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Microorganisms such as bacteria are everywhere, including the human body. Just as the microorganism in a vaccine in small dosages is good for building immunity, being exposed to harmful bacteria in small dosages is good for the human immune system. Antibiotics are the class of pharmaceutical drugs often prescribed to combat bacterial infections but are useless for viral infections. When certain bacteria are exposed to the same antibiotics over a long period of time, the medicine can become useless over time. The last three decades have witnessed nearly a 50% increase in prescription of antibiotics across the world.

This raises the question of whether too much antibiotics are being used.

Hospital prescription of antibiotics accounts for 20% of usage, and the rest is through self-medication in countries where antibiotics are available over the counter. Some residents of the Philippines use antibiotics for tuberculosis for their children. Studies show that the use of too much antibiotic during infancy and childhood can lead to permanent reduction in good bacteria such as Bacteroides spp. and a permanent increase in bad bacteria such as Enterobacteriaceae in the gut, which develop antibiotic resistance quickly.

The direct impact of increased antibiotic use and consequent antibiotic resistance can be increased mortality rates. For example, Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD) is also wreaking havoc due to antibiotic resistance.

To combat the rampant usage of antibiotics and prevent antibiotic resistance, organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC have developed stewardship and awareness programs to educate the public regarding the appropriate use of antibiotics and harm in overusing them. But much more is needed to address this increasingly serious healthcare issue.

Dan Valesquea

Deforestation to blame for Beijing’s pollution

Near the Mongolian Plateau where in hills and plains are present all around, Beijing is experiencing a maximum temperature which cause pain to the people. The sandstorm which came from the Gobi desert conquers the urban area every year during spring season. The whole city is full of dust and becomes grey, painting the lives of the people.

Almost every year during that season, people are experiencing the dusty season and they usually wear mask and cover their head in order to get rid of the dust.

Deforestation results to a great destruction and deteriorate the soil and can cause sandstorm. Some areas are affected by deforestation by making rice fields into sandy seashore and agricultural land into wetland.

Deforestation not only decreased the volume of water resources but it also the reason why sandstorm exist that destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of agriculture land, widening the desert land.

The solution to the deforestation is not only by preventing private vehicles and public vendors and removing private factories. The government of China must make an effort to completely stop illegal logging, huge irrigation and other building of infrastructure that ruin the existing forest and the community.

Beijing no longer needs a large bypass encircling a town and tall buildings. Instead, Beijing requires a green belt. Financial support is even more effective to help addressing the problem in pollution and to make the sky to its natural color.

S.Zhou

RCT AI is a team focusing on developing AI solutions for game industries. According to the official website, the solutions is based on an algorithm called “Chaos Box”. Based on the engine developed on this algorithm, in-game NPCs’ behaviors and scripts can be generated real-time instead of manually input into the program, which provides NPCs the ability to appropriately respond to human players’ actions in the real-time. In the early demo showcase videos posted on Bilibili by RCT AI team, a scenario of bank robbery is created. All NPCs appear in the scenarios are programmed with AI engine with “Chaos Box”. NPCs are all appropriately respond to human player’s different actions on a single plot without any scripts input. The scenarios go on fluently without any errors happen on NPCs and end up differently based on different moves by human players. Apparently, by applying this AI engine into the video game programs, all the games include NPCs or bots are going to be changed. One benefits for video game players is they won’t need to tolerate NPCs acting weird. That means the gaming experience is not going to be destroyed by error in the algorithm and the immersion of video games will go to a higher level. However, a concerning problem for a real AI system like this is about the self-learning of AI. The AI will be trained in excessive amount of experience being human players’ opponent. It is very possible and assured that some day in the future after AI engine is applied into the game, the NPCs in-game will be trained into an extremely difficult opponent for human players to defeat and totally ruin the game experience. A system of restricting AI learning process should be applied in order to protect video game player’s gaming experience.
https://rct.ai/en-us/
https://rct.ai/en-us/chaos-box
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1dg411V7Wf?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

Tianze Xu

Baidu’s Verne Plan

Many have read the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, whose author, Jules Verne, is considered by many to be the father of science fiction. His imagination has motivated many to invent things once thought not possible, and Baidu, the largest internet company in China, has decided to follow in his footsteps by setting a “crazy” plan named after Verne called the “Verne Plan.”

So what is the Verne Plan?

The Verne Plan is designed to connect to science fiction to existing technologies for real innovations for the next century. Its main focus is on artificial intelligence, such as AlphaGo, the genetic programming designed to help people discover the secrets of life.

So who are involved and when will it start?

The Verne Plan has started on April 1, 2016. For this, six famous people have been recruited as founding members: Andrew Ng, a computer science professor of Stanford University and Baidu’s first scientist, will lead the group. Cixin Liu, the author of the famous novel The Three-Body Problem, is a member. Dr. David Brin, a space Scientist and a consultant at NASA, is another. Qiufan Chen, a science writer known as the “Chinese William Gibson,” is the fourth member. The fifth is Haijun Yao, an advocate for popular science and an editor of a sci-fi magazine. Finally, Ken Liu, who translated The Three-Body Problem, enters this imaginative plan. A close look at these six individuals reveals that two are scientists while the others, science fiction writers. It seems like the ideal team!

Why is in store for the Verne Plan?

The Verne Plan changes the traditional idea that science is difficult, cold, and boring into one that is exciting and imaginable, such as the creative ideas highlighted in films like the Iron Man.

Under the Verne Plan, science fiction writers and scientists can expand and merge the boundaries of science and science fiction through creative cooperation. For example, when a new technology requires large-scale application, science fiction writers can be involved in early stages for their vision for more imaginative innovations. This is different from conventional innovation processes in that innovations are achieved through close cooperation between scientists and science fiction writers from the very beginning of the development process. One outcome of such cooperation is that innovations are expected to better address the needs and wants of end users.

In the near future, the Verne Plan may succeed in bring to people innovations that can truly change their lives forever. As in the case of electricity and TV, it is certainly exiting to imagine what can come from this creative cooperation between these individuals under an ambitious plan led by one of the tech giants of the world. Stay tuned!

Chenshun Hong