Monthly Archives: February 2017

Virtual reality at UNM opens new doors of collaboration and research – UNM Newsroom

Posted: February 25, 2017 at 3:21 pm

UNM students, staff and faculty can now explore the world without even leaving campus. Centennial Science and Engineering Library launched two new tech spaces and one of them contains an entirely immersive virtual reality experience.

Its a presentation, communication and collaboration space here at Centennial Library, where weve focused on bringing a wide variety of new technologies into a space where our students and faculty can experiment with new ways of communicating their work, Said Karl Benedict, director of research data services.

Part of that work will include writing, coding and experimenting with new forms of virtual reality. The workshop space is equipped with sensors, speakers and microphones; and the participant wears goggles that completely cover their field of vision.

The virtual reality capability that we have here does provide us the opportunity to take our users anywhere in the world, while standing right in the basement of the Centennial Science and Engineering Library, Benedict said.

Karl Benedict checks the virtual reality system using a demo "lab" app

Right now, the system is run on a variety of demonstration applications among other things, you can walk through downtown London using Google Earth, protect your space ship from attacking robots in an immersive video game or play virtual fetch with a futuristic robot dog. But those demonstration apps will be phased out as faculty, staff and students suggest new ones and create their own bigger and better programs to bring into the lab.

This is a cutting-edge facility that is very important for Centennial, but is also really important for the whole university, said Richard Clement, dean of the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences. Were now providing students, staff and faculty a space that enables them to come together in a collaborative way, with resources rarely available for public use.

The hope is that technology like the virtual reality lab will attract future lobos interested in software and video game development. Already some faculty

The goggles worn during the simulation completely cut out light from the room.

members at UNM are integrating video game development to teach principles of communication, analysis and engagement in the classroom. The library is also considering facilitating development contests in the future, which would involve students bringing their innovation into the lab and going head-to-head in a competition.

We have another expectation too, Benedict added. That as users come into this space, we will learn more about what their particular needs are so we can continue to evolve what we have available as tools and platforms for being able to do the research and collaboration were trying to enable here.

In addition to the immersive virtual reality simulator, Centennial opened a second tech space that gives visitors access to Mac and PC operating systems equipped with a much wider range of functions than the standard university computer. These Analysis Workstations have specialized analytic and software development applications as well as the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite.

The virtual reality system and other tech gadgets were funded through a combination of sources including the librarys foundation endowment and general obligation bond funds. But Benedict says this is just the starting point of a bigger vision, including being able to provide a space for more extensive content collaboration and research; which will hopefully pique the interest of donors and financial sponsors in the future.

The analysis workstations can be reserved at the Centennial Science and Engineering Library, and the virtual reality and workshop room can be reserved online just like other study spaces within University Libraries. Simply visit library.unm.edu and click on Reserve a Room.

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Super Smash Borg Melee: AI takes on top players of the classic … – TechCrunch

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Super Smash Borg Melee: AI takes on top players of the classic ...
TechCrunch
You can add the cult classic Super Smash Bros Melee to the list of games soon to be dominated by AIs. Research at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial..
Machine Learning AI Demolishes World's Top Super Smash Bros ...Hot Hardware
AI beats professional players at Super Smash Bros. video game ...New Scientist
AI beats humanity at Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers - The InquirerThe INQUIRER

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Common misconceptions brand executives have about AI – VentureBeat

Posted: at 3:21 pm

Artificial intelligence is no longer the sole domain of tech companies like Google, Facebook, IBM, and Amazon. Recognizing the potential of exponential technologies like AI and bots, creative agencies like Ogilvy and consulting firms like McKinsey and Accenture now proudly feature AI departments.

The message to brands executives is clear: understand and leverage trends in automation and artificial intelligence, or perish.

According to McKinseys Michael Chiu, As many as 45 percent of the activities individuals are paid to perform can be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies. In the United States, these activities represent about $2 trillion in annual wages. Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Baidu and Stanford professor of machine learning, puts it this way: If a typical person can do a mental task with less than one second of thought, we can probably automate it using AI either now or in the near future.

Breakthroughs in deep learning have driven major advances in machine perception. Computers can now reliably detect and classify objects in images and video, transcribe and translate speech as well as humans, and even generate art, music, and movie soundtracks.

Above: An example of dense image captioning enabled by recent breakthroughs in computer vision. Image Credit: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science / Justin Johnson, Andrej Karpathy, Li Fei-Fei

AI companies like Clarifai, Ditto, and GumGum are leveraging these new technologies to help brands understand content, identify brand mentions, and calculate earned media spend from sponsorships. Other companies like Affinio, Motiva, and Reflektion improve marketing intelligence, automatically optimize campaigns, and streamline customers retail experiences.

Last year, Salesforce acquired an AI startup called MetaMind to integrate into Salesforce Einstein, to automate many sales, CRM, and ERP processes for your business.

The type of A.I. that appeals to investors is not necessarily the same that enterprises will buy. Investors look for 100x returns on capital, so they heavily scrutinize a founding teams technical pedigree, industry expertise, margin defensibility, and broad market potential.

