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Deducing the Properties Required by General Collective Intelligence Platforms
No full textA functional modeling approach is used to derive the properties that must be possessed by a platform with the capacity to significantly increase the general collective intelligence or c factor of groups. Such platforms have been termed “General Collective Intelligence” or GCI platforms. Having general problem-solving ability, a GCI potentially enables groups to execute any collective reasoning process, including abstracting (generalizing) a reasoning process so it might be reused in any other domain where it applies. A GCI can be shown to have the potential to exponentially increase the capacity of a group to create generalizations and other relationships, and capacity to store and exchange those relationships. Since relationships are concepts, and since the number of relationships between concepts better specify the location of any concept in conceptual space and therefore increases the density of conceptual space as a whole, GCI represents a phase change in collective cognition at which the collective conceptual space can expand exponentially in size and density. Each reasoning process connecting this far larger space of concepts has outcomes, making it potentially possible through these additional concepts to accumulate far greater impact on any outcome in the world. Because this phase change is not believed to have been possible at any point before in history, and is believed cannot occur again until the advent of another system with general problem-solving ability, such as a second order GCI or an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and because both AGI and second order GCI are believed to require GCI, GCI is proposed here to be the most important innovation in the history and immediate future of human civilization
Shalom Educational Model and the Paradigm Shift in the Social Work Training in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
No full textSocial work is a discipline that was introduced into an academic curriculum in the DRC not long ago. It is with the repetition of the phenomena of urban banditry and that of street children that the various stakeholders have thought of training professionals in this field. But is said training effective and appropriate? In this article, I examine through a sample the academic curriculum in the DRC and propose avenues’ starting from the biblical model of shalom, which is a four-dimensional model, responding to contextual and spiritual needs. The article contains seven parts: the first point will be the introduction, in the second point there will be a brief contextual presentation of DR Congo, the third point is about the method used in this article, the fourth point will be the sample of social work curricula, the fifth point will be analysis and assessment of this curricula, in the sixth point I will show the implications of shalom model in the social work training and the last point will be the conclusion
AfricaConnect3: Connecting Africa to Unlimited possibilities
No full textDespite the availability of infrastructures having significantly progressed over the recent years, tertiary education and research institutions in Africa are still among the least connected in the academic world, a situation that is particularly critical for landlocked countries. In this context, the AfricaConnect3 project strives to establish secure, adequate, and affordable network infrastructures and offers dedicated services to African National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), as well as builds adequate human resource capacities and expertise within the community and
raises the awareness of the role of digital transformation for research and education (R&E). This paper aims to present the achievements and impact of AfricaConnect3 on African R&E communities, as well as advocating for NRENs, by detailing the activities implemented and services offered to R&E institutions in Africa. Finally, this paper addresses the need for NRENs to be better represented in the African digital landscape and understood as part of the solution
Transformational Leadership in Adopting Online Learning
No full textMore than 1.725 billion learners across the globe are currently affected due to the closure of their learning institutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (UNICEF June 2020). Over 98% of the world's student population have found themselves out of school due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This population includes university students who were aspiring to complete their academic years. Schools and colleges are making every effort to ensure that teaching and learning are going on even during lockdown occasioned by COVID-19. Examples of postponed examinations include Cambridge International Examination and Kenya National Examinations. The closure of learning institutions has impacted not only the students but also the teachers and school leaders. In response to school closures, the use of online, e-learning and distance learning platforms have remained a key option available for the continuation of learning.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic threatened university education, adoption of distance education and in particular, online learning in public universities in Kenya, has been very slow. Online learning provides access to higher education without physical contact in response to the COVID- 19 crisis
Human-Centric Functional Modeling and the Convergence of Science
No full textThis paper explores Human-Centric Functional Modeling as a universal modeling methodology with the potential to be used for representing all systems both conceptually and functionally, and it explores what capacity for convergence in our understanding of systems means in terms of Human-Centric Functional Modeling, how that capacity might be quantified, and why Human-Centric Functional Modeling as a methodology might maximize our collective capacity to achieve convergence in our understanding across all sciences and across the systems that those sciences study
Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Research and Education Success Stories During Covid-19
No full textThe EU-Africa summit 2021 : Quo vadis, in the light of Brexit and Corona ?
Get PDFEvery three years, the AU-EU summit reunites African and EU leaders to outline the future direction of cooperation. The 6th summit had been to reaffirm and renew the partnership between the two blocks already in October 2020, but it was pushed back to the first quarter of 2021 or even later due to COVID-19 crisis. Besides, Brussels had to deal with its own post-Brexit situation and its repercussions on EU-Africa relations, excluding the UK. African states, for their part, wanted to renegotiate the EU-Africa partnership and to balance it with new promising Post-Brexit visions of the British premier Johnson about increased economic ties with the African Angloshere. China and other global players compete with the EU and its member states in the new scramble for African resources. Given that Africa is increasingly courted by other partners it could be inclined to successively limit its relations with the EU and see it as a mere provider of aid and security against Islamic terrorism. This trend was reinforced by the fact that the new EU-Africa strategy still hasn't been approved by EU member states. And a timely replacement of the Cotonou Agreement, which expires in November 2021, is open to question
The Critical View Of Safety : Une Attitude Pour Prévenir L’erreur D’identification Dans Les Cholécystectomies Laparoscopiques.
