Page 3 - Research

AI-model developed to detect extremist users, ISIS-related content on X

Using tweets from 2009-2021, researchers have developed a predictive model that can detect extremist users and content related to the militant group 'Islamic State' (ISIS). Their work could help social media companies identify and eventually restrict such accounts in a timelier manner and abate their impact on online communities, they said. The researchers from the Pennsylvania State University, US, identified potential propaganda messages and their characteristics and developed an image classifier to find the most frequent categories of images attached to tweets about ISIS. "The Islamic State group and its affiliates, sympathisers and followers continue to manipulate online communities to spread extremist propaganda," said Younes Karimi, a graduate student at the university pursuing a doctorate in informatics and the first author of the paper published in the journal Social Media Analysis and Mining. Apart from the ISIS-linked tweets they used for analysis, the researchers further

Climate change driving birds in mountains to higher elevations: Study

Logged forests and climate change are driving birds in tropical mountains to higher elevations due to rising temperatures, a research by the Indian Institute of Science has found. While smaller bird species are able to withstand higher temperatures, and thus colonise these logged forests better, the larger ones appeared to be increasing in the primary (undisturbed) forests, researchers found after analysing 10 years of data. Logged forests refer to the commercial cutting of trees for sale as timber or pulp. Such forests have higher average temperatures and lower humidity than primary forests, thus hastening the movement of birds to higher elevations, the researchers said. Logging can thus lead to the loss of large-bodied, old growth-dependent species, and decrease the overall biodiversity, they said. Further, logged forests also have fewer foliage-dwelling insects, reducing the available resources for the birds. As large species require more energy, this disproportionately reduces

Science packed 2024: Human spaceflight tests, deep ocean exploration

After the momentous landing on the moon's south pole, India has now set its sights on more challenging missions -- sending humans to space and getting samples from the lunar surface back to earth. Test flights for both the projects are scheduled in the new year. For Indian scientists it is just not about the moon and beyond. Furthering deep ocean exploration, the country is scheduled to send aquanauts on board the "Samudrayaan", first to a depth of 500 metres in March, and later, achieve its targeted depth of up to 6,000 metres. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to begin the new year with the launch of XPoSat.? The X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat)? will seek to unravel the mysteries of the sources of X-Rays and study the enigmatic world of black holes. The satellite is set for launch on January 1 on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Sriharikota. This would be followed by the insertion of the Aditya L-1 satellite at the Lagrange Point-1 on .

Study shows AI image-generators being trained on explicit pics of children

Hidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence image-generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to a new report that urges companies to take action to address a harmful flaw in the technology they built. Those same images have made it easier for AI systems to produce realistic and explicit imagery of fake children as well as transform social media photos of fully clothed real teens into nudes, much to the alarm of schools and law enforcement around the world. Until recently, anti-abuse researchers thought the only way that some unchecked AI tools produced abusive imagery of children was by essentially combining what they've learned from two separate buckets of online images - adult pornography and benign photos of kids. But the Stanford Internet Observatory found more than 3,200 images of suspected child sexual abuse in the giant AI database LAION, an index of online images and captions that's been used to train leading AI image-makers such

Year on year, Indian companies squeeze spending on research and development

The little money they have invested in a decade went into recurring expenses

India needs to increase R&D spending to 3% of GDP: Kris Gopalakrishnan

Private sector must contribute 1.5% to such spending, he says in speech urging educational institutions to teach new technologies

PM Modi asks investors to explore limitless potential of Uttarakhand

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asked investors to explore Uttarakhand's limitless potential in various sectors and convert them into opportunities. He was addressing a gathering after inaugurating the Uttarakhand Global Investors Summit at the Forest Research Institute here. Uttarakhand is a combination of divinity and development, the Prime Minister said. "Nature, culture, heritage - Uttarakhand has everything. You have to explore them and convert them into opportunities," Modi said. Recalling his earlier remark during a visit to Kedarnath that the third decade of the century belongs to Uttarakhand, he said the prediction is coming true. He also said the last ten years have seen the emergence of an aspirational India. Modi also launched the House of Himalayas brand to promote local products manufactured by women's self-help groups in the international markets. Congratulating the state government for the launch of the brand, Modi said it was in keeping with the concept o

Homegrown BoAt, Noise working on in-house R&D to fend off Chinese rivals

Boat and Noise have increased investments in research and development even as Chinese brands have begun inching into the top five

Johnson Controls Apac president bullish on India's 'sustainable' demand

While the Paris Agreement has accelerated clients' sustainability agenda, Rathninde believes it is much more than that

IIT-Mandi finds cost-effective alternative to metal 3D printing tech

Researchers from IIT-Mandi have found that the extrusion-based metal additive manufacturing process stands out as the most superior and cost-effective method in comparison to other approaches in metal 3D printing. According to officials, metal additive manufacturing (metal AM) utilises fine metal powders to construct robust, intricate components through computer-aided design (CAD) programmes or 3D scanning. "This layer-by-layer manufacturing process offers flexibility in designing complex structures, finding applications in diverse industries such as aerospace, automotive, spare parts, heat sinks, biomedical devices, and construction materials," said Naveen Kumar Bankapalli, Research Scholar, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi. "This analysis empowers individuals, industries, or researchers to independently develop and implement this technology, facilitating cost-effective mass production of metal parts," he said. Particularly noteworthy for aerospace applications due

New SATHI centres after approval from competent authority, says govt

The government on Monday said it will announce new centres to house major analytical instruments for sharing them with research institutions after approval from the competent authority. The recommendations of the empowered committee, chaired by former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan, to examine 12 proposals to identify Sophisticated Analytical and Technical Help Institutes (SATHI), are under the consideration of Ministry of Science and Technology, officials in the ministry said. "The recommendations of the expert committee meeting held in Noida for the proposals received for the SATHI scheme are being processed. They will be announced after approval of competent authority," the Department of Science and Technology (DST) posted on X. The DST said it was also reviewing the Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facilities (SAIF) programme, a separate scheme with a history of five decades. It said a high-level committee has been formed to improve the programme, intending to include more ..