On the other hand, executives dont need (or want) a lesson in computer science, they want to know how this technology can be used as a tool to help them achieve their business goals, points out Ophir Tanz, CEO of GumGum. GumGum is an applied vision company thathas partnered with Fortune 100 brands to curate visual content and optimize brand marketing since 2008.

Tanz highlights just a few of the many applications of computer vision for brands: Retailers can leverage visual search and increase revenue through shoppable imagery; sports teams and rights holders can deliver more accurate valuations of broadcast and social exposure; social media can be scoured and activated like never before.

Normally when brands sponsor major sporting or social events, they cant easily calculate the earned media lift or the ROI on their investment. GumGums vision technologies can identify when brand logos have appeared in social media images or sports videos, making such calculations possible.

While the technical expertise required to successfully strategize for and implement AI technologies for major brands may seem daunting and out of reach, partners like GumGum combine industry expertise, full-service agency services, and AI expertise to help brands ramp up.

Zachary Jean Paradis, vice president of customer experience at SapientNitro, has helped brands in industries ranging from financial services to CPG get started with their AI strategy. He emphasizes to his clients that AI is not a single thing, but rather a series of methods and technologies that allow you to mimic human intelligence. The key question to answer is what intelligence am I trying to mimic?

His recommendation to brands is to start with offerings from foundational mainstays like Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce and then layer in specific vendors, such as Cycorp and Luminoso, for natural language understanding or Clarifai and Sentient for computer vision. In many cases, brands can minimize the amount of bespoke code they need to write.

As transformative as AI is for many industries, the technology is not magic. One mistake non-technical brand executives make is to assume that artificial intelligence is some kind of silver bullet, according to Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential. Some executives think AI is a sentient being, like in Terminator. They ask if it can think and tell them what to do. We have to explain that AI is simply a better way to turn data into actionable insights.

Such misconceptions are not necessarily the fault of the executives. Many startups capitalize on the knowledge gap in AI to hype up marketing fluff such as executive brains that can predict the future and automatically increase revenue. No wonder executives are confused aboutwhat AI can and cannot do.

Detert and his team help brands improve the performance of sponsored social media posts by matching campaign and brand content to the right influencers based on personality, context, and timing. Normally, sponsored posts by influencers suffer from a 20 to 30 percent drop in engagement rates. By leveraging AI powered by IBM Watson, Influential is able to instead drive gains of 20 to 30 percent across ad recall, positive sentiment, social engagement, clickthrough rates, and ROI. The key industries thatbenefit from this targeted influencer marketing are consumer product goods (CPG) and entertainment businesses.

Its not that hard fordevelopers to leverage Watsons cognitive services, but non-technical teams without the requisite software development, data science, or machine learning capabilities are often mystified by the process. Due to lag of time and the ever-moving landscape, most corporate companies move slowly, Detert notes.

In the cost-benefit analysis of whether to build or buy, enterprises typically move faster with an experienced vendor or consultant. After all, if McKinsey has to write guides to teach executives the basics of software development, perhaps fast-moving technology projects are best managed by experts.

Building competitive AI from the ground up requires expensive specialized talent and volumes of proprietary structured data. Luckily for most brands, this is not yet necessary.

Many brands, like Disney, Uniqlo, and the New York Times, have successfully experimented with chatbots on Facebook, Slack, or Kik, while others have dipped their toe into voice-based technologies by releasing Alexa Skills for the Amazon Echo.

Paradis of SapientNitro points out that plenty of chatbot enablers exist, includingIBM Watson, Nuance, Microsoft Bot Framework, Googles API.ai, and Facebooks Wit.ai.

While the tech industry does not perceive brand usage of mainstay vendors as real AI, such experiments nevertheless solve important business problems and are essential for executives to stay educated and competitive in digital.

In the liquor and spirits industry, companies are legally required to put up an age gate to protect minors from digital content. No matter how much you optimize the birth date input form, manual input by users leads to massive drop-off rates, particularly on mobile.

Above: Allowing consumers to input birth dates via voice improves conversion rates for CPG companies like Anheuser-Busch.

Thats why Anheuser-Busch, the worlds largest beer producer and the company behind Budweiser, implemented a voice input option alongside the regular form. In testing, these new designs improved the consumer experience and conversion rates. In development, the technology needed to proactively handle misspoken or misunderstood words while also equating December 23rd 1994 to 23rd of December 1994 and many other permutations.

According to Lucas Herscovici, vice president of consumer connections of Anheuser-Busch, the company was able to go from idea to implementation in less than 3 months. The bulk of the time was spent validating with legal and compliance and negotiating with vendors, while the actual technical integration took less than 3 weeks.

By corporate standards, thats a fast turnaround time.

When we first introduced websites, they were a train-wreck. They didnt work well technically or design-wise, Paradis reminds us. Similarly, AI is in a young adult, awkward teenage phase. Some technologies will do very well out of the box, some will be a challenge.

From C-suite executives to front-line managers, business leaders will need to identify where AI can and cannot make an organizational impact and continuously prototype, prototype, prototype in order to raise their AI IQ, in Paradis words.

McKinsey estimates that the benefits of implementing the right automation and AI technologies can be 3 to 10 times the cost. Thus, the ability to staff, manage, and lead increasingly automated organizations will become an important competitive differentiator.