Get PDFRésumé: Avec la généralisation de la cholécystectomie laparoscopique, l’incidence des traumatismes opératoires des voies biliaires a augmentée de façon significative. La perte de la sensation haptique, la vision bidimensionnelle, et l’éclairage centré favorisent l’illusion aboutissant à des erreurs d’identifications, où le chirurgien confond voie biliaire principale et canal cystique. Ce phénomène explique l’augmentation des traumatismes biliaires à l’ère de la laparoscopie. Récemment, et grâce aux recommandations des sociétés savantes comme la SAGES sur les bonnes pratiques chirurgicales, l’incidence de ces traumatismes est en régression et tend a rejoindre celle décrite à l’ère de la chirurgie ouverte. Parmi ses recommandations, la SAGES met l’accent sur l’adoption par tous les chirurgiens de la « Critical View of Safety » durant la réalisation de la cholécystectomie par voie laparoscopique. L’objectif de cette mise au point est de décrire cette attitude, mais surtout analyser son efficacité et ses limites dans la prévention des traumatismes opératoires des voies biliaires.
Abstract: With the generalization of laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the incidence of operative bile ducts injury has increased significantly, the loss of haptic sensation, the two-dimensional vision, and the centered lighting favor the illusion leading to misidentifications, as consequences the surgeon confuses the main bile duct and the cystic duct. This phenomenon explains this increase in the incidence of bile duct injuries in the era of laparoscopy. Recently, and thanks to the recommendations of some learned societies such as SAGES on good surgical practices, the incidence of these complications is declining and tends to join that described in the era of open surgery. Among its many recommendations, SAGES recommends the adoption by all surgeons of the “Critical View of Safety” during the performance of laparoscopic cholecystectomy, an attitude that we will describe, and analyze its effectiveness and its limits in prevention of operative bile ducts injury
The Secret of Ishango Bones – On the helix structure of prime numbers
Get PDFThe Ishango bones were found in the 1950s by Belgian archaeologist Jean de Heinzelin near a Palaeolithic residence in Ishango, Africa. The inscriptions in the bones, which can be interpreted as numbers, are unique in their complexity in human history. Interestingly, on one of the two Ishango bones, we also find the six consecutive prime numbers 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and 19. Did Stone Age people already know the secret of the prime numbers? This question is explored in my mathematical essay “The Secret of Ishango Bones”, an adventurous journey around the world from Basel in Switzerland to Erode in India. The presumed connection between the numbers on the Ishango bones and the structure of the prime numbers is illustrated by a sketch at the end of the text. Are the prime numbers organized as a double helix like DNA? Where did the people of Ishango get this knowledge? Did they perhaps have visits from aliens? As the physicist and mathematician Freeman John Dyson said so beautifully: “For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope.
Being on the alert for continuously evolving influenza viruses: Early detection and rapid intervention of newly emerging viruses
Get PDFInfluenza viruses cause a major risk to human and animal health. Influenza virus capable of undergoing continuous evolution due to lack of proofreading mechanism during replication and high rate of mutation in their surface glycoproteins. Early detection and rapid intervention are crucial to mitigate the adverse outcomes of newly emerging influenza viruses. Evolution is a serious impediment to antiviral drugs and host immune system. The need for updating flu vaccines arising from perpetual evolution of influenza virus. Vaccines prepared for an earlier form of circulating influenza virus will not provide protection against newly emerging influenza viruses that is why flu vaccines need to be updated regularly. In addition, there is an urgent need for universal influenza vaccines which are capable of protecting against various strains of influenza virus. Hemagglutinin and neuraminidase are the key components of influenza virus which are more prone to mutation. Antigenic variation in influenza virus comes about because of genetic changes in their surface glycoproteins. These changes are known as “antigenic drift” and “antigenic shift”. This paper introduces the basics of influenza evolution, highlights the evolutionary history of influenza viruses and discusses how evolution impacts influenza intervention with particular emphasis on the current H5N1 Avian influenza epidemic. This paper also proposes the use of improved adjuvants in flu vaccines to trigger rapid and robust immune responses against newly emerging influenza viruses. Broad-spectrum immunologic adjuvant with ability to induce a wide range of immune responses can be used to develop an effective vaccines against newly emerging flu strains. Generally, this article illustrates how influenza virus undergoes evolution and presents ways of intervening continuously evolving influenza viruses