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Three High School Students Help Cancer Patients Combat COVID-19 with Grassroots Mask with a Message Campaign

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As the world continues in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers are selflessly risking their lives to save the lives of others. Stories of their heroics are common and yet still do not cover the breadth of their sacrifice.

However, there is another group of people that also needs attention–cancer patients. This already vulnerable group faces an impossible choice: stay home and hopefully stay free from coronavirus, or leave home to receive life-saving treatments.

A recent Lancet study reveals that immunocompromised cancer patients are nearly five times more likely to develop severe complications from COVID-19 in comparison to the general population. According to the CDC, cloth masks have been endorsed to limit spread amongst contagious but asymptomatic people. Mask usage is one of the CDC’s primary recommendations to flatten the curve.

Three local high school students knew this and saw an opportunity to jump on the challenge. Arjun Moorthy (17), Roshan Pillai (17) and Arun Moorthy (15), initiated a community-driven program, the COVID Supply Initiative (CSI), with the goal to provide masks to every cancer patient in the valley.

Instead of taking a break when their school closed, these young men went to work. They are collecting homemade and donated masks to distribute at cancer centers across Phoenix to patients undergoing chemotherapy.

“We’ve always looked to help our community,” Pillai said, “and we knew that we couldn’t sit idle while people suffer.” Motivated to help as many as they could, they soon partnered with large oncology groups and began to distribute masks to Honor Health, Virginia Piper Cancer Center, Ironwood Cancer Center, and Palo Verde Cancer Specialists.

A group of women with breast cancer were among the grateful recipients. One patient reported, “It is very touching and impactful to know someone is thinking of me and those who are like me. This act of generosity gives me hope for the future generation watching youth be proactive in their community”. Seeing the smiles on their faces definitely was motivation for us” says Arjun Moorthy. Infact, one woman commented why this act of generosity was even more important today. “Many of the support groups are closed, and I feel alone going through my journey. Family members are no longer allowed in with me during my treatment, and it gets lonely.”

CSI took these words and decided to broaden their impact. They often hand out masks in-person to patients undergoing chemotherapy and take the time to talk with them. They have also begun including motivational messages with each mask that communicate hope and faith. Messages like “You are a fighter”, “Cancer may have started the fight, but you will win it”.

The masks have been well-received and patients are often seen smiling when they read the adjoining messages. Some have even reported that for a few minutes when they see the messages, they almost forget where they are sitting.

The teens say the most unique aspect of the mask collection has been how many of the mask donations come from people who know someone undergoing cancer treatment. “The concept of ‘pay it forward’ really applies,” commented Arun Moorthy.

It is true that everyone should be using personal protection gear. However, cancer patients are already on a difficult journey that has been made more life-threatening by the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Abhishek Patel, medical oncologist at Virginia Piper Cancer Center explains “if patients going through chemotherapy get the virus, they have a higher risk of Intensive Care Unit admissions and death. Therefore, masks are an important tool for protection.”

CSI is growing, and they plan to donate masks globally through both local collections and a mask-pairing program with an inspirational message for every patient. They’ll accomplish this lofty goal through a program called Mask Pair.

“We are contacting oncology centers domestically and internationally to let them know there is help and hope,” says Mr. Pillai.

“We want to make mask donation as easy as a click of a button. People with extra masks can go to our website, find where they are needed, and then send directly there,” says Arun Moorthy.

This is not the first time these boys have worked for the benefit of their local community, and it likely won’t be the last. Readers with an interest in CSI’s movement can go to covidsupplyinitiative.org and donate with a message under the Mask Pair program. Local mask pickups can be coordinated by emailing [email protected].

Dan Smith is probably best known for his writing skill, which was adapted into news articles. He earned degree in Literature from Chicago University. He published his first book while an English instructor. After that he published 8 books in his career. He has more than six years’ experience in publication. And now he works as a writer of news on Apsters Media website which is related to news analysis from entertainment and technology industry.

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Intel has Optimized 500 Artificial Intelligence Models for Core Ultra Processors

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“An important milestone has been reached in Intel’s efforts to establish itself as the leading chip supplier for AI PCs: the company announced that over 500 AI models have been optimized for its Core Ultra processors.”

The AI models, according to the Santa Clara, California-based company, cover “more than 20 categories of AI, including large language, diffusion, super resolution, object detection, and computer vision,” as of Wednesday. These models are available from industry partners Hugging Face, PyTorch, ONNX Model Zoo, and OpenVINO Model Zoo.

These include Google’s Bert natural language understanding model, Microsoft’s Phi-2 small language model, Meta’s Llama large language model, OpenAI’s Whisper speech recognition model, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion 1.5 text-to-image generation model, and the Mistral language model.