As with any technology wave, there are leaders and laggards in AI. Paradis of SapientNitro observes that the single industry thats leading end-to-end is financial services. Companies hes worked with in the space are leveraging AI and bot technologies for customer engagement, process automation, fraud and risk mitigation, business analysis, and improved executive decision making.

Not all industries have seen the same benefit. In telecom, weve seen the introduction of chatbots, but they didnt perform to the level that was expected, Paradis says. Similarly, he sees challenges for consumer packaged goods (CPG) and quick-service restaurants (QSR).

CPG brands are challenged not just by AI, but by competing in an era driven by customer experience when they dont own many of the customer touch points. Many of them own the marketing experience, but not the retail experience, which means they are missing critical purchasing behavior about their products. At the same time, many retailers are introducing private label products that are directly competitive.

CPG products are also generally too simple to turn into connected products. Adding sensors or Bluetooth connectivity would make their products prohibitively expensive without adding much utility for consumers. While companies like Google and Facebook generate petabytes of data from their consumers every move, CPG companies are in the dark with consumer usage data.

AI can still be used by CPG companies to improve marketing insights and strengthen product innovation pipelines, but the data gaps across the industry make application of data and AI very limited, says Paradis.

The same applies to QSRs, which have historically been slow to collect the requisite data to power AI initiatives. Many QSRs such as McDonalds are cash-driven businesses, making consumer purchasing trends harder to track.

Self-service kiosks can close inefficiencies and reduce costs, but AI will not cost-cut you into leadership, warns Paradis. Instead, companies need to radically rethink how AI can free up humans to deliver on the highest value activities.

The majority of sales of McDonalds in Europe go through a kiosk. Theres only a single pay register, Paradis says. But there are hosts and hostesses to welcome you at the door, walk you to the kiosks, explain your menu options, and bus your table. Instead of eliminating humans, McDonalds can deliver a more amazing experience.

This article appeared originally at Topbots.

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Artificial Intelligence Startup Outlier.Ai Raises Cash | Fortune.com – Fortune

Posted: at 3:21 pm

Illustration by Michael George Haddad for Fortune

Outlier.ai , an artificial intelligence startup created by Flurry co-founder Sean Byrnes, has raised $2.2 million from Susa Ventures, Homebrew and First Round Capital.

Alongside co-founder Mike Kim, Byrnes started the company because, in the ten years he worked on Flurry (before selling it to Yahoo for a reported $240 million in 2014), he heard a common complaint about big data from customers: What does it all mean?

Today every part of your business is a fountain of data and it has gotten so bad that the companies dont know what to look for, Byrnes says. This idea might sound familiar to Fortune readers. Last week, the founders of Fika Ventures gave me a nearly identical quote . Thats no accident. Eva Ho of Fika is an investor in Outlier via her prior firm, Susa Ventures.

Outliers software, which integrates across all of a companys various tools (ZenDesk, Adwords, Adobe Analytics, etc), spits out stories about the data that allows workers not just statistics experts to use it to make decisions. The companys tools compete with offerings from IBM , Google Analytics and Mixpanel, but has an advantage because those tools do not work across many different systems. In five years, we will look back at companies that had five dozen dashboards, and it will look as outdated as using a paper map, Byrnes says.

Based in Oakland, Outlier has been offering its product to six customers in private beta since last year. It opens up to the general public today.

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Artificial intelligence: here’s what you need to know to understand how machines learn – EconoTimes

Posted: at 3:21 pm

Artificial intelligence: here's what you need to know to understand how machines learn

From Jeopardy winners and Go masters to infamous advertising-related racial profiling, it would seem we have entered an era in which artificial intelligence developments are rapidly accelerating. But a fully sentient being whose electronic brain can fully engage in complex cognitive tasks using fair moral judgement remains, for now, beyond our capabilities.

Unfortunately, current developments are generating a general fear of what artificial intelligence could become in the future. Its representation in recent pop culture shows how cautious and pessimistic we are about the technology. The problem with fear is that it can be crippling and, at times, promote ignorance.

Learning the inner workings of artificial intelligence is an antidote to these worries. And this knowledge can facilitate both responsible and carefree engagement.

The core foundation of artificial intelligence is rooted in machine learning, which is an elegant and widely accessible tool. But to understand what machine learning means, we first need to examine how the pros of its potential absolutely outweigh its cons.

Data are the key

Simply put, machine learning refers to teaching computers how to analyse data for solving particular tasks through algorithms. For handwriting recognition, for example, classification algorithms are used to differentiate letters based on someones handwriting. Housing data sets, on the other hand, use regression algorithms to estimate in a quantifiable way the selling price of a given property.

What would a machine say to this? Jonathan Khoo/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Machine learning, then, comes down to data. Almost every enterprise generates data in one way or another: think market research, social media, school surveys, automated systems. Machine learning applications try to find hidden patterns and correlations in the chaos of large data sets to develop models that can predict behaviour.

Data have two key elements samples and features. The former represents individual elements in a group; the latter amounts to characteristics shared by them.

Look at social media as an example: users are samples and their usage can be translated as features. Facebook, for instance, employs different aspects of liking activity, which change from user to user, as important features for user-targeted advertising.

