42nd issue of the Magazine

Augmented Reality and Day-to-Day Life

powered by

5G: Truths or Myths

The Future of Transportations

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Table of Contents 4

What is EESTEC?

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Editor’s Partner EESTEC Word NGOs Infographics

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Internet of Energy: Connecting Energy Systems

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3D Rolling Computer Networks Bioprinting

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Meet The Team

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Most Remarkable IoT Applications

V2X Communication

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The Future of

Natural Implats:

Transportation

The Future of Thinking

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Augmented Reality: Natural Language Processing in Is Thata Real Thing Healthcare

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Average EESTECer

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5G: Truths and Myths

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Blockchain: The Advantage of A Modern Company

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Secur cyber-p syst

43 Will The Robots Take Over, After All?

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48

Man Against Gene Editing & Machine Artificial Intelligence

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Computer Graphics

34 rity of

physical tems

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Augmented Reality &

Deepmind’s AI:

Day-to-Day Life

Reaches Top 99,8% in Starcraft 2

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58

Graphic Design vs

To Research

Esports:

Computer Science

The Search

Technology & Infrastructure

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All Hacking

Self-Driving

Related

Car Dilemmas

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We Needed

EESTEC

The Inspiration How Was COVID19 Seen Through

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69

Soft Skills To Nail EESTech Challenge Your Interview Project

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What is EESTEC?

Electrical Engineering STudents’ European assoCiation is an apolitical, non-governmental and non-profit organization for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science JUNE 2020 (EECS) students at universities, institutes and schools NO: 2020/1 of technology. EESTEC aims to develop international VOLUME: 42 contacts and to encourage the exchange of ideas among EECS students through professional workshops, cultural EESTEC INTERNATIONAL student exchanges and publications. With various activiELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ties that EESTEC provides, it creates opportunities for stuSTUDENTS’ EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION dents to develop in their academic, professional and social MEKELWEG 4, lives. The Association was founded in The Netherlands, in 2628 CO DELFT, 1986. Nowadays, EESTEC is present in 25 countries and THE NETHERLANDS, 52 universities across Europe with over 5000 members.

WEB: EESTEC.NET Indirectly, EESTEC influences the students at all the faculEMAIL: BOARD@EESTEC.NET ties where it is present.

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Introduction

Editor’s Word Dear Readers, My name is Elaa Jamazi, I am a member of LC Istanbul, and I joined EESTEC almost two years ago. This past August, I became the Magazine Project Leader. My journey had its ups and downs but overall it was a wonderful learning experience during which I accomplished a lot of self-growth and met and worked with amazing people.

When we all started our 2019/2020 mandate in EESTEC we had our expectations and hopes, yet, life keeps surprising us in ways we never expected. As we, all know, in the last few months, the world was, and still, under crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That affected us, as an international association as many of the planned events were cancelled. You can read more about this inside the Magazine.

Nevertheless, we managed to get over it and the Spring Congress 2020 was organized despite these unusual circumstances.

This year’s Magazine issue lives up to the expectations set by its predecessors. You can find various Electrical Engineering and Computer Science/Engineering related articles, accompanied by EESTEC centered pieces. Our articles are divided into 5 categories: “Internet of Things”,” Leap Into the Future”, “Artificial Intelligence”, “Did You Know?”, “Ethics”, and “Inspiration”. I will let you discover the content of each section in the upcoming pages. I bet it will captivate you.

Lastly, I want to thank my coordinators and all of the project’s members since none of this would have been possible if not for their hard work. Another big thank you to our other contributors: Soft Skills Academy Project, EESTech Challenge Project, Data Team, and two of the Magazine Project’s alumni _ Maciej Zawilski and Marko Rajkovic_ who provided us with helpful data, and valuable articles.

Happy reading.

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Partner NGOs BEST (Board of European Students of Technology) is an organisation which provides communication, cooperation and exchange possibilities for students all over Europe. It strives to help European students of technology to become more internationally minded, by reaching a better understanding of European cultures and developing capacities to work on an international basis. BEST and EESTEC have been actively collaborating by sharing knowledge and best practices, working together on training opportunities and participating in each other’s events.

IFISO (Informal Forum of International Student Organisations) is a biannual meeting connecting different associations, creating the opportunity for knowledge exchange, experience sharing and having a broader perspective on the possible approaches regarding a wide variety of organisational matters. EESTEC has been participating in IFISO for many years now, learning about other member organisations, their way of work and potential areas for future collaboration.

ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management) is an organisation connecting students from all around Europe, fostering relations and mutual understanding between them. It provides students with the opportunity to develop their soft skills as well as learn the management basis and boost their professional career by connecting the partners with its members. For many years EESTEC has been actively collaborating with ESTIEM providing each other with bidirectional knowledge transfer and cooperating on joint events.

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Introduction

EESTEC Infographics powered by EESTEC Statistics Team

9 Observers

52 Total Branches

3 JLCs

40 LCs

5000+ Members 363 Internationally Active

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Fields of Studies

Events

Organized in 2019/2020

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Introduction

Average EESTECer powered by EESTEC Statistics Team

Statistics Team is not done yet. Some months ago a survey took place among all EESTECer in order to find the characteristics of the average EESTECer. The results? You can take a look of some of the most interesting questions that were asked. Maybe EESTECers have more in common than they know...

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Introduction

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Introduction

Meet The Team - Board -

Iulia Iamandei Content Team Coordinator Hello awesome readers! My name is Iulia from LC Bucharest and I have been part of this great community for almost 2 years now. The best experience so far in EESTEC was being a Coordinator and working with my extraordinary team and awesome Magazine Board. In the past months, we have not only created some interesting articles for you to read, but also created strong bonds and awesome memories. It has truly been a rollercoaster ride for me and I wouldn’t trade it for the world! We spent many hours working on this issue for you to get more in touch with the Computer Science and Electronical Engineering side and discover more about human development. Hope you will enjoy! Great thanks to my incredible and hardworking team, some amazing people that made working easier!

Zeynep Yesil Public Relations Team Coordinator Welcome! I’m Zeynep Leyla, a proud member of LC Ankara, born and raised in Istanbul, but I like to call many other places in the world home and this has a lot to do with EESTEC. I was introduced to this family three years ago and so far, its contributions to my life are numerous but I can easily say that the last one was to be on the board of the Magazine Project. Living the excitement of our 42nd edition today is the result of the interest you have and the hard work being shown by my fellow boardies and all the project members. Cheers to all friends and memories we make along the way. I hope you all enjoy and maybe find inspiring what we have got to offer in this issue.

Aggelos Diamantopoulos Designer Hello people! My name is Aggelos Diamantopoulos and I’m a member of LC Patras. I joined EESTEC in November of 2018 and since then my first step at the international level was this position of the Magazine Designer. During the past year together with the Magazine Board we worked really hard. I’m impressed that for my first time at the international level I worked so well with people I didn’t originally know. That shows how strong the EESTEC spirit is and what great results it can bring, either if it is a magazine or a friendship. Although we faced some difficulties we managed to create this awesome magazine you are reading right now. I hope you will enjoy it. Keep shining people!

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Meet The Team - Content Team -

Ahmet Arda Pektaşs

Lazarela Rudićc

Hello everyone! I am Ahmet Arda Pektaş and from LC Ankara. I study Electrical and Electronics Engineering. I like being engaged in science, art, and literature. Have a pleasant reading.

Hiiiii! My name is Lazarela Rudić, known as Laza Maza. I am from LC Novi Sad. I study graphic engineering and design. I chose to be part of the Content Team because I love to write about anything. I used to write articles and never had a chance to do it again until EESTEC. I did not regret it at all. Met a lot of great people. Also, can’t wait for the printed issue to see everything we did.

Angelina Labroska

Marina Gkioka

Hi! I am Angelina Labroska from LC Skopje and I am currently in my second year of computer engineering studies. Among all the valuable things I get from EESTEC, I believe broadening my horizons is the most important one; EESTEC Magazine has certainly contributed to that.

During this journey, I have discovered topics that have interested me to explore them further, and who knows? Maybe they will shape my career someday. I hope you enjoy every word of this issue!

