Past psychology studies suggest that the human gaze can encode the intentions of humans as they perform everyday tasks, such as making a sandwich or a hot beverage. Similarly, human gaze has been found to enhance the performance of imitation learning methods, which allow robots to learn how to complete tasks by imitating human demonstrators.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-imitation-algorithms-human.html
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With over 60 million American adults owning a smart speaker, human-to-machine conversation have largely become a part of a daily ritual. Though these exchanges are seemingly simple to the user, the complex technology that backs the interactions is powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and speech recognition. These modern machines are only continuing to grow in popularity, and for many Americans, voice recognition technology is becoming as natural as owning a smartphone. The user interfaces that drive the functionality of smart speakers have brought new and improved convenience to modern-day Americans. By the same token, this capability has the potential to alleviate burdens from the operations of our nation’s first responders.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-modernizing-vr-speech-recognition.html
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Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Brown University have developed new approaches that significantly improve the accuracy of an important material testing technique by harnessing the power of machine learning.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-machine-learning-technique-sharpens-material-mechanical.html
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Models and algorithms for analyzing complex networks are widely used in research and affect society at large through their applications in online social networks, search engines, and recommender systems. According to a new study, however, one widely used algorithmic approach for modeling these networks is fundamentally flawed, failing to capture important properties of real-world complex networks.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-widely-machine-methods-dont.html
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PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has declared that Malaysia will be placed under a nationwide movement restriction order from Wednesday (March 18) to March 31, 2020, due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The order, the first in the country’s history, was announced by the prime minister in a live broadcast over national television tonight.
A total of 315 new positive cases of Covid-19 have been reported over the past two days, bringing the total in Malaysia to 553 cases.
Of this total, 511 have been hospitalised while 42 people have recovered.
Muhyiddin said the nationwide movement restriction order means that all business premises have to be shut down, except for outlets such as supermarkets and grocery stores selling daily essentials.
He said all government and private premises would be closed, except for essential services such as utilities, telecommunications, transport, banking, health, pharmacies, ports, airports, cleaning and food supplies.
He said the movement restriction also means all Malaysians will be banned from travelling abroad, and that no tourists or foreigners will be allowed to enter the country. Those who have just arrived from abroad must undergo self-quarantine for 14 days.
All public and private schools, including kindergartens, nurseries, residential school and other educational institutions are also to close. All private and public higher institutions of learning will also close.
Closure of all government and private premises except essential services such as water and electricity, telecommunication, postal service, transport, fuel, gas, lubrication, broadcasting, banking, health, pharmacy, fire-fighting, ports, airports, prisons, security and defence, sanitary services, provision and food supply.
The order also calls on a ban on all mass gatherings, including religious, sports, social and cultural activities.
The Prime Minister said the measures were taken to protect the rakyat from the spread of the virus but advised Malaysian to not panic and stay calm.
Muhyiddin added that the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs will ensure that the supply of groceries and health care essentials will be readily available.
He also said that the government will address the situation daily and provided a hotline number – 0388882010- that will answer any queries from the public.
In an immediate response, former health minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad told theSun that the order was the right action made in the right time.
“I am okay with it because it is in line with what I was advocating, I did not implement this earlier because at that time it wasn’t warranted and it wasn’t the right thing to do then,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdullah said that the provision of Section 11 (5) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 is read together with Section 24(a) of the same act.
Haniff said this would make any breach to the restriction order a criminal offence.
“The offense under section 11(5) carries a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment. Whereas the second offence under section 24(b) warrants a maximum imprisonment sentence of five years.”
He also urged government officials to give a clear guideline on the extent of which a member of public can be out before it is considered an offense.
“This is to ensure proper and dutiful compliance on the part of public and to allow strict enforcement by the authorities.” he told theSun.
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https://www.thesundaily.my/local/nationwide-movement-restriction-measures-to-begin-on-wednesday-updated-IC2136749
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PETALING JAYA: A number of universities have closed their campuses and instructed their staff to give lectures online to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Among them is Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), which closed its branch campus in Pagoh from today for decontamination after a UTHM staff tested positive for novel coronavirus.
According to a circular from UTHM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Wahid Razzaly, which was uploaded on the university’s official Facebook page on Sunday night, the branch campus will be closed until March 19 to facilitate comprehensive decontamination of the premises.
He said the closure involves the entire academic and non-academic staff, except for employees of the university’s health centre, development and maintenance office, including the security and college residence division.
Quarantine and screening operations will continuously be conducted in line with existing procedures.
“All academic and administrative staff are allowed to work from home and attendance will not be recorded at the campus. The attendance record for all staff involved will be updated automatically by the Registrar’s Office,” Wahid added.
In George Town, Universiti Sains Malaysia announced that it is conducting all lectures online from Sunday.
Its vice-chancellor Prof Dr Faisal Rafiq Mahamd Adikan said the dean will inform students on the online learning process.
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https://www.thesundaily.my/local/some-universities-have-closed-their-campus-switched-to-online-lecturing-CC2136532
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With the help of machine learning, ETH researchers have developed a novel yet low-cost tactile sensor. The sensor measures force distribution at high resolution and with great accuracy, enabling robot arms to grasp sensitive or fragile objects.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-inexpensive-tactile-sensor-robots.html
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Google announced Monday that it is making available an open-source library for quantum machine-learning applications.
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Deep learning techniques are proving to be extremely useful for analyzing all kinds of data, ranging from images to text, online posts and audio recordings. These techniques are designed to identify patterns in large datasets, separate items in different categories and make predictions far quicker than humans.
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