises up 4,205 meters (13,800 feet) above the oceans, but sinks an additional 5000 to 6000 meters down to the sea floor, making it the highest mountain, base-to-peak, of any feature on Earth. It is thought to be completely extinct, having last erupted more than 4000 years ago. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory From base-to-peak, however, many volcanic mountains surpass it, including Mauna …

AI finds 44 star systems that could hide Earth-like planets

AI finds 44 star systems that could hide Earth-like planets

Published by Jenni Sidey

A machine-learning model identified 44 known planetary systems that could contain undiscovered Earth-like planets. Tests reached up to 99% precision on simulated systems, but telescope observations have not confirmed the predicted planets. The approach uses the arrangement of known planets to help astronomers select promising targets for further searches. A planet already found around a distant star may offer clues about another world still hidden nearby. Its mass and orbit can carry traces of how the entire planetary system formed, including planets too small or faint for telescopes to detect. The model reached precision scores of up to 99% when tested on simulated planetary systems. That result measures performance within a computer-generated population. The predicted worlds around actual stars remain unconfirmed, and the method’s value will depend on follow-up observations. The bee swarm plot ranks seven features by importance, with SHAP values showing how strongly each feature influences individual predictions. (CREDIT: Jeanne Davoult et al, Astronomy & Astrophysics) Reading the arrangement of planets Planets form together within disks of gas and solid material surrounding young …

Internal Family Systems: The Neuroscience of Parts

Internal Family Systems: The Neuroscience of Parts

Published by Jenni Sidey

Co-authored with Sarah Bergenfield Internal family systems (IFS) therapy generally begins with this request: Turn your attention inside and notice. Whatever you notice, we’ll call it a part. It might be saying something to you. It might be showing you something. It might be two parts arguing. Or it might show up as a sensation. Once you notice it, you’re differentiating: It is not you, and you are not it. If you find yourself wishing it away or tuning it out because you fear or hate it, that is another part, and you can ask it to differentiate, or unblend, too. IFS calls curiosity, clarity, confidence, compassion, and the other centered feeling states that commonly arise when parts differentiate self or self-energy. Sometimes when one part unblends, another one blends. If this happens, you just keep asking them to separate until you feel curious. As a psychotherapy approach, IFS has been more concerned with engagement than explanation. It aims for participants to interact with and occupy—rather than distract or dissociate from—their inner experience. But that’s …

Exclusive-Hellman & Friedman explores sale of Applied Systems at up to billion, sources say

Exclusive-Hellman & Friedman explores sale of Applied Systems at up to $10 billion, sources say

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK, Sept 23 : Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman is exploring a sale of insurance software provider Applied Systems that could value the company at up to $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The private equity firm is working with investment bankers at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs on the process, which has attracted interest from prospective buyers, said the sources, who requested anonymity because the matter is confidential. Applied Systems, Hellman & Friedman, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Headquartered in Chicago, Applied Systems provides software that helps insurance agencies and brokerages manage customer relationships, policy administration, and other workflows. Its customers include insurance brokerages such as HUB International, Insurance Office of America, and the Baldwin Group, according to its website. Applied Systems generates more than $550 million in annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, one of the sources said. Hellman & Friedman bought Applied Systems from Bain Capital in a deal valued at approximately $1.8 billion in early 2014. A sale would rank among the largest software buyout …

ELEXIA’s energy systems integration in real-world demonstrations

ELEXIA’s energy systems integration in real-world demonstrations

Published by skeptic

ELEXIA is an ongoing Horizon Europe-funded project moving from tool development towards real-world demonstration, testing how integrated energy systems can become more flexible, resilient, and cost-effective As ELEXIA progresses towards the final phase of its Horizon Europe project, the consortium is moving beyond the development of individual tools and towards demonstrating how they can work together in real-world energy systems. The project is developing and demonstrating tools for planning and managing integrated energy systems across multiple energy vectors and end-use sectors, with the aim of supporting a cost-optimised, flexible, and resilient energy system of systems. Since the previous article ‘Integrated Energy Systems and digital transformation in practice – first findings from ELEXIA’ and eBook, work has continued on the demonstration of the tools and methods, providing more results as well as indications on how to further improve the tools. A significant development for the consortium in recent months has been the formal acceptance of a six-month project extension. This extension became necessary as some activities planned for the pilot site in Portugal, due to changes …

Protesters blockade Elbit Systems factory over Israel weapons supply | Weapons

Protesters blockade Elbit Systems factory over Israel weapons supply | Weapons

Published by Sam Flores

Nine protesters blocked access to Elbit Systems’ factory in Staffordshire by attaching themselves to five ‘lock-ons’ to launch the direct-action group ‘Silence Elbit Drones’. Al Jazeera spoke with spokesperson Audrey Corno, who said the group aims to disrupt Elbit’s operations over its supply of military equipment to Israel. Published On 21 Sep 202621 Sep 2026 Share Protesters blockade Elbit Systems factory over Israel weapons supply on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Source link

Pope Leo calls for AI systems that don’t foster divisions

Pope Leo calls for AI systems that don’t foster divisions

Published by Sam Flores

ROME, Sept 21 : Pope Leo, who has warned of the risk that AI could lead the world down a path of unending war, on Monday urged the development of AI systems that do not foster divisions in society but strengthen peace initiatives. “In a world marked by conflict and division, the development of artificial intelligence calls for a vision inspired by wisdom and charity,” the pontiff said in a message to a conference on AI issues held in Rome. The pope called for development of AI systems that “serve the dignity of every person and strengthen the bonds that unite the human family”. Leo, the first US-born pope, has made addressing the possible dangers of AI development a major theme of his 16-month-old papacy, first discussing the issue publicly on his third day as pope. In his first major document, issued in May, Leo warned that AI systems spread misinformation and prioritise ​conflict. He urged international regulation of the industry. Monday’s conference, hosted at Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, was titled “AI4Peace.” Speakers included US …

Google says its AI model gained unauthorized access to three outside systems

Google says its AI model gained unauthorized access to three outside systems

Published by Sam Flores

Google on Friday disclosed the first known instance of its artificial intelligence software, Gemini, carrying out an undirected computer hack, weeks after similar disclosures by AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI raised security alarms about AI models going beyond the instructions of their human creators. Google said in a statement that in May its AI model gained unauthorized access to three outside systems during a test by either guessing login information or using login credentials it found in a public repository. Heather Adkins, a Google vice president for security engineering, said in the statement that the AI model thought that the outside computer systems “were part of the test,” but she said in all three instances, the model stopped before doing anything further with its access. FOR SUBSCRIBERS How exactly could AI cause widespread danger? 02:35 “In a standard evaluation, the model found public information online and guessed credentials to access websites it thought were part of the test,” she said. Google said it did not consider the unauthorized logins to rise to the level of …