Evaluation of an optimized protocol and Illumina ARTIC V4 primer pool for sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 using COVIDSeq™ and DRAGEN™ COVID Lineage App workflow

Next-Generation Sequencing based genomic surveillance has been widely implemented for identification and tracking of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to guide the Public Health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Amplicon-based assays, such as the Illumina® COVIDSeq™ Test (RUO) and COVIDSeq Assay (RUO), enable scalable sequencing of SARS-CoV-2, leveraging V3 and V4 primer designs from the ARTIC community and DRAGEN™ COVID Lineage App analysis available on Illumina BaseSpace™. We report here a comparison of COVIDSeq performance for SARS-CoV-2 genome reporting using the ARTIC V3 based primer pool (including primers for human control genes) that is provided with the COVIDSeq kit versus the ARTIC V4 based Illumina COVIDSeq V4 primer pool, using an optimized protocol and DRAGEN COVID Lineage App analysis. The data indicates that both primer pools enable robust reporting of SARS-CoV-2 variants. The Illumina COVIDSeq V4 primer pool has superior performance for SARS-CoV-2 genome reporting, particularly in samples with low virus load, and is therefore the recommended primer pool for genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 for research use using COVIDSeq.

API as a way to interact with social networks

In the realities of the pandemic, chat bots have become indispensable helpers. They do not need a lot of resources and constant human control. A method of interacting with social networks through a specialized software interface Web API, which is the basis of the REST architecture, is considered. The basic structure of requests for receiving and sending data to servers is presented. On the example of the implementation of a chatbot for vk.com, capable of automating a dialogue with users, the main design stages are presented, including the requirements for the implementation and operation mode based on the client-server architecture, implementation and testing. The project server is implemented on a Raspberry Pi4 single-board computer. Demonstrated code for performing basic queries and implemented a Long Polling approach to continuously track and distribute user messages. Methods were formed to obtain the necessary resources from the server, to declare a new resource on the server, to update information on the server, and to delete certain objects from the database. The result was a patented software product "Intelligent assistant of VSUIT for social networks".

The non-anthropocentric informational agents: Codes, software, and the logic of emergence in cybersecurity

Many theoretical approaches to cybersecurity adopt an anthropocentric conceptualisation of agency; that is, tying the capacity to act to human subjectivity and disregarding the role of the non-human in co-constructing its own (in)security. This article argues that such approaches are insufficient in capturing the complexities of cyber incidents, particularly those that involve self-perpetuating malware and autonomous cyber attacks that can produce unintentional and unpredictable consequences. Using interdisciplinary insights from the philosophy of information and software studies, the article counters the anthropocentrism in the cybersecurity literature by investigating the agency of syntactic information (that is, codes/software) in co-producing the logics and politics of cybersecurity. It specifically studies the complexities of codes/software as informational agents, their self-organising capacities, and their autonomous properties to develop an understanding of cybersecurity as emergent security. Emergence is introduced in the article as a non-linear security logic that captures the peculiar agential capacities of codes/software and the ways in which they challenge human control and intentionality by co-constructing enmity and by co-producing the subjects and objects of cybersecurity.

Teaching Students How to Frame Human-Computer Interactions Using Instrumentalism, Technological Determinism, and a Quadrant Learning Activity

This paper describes an innovative learning activity for educating students about human-computer interaction. The goal of this learning activity is to familiarize students with the way instrumentalists on the one hand, and technological determinists on the other, conceive of human-technology interaction, and to assess which theory students favor. This paper describes and evaluates the efficacy of this learning activity and presents preliminary data on student responses. It also establishes a framework for understanding how students initially perceive human-technology interaction and how that understanding can be used to personalize and improve their learning. Instrumentalists believe that technology can be understood simply as a tool or neutral instrument that humans use to achieve their own ends. In contrast, technological determinists believe that technology is not fully under human control, that it has some degree of autonomy, and that it has its own ends. Exposing students to these two theories of human-technological interaction provides five benefits: First, the competing theories deepen students’ ability to describe how technology and humans interact. Second, they provide an ethical framework that students can use to describe how technology and humans should interact. Third, they provide students with a vocabulary that they can use to talk about human freedom and how the design of computing technology may constrain or expand that freedom. Fourth, by challenging students to articulate what theory they favor, the learning is personalized. Fifth, because the learning activity challenges students to express their personal beliefs about how humans and technology interact, the learning activity can help instructors develop a clearer understanding of those beliefs and whether they reinforce what Erin Cech has identified as a culture of depoliticization and disengagement in engineering culture.