Facebook friends can also be used as samples, while their connections to other people act as features, establishing a network where information propagation can be studied.

My Facebook friends network: each node is a friend who might or might not be connected to other friends. The larger the node, the more connections one has. Similar colours indicate similar social circles. https://lostcircles.com/

Outside of social media, automated systems used in industrial processes as monitoring tools use time snapshots of the entire process as samples, and sensor measurements at a particular time as features. This allows the system to detect anomalies in the process in real time.

All these different solutions rely on feeding data to machines and teaching them to reach their own predictions once they have strategically assessed the given information. And this is machine learning.

Human intelligence as a starting point

Any data can be translated into these simple concepts and any machine-learning application, including artificial intelligence, uses these concepts as its building blocks.

Once data are understood, its time to decide what do to with this information. One of the most common and intuitive applications of machine learning is classification. The system learns how to put data into different groups based on a reference data set.

This is directly associated with the kinds of decisions we make every day, whether its grouping similar products (kitchen goods against beauty products, for instance), or choosing good films to watch based on previous experiences. While these two examples might seem completely disconnected, they rely on an essential assumption of classification: predictions defined as well-established categories.

When picking up a bottle of moisturiser, for example, we use a particular list of features (the shape of the container, for instance, or the smell of the product) to predict accurately that its a beauty product. A similar strategy is used for picking films by assessing a list of features (the director, for instance, or the actor) to predict whether a film is in one of two categories: good or bad.

By grasping the different relationships between features associated with a group of samples, we can predict whether a film may be worth watching or, better yet, we can create a program to do this for us.

But to be able to manipulate this information, we need to be a data science expert, a master of maths and statistics, with enough programming skills to make Alan Turing and Margaret Hamilton proud, right? Not quite.

You dont have to be Alan Turing to have a go at machine learning. CyberHades/Flickr, CC BY-NC

We all know enough of our native language to get by in our daily lives, even if only a few of us can venture into linguistics and literature. Maths is similar; its around us all the time, so calculating change from buying something or measuring ingredients to follow a recipe is not a burden. In the same way, machine-learning mastery is not a requirement for its conscious and effective use.

Yes, there are extremely well-qualified and expert data scientists out there but, with little effort, anyone can learn its basics and improve the way they see and take advantage of information.

Algorithm your way through it

Going back to our classification algorithm, lets think of one that mimics the way we make decisions. We are social beings, so how about social interactions? First impressions are important and we all have an internal model that evaluates in the first few minutes of meeting someone whether we like them or not.

Two outcomes are possible: a good or a bad impression. For every person, different characteristics (features) are taken into account (even if unconsciously) based on several encounters in the past (samples). These could be anything from tone of voice to extroversion and overall attitude to politeness.

For every new person we encounter, a model in our heads registers these inputs and establishes a prediction. We can break this modelling down to a set of inputs, weighted by their relevance to the final outcome.

For some people, attractiveness might be very important, whereas for others a good sense of humour or being a dog person says way more. Each person will develop her own model, which depends entirely on her experiences, or her data.

Different data result in different models being trained, with different outcomes. Our brain develops mechanisms that, while not entirely clear to us, establish how these factors will weight out.

What machine learning does is develop rigorous, mathematical ways for machines to calculate those outcomes, particularly in cases where we cannot easily handle the volume of data. Now more than ever, data are vast and everlasting. Having access to a tool that actively uses this data for practical problem solving, such as artificial intelligence, means everyone should and can explore and exploit this. We should do this not only so we can create useful applications, but also to put machine learning and artificial intelligence in a brighter and not so worrisome perspective.

There are several resources out there for machine learning although they do require some programming ability. Many popular languages tailored for machine learning are available, from basic tutorials to full courses. It takes nothing more than an afternoon to be able to start venturing into it with palpable results.

All this is not to say that the concept of machines with human-like minds should not concern us. But knowing more about how these minds might work will gives us the power to be agents of positive change in a way that can allow us to maintain control over artificial intelligence and not the other way around.

Matt Escobar receives funding from the Core Research for Evolutionary Science and Technology (CREST) project 'Development of a knowledge-generating platform driven by big data in drug discovery through production processes' of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)

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Fighting McGregor Just Another Easy Step to Immortality for Mayweather – The Sweet Science

Posted: at 3:19 pm

Fighting McGregor Has any fighters road to boxing immortality been easier or come with more surefire wins than Floyd Mayweathers? Floyd just turned 40 years old. He is officially retired but there can be no doubt that he will be seen in a boxing ring sometime this year, against a man who is an elite combat sport participant but has never once fought as a professional boxer. The money is too good for Conor McGregor and Mayweather to pass it up and the challenge for Maywesather is too easy for Mayweather to decline.

Depending on your age and when you started following boxing, your opinion varies on what you think of Floyd as a fighter. If you were born after say 1982, you most likely started following boxing around 1997, a year after Mayweather made his pro debut. And by the time you were in your mid-twenties, Mayweather was one of the most elite fighters in boxing. Since beating a shopworn and rusty Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have been the two biggest box office draws in boxing, with Mayweather eventually eclipsing Pacquiao. Today Mayweather is undefeated (49-0, 25 KOs) and arguing his place among the all-time pound for pound greats with fans that never saw the greats circa 1967-2007, is like arguing politics. In other words its a waste of time because the opinions are so far apart.