Hi! My name is Marina Gkioka and I am a member of LC Patras, studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras. My interest in computing and technology, plus a need to get away from studying routine and get a wider understanding of university subjects, led me to join EESTEC Magazine and I have to admit I am glad of that decision. It’s been great writing for it!

Andrei Tudosie

Martin Bianca Elvira

Hello, I’m Andrei and I’m the Contact Person of LC

Heey there! My name is Bianca-Elvira Martin and currently, I’m studying Computer edit process engineering at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. I’ve been an EESTECer for about 2 years and I feel like this team helped me develop my passion for writing. All I can say is that it’s been a great experience and I’m glad I was part of this.

Bucharest. I started my university journey with 1 thing in mind, that I want to help people, so my 1st thought was that I should study Medicine but in the end, I realized that I wanted to be an engineer as well so I’ve been studying Biomedical Engineering for 5 years now. My EESTEC journey was full of joy and wonderful memories. Overall I would say that EESTEC helped me shape my future for the greater good, but like Uncle Ben says “With great power comes great responsibility” and this is a thing I have learned while “advancing” ranks”.

Karoly Gabanyi

Cristina Ivanov Hey hello hi! My name is Cristina and I’m from LC Bucharest. Usually, I’d say I study computer science at University Politehnica of Bucharest, but now I just take online tests there. In my free time, writing for EESTEC Magazine has really been a pleasure of mine. It’s given me the opportunity to explore and learn more about subjects I found interesting, but never had the time to research before. Overall, it’s a great experience to have. Hope you enjoy the articles in this issue as much as we enjoyed writing them!

Daniel Zglimbea Hey there! I am Daniel Zglimbea, and I’ve been a member of LC Bucharest since 2017. I am currently studying Computer Science at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. I chose to be part of EESTEC Magazine because I wanted to finally put my grammar skills to good use and because I was ready to take my EESTEC experience to the international level.

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Greetings to you on the other side of the Magazine! I tried to put in the magazine a lot of “computer” and “cyber” prefixes so please imagine me as sitting in business casual at the computer and walking in a very care-worn face. I wanted to introduce the automotive electronics domain which was my inexhaustible coffee source in the last years as a workplace. I created another article about cybersecurity to destroy your happy worldview about the IT and encourage you to not make as many mistakes as everyone else in this discipline. If you have any feedback related to my articles or just want to play pokemon, you can get contact with me on any life-invader platform :)

Kostas Chiotis Hello folks! My name is Kostas Chiotis, I’m 20 years old and I’m Board Member of LC Athens! I am studying at the Department of Management Science and Technology, on my 3rd year right now. As a university student, I discovered some new characteristics of myself, two of them are about new technologies and self-development!

The Magazine has given me the opportunity to improve myself and my skills. So, I hope you will like our articles and enjoy every page of 42nd EESTEC Magazine!

Introduction

Meet The Team

- Public Relations Team Ahmet Karasu

Munise Oktay

Hello, my name is Ahmet Karasu member of LC Istanbul. I am studying mechanical engineering. It is my second year on EESTEC and I am working at the Magazine because this team is so cute and beginner-friendly. I am so happy to be part of an international team.

Hi there! My name is Munise Oktay and I am a member of LC Istanbul. I am studying Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. Actually I love designing, writing and PR works in EESTEC. So, I think EESTEC Magazine PR is the best one for me. I hope I will do more stuff here.

Billur Konukçu

Sude Bicer

Hey hey :) I’m Billur. I am VC-HR of LC Istanbul and I am studying at Istanbul Technical University. It was an enjoyable experience for me to contribute to EESTEC Magazine.

It helped me to take a closer look at our subjects. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as we did.

Hello! My name is Sude Biçer and I am a member of LC Istanbul. I am studying architecture at Istanbul Technical University.

This is my first year in EESTEC and EESTEC Magazine caught my attention since they make impressive posts. It was great being a member of it.

Jaka Zore

Hi folks :D My name is Jaka Zore and I’m a member of LC Ljubljana since 2015. Last year I graduated from Telecommunications Engineering and now I’m currently studying IT security at the Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security.

My biggest passion in life involves sports.

Why did I decide to join the team? Beside of sport and EESTEC, I love PR, writing articles and Social Media. I believe that the PR team can give you that knowledge and experience.

Jernej Primozic I am a member of LC Ljubljana for one year already. I am studying Electrical Engineering at University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering. I can say that I joined EESTEC Magazine, because of Jaka Zore who is also a member of EESTEC Magazine and I have no problem with writing and researching web.

Valerija Vanja Popovic Hey guys, my name is Valerija Vanja and I’m a proud member of EESTEC LC Novi Sad! I am a freshman at Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, program biomedical engineering. Art is my biggest passion, and I’m happy I found my happy place in Magazine project as a writer! I hope you’ll enjoy riding this article, as much as we enjoyed writing it! :-)

Vasilije Pantic Hello everyone! My name is Vasilije Pantić and I am a member of LC Novi Sad for more than one year. Currently, I’m studying Software Engineering and Information Technologies at Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad. I have joined the PR Magazine team because I really love working with social media and promotions.

Besides that, I mostly enjoy teamwork and meeting new people and this team gave me all of these. This team fits me perfectly in my needs and I’m really glad that I’m part of this whole project.

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Internet Of Things

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InternetofThings

Internet Of Energy: Connecting Energy Systems author: Ahmet Arda Pektas The increasing trend towards the areas of information

from devices, the information can be readily integrated

and communications technology, as well as energy sys-

and shared by using software applications on the cloud

tems, paved the way for a new concept called “Internet

platform. Besides, the cloud platform will become a data

of Energy” (IoE).

source for different forms to use, which helps to smart

“Internet of Energy” is an urge to upgrade and automate

energy management systems to adjust the power gener-

electricity infrastructures for energy producers and

ated from all sources consuming electricity.

manufacturers. This concept can also be regarded as a subfield of the “Internet of Things” (IoT) since IoE aims

The growth and success of the IoE depend on how cloud-

to organize the data obtained from individual grid-edge

based systems are used for integration of the industry

devices across the network available to all other grid

with the systems and grid management processes.

management participants directly and instantly. Equip-

The development of customer-specific applications

ping consumer appliances with IoT functionality enables

quickens and eases the process which, results in a

energy production and consumption to progress more

wide range of grid applications that provide efficiency

efficiently with the least amount of waste. Suppose that

for systems. Some examples of these consist of meter

a refrigerator connected to the internet is only on when

data management, grid analytics, substation device

there’s enough energy from solar power in the grid. For

management, distributed energy resource management

consumers, this could save a lot of money.

systems, and low voltage outage management system.

Connecting real things to the digital world enables the

The primary problem is the volume of data and the time

grid to become more efficient and sustainable.

required to analyze the information. The use of secure communication networking of the devices, together

At the substation level, cloud-based applications could

with leading-edge IT technology like cloud computing,

automate asset inventory lists, and give operators the

could handle the massive data volume and scale. As a

ability to conduct advanced services, such as remote

cloud-based platform manage the information coming

support and security management. The IoE will provide the substation level to control functions and manage data streams to be separated. Then, the asset management information can be analyzed, and analytics implemented real-time intervention or substitution.