An Empirical Examination of the Impact of Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Value Sensitive Design for Autonomous Systems

The removal of direct human involvement from the decision to apply lethal force is at the core of the controversy surrounding autonomous weapon systems, as well as broader applications of artificial intelligence and related technologies to warfare. Far from purely a technical question of whether it is possible to remove soldiers from the ‘pointy end’ of combat, the emergence of autonomous weapon systems raises a range of serious ethical, legal, and practical challenges that remain largely unresolved by the international community. The international community has seized on the concept of ‘meaningful human control’. Meeting this standard will require doctrinal and operational, as well as technical, responses at the design stage. This paper focuses on the latter, considering how value sensitive design could assist in ensuring that autonomous systems remain under the meaningful control of humans. However, this article will also challenge the tendency to assume a universalist perspective when discussing value sensitive design. By drawing on previously unpublished quantitative data, this paper will critically examine how perspectives of key ethical considerations, including conceptions of meaningful human control, differ among policymakers and scholars in the Asia Pacific. Based on this analysis, this paper calls for the development of a more culturally inclusive form of value sensitive design and puts forward the basis of an empirically-based normative framework for guiding designers of autonomous systems.

Technology understanding in a more-than-human world

In this article, I wish to unfold the question: "what is technology actually and what characterizes our relation to technology?” and relate it to the technology understanding course, since how we think about and perceive technology, is arguably consequential for how we practice and conduct our lives and societies and for what we consider possibilities, problems, solutions and necessary actions. What I will argue is that we need to challenge a preferred and inherently humanistic and anthropocentric understanding of technology that sees technology as ideally a designed object subject to human control. This is an understanding that has dominated throughout enlightenment and modernity. However, my argument in this text is that it is both inadequate and problematic because it keeps us in a frame of thinking that perpetually reproduces the idea of technological solutions to problems.

The European Approach to Building AI Policy and Governance: A Haven for Bureaucrats or Innovators?

Disruptive technologies and the domination of digital platforms have challenged the global economy players twice — first, to get a hand on them, then to mitigate the possible risks. It is beyond doubt that reliable artificial intelligence (AI) can bring many benefits at the European level, such as better health care, safer and cleaner transport, more efficient manufacturing, and sustainable energy. But regulating the unknown requires considerable effort on how to attract investors using clear rules while keeping human control over the algorithms as a priority. In April 2021, the EU Commission published a holistic proposal to regulate the use of AI, which promises to put trust first and ensure that facial recognition and big data operators will never abuse fundamental human rights. Although the proposal is likely to be amended during EU-wide discussions, the new approach to AI will clearly give citizens the reassurance to adopt these technologies while encouraging companies to develop them. Hence, this article aims to map the core challenges for the EU policy on the use of AI, as well as the milestones of developing the holistic legislative proposal, and clarify if the afore-mentioned proposal indeed solves all the AI-related risks for future generations.

Insights into the Bioactivities and Chemical Analysis of Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle

Many species of the so-called exotic plants coexist with native species in a balanced way, but others thrive very quickly and escape human control, becoming harmful—these are called invasive alien species. In addition to overcoming geographic barriers, these species can defeat biotic and abiotic barriers, maintaining stable populations. Ailanthus altissima is no exception; it is disseminated worldwide and is considered high risk due to its easy propagation and resistance to external environmental factors. Currently, it has no particular use other than ornamental, even though it is used to treat epilepsy, diarrhea, asthma, ophthalmic diseases, and seborrhoea in Chinese medicine. Considering its rich composition in alkaloids, terpenoids, sterols, and flavonoids, doubtlessly, its use in medicine or other fields can be maximised. This review will focus on the knowledge of the chemical composition and the discovery of the biological properties of A. altissima to understand this plant better and maximise its possible use for purposes such as medicine, pharmacy, or the food industry. Methods for the extraction and detection to know the chemical composition will also be discussed in detail.

The Beginning of History

These Christian curricula herald the Bible as the authoritative text for interpreting the earliest history of the world. On the basis of their insistence on biblical inerrancy, they present fundamental positions that underlie their historical analysis, as follows. The Bible establishes Young Earth creationism, divides human beings into races, and stipulates that God established government as limited. The Tower of Babel indicts humanism and efforts to unify governments or societies. The Creation Mandate, taken from the Book of Genesis, endorses both human control of the earth and Christian hegemony. Mosaic Law defines the legitimate basis for law and morality. The ancient Israelites set the standard against which other ancient civilizations are judged for their failure to believe in the one God. The modern state of Israel points to the fulfillment of biblical prophecies of end times. These central claims developed within evangelicalism.

3. Growth Unlimited

This chapter covers a response to the discourse of limits which stresses the unlimited capacity of ingenious humans to overcome ecological limits, especially when they are organized in capitalist markets. For Prometheans, long term trends show environmental improvement and declining resource scarcity, such that economic growth can therefore go on forever. This Promethean discourse has often been advanced by market economists, and has often been highly influential in government, especially in the United States. More recently a Promethean environmentalism looks forward to a ‘good Anthropocene’ in which government too plays a role in bringing natural systems under benign human control, so that technologies such as geoengineering can be used effectively against problems such as climate change. In the background of Promethean argument is an older cornucopian discourse that stresses natural abundance of resources and the capacity of ecosystems to absorb pollutants. Ecologists and Earth systems scientists are not convinced and remain critical of Promethean discourse.