Instead of going there Ill just say if Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns fought every opponent Mayweather did on the night that he fought them all three would be 49-0 with more than 25 knockouts. Just as if Sonny Liston fought every opponent Rocky Marciano did on the night Rocky fought them Sonny would also be 49-0 with one or two more than the 43 knockouts Marciano recorded.

Most fans who have been around and have seen the greats circa 1967-2007 see Mayweather as a fighter whose undefeated record is due more to brilliant management and matchmaking than to his ability as a fighter. More succinctly put, Mayweather picked his spots. I can name past greats between 1967-2007 who were faster and smarter and more skilled than Mayweather, and if you were around then and saw them you already know their names. However, if youre 35 years old or younger, theres nothing anyone can say thatll convince you there was one, let alone a dozen, fighters greater than Floyd who were active between 1967 and 2007.

Early in Mayweathers career, going back to when he was a prospect, he challenged himself more as a fighter. However, the more he learned about marketing and the more established he became, the less he challenged himself and the more confident he became about promoting himself as an all-timer. Floyd grasped somewhere around 2005 or 2006 that, as long as he could remain undefeated and played the bad guy character, the more the interest there would be in seeing him fight and hopefully lose.Since barely beating De La Hoya in 2007, Mayweather has fought 11 times, but only three opponents Shane Mosely, Miguel Cotto, and Casnelo Alvarez went into the ring with slightly more than a snowballs chance.

Mosley was coming off a significant layoff and the fight in 2010 was five or six years past when beating Shane was a herculean feat. Eight years earlier, Vernon Forrest beat a prime Mosley much more convincingly than Floyd did and at the same weight, yet Forrest never got the accolades for beating him the way Mayweather did. When Floyd fought Cotto, Miguel had only lost twice, but was thrashed by Antonio Margarito, who may have been aided by loaded gloves and by Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao stopped Cotto and beat him beyond recognition and there were crickets after the fight. Three years later Cotto gives Mayweather one of the tougher bouts of his career en route to losing a decision and the Mayweather fans were screamingSee, he beat Cotto! And in another genius move, Mayweather fought undefeated Canelo Alvarez when Canelo was still on the way up, before he really blossomed. Not to mention that the style contrast suited Floyd perfectly. In between those bouts he picked his opponents carefully, yes, including Marcos Maidana, who made his name beating Mayweather wannabe Adrien Broner.

Finally, after a six year build-up and conning many fans into believing that he feared a fighter who weighed 106 pounds in his pro-debut, Mayweather agreed to fight Manny Pacquiao in the biggest grossing fight ever. Yes, Pacquiao was an eight division champ, but he picked his opponents and mastered catchweight bouts almost as great as the father of them, Floyd Mayweather.Floyd understood that Manny was like shooting fish in barrel for him stylistically. If you doubt that, read my pre-fight piece the day of the bout May 2nd, 2015.

Many of Floyds bouts were against fighters that had 0% chance to be competitive with him and McGregor is the icing on the cake. Yes, in a boxing ring, McGregor has as much chance of beating Mayweather as Floyd would have to beat Conor in a cage, and it may even be less because Mayweather, being such an accurate striker, could get lucky and stop McGregor wearing 4-ounce gloves. But thats not the point. The point is that Mayweather is playing both boxing fans and MMA fans in this one.

Floyd knows boxing fans want to see him tune up McGregor so they can rub it in the faces of MMa fans saying boxers are tougher and better fighters than MMA combatants. And MMA fans want the same bragging rightsproclaiming that an MMA combatant crossed sports and beat one of boxings best at his own game. How can fans and observers be so foolish? Floyd is using McGregor because as of this moment hes the biggest star in MMA. Its easy money for Floyd and it may turn out to be the biggest or second biggest purse of his career. As for McGregor, hes trying to become the Mayweather, as far as earning potential, in mixed martial artsand at the same time stick it to UFC honcho Dana White. McGregor knows that after the exhibition with Mayweather hell never need to enter an octagon or a ring again if he doesnt want to.

The only other real all-time great who wrapped up his career by defeating an 0-0 guy from another sport was Archie Moore who knocked out wrestler Mike DiBiase. But Archie was 50 at the time (born 1913, not 1916), had 219 previous fights, and wasnt getting paid millions of dollars.

In the final analysis, Mayweather will eclipse Rocky Marcianos record by fighting a man who is 0-0 in the ring while at the same time making a ton of money. When its over Floyd will claim hes the king of combat sports and is the biggest star in both boxing and MMA.again strolling down one of the easier ways to immortality! No fighter or athlete mastered the game of playing the fans greater than Floyd Money Mayweather, nobody.

Fighting McGregor / Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com

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Going Underground: Cheltenham author’s book about cryonics to be used in groundbreaking scheme – Gloucestershire Live

Posted: at 3:19 pm

Eagle-eyed city commuters will have the chance to read a Cheltenham author's book about preserving human life on Monday.

Copies of The Husband Who Refused to Die are being hidden in and around London tube stations as part of the groundbreaking Books On the Underground initiative.