Models “form the backbone of AI-enhanced software features like object removal, image super resolution, or text summarization,” according to Intel, which highlights the significance of its optimization work. It further stated that the models are compatible with the Core Ultra’s neural processing unit (NPU), GPU, and CPU.

According to the company, “the breadth of user-facing AI features that can be brought to market and the number of enabled/optimized models are directly correlated.” It is impossible to design a feature without a model. The feature cannot operate at its peak efficiency without runtime optimization.

The semiconductor giant is in an arms race with rivals AMD and Qualcomm to not only provide the best processors for AI PCs but also to enable compelling software experiences with the goal of creating greater demand for their respective products.

Along with the AI model optimization project, Intel has been developing over 300 AI-powered features for PCs with Core Ultra processors in collaboration with more than 100 independent software vendors (ISVs). In December, the company released its Core Ultra lineup; this is being done as part of its AI PC Acceleration Program, which was started a few months prior.

The company stated that the work it has done to establish AI PCs as a new device category and the investments it has made in client AI processing, framework optimizations, AI tools like OpenVINO, and other related areas have made its software enablement work possible.

Robert Hallock, vice president and general manager of AI and technical marketing in Intel’s Client Computing Group, said in a statement, “This unmatched selection reflects our commitment to building not only the PC industry’s most robust toolchain for AI developers, but a rock-solid foundation AI software users can implicitly trust.”

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Conduent and Microsoft Collaborate to Use AI to Increase Business Efficiency

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AI-Powered Strategic Alliance for Improved Business Operations

Conduent, a provider of business services, recently announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft. The purpose of this partnership is to lead the way in generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications in important industries. The partnership’s primary goals are to use AI to transform healthcare administration, improve customer support, and strengthen fraud detection systems.

Boosting Cloud-Based Secure AI Adoption

Conduent’s clients will be able to take advantage of a secure cloud environment at a faster rate thanks to the synergy between Conduent and Microsoft. Three generative AI pilot programs are presently being developed by the alliance, one of which aims to efficiently extract data from medical documents. The goal of this project is to use Microsoft’s Azure AI Document Intelligence and Azure OpenAI Service to expedite the resolution process.

AI’s Strong Effect on the Growth of Small Businesses

The applications of AI go beyond the healthcare sector and include small businesses, where AI is thought to be a growth accelerator. AI has many uses, from enhancing customer service to automating marketing campaigns to expand its market reach. Particularly tailored AI solutions are being developed for small businesses, taking into account their unique resource limitations, making advanced AI tools more accessible to them.

Businesses with limited resources can now benefit from AI models developed by companies like Microsoft, which has garnered attention and given them a competitive advantage in the market. Supporters of these scaled models emphasize how easy it is to integrate, how affordable, and how little data these models require—all of which are advantageous for most companies that handle large volumes of sensitive data.

Conduent and Microsoft’s partnership is a big step toward bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into conventional business models, optimizing workflows, and establishing new benchmarks for customer and client interaction.

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A positive mindset, steering positive financial change, meet Oz Clement Knight

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Oz Clement Knight pushes boundaries as a top financial educator and entrepreneur, inspiring lives worldwide.

It is sometimes not just about feeling passionate about working in a particular field; it is more than that for a few rare professionals and business owners who strive for excellence daily, besides feeling passionate about all they choose to lay their hands on. When we saw the rise of Oz Clement Knight, who has been in the financial sector for several decades, we understood how a person needs to surrender to his aspirations and goals in life to push boundaries and steer positive change.

Oz Clement Knight is all about this and beyond. At every step in his journey, he has proved why he deserves to be called a leader in the financial realm, for he has stayed committed to taking his clients to the financial success they wish to achieve and, in the process, has reached the forefront of the industry.

He has been pioneering financial success for others through two incredible ventures, namely OHL Ventures Fund LLC and Ozmarq Holdings Ltd. The former is a Delaware series limited liability company to make venture capital and growth equity investments in diverse leading seed stage, early stage, and developmental stage and later stage private companies, with companies engaged in social media, social media, life sciences, and clean tech businesses. Through the fund, he promises to create returns for investors by helping them identify and invest in potential leading-edge companies that can later provide them with massive returns.

The latter serves as the Manager of the fund that will establish a series of funds for purchasing securities of a portfolio company/companies from a secondary source, making a separate and distinctive investment directly in a portfolio company/companies, and/or investing in the interests of investment funds, special purpose vehicles, or other entities whose portfolios consist of one or more portfolio companies.

With his years of experience and knowledge in private wealth management, investment banking, and capital markets, the financial educator, who loves spreading his knowledge among others, especially the youngsters in the field, has ensured that he offers financial services that cater to the individual needs of his clients, eventually empowering them to navigate the varied financial complexities in their journey to reach financial success.

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