No more euphemisms: India's sell-side researchers should say what they mean

Last time, trouble erupted in banking, and this time, it is brewing in outsourcing. Euphemisms are more damaging than the unvarnished truth

Tata Motors sets up 2 R&D facilities on H2 fuel tech, including ICE

In January this year, Tata Motors set an ambitious target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2045

Indian-origin academics among 30 winners of UK's 3 mn pound research prize

Indian-origin academics from the University of Oxford and a South Asian historian from King's College London are among 30 winners of the UK's 3-million-pound 2023 Leverhulme Trust award, which recognises exceptional research across different fields. Professor Amia Srinivasan from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford has been recognised for her work on epistemology, social and political philosophy, feminism, metaphilosophy, and the history of philosophy. Fellow Oxford University Professor, Ridhi Kashyap, from the Department of Sociology, has been honoured for her work on demography, social statistics, computational social science, digital and computational demography, and gender inequalities. Oxford is an exciting place to conduct research at the intersection of demography and computational social science. I look forward to continuing my research in both substantive and methodological directions and contributing to the advancement of digital and computational ...

Syngene International Q2 results: Net profit rises 14.22% to Rs 116.5 crore

Syngene International Ltd on Tuesday reported a 14.22 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 116.5 crore in the September quarter. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 102 crore in the year-ago period, Syngene International said in a regulatory filing. Consolidated revenue from operations were at Rs 910.1 crore as compared to Rs 768.1 crore in the year-ago period, it added. The company's total expenses rose to Rs 773.6 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal as against Rs 653.5 crore a year ago. Syngene International Managing Director and CEO Jonathan Hunt said the company posted strong results for the second quarter and first half of the ongoing financial year, particularly in its development and manufacturing services. "In development services, we also added a new non-GMP capability centre to meet market demand for agile, cost-efficient, early phase development and scale-up services," he said. "In manufacturing, we made good progress on o

Isro chief Somanath conferred honorary doctorate by Bengalore University

ISRO Chairman S Somanath dedicated the honorary doctorate conferred on him by the Bangalore University on Tuesday to the team members of the recently-launched Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1 missions. He sent a video message as he could not be present for the 58th annual convocation of the university to receive the honour due to his work-related commitments. "Let me also accept the degree awarded to me by the Bangalore University as a gesture of their love and affection to each and every scientist and engineer and also the technicians, the workers of the Indian Space Research Organisation who have done such stellar work of making India proud through the missions like Chandrayaan as well as Aditya-L1 in the recent times," he said in his video message which was played at the convocation ceremony. Somanath said the space agency is always focused towards bringing the benefits of space technology to the common man. "I would like to also mention today that the work in the Department of Spac

Gender bias seen in AI-generated content on leadership, new research says

New research has revealed an inherent gender bias in the content - text, images, other media - generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Analysing AI-generated content about what made a 'good' and 'bad' leader, men were consistently depicted as strong, courageous, and competent, while women were often portrayed as emotional and ineffective, researchers at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and Massey University, New Zealand, found. Thus, AI-generated content can preserve and perpetuate harmful gender biases, they said in their study published in the journal Organizational Dynamics. "Any mention of women leaders was completely omitted in the initial data generated about leadership, with the AI tool providing zero examples of women leaders until it was specifically asked to generate content about women in leadership. "Concerningly, when it did provide examples of women leaders, they were proportionally far more likely than male leaders to be offered as examples of bad leaders, .

Govt approves 18 R&D projects of technical textiles worth Rs 46.74 crore

Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday chaired the 7th meeting of the Mission Steering Group of National Technical Textiles Mission, and 18 R&D projects worth Rs 46.74 crore were approved, according to an official statement. The cleared projects include those under key strategic areas of Geotech, Protech, Indutech, Sustainable Textiles, Sportech, Smart E-Textiles and Meditech segments. The textiles minister said the industry's proactive and robust engagement is essential for the indigenous development of technical textiles in India. Goyal also reviewed the progress of different components of the National Technical Textiles Mission, including review of sanctioned R&D products, R&D projects in Mission mode, formation of a committee for Startups in technical textiles under GREAT Guidelines and certain outreach activities and events. Emphasis should be on R&D for globally highly imported technical textiles items, apart from import-dependent technical textiles items and ...

Govt rolls out Rs 5,000 cr scheme for innovation in pharma, medtech

The PRIP scheme has two main components - the first one would focus on infrastructure building

CCMB moves 83 terabytes of genomics data to AWS cloud to boost research

CCMB has already reduced the time taken for research analysis from 550 days to just nine days, or by up to 98 per cent on average, with cloud computing services, AWS said