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The debut novel, with its original, and topical, cryonics premise, has had a great response from readers since its launch in December, with one reviewer describing it as 'truly a one-of-a-kind read'.

Andrea Darby, a former journalist who lives near Cheltenham, said: "I'm thrilled to be part of this fantastic initiative and hope that the commuters who find my book will enjoy reading it and pass it on."

Cordelia Oxley, Director of Books on the Underground, said the aim was to get more people reading and sharing books. "Titles are left on seats, benches, station signs and around ticket areas, with finders often keen to share their free discoveries on social media.

"The Book Fairies are excited to be working with Andrea and are looking forward to hiding copies of her amazing book on the London Underground. It's sure to get a big reaction!"

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The Husband Who Refused to Die, which Andrea describes as 'a story of love, loss, family and friendship' is about 40-year-old mum Carrie, whose husband Dan dies unexpectedly, just a few years after he revealed his wish to be frozen.

The narrative focuses on the difficult repercussions of this wish for Carrie and her teenage daughter, not least an intrusive media, an interfering sister-in-law and a mystery person with a serious grudge.

The book is available from Waterstones in Cheltenham and Gloucester, the Suffolk Anthology bookshop, as well as from Amazon, WHSmith and other online retailers.

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Alternative medicine to treat pain and other ailments on the rise locally – Rockford Register Star

Posted: at 3:19 pm

Melissa Westphal

Maria Furgat wants people to know there are options when it comes to treating everything from pain to the common cold.

Furgat joined the team at Circles of Wellness, 3626 E. State St., Rockford,a few months back. She specializes in acupuncture, cupping and herbal remedies after earning her bachelors degree in nutritional counseling and masters degree in Chinese medicine from the Midwest College of Oriental Medicine in Chicago.

Patients come to Furgat to be proactive about their health, or out of frustration that other treatments and medications arent working or are causing unwanted side effects. Shes one of a handful of providers in the region offering alternative health treatments and alternative medicine.

I always say try it, Furgat said. Im not saying its the best thing for everyone, but they need to know there are options out there. You dont have to stick to the same routines.

Use of complementary and alternative medicine has no doubt increased since the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health released research on the topic nearly a decade ago. At the time, about four in 10 adults and one in nine children used them in some form.

Their use was greater among women and those with higher levels of education and higher incomes. The most common therapies were deep breathing exercises, meditation, massage therapy and yoga. Insurance covers some treatments such as acupuncture, but for the most part, alternative health treatments are self-pay.

Read on to learn more about other popular health trends that you can access from Freeport to Rockford and beyond.

Cupping

Furgat does a full history assessment when she sees a new patient. She wants to know if youre seeing other doctors, taking medications, she likes to look at lab work, shell ask you about your urine and bowel movements, and shell look at your tongue (appearance and qualities of which are used to diagnose ailments in Chinese medicine).

She doesnt necessarily promise cures, but she hopes to offer relief through a combination of treatment and often, herbal remedies. And she doesnt want you to stop seeing your primary doctor or taking prescribed medications.

Most people feel much better with herbs because some have such imbalance in their bodies, Furgat said. If you dont try to harmonize your body from the inside out, you never get to the root of the problem.

Fire cupping uses glass jars that are sanitized before and after use. Furgat wraps a cotton ball around a hemostat (a surgical tool with scissor-like handles and a clamp at the end), dips it in alcohol, lights it and moves it gently in a circular motion inside the jar to remove the inside air. The jar is then put onto the skin, creating a vacuum and pulling up the skin. Doing so lifts pain to the surface so Furgat can more easily manipulate the tissue and remove stubborn nodules.

Some people feel immediate relief of pain, others dont. There are different sizes of jars small, medium and large based on what type of pain shes trying to relieve. Fire cupping generally leaves circular bruises on the body think Michael Phelps during the 2016 Rio Olympics. Its tradition to put up with the marks, so to speak, but Furgat can use a technique called gua sha to scrape away, or reduce, some of the redness.

Furgat also does wet cupping, which incorporates the fire cupping with a tiny hammer equipped with acupuncture needles. The hammer is used lightly on the back to release blood within the cup. It can be painful, but Furgat has a patient with severe back and shoulder pain who said the treatment helped target the points where he feels the most pain.

Cupping ranges in price from $50 to $65 for about 30 to 45 minutes.

Acupuncture

There have been extensive studies conducted on acupuncture, especially for back and neck pain, osteoarthritis/knee pain, and headaches, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

With acupuncture, thin needles are inserted (or piped) at different points along the body just below the surface of the skin. Furgat wears gloves when she places and removes them, and the needles are used one time only.

The needles stay in between 15 to 30 minutes; patients report feeling a sensation of water dripping or moving around beneath the skin. Furgat said thats the body healing itself.

A potential ailment that could be soothed by acupuncture is recurrent urinary tract infections, she noted. In combination with antibiotics, there are points in the lower abdomen where acupuncture can open up channels to help alleviate pain and eliminate waste, Furgat explained.

If needles make you squeamish, Furgat also does acupressure, which uses finger pressure and/or magnets on the same acupuncture points. After treatments, she suggests drinking lukewarm water to help maintain a warmer body temperature.