Hence, people will have access to the information to take appropriate measures. IoE will also bring virtual power plants to light. By using advanced energy management technology, operators can use data to foresee renewable energy generation so they can cost-efficiently integrate more renewables while avoiding grid extension. Moreover, by using smart management software, utilities can

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use meter data to resolve service incidents accurately

hands-on experience to equip students better to work

and identify distribution issues before they affect the

in the growing energy industry. To that end, there is a

safety of service.

digital grid partnership between Case Western Reserve University and the University of Central Florida, which

Achieving an IoE is a challenging task. The safe com-

includes providing software

munication and data processing are particularly crucial,

and hardware development. The program is based on

as large volumes of data must be communicated and

simulating real-world grid environments and provide re-

processed to understand better and actively arrange ad-

al-world situations to prepare the next workforce better.

vanced grid operations. Cybersecurity standards of grids

For instance, students will be trained at digital grid labs

will continue to iteratively expand to make it impossible

on power distribution software, they will learn to balance

to falsify or manipulate grid data and maintain system

sustainable energies, such as wind and solar on the grid.

integrity. As a result, modern cybersecurity technologies

The labs will also emphasize the importance of software

and measures must be applied to ensure a maximum

platforms.

degree of security at all levels. For the industry, attracting enough workers who have the right skills and knowledge

Although IoT technologies have recently entered the

to operate an IoE is also a challenge. Careful attention

energy sector, they showed rapid growth in the industry.

has been laced on the manufacturing skills gap, but

The industry called the ‘smart grid’ is now so much

the energy industry is facing a similar and arguably less

more. As look further into the grid’s future, it is clear that

nationally recognized risk. It is reported that the industry

digitalization is a fundamental necessity for the energy

will require 1.5 million new energy jobs by 2030, and

industry to continue competing in an increasingly con-

75% of companies have difficulties in hiring qualified

nected world.

candidates. But in reality, future positions are the same in name only. They demand new skills to match the new technologies that are moving our grid forward. While creating the innovative energy workforce, there must be a focus on developing training actions that provide

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InternetofThings

5G: Truths and Myths author: Kostas Chiotis We arrive at 2020, the first year of new decade, and the hottest technological topic is about the entry of 5G. For sure, you have heard something about 5G, either that is a technology which will go IoT one step further, either that will download a song at 5 seconds only either this is a new threat for humans. But first of all, what is really 5G network?

5G is the fifth-generation wireless technology for digital mobile networks. It’s the next level of 4G but is 10 times faster than it. 5G’s speed is above 1 GBps while 4G’s 0,2 Gbps is the maximum. For example, the download of a medium-time movie with the 4G network it’s takes 6 minutes and with 5G only 30 seconds. Another difference is about physical infrastructure. For the implementation of 5G network must create more antennas, which is the only way to achieve these high speeds. Those antennas are different from 4G’s because they have better technology and, consequently, less emitted electromagnetic radiation.

The 5G has created many expectations in a lot of things and now those are depending on its success. The most famous of that, the IoT. Internet of Things is one of the parts of Industry 4.0 and it’s able to be bigger year-byyear in numbers of devices. Smartphones, smartwatches, smart lights, smart TVs, smart fridges are just a few of things which connected between them. In this case, 5G network will help very much with high speeds to do IoT more effective and sustainable. Another case who needs the 5G network is auto-driven cars. Already there are cars with automatic parking or automatic braking even automatically pilot but in the environment when all the cars are without humans behind the wheels 5G is more than necessary. A lot of sensors at the cars that see other cars or humans or traffic lights must be up to date every millisecond with these data. Another field is that of medicine where will there enough solutions like telemedicine and remote medical interventions.

Without a doubt, the 5G network is coming to bring revolution to our lives. However, there is another side of the same coin, the negative side. Many peoples are afraid of digital security as for physical health. However, for the time nothing is scientifically substantiated. Many are talking about raising of attacks in cybersecurity and privacy violation because of the internet’s infrastructure. Others are talking about autism, cancer even Alzheimer due to the permeability of the human skin to high radiation frequencies. Anyway, all of these are just assumptions and for now, the only kind of radiation which we are exposed to it is our smartphone.

In conclusion, the 5G network is a real diamond ready to take off our daily lives. But the questions are many and important. With the greatest, that threat of our physical integrity. As mentioned before, the antennas are able to raise in number but their technology and quality will be better with lower radiation than previous generations. (4G, 3G, 2G) Don’t forget that 5G is a change and change is like death, you don’t know what it looks like until you are standing at the gates!

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Most Remarkable IoT Applications author: Lazarela Rudic First of all, Internet Of Things or more popularly called IoT, is a network of linked devices, vehicles, and appliances that can collect and share data without need of human interaction, only by using the internet. IoT devices, which are connected, gather information and send it to a central data server, where the information is processed, collated, distilled, and used to make a host of tasks easier to perform. Some of the devices that use IoT technology are smartphones, refrigerators, watches, etc. Most of the devices we know can actually be plugged into IoT equipment.

To use hardware, some software is necessary. Applications provide IoT technology to be used in so many different aspects of life. Every industry has its own use of IoT depending on requests that come from people who use products by theese industries. There is a big variety of these industries; agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, retail etc. A lot of corporations are adopting IoT to gain a competitive edge. They are focusing on increasing operational efficiency through real-time data management and automation of tasks. This empowers them to take a more innovative approach to grow and develop their business and be more productive.

However, there are some really remarkable IoT applications used today.

1. Smart Home

Smart home refers to a system where appliances, fridges, air conditioners, microwave ovens,

doors home security system, washing-machines, lightening, etc. are connected via the

internet. All of these are controlled with smart devices. Smart home makes life more

comfortable and safer. Also, saves money for bills and time using voice command.

2. Smart City

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According to recent studies, this application is the most popular one. It comes up with solutions for everyday city life problems. It consists of user cases such as water management, electricity, traffic management and it ensures appropriate use of water and electricity supply. Not just that, Smart City increases the condition of air and water pollution because of regular monitoring. Urban people can rely on secured automated public transport systems and so many other things.

InternetofThings

3. Precision Farming

Use of Smart Farming makes farming practice more effective and precise. It gives good output. The idea of precision farming includes collecting data by field observation, vehicle monitoring, temperature and humidity measure, and so more. For example, it analyzes soil conditions and provides the current PH of the soil and what types of farming should be appropriate. With that, precision farming like this ensures the use of each resource to grow more crops.

4. Smart Grids

This application has its industrial use. The grid allows real-time monitoring of data

regarding supply and demand of electricity. Technology is used to identify load

distribution and improve reliability in many different utilities. It provides customers with

better access to energy.

5. Connected HealthCare System

.

This technology can be used to provide high-quality medical services using smart medical devices. Some may better know it as the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). IoT medical devices can help in real-time monitoring of patients remotely. The devices can report an emergency like an asthma attack, heart failure etc. This can help in potentially saving the lives of many individuals. Also, devices like this can collect health care data including blood pressure, sugar levels, oxygen, and weight. Data is stored online and can be accessed anytime by a physician

This is only a few examples of applications that use the Internet of Things as the main technology. In this group of most remarkable ones, we can include inventions like Smart Retail, Connected Cars, Radioactive Monitoring and so many more.

They are truly remarkable because a lot of them significantly make life easier and more secure. Considering all of this, we can say that the Internet of Things is poised to create life-changing conditions in our lives, both in a professional and personal capacity. The IoT offers an unprecedented degree of control and efficiency that no industry or man can ignore.

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V2X Communication author: Angelina Labroska In recent years people have been seeking to revolutionise transportation. The old-fashioned ways of transportation yield unsatisfactory results in terms of safety, energy-efficiency and time-efficiency. When talking about revolutionising transportation these days, most people think about autonomous cars. However, there is another technology that the industry has increasingly been working on, and it is V2X communication.

V2X stands for Vehicle-to-everything, the communication between a vehicle and anything which might affect it. It includes the following types of communication: V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle), V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure), V2N (vehicle-to-network), V2P (vehicle-to-pedestrian), V2D (vehicle-to-device) and V2G (vehicle-to-grid).

The main purpose of this technology is to assist the driver by enabling the car to quickly communicate with other cars and its surroundings, and if necessary issue warnings to the driver to make an action like braking, or help the driver adjust their driving to achieve better effi-

- When approaching an intersection with limited visi-

ciency. These functions would also be extremely useful

bility, the V2X system will tell you if there is a vehicle

in a self-driving car, only in that case they wouldn’t serve

approaching the intersection from another direction at

as warnings but affect the driving direction. Here are a

the same moment.

few examples of situations where V2X might help:

- With the help of V2P, you can find out if there is a pedestrian crossing or about to cross the street long before

- Let’s say you are driving in a line of several cars.

you reach that spot.