What I want to do is help your body heal, balance you out so youre able to tolerate your medications better, Furgat said.

Acupuncture and acupressure are both $45 for about 20 minutes.

Essential oils and probiotics

Pat Leitzen Fye has long used patchouli essential oil as a fragrance and discovered other oils along the way for various purposes. She owns Your Core Being Wellness Collaborative, 107 W. Main St., Freeport, which opened in 2013 and focuses on yoga, massage, skin care and meditation. Shes a certified integrative health coach, and the business also has a wellness market that proudly stocks local and regional products, fair-trade items and gifts, and other natural, clean and healthy products.

Your Core Being sells several oils lavender is the top seller, while peppermint, patchouli, eucalyptus, jasmine and tea tree also are popular blends. Fye uses various oils in her yoga classes, either to energize and enliven at the beginning or to settle, calm and release at the end. She diffuses the oils into the air at the studio right now, using a blend of lavender and eucalyptus because the air gets so dry during the winter. Fye said eucalyptus is great for clearing the sinuses; lavender is a time-honored essential oil for its calming qualities, as is chamomile and sweet orange. Both of the Your Core Beings massage therapists use essential oils added to their massage oils and the esthetician uses them in some of her skin treatments or as a relaxing scent.

Essential oils have become so common that you can buy them at many grocery stores. A handful of local businesses carry them, including Choices Natural Market, 6718 Broadcast Parkway, Loves Park, and Nutrition Works, 4010 E. State St., Rockford.

Candle Crest, 1418 20th St., Rockford,started selling its oils this winter, co-owner Judy Bieck said. The local business had received several requests over the years to do so, but she and her husband, Dave, had to find a bottle distributor for the oils, create labels, make a display, and then find time to bottle and advertise them. So far, she said the response has been great, and during cold season, eucalyptus oil was the big seller.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a page on its website with consumer information about fragrance products such as essential oils and those marketed with aromatherapy claims. It notes that many plants are toxic, irritating or likely to cause allergic reactions when applied the skin. Cumin oil, for instance, is safe in food but can cause the skin to blister.

Some popular books to read on the topic are The Art of Aromatherapy by Robert Tisserand and Aromatherapy: A Complete Guide to the Healing Art by Kathy Keville. Groups such as the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy also offer some good guidelines for use.

Similarly available in many health food and vitamin stores are probiotics, which are live microorganisms that are intended to have health benefits, according to the Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Products can include foods such as yogurt, dietary supplements and skin creams. Probiotics may help prevent diarrhea caused by infections or antibiotics and may help with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

The 2012 National Health Interview Survey showed that about 4 million U.S. adults had used probiotics or prebiotics in the past 30 days. They were the third most commonly used dietary supplement other than vitamins and minerals.

Popular brands include NOW Foods, Culturelle, Align, Natures Bounty and Hyperbiotics.

Reiki

Your Core Being in Freeport also offers Reiki, a Japanese hands-on light massage technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also is said to promote healing. Its based on the idea that the therapist can channel energy into the patient by means of touch and stimulate the bodys natural healing process.

Vicki Johnson described it as a lighter massage that incorporates the flow of energy, but that Reiki is literally a laying-on of hands with no muscle manipulation. She said Reiki also can help individuals deal with emotional issues that block the flow of energy, helping restore balance in a persons mind, body and spirit.

Sharyn Gooder, founder of Stateline Reiki, was trained by William Lee Rand, who established the International Center for Reiki Training and is known as a Reiki guru. Gooder is a member of the international center, which means she abides by its code of ethics and standards of practice.

Stateline Reiki was established in 2003, and Gooder first started doing Reiki therapy sessions and then began teaching Reiki later. The organization offers basic, intermediate and more advanced levels of Reiki, as well as Master Level Reiki and Karuna Reiki. The group also offers Reiki drumming, animal Reiki and many other unique classes, which Gooder said are approved for continuing education hours for licensed massage therapists and body workers.

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Alternative medicine to treat pain and other ailments on the rise locally - Rockford Register Star

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Ora Organic on ‘Shark Tank’: A Look Inside the Plant-Based Supplements – Heavy.com

Posted: at 3:18 pm

Ora Organic entered the Shark Tank in Season 8 with their fruit-flavored organic, plant-based supplements.

We interviewed CEO Will Smelko, a former strategy and operations consultant for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, who launched the company with his college friend Ronald Chang, who serves as their chef and COO. The duo spent two years on research and development, consulting with doctors, scientific researchers, nutritionists, health coaches, naturopaths and fitness experts to create the optimal supplement.

When asked about their bestselling products, Smelko responded, Our bestsellers are our Omega-3 Nothing Fishy Here Spray, derived from microalgae and flavored with a special pineapple and citrus blend, and our Way Better Than Whey protein powders, flavored with Chai spices and vanilla.

Heres what else he told us about

We were taking supplements for personal health and wellness reasons, but struggled to find products that met the same standards we hold for our food: organic, non-GMO, plant-based and sustainably sourced. We felt impassioned to create an honest supplement line for our people and planet. We also wanted our customers to feel excited about taking supplements, which inspired us to create culinary-flavored formula blends through aesthetically-pleasing packaging and interesting delivery methods. As a team of individuals who adheres to conscious food and lifestyle choices, we wanted to ensure our supplements demonstrated these values. Ora Organics supplements are kind to our bodies, our environment, and our taste palettes!

Ora Organics supplements differentiate from those in the mainstream, as weve developed 100 percent plant-based nutritional formulas. Our vegan-friendly supplement line sources its ingredients from organic farms to ensure the cleanest and most sustainable products possible. Ora Organics omega-3 supplement, for example, is derived from microalgae instead of fish (the primary source of the majority of omega-3 supplements on the market) and formulated into a spray. Likewise, all of Ora Organics products are carefully crafted to be as delicious as they are healthy. Our chef, Ronald Chang, uses vibrant flavors like pineapple, raspberry, and chai, in many of our recipe blends.

As a team, we were ready for the next step in growing the Ora Organic brand. We have felt that one of the biggest issues in the supplement space has been the lack of transparency between companies and consumers, especially when it comes to the ingredients used in their supplement formulas.After seeing so many people being mislead in grocery stores and daily conversation, we realized the urgent need to raise awareness about the current state of the supplement industry-after all, these products are often consumed daily. We have received immense support in our companys endeavors, and have reached a point at which we feel confident to expand our distribution and reach. Having known other company founders who were featured on Shark Tank and seeing the value-add that the Sharks provide, we wanted to go on the show to experience these benefits firsthand. We needed money to scale our business, and thought the Sharks would be amazing candidates to help us accomplish our goals and gain exposure.

Peaceful Fruits, organic snacks made from acai from the Amazon rainforest, entered the Shark Tank in Season 8. We interviewed its founder.

Dollop Gourmet entered the Shark Tank with its frosting that's vegan and gluten free. Heavy interviewed its owner about her dessert business.

Although Parker's Real Maple did not get a deal on Shark Tank, they did gain many customers. We interviewed owner Joshua Parker about their staggering growth.

Bee Fee Honee, a vegan alternative to honey, won a deal with Barbara, Chris and Mark on Shark Tank. Heavy asked their owners about the company's growth.

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Ora Organic on 'Shark Tank': A Look Inside the Plant-Based Supplements - Heavy.com

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Masquelier’s Grape Seed Extract as a Supplement for Vascular Health – Medical News Bulletin

Posted: at 3:18 pm

The characterization and careful research of a nutraceutical is necessary to claim it has positive health benefits. A review published in Nutrition Journal follows Masqueliers grape seed extract from its isolation in 1947 to its use as a nutraceutical.

In the case of plant-derived food supplements, it is essential for the supplement to be well researched and have significant health benefits. Importantly, three major rules must be followed: 1) the product must be well characterized, 2) the claimed effect should be well-defined and pose a physiological benefit, and 3) there must be a cause and effect relationship between the intake of the food product and the claim on human health.

A new review published in Nutrition Journal followed a botanical preparation of monomeric and oligomeric flavan-3-ols from grape seeds from its creation in 1947 to a commonly used nutraceutical with proven health benefits. Nutraceuticals are any product derived from food sources with extra health benefits in addition to their nutritional value in food, and are generally standardized similar to pharmaceutical-grade nutrients.

Various food supplements contain Masqueliers Original OPCs (Anthogenol), the commercial herbal remedies of monomeric and oligomeric flavan-3-ols which are extracted from grape seeds. These flavonoids, or plant pigment molecules, are bioactive components which were first isolated in the early 20th century. Flavonoids are found ubiquitously in plants.

Flavanols are the most abundant flavonoids and are found in a wide variety of vegetables and plant-derived food such as wine, cocoa beans, and legumes. Among fruits, berries have the highest amounts of flavanols. Since the daily dietary intake of flavanols fluctuates between individuals, a flavanol supplement such as Masqueliers Original OPCs is a possible option since it can provide the health benefits of flavanols in a regulated concentration.

The first requirement to substantiate the health benefit of a food product is the characterization of the product. In contrast to many commercially available herbal remedies, Masqueliers grape seed preparation is rigorously standardized by HPLC and H-NMR/PCA fingerprinting. These methods are optimal for monitoring the quality of plant extracts.

The second requirement is that there is a physiological benefit to the nutraceutical. Through a number of studies, the grape seed extract has been shown to benefit human vascular health through the maintenance of vascular homeostasis. This has been shown through the flavanols effects on protecting collagen and elastin fibers, serving antioxidant properties and having anti-inflammatory effects.

Lastly, the third requirement for advocating the health benefit of a nutraceutical is demonstrating a cause and effect relationship between the supplement and the health effect. Studies on the Masqueliers grape seed extract have shown that the mode of action of flavanols in the commercial preparation parallels that of the specific monomeric and oligomeric flavanols originally isolated in the 1940s.

In conclusion, Masqueliers Original OPCs or grape seed extract is an interesting example of how specific research can isolate, identify and evolve a botanical ingredient to a nutritional supplement. The in-depth characterization and research on flavanols in this context explain how it can be applied as a herbal remedy and nutraceutical for vascular health.

Written By: Neeti Vashi, BSc

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Masquelier's Grape Seed Extract as a Supplement for Vascular Health - Medical News Bulletin

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