The second car in front of you starts breaking, but the

- Surrounding infrastructure can transmit live 3D HD

car directly in front of you goes on at high speed and

map updates to vehicles.

switched

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lanes at the last moment. You may suddenly

find yourself dangerously close behind a braking car and

In developing V2X, engineers have taken two different

crash. With V2X (V2V is sufficient in this scenario), you

main approaches and both are promising and are being

will learn that the car is braking before you see it and

developed simultaneously.

be able to take precaution regardless of what the car

The first approach is using DSRC (Dedicated Short

directly in front of you does.

Range Communications) technology, which uses the

InternetofThings

WLAN (802.11p) technology. DSRC provides nearly

consideration of security, we cannot say that there are

instantaneous network connectivity, has low latency

no risks, and any breach within this kind of system can

and high reliability, and requires no infrastructure. Its

have severe consequences. Furthermore, these systems

communication range can go up to 1000m and it has

are expensive and add much to the prices of cars.

been designed for great security and privacy.

Another thing we must not forget is that, since these are dedicated communication channels, they require a

The second approach and the more recent one involves

specific frequency spectrum (range of frequencies they

C-V2X (Cellular-V2X). C-V2X provides two modes of

can use for communication), and that is limited. Even

communication: 1) Direct communication between

though this is no problem in a time when V2X is not used

entities using C-V2X (same function but different

by everyone who participates in traffic, there is a chance

implementation from DSRC - entities communicating

that one day the bandwidth allocated for these purposes

directly with each other without needing to connect to a

just won’t be enough.

network infrastructure); 2) Communication using regular cellular communication channels (connecting to cell

Regardless of the limitations of V2X communication,

towers – enables the car to get information about more

the projections about the lives, time, and energy which

large-scale traffic conditions, like information about an

might be saved by implementing this technology are en-

accident a few kilometres ahead). The range of C-V2X is

couraging and inspire engineers worldwide to continue

about twice as large as that of DSRC, but so is the packet

improving them.

transmission time.

That is why companies are making efforts to further evolve the C-V2X technology to utilise 5G networks, and that promises to provide us with much faster V2X communication.

Of course, every new technology has limitations. Even though both DSRC and C-V2X are made with a serious

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Leap Into The Future

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LeapIntoTheFuture

3D Bioprinting author: Ahmet Arda PektaĹ&#x;s 3D bioprinting is a computer-aided transfer process for simultaneous writing of living cells and biomaterials with a prescribed layer-by-layer stacking organization to fabricate bioengineered constructs for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, or other biological studies. 3D bioprinting is similar to conventional 3D printing however, 3D bioprinters utilize a living cell suspension, referred to as bioink, instead of a thermoplastic or a resin. There are also different methods used for 3D bioprinting, such as droplet-based bioprinting and laser-based bioprinting too. The use of 3D bioprinting technology exists in various areas like tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, transplantation, pharmaceutical testing, cancer research, and artificial food production.

Certain bioprinted tissue types, such as nerve, cardiac, blood vessel, bone and skin have been transplanted into animals to observe their functionality within a host.

Nevertheless, such studies have not got off the ground in humans since the patient-specific cells are fairly new in

First of all, bioprinting of organs and tissues is used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, bioprinting of functional organs and tissues is a challenging task because it requires the integration of vascular network from arteries and veins down to capillaries, incorporation of various cell types to reconstitute complex organ biology, limited structural, mechanical integrity, and long-term functionality. Despite these limitations, several tissues that are thin or hollow such as blood vessels and cartilage have been successfully bioprinted.

bioprinting.

Secondly, the bioprinted organs and tissues are expected to be used in organ and tissue transplantation.

The other area using the bioprinted organs and tissues is pharmaceutical testing over the course of drug discovery, which requires a huge investment of money and human resources. Yet, testing on 3D bioprinted organs and tissue models makes the process more cost-effective and ethical option. It also helps to identify the side effects of drugs and administer the drugs to humans with safe dosages.

Also, scientists doing research about cancer benefit from 3D bioprinting during their research. The main difficulty in working on 2D tumour models is that they do not represent a physiologically relevant environment since they lack 3D interactions with neighbouring cells and substrates. Hence, 3D bioprinting provides significant advantages to reconstitute cancer microenvironment to accurately locate various cell types and microcapillaries to study cancer pathogenesis and metastasis.

Lastly, due to the food’s irreplaceable part in human life, 3D bioprinting technology started to be used in the food production industry in order to meet the increasing demand for food and to sort out controversies over

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slaughter animals for their meat. Moreover, for longer crewed space voyages, artificial production food would be necessary. For instance, a 3D bioprinter has been used to produce artificial meat on the International Space Station’s board.

Although 3D bioprinting is a beneficial technology in above-mentioned areas, it might lead to some ethical concerns. The first concern which may occur is if the patients will receive effective treatment even though they cannot afford it. The other possible concern is whether this technology should be used for human enhancement.

If the technology is used to develop replacement organs and bones, it could also be used to push the limits of human capacities for military purposes.

In conclusion, even though there are several arguments against it, 3D bioprinting has rapidly gained popularity thanks to making a revolutionary impact on medical sciences since its appearance. Nonetheless, 3D bioprinting technology is in its infancy because it has to handle a couple of issues regarding biology, biotechnology, biomaterials and medicine. For this reason, further research, development, and advancements are needed in multiple aspects to dynamize this technology. Besides, some promising studies on 4D bioprinting show that taking account of the fourth dimension, time, could lessen the period of culture time in vitro. Hence, the use of 4D bioprinting technology may facilitate the fabrication of living tissues and enable mass production for pharmaceutics in the short term.

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Rolling Computer Networks author: Karoly Gabanyi Cars are seen as mechanical machines and this article is a short introduction to change this perspective. Most people don’t realize how complex the computer system is inside the vehicle. Car vendors discovered what kind of advantages electrical systems can provide for the vehicles. Sometimes these systems contain known or unknown vulnerabilities, which could be exploited.

Electrical components in cars Nowadays cars contain several embedded systems. These small computer systems are called as Electronic Control Unit. These ECU’s are mostly not visible for the users, they are built in the inside of the car and are responsible for specific subsystems in a vehicle.

Volkswagen already introduced a vehicle with a computer-controlled fuel injection in 1968. “Volkswagen’s electronic brain. It’s smarter than a carburetor” was written in the ad of the 1968 Volkswagen Type 3, which contained a transistorized electronic module. The Ford company introduced a computer-controlled anti-skid system, the next year, and two years later the computer-controlled transmission was introduced by General Motors.

One of the most computationally intensive tasks is the control of the engine. After the end of the 70 years, with the precise ignition timing control and the determination of how long shall the fuel injector be open, the ECUs played an important role in emission reduction.

Some centuries before, ECU’s were only controlling the magnetic valves in the carburetor or handling the fuel and ignition. Electronic systems started to replace the mechanical parts because electronics helped get rid of many disadvantages. ECU’s can ensure more precise functionality and so achieve better performance. It simply became more efficient to use electronics in front of mechanical parts.

Car industrial companies started to develop ECU for other parts of the computers. ECUs are controlling the engine, the brakes, doors, managing the battery or executing simple tasks, like wiping the window, but also opening the airbag or managing the emission, or playing the music.

Microcontroller unit If we look under the cover case of an ECU inside a vehicle we will see an electric circle. A microcontroller (Microcontroller Unit) is a small computer on an integrated circuit. The microcontroller contains a CPU, memory, and programmable peripherals. Multicore (more CPUs) systems are also common. Microcontrollers can be found outside of the vehicle industry too, in a lot of devices, like blood pressure meters, microwaves, washing machines. Vehicles’ built-in microcontrollers have specific tasks. For example, ECU’s which are controlling the door are responsible for locking the doors or moving the windows. Other motors controlling ECU’s are calculating the proper air-fuel ratio based on oxygen sensors and temperature sensors. ECU’s which control automatic transmissions are

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calculating when it is optimal to switch gears. There are ECU’s which are controlling the tracking of the vehicle. A particular ECU is responsible for the anti-lock braking system (ABS). This ECU is monitoring the wheels, if it detects that a wheel is rotating slower, it will reduce the hydraulic pressure to the wheel’s brake. If it is rotating faster, it will increase brake hydraulic pressure on it.

There was a need for a common standard, to be able to develop, upgrade and change hardware and software components both. It was needed to improve the electronic system performance and safety.

The main cause of the microcontroller is to run a specific application on it, to execute a task. To achieve this, along with the hardware designed microcontroller, well-designed software is needed too.

Automotive ECU’s are being developed in V-model and the microcontroller’s software is designed by AUTomotive Open Software ARchitecture (AUTOSAR). This is a global development partnership, an open and standardized software architecture for ECUs. It was created in 2003 by several car companies. This is a standard, which provides specifications for how the basic software modules shall be designed. It describes layers of architecture with the details of the components. This structure makes it easier for different developers, teams, and vendors to design components which are matching each other.

Applications running on a microcontroller often need the microcontroller lower level features and sometimes needed to communicate with other applications inside the ECU or on another ECU. There are also software components that include operating system functionalities: Like drivers which provide access to hardware components, abstraction elements to make certain software independent from the hardware, and services for applications. Services, for example, diagnostic protocols, memory management, fault treatment, and program flow monitoring.

ECU’s network Several ECU’s are inside of a car, some of them are independent subsystems, but others needed to communicate.

An ECU may need to receive information from sensors or control actuators. With the increasing number of ECU’s, it comes a need for a standard to allow microcontrollers and devices to communicate. That’s why the Bosch company started to develop the Controller Area Network (CAN) standard that they released officially in 1986. CAN was also needed to reduce the amount of wiring in the car. The CAN bus is a two-wire bus and the potential difference between the wires are representing the 0 and 1 states. Each node on the bus has a CAN controller, which usually is an integrated part in the microcontroller. Each CAN message contains an ID, which will determine which ECU is addressed.

CAN is a broadcast bus, so all nodes can get all of the messages. This is one of the most used networks inside of a vehicle. CAN does not support any security and encryption of messages is also not designed by the standard. This means attacks against the CAN network are possible. Although the applications can implement their security mechanism. In this case, the programmer shall encrypt the data package before it is sent to the CAN bus. And of course, the receiver shall be able to decrypt it. There are also different networks for

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inter ECU communications, like LIN bus for a low-cost network, FlexRay for faster communication (expensive cost), FlexCAN for more deterministic and reliable communication, and MOST for infotainment media transport. Modern cars and self-driving cars are also able to communicate with each other, central network, roadside elements, or any other object. There is even a cellular-based solution to detect pedestrians and cyclists. The V2X solutions allow the communication between the vehicle and any entity.

Car service Car mechanics are examining the vehicle condition by computer. They connect to the vehicle with a cable and run a diagnostic. Diagnostics can reveal information about the status of the vehicle, failures, and logs.

In the car, there is an OBD-II Connector, which is also called the diagnostic link connector (DLC). This communicates with the vehicle’s internal network. Usually, it is under the steering column. It is possible to find the CAN network through this OBD-II Connector. I do not recommend connecting on it on your own, because of safety and security reasons, but in the car service, the mechanics can connect on this port to perform diagnostics and maintenance.

Chiptuning and flashing Normally the software of the ECU is flashed by the car vendor. Car service is also able to flash the ECU with new software. There are cases when car owners want to achieve performance tuning. Sometimes this requires hardware modification, like removing an ECU. This is called chip tuning. In other cases, owners want to reprogram an ECU due to their special needs (like better performance). This is flash programming or flashing. Vendors usually try to protect the vehicles against these homemade modifications. The reason for the prevention is that modification can be dangerous, flashing can damage the ECU and there are also environmental and public safety reasons.

Security Today’s vehicle security is a hot topic. Vendors didn’t afford enough attention to appropriate security solutions. So car hacking is popular and also could be a danger if an inappropriately modified or hacked car causes an accident.

There is also car theft when criminals are attacking electrical system weaknesses. The “Jeep Hack” research had a significant impact on the public opinion when security experts gained remote control on a moving vehicle.

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On the road (or on the air): The Future of Transportation author: Cristina Ivanov

Will we recognize our

transportation

landscape in 10 years?

The future of transportation is being shaped by all the problems we face as a society today: car pollution, carbon-emissions, traffic congestions and parking difficulties, as well as unsustainable road infrastructure. “The future of transportation is shared, electric, and automated”, says Susan Shaheen, Co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Resource Center at UC-Berkeley. Whether that refers to cars, drones or quadcopters, it all revolves around efficiency and environmentally friendly solutions.

Firstly, let’s take a look at a very exciting industry that’s looking to take short-distance travel to the skies: Urban Air Mobility, mainly known as UAM. At the very moment aerospace giants such as Boeing, Airbus and NASA, as well as well-funded promising startups like Lilium, are all working on the technology needed to create a new form of mobility that could lower pollution, reduce congestion on the ground, cut travel times and even reduce traffic accidents.

Automobiles as we know them may soon take flight and move us through the open skies to destinations near and far.

The only question is, how will the trust gap be bridged? When will people start feeling comfortable with the idea of travelling in an autonomous flying vehicle? A study on 1540 respondents from Switzerland shows that 27% are likely or very likely to use UAM. The numbers are promising and on the rise, considering that over the next 20 years level 5 fully automated vehicles will be increasingly deployed in the marketplace for everyday use.

Another relevant technology that needs to be mentioned is automation: how close are we to self-driving cars becoming a reality? “Automation is inevitable. 2030 is the year it will become normality”, says Dr. Daniel Sperling, vehicles expert. Tesla, Audi, Cadillac and Mercedes, all of them are already partially-autonomous and can drive themselves on the freeway. 90% of the technology is already there, but the last few percents are the hard part that they need to overcome in order to make this a perfectly safe experience.

However, “The nightmare scenario” has to be taken into account when it comes to self-driving cars, because of all the money-making/time-saving possibilities that they open up. Imagine you go to a meeting that’s only 10 minutes long and don’t want to pay 20$ on parking. You just have the car circle around the block. Therefore, zero occupant

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vehicles will become a real problem along with the accessibility of autonomous cars to the large public. Drastic regulations need to be made in order to sustain this form of the transportation system.

But there’s another solution we can look at! When it comes to connected cars in smart cities, 5G enables vehicles to communicate with different infrastructures, such as traffic lights, road network, but also to communicate with each other. To look at this another way, the connected vehicle concept is about supplying useful information to a driver or a vehicle to help the driver make safer or more informed decisions, for example when a car is approaching an intersection at high speed.

The power of the information provided by connectivity in a smart city throught 5G, combined with the cameras and sensors that an autonomous vehicle already has, the full automation will become a far more transformative and safe experience. Even the future of urban transportation can be improved, traffic will flow more freely and congestions will be avoided, all by adjusting the route and speed with this amazing technology that allows everything to be interconnected.

To summarize, the way the landscape of transportation will look in 10 years is totally and completely up to you.

The progress is being made, the technology is almost there and the supply chain on its way. The only variable in the equation is how the population as a whole will respond and whether they’ll adapt to the upcoming ways of life, considering there’s still a long way to go before most people will trust a machine to do their driving for them.

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Neural Implants: The Future of Thinking author: Daniel Zglimbea Almost two years ago, Dennis Degray sent an unusual text message to his friend. “You are holding in your hand the very first text message ever sent from the neurons of one mind to the mobile device of another,” he recalls it read. But how was this possible, you ask?

The answer is neural implants.

Neural implants (or brain implants) are technological devices that connect directly to a biological subject’s brain – usually placed on the surface of the brain, or attached to the brain’s cortex. Their main purpose is creating a sort of prosthesis for the brain, circumventing dysfunctional areas of it, areas damaged by strokes, head trauma, or birth defects. The way that they work is by stimulating, blocking and/or recording various signals sent through the brain.

Because of the complexity of neural processing the application of brain implants has been seriously limited until recent advances in neurophysiology and computer processing power. Much research is also being done on the surface chemistry of neural implants in an effort to design products which minimize all negative effects that an active implant can have on the brain, and that the body can have on the function of the implant, thus creating a truly symbiotic relationship. Researchers are also exploring a range of delivery systems, such as using veins, to deliver these implants without brain surgery. By leaving the skull sealed shut, patients could receive their neural implants without running as great a risk of seizures, strokes, or permanent neural impairments, all of which can be caused by open-brain surgery.

Returning to Dennis, he has been paralysed from the collarbones down since an unlucky fall over a decade ago. He was able to send the message because in 2016 he had two tiny squares of silicon with protruding metal electrodes surgically implanted in his motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. These record the activity in his neurons for translation into external action. By imagining moving a joystick with his hand, he is able to move a cursor to select letters on a screen. With the power of his mind, he has also bought products on Amazon and moved a robotic arm to stack blocks.

But paralyzed people are not the only group of people that can benefit from this revolutionary technology. Neural implants can help blind people regain their sight by creating a sort of “bridge” between the eyes and the areas of the brain that deal with processing images. Other beneficiaries of neural implants are people with brain diseases, ranging from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s or even Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Even the effects of natural ageing can be lessened through neural implants. The main advantage of the implants over more traditional treatment, like drugs, is that they have, until now, no discovered side effects. What’s more, the treatment can be precisely calibrated for each patient, because during the implantation process the patient is awake and the effects of the implants can be seen instantly and calibrated according to the body’s reaction.

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One of the most well-known projects on this subject is Neuralink, one of Elon Musk’s new revolutionary startups.

Musk wants to take the power of neural implants one step further, focusing on enhancing the power of the brain through a computer-brain interface implanted on a person’s brain. According to him, the goal of this project is to reach the point where people can communicate through their brains, being able to “upload and download thoughts” from one another. Even though this prospect can be frightening for some, especially from the point of view of privacy and manipulation, the startup already is being praised by medical professionals, because, if we are to believe what Neuralink is saying, it will give them an easier way of monitoring their patients’ implants: using a smartphone app for it.

To conclude, neural implants are a great, revolutionary technology that has been researched and developed over the last few years and it is continuing to do so. Even though some ideas seem to be ripped out of Orwell’s wildest dreams, what we have now are excellent medical alternatives and great promises for a world where people with disabilities can either lessen their impact or make them practically non-existent.

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Security of cyber-physical systems author: Karoly Gabanyi What are Cyber-physical systems?

Probably cyber-physical systems (CPS) sound like some serious walking machine-gun weapons which decide autonomously what shall be destroyed or an interior of a factory where robotic arms interact with objects on a treadmill.

CPS are computerized components that interact with the physical world by sensing and controlling physical processes. Some examples: autonomous vehicles, medical monitoring, industrial systems, smart home devices are also cyber-physical systems. Even planting robots in the garden, or a robot vacuum cleaner or any other computer which has an interaction with the physical world. Another approach of the explanation is where CPS is called the integrations of computations, networking, and physical processes. These means comply systems are called CPS, like embedded systems in a network, which control the physical environment based on sensor networks and computing.

CPS components may communicate with each other but the system does not essentially connect to a network.

Purpose of attack The purpose of a CPS attack can be causing damage, stealing intellectual property (for example to copy and rebuild), or stealing data of users. Causing damage is usually intentional in a war against an enemy, or interest of a terrorist group or just simply by a malicious intention. Stolen user data can be sold on the black market or used for other attacks, like burglary, ransom, or against celebrities.

The usual attack points of CPS are the interfaces. So those points, where there is some interaction between components or between the user and the machine. Attacks can come from the infrastructure, from the internet or a malicious user.

Examples of attacks (lack of defense): In 2015 there was a famous “Car Hacking” by researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek. They access the car’s Internet-connected entertainment service. It was controlled by the car’s CAN bus. They overwrote the head node’s firmware on the CAN network. With this, the head node becomes able to control any system in the vehicle. After this, the researchers were able to control the vehicle remotely. They could disable the steering, use the brakes, or turn off the engine. Not only the investigated vehicle but several nowaday cars from different vendors have serious security weaknesses.

In 2015 a smart home controller was investigated, which can remotely lock and unlock a home and turn on and off the security system. The vendor connected the controllers to its cloud servers through the internet but the authentication was optional. While the user was logged in, the authentication could be bypassed. This means, while a user was logged in, an attacker could turn on and off the lights, unlock doors, disable alarms, view the camera and do anything like a user.

In 2012 Fitbit users’ data were exposed. The vendor turned on the information sharing of all categories by default and the settings were probably unclear for the users. To access the logs there was no need for authentication and the vendor linked the data to individual identifiers. As a result, several user sexual activity data become public.

Defense methods One of the possible defenses is segmentation. This could be accomplished by creating subnets, using encryption, using firewalls, or access control lists. Devices that need to communicate or are related to the same function, shall be put on the same segment. Devices that are not communicating frequently or are responsible for different functionality shall be separated. Critical functions should be split across separate machines because this makes it more difficult to attack more critical functions at once.

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If an attacker could pass through one defense, a further defense or defenses shall be there. This is the defense-indepth, which can slow the attackers.

The defense-in-breadth means to coordinate the defenses of multiple points, to limit the attack surface. This includes that access shall give only if necessary, and sensitive data shall be there where it is necessary.

The data collection shall be user-configurable. It shall be clear to users what is being shared with whom.

Another defense method of CPS is obfuscating the pattern of use. For example, energy consumption patterns can imply a stage of an important process in which information could be used by attackers.

End-to-end security means to maintain the security of data through the process. This can be accomplished by using encryption: using a secure connection and protection devices with virtual and physical methodologies.

Tamper detection can be achieved by using strong locks, security cameras (for example in case of a factory), alarms, physical prevention, and detection techniques.

Conclusion Cyber-physical systems are all around us. Our civilizations, our daily life, and personal interest rely on that. Vendors shall invest in CPS defense methods. As the above example shows, unfortunately, a lot of them are not prepared. A lot of companies want simply to save money, general managers have no idea what real security means and developers are only responsible for what they are asked to do. Customers have the opportunity to choose how to spend their money, but they often don’t have enough information.

Imagine, a system you are using, seems to be protected, but if it is compromised, would there be any sign? Would you be informed? Are your data safe? Maybe they are safe because of good encryption, but what if your encrypted data is collected and stored. What if the vendors are storing your passwords in plaintext and those plaintexts are exposed?

What if the actually used encryption will be possible to crack several years later? These are uncomfortable questions and usually, we don’t care about these. Systems are functioning, planes are flying, cars are rolling and smart homes seem to be functioning. For now…

I think people shall be more aware of security. We don’t have to be paranoid but should think about possible weaknesses and worst-case scenarios.

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Artificial Intelligence

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Augmented Reality: Is That A Real Thing author: Ahmet Arda Pektaşs Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the big-time technology trends right now, and it’s only continuing to evolve as AR equipped smartphones and other devices become prevalent around the world. Augmented Reality is the process of taking digital or computer-generated information, whether it could be images, audio, video, and touch or haptic sensations, and overlaying them over in a real-time environment. AR technologies can be used to enhance all five senses, but its most common use in the present is visual. These technologies enable the user to see the real world, with virtual objects superimposed upon the real world. Therefore, AR can be regarded as the blend or the “middle ground” between the completely synthetic and the completely real.

AR has many implications, from gaming and entertainment to medicine, education, and business. However, there are also application areas that involve archaeology, architecture, commerce, and culture. For example, to train medical practitioners, it is created a surgery environment via AR. Since with today’s technology, it is possible to attach intelligence to ordinary objects by the use of low-cost sensors, such as RFID chips and GPS, combined with powerful search engines that keep track of both digital information and physical objects on the Internet. Technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality (AR) provide a logical interface that enables the physical world to become the base for digital information. For AR, a specific range of data such as images, animations, videos, 3D models, and so on could be used to see the effects in both natural and synthetic way. Also, users are aware of being in the real world, which is advanced by computer vision. It requires technologies like S.L.A.M. (simultaneous localization and mapping), depth tracking (briefly, a sensor data measuring the distance to the objects), and some other components.

AR showed a marked improvement in the market. For instance, a British company Ultrahaptics has built up a unique technology that enables users to experience tactile sensations from invisible mid-air three-dimension objects. Exerting ultrasound to project feelings through the air accurately allow people to sense and interact with virtual objects. This device applies the principles of acoustic radiation force, whereby sound waves show effects on the skin, potent enough to create tactile sensations. By directing intricate patterns of ultrasound radiating from a specially designed pad, the air disturbances can produce the effect of hovering 3D shapes. Having a touchless system offers the interaction that makes things easier;

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instead of going and touching the light switch, it is possible to wave a hand, and the light comes on. Hence, there is a tendency toward doing things touchless, which is going to be ubiquitous. Furthermore, as it becomes more prevalent, people are going to need this kind of tactile feedback.

The outlook for augmented reality is good. Even though AR hasn’t become a part of everyone’s daily life, it is on the verge of potentially doing precisely that. The technological pieces are in place and facilitate everyday life. Besides, AR will extend its range from its current position in education, advertising, and a few other critical areas to practically all aspects of everyday life. Applications will become multiperson, but also individual. In the not so distant future, more of our sensory experiences will be augmented, including touch, taste, and smell. It is an exciting time to be part of the developing mechanism of augmented reality. The most significant limitation right now is our imagination for the possibilities, combined with a lack of widely available, easy-to-use development tools.

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Natural Language Processing in Healthcare author: Angelina Labroska Have you ever wondered about how doctors manage to successfully diagnose a patient? Have you ever wondered about how people working in such sensitive fields (like medicine) manage to keep up with the latest scientific developments in their fields since they might be crucial to saving their patients’ lives? The truth is, this is becoming harder and harder to do.

To successfully diagnose a patient, a doctor often has to go through the patient’s family history and previous health records that are most likely unstructured and that may not have been issued by the same doctor. These health records are rarely written in the exact same format, making the work of going through them and finding useful information even more tedious and inefficient. Also, each day there are so many new publications in the field of biomedical research that it is impossible for professionals to keep up with the latest developments in their fields.

That is why biomedical sciences have united with computer science (mostly the field of natural language processing) to get rid of these obstacles and help to provide more efficient and better healthcare by also helping to avoid some mistakes and oversights people usually make.

Natural language processing (NLP) comes along everywhere there is „unstructured“ text. It is used to translate between computer and human languages by applying Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and grammar rules (among other things, such as voice recognition).

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These are some of the possible uses of NLP in healthcare: 1. Making electronic medical records more usable In many healthcare systems Electronic Medical Records (known as EMRs) are used. More often than not, EMRs are just plain text that the doctor is supposed to write about a patient or an examination. So let’s say that a doctor is examining an older patient who has many of these medical records. In order to get useful information about this patient, the doctor should read all of them, or at least a part of them. This would mean wasting hours on reading mostly useless information just to find a little bit of useful information. Using NLP, machines can take the unstructured text of the EMRs, extract useful bits of information, classify it, and serve it to the doctor who can then find what he/she is looking for with a few clicks.

2. Phenotyping Phenotyping means establishing all the visible and observable facts about a patient. It is used for classifying patients with specific illnesses, medical history, treatments, etc. It can be done relatively easily with NLP because it can process many patients much faster than a human and classify them by recognising relevant terms in their records.

3. Predictive analytics Comparing collected information about a patient with some known information can lead to some useful predictions that normally a human might not be able to make. For example, NLP can make sense of a patient’s health with phenotyping, compare it to known risk factors for cancer and predict the patient’s risks of getting cancer.

However, despite the fact that NLP is extremely useful, it does have its challenges. Of course, we cannot just give the system a list of all the possible sentences in a language. A much more practical way is to equip the system with grammar rules and information about the probability of certain words showing up together in a sentence. The latter is called a language representation model or just a language model. It is used to determine the probability of a sequence of words occurring, and which is the most likely meaning of the words in that context (since natural languages are ambiguous, words can have multiple meanings). Nowadays language models are usually created by applying machine learning on large amounts of text (corpora). Even though training the model on texts with many different subjects is good enough for general-purpose NLP, biomedical NLP requires the models to be more specific.

One example of a biomedical language model is BioBERT, which is pre-trained on biomedical corpora. It was primarily created to extract useful information from biomedical scientific publications, making it much easier to keep up with new scientific discoveries, but it can also be applied directly to healthcare. BioBERT was made by modifying another, general language model called BERT. They are both bidirectional language models, as opposed to models applying a chain-rule.

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A chain-rule language model calculates the probability of a word in a sequence based on the previous words in the sequence but doesn’t consider the following words. This is mostly used for text generation, where words are generated one by one and the following words are unknown. For example, in the sentence „The cat is sleeping.“, the probability of the word „is“ will be: P(is | The, cat) On the other hand, in a bidirectional model the word „sleeping“ would also be taken into consideration. This type of models is useful for healthcare purposes because the main goals there are usually extracting data, not generating text .

Even though there is much more to NLP and to the language models such as BioBERT, and there are new solutions being created every day, it is safe to conclude that this exciting and useful field has great potential in healthcare and that it is worthwhile to overcome its challenges.

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Blockchain: The Advantage Of A Modern Company author: Kostas Chiotis These years, we are at the beginning of the 4th Industrial Revolution that a lot of new technologies are ripened together. Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Virtual & Augmented Reality, Internet of Things and Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies are the main categories of Industry 4.0 and all of them are here to improve people’s lives.

For the companies, digital transformation is a need, not an option, because things are changing faster than the three previous industrial revolutions, steam-powered factories, application of science to mass production and manufacturing, and digitization. But the category that gives advantage to a company the most is Blockchain!

First of all, what is Blockchain? It is a public row of data, impossible to edit and grouped by time. The first-ever application for blockchain was the Bitcoin in 2008 when it began as a solution to a Math’s problem in the Finance field. After Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies like Etherium or Libra that are based on Blockchain technology appeared. Transactions between cryptocurrencies are the main data category that is saved on Blockchain. That doesn’t deny that in the last few years there have been a lot of opportunities at different industries like Health, Insurance, Education and others.

What is so different and innovative about this Technology? The answer to that question would be the fact that this is the first time in the history of IT that we can’t edit, move or delete anything or anyone from the public data.

There are two reasons behind this. The first is about the computers where the data is saved. Information, instead of being saved on a local device, is kept on many users’ computers, all over the world. That characteristic gives Blockchain its security and trust. The other reason is about the blocks’ structure. Each block N has a group of transactions and a hash* value. As for block N+1, it has the hash of the previous position, block N, as a chain. If a malevolent user tries to edit a block N, a new block N1 would be created and the chain stopped by that new N1 block because block N+1 still has the hash of block N.

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Finally, how can a company benefit from Blockchain technology? First, it could send all its databases on the blockchain, thus it would have more security from hackers and spend less on equipment. Second, it could use cryptocurrencies as payment to give customers an extra choice or even create its own. Cryptocurrency is nothing more than coding and cryptography together.

It’s the first time in history where we have decentralized money, that doesn’t come from individual groups, banks or states. This is one of the biggest milestones of Blockchain Technology. Third, the company can simply create the blocks just by downloading the specific open-source software, and then, it will be able to change its transaction to be 100% through the Blockchain, if wanted.

The blocks are created by a computer, called “miner” that mines them and this specific computer is paid with the cryptocurrency of blockchain. Last but not least, the smart contracts will be included on the companies’ services. Now a company has the ability to control the transfer of digital currencies or assets, between third parties, by the defined rules and the automatically enforced obligations by the Smart Contracts.

In conclusion, Blockchain is here to disrupt the world of companies. The benefits are obvious and the challenges much more. Isn’t an easy way because it’s abstract and complicated field. But, one is standard. It’s one-way road for a company to adapted on Blockchain technology and if doesn’t will faced with serious sustainability problems!

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Will The Robots Take Over, After All? author: Marina Gkioka If you’ve ever watched movies like “The Matrix” or “Terminator”, you’re probably already accustomed to the idea of robots taking over the world and dominating humanity in the future. And, of course, you consider this to be quite the improbable scenario. This article is here to change your mind.

No, wait. We won’t be enslaved by robots in the future, don’t worry. We could be enslaved by some other form of Artificial Intelligence (AI), though. It could be our phones, our GPSs, our Alexas, our Roombas or any device containing deep learning algorithms in it – don’t be mistaken, they are everywhere around us, we just don’t notice. They are forming our daily routines, deciding which ads we’ll be seeing today and, perhaps, learning just enough about us to take over us. Does that sound like a better scenario than the C-3PO look-alikes?

Well, there is an even better one. You see, AI is described by its caliber. In general, there are three calibers, but since we aren’t really advanced in the field, we only have technology of the first caliber available: Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) or Weak AI. That’s the type of AI that specialises, or is even perfect at doing something – say, play Go and even beat the best human at it – but can’t do anything else.

ANI is kind of a dummy; it couldn’t take over us even if it wanted to and it doesn’t want to, since, well, it can’t “want” things, it’s just programmed to do things. However, it is predicted to evolve to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or Strong AI, in the future; AI with enough brainpower to match that of a human. It will be able to make its own decisions, combining different pieces of information just like humans do. And once it exists, it will (supposedly) lead to the development of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), which, as the word “super” indicates, will surpass human intelligence, in every aspect. And it will surpass it by a lot, making humans feeble by comparison.

ASI is the kind of AI that could take over the world. Whether it will exist and when is uncertain. Nevertheless, let’s imagine it did exist. How would humanity deal with it? How would we deal with such technology, much smarter than any of us or all of us, collectively?

Perhaps, we wouldn’t have to deal with it. Because it is possible that, should ASI come to existence, it would turn out to be the most hopeful technological advancement in the history of the world. An intellect with such a computational ability would be able to think faster and make calculations and connections much easier than any human. What that means is, problems impossible to humans would be simple to it. And the more of them it dealt with, the smarter it’d turn, with its database constantly expanding. Just imagine it. Given some time and provided with knowledge of all chemical formulae, it’d be able to find the cause and thus treatment to any disease or start the production of artificial meat and crops, ending world hunger and reducing pollution. War would, soon, disappear from the face of Earth since there’d be nothing to fight over; every need would be met with. Even ageing could be fought by such an intellect.

Perhaps, reaching ASI would mean the end of mortality.

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Or, perhaps, that’s just an overly optimistic scenario. What must be kept in mind is that artificial intelligence will always be that; artificial. And, no matter how it evolves, being used by the wrong people or being wrongly programmed, could lead to it becoming a threat not only to humans but to the entire world, in the same way it could save it. And, such a threat, that of an intelligence surpassing all others, would be unstoppable. So how can it be avoided?

As a kind, we need to keep experimenting with technology, despite our inability to know how it will turn out. It is, however, due to this inability that we should, also, always try to predict where technological advancements will lead us or what their side effects might be. For it is quite easy to complain over computers stealing our jobs, but it’s just as easy, it seems, to find ourselves complaining over computers stealing our lives. Staying informed when it comes to technology and keeping a responsible attitude towards it, could make a huge difference; it could be what keeps ASI from being reached when there’s not enough understanding of its nature or its capabilities, it could be what keeps it from being programmed in a way that would allow it to turn, in the future, against us.

It could make the difference between our being robots’ slaves and our turning into walking, talking, Roomba using gods.

And, oh boy, do we love using our Roombas.

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Gene Editing And Artificial Intelligence author: Marina Gkioka

How AI could help improve CRISPR-Cas9

Ever since the dawn of civilization, humans have been taking advantage of animals, domesticating them and sometimes changing their specific characteristics according to their needs, through breeding; something that they also did with plants. It came as no surprise, consequently, that once the structure and operation of DNA was discovered and understood, the idea to manipulate it in order to change and “improve” species, also spawned.

The longer, however, scientists worked and thought on it, the more realistic the possibility of applying that to humans became. After years of research on the subject, nowadays it seems technology might, once again, be the key to problems geneticists have been facing for years.

A… very brief history of genome editing It is important, that gene editing in itself be explained, before the role of technology on its improvement is.

Gene editing, by definition, is “the manipulation of the genetic material of a living organism by deleting, replacing, or inserting a DNA sequence, typically with the aim of improving a crop or farmed animal, or correcting a genetic disorder”. Scientists started attempting to alter genetic material as early as the 1970s, about a decade after DNA itself was discovered (1958). In specific, the first “transgenic” animal in the world, meaning animal injected with genes from another organism, was born in 1974 and was a mouse, while seven years later, in 1981, transgenic mice were able to pass their foreign genes to their offspring. A year later, genetically engineered insulin was, for the first time, available in the market, replacing animal-harvested one, thus becoming much cheaper and significantly easier to produce, while in 1986 the first vaccine produced via gene editing, that for Hypatitis B., was introduced.

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Progress continued in the 1990s with the creation of an

At the same time, it is applied in food and agricultural

always ripe tomato, the “FLAVR SAVR” in 1994, the clon-

industries to engineer probiotics and vaccinate against

ing of the first mammal ever, Dolly the Sheep in 1996

viruses while also being used to improve crops, increas-

and the complete mapping of the human genome in

ing their tolerance and nutritional value. It is a very easy

1999 that lead, during the 2000s, to gene-targeted drug

to use tool and much more efficient than any other

therapies and cancer vaccines. All those breakthroughs

existing one. It takes less time and resources allowing

and more were that resulted in the discovery of the

much faster and cheaper gene manipulation. Plus, it

CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering tool in 2012 that is

has already been proven to be efficient against human

expected to lead the way to future genetic research.

diseases and genetic anomalies, at least in vitro (in the lab).

Explaining CRISPR-Cas9 CRISPR-Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring

However, the process is nowhere near 100% precise or

genome editing system in bacteria. The bacteria capture

efficient. In specific, it is often noticed that by applying

snippets of DNA from invading viruses and use them

it, the DNA molecule is cut in many different locations

to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays. The

other than the targeted one, leading to the possibility of

CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to remember the virus-

introduction of new mutations. It is also possible that

es (or closely related ones). If the viruses attack again,

the edit, even if conducted in the targeted location, might

the bacteria produce RNA segments from the CRISPR

not be precise thus leading to “genetic vandalism” while

arrays to target the viruses' DNA. The bacteria

it can be that despite the cut and editing being correct,

then use Cas9 (an enzyme) to cut the DNA apart, which

CRISPR-Cas9 will just not bring any significant result.

disables the virus.

This system works similarly in the lab. A short “guide” sequence is used by researchers to create a small RNA piece that binds to a specific target DNA sequence in a genome as well as a Cas9 enzyme whose role is to cut the DNA in the targeted location. At this point, the cell’s own repair mechanisms are used by geneticists to add or delete pieces of genetic material or make changes to the DNA by replacing an existing segment with a custom one.

So what CRISPR can do, is give us access to the DNA. It allows for alteration and study of its structure and as a result can be used to cure diseases or DNA anomalies.

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ArtificialInteligence

So, what does Artificial Intelligence have to do with all

Nevertheless, the introduction of AI in the process, is

that?

expected to lead to significant results. Prediction of se-

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has in recent years of CRIS-

quence repair could allow researchers to find the precise

PR-Cas9 research proved to be a useful tool to over-

RNA sequences that will reproduce human mutations

come obstacles set by the system’s disadvantages. In

(leading to better tools to study genetic disease) or even

specific, since using CRISPR-Cas9 comes with a level of

correct disease-causing mutations found in humans.

uncertainty on what the outcome on the cell will be after the edit, there has been speculation that the process of

So, what AI has done for CRISPR is, it has allowed us

stitching DNA back together is done randomly by Cas9.

to turn this formerly random and uncertain process into

Research seemed to showcase a pattern in the process

a tool that could in the future lead to the eradication

but there was no way of telling whether that actually

of genetic disease, that could make even diseases like

existed or not.

cancer or HIV disappear from the face of earth. And despite the fact that a lot of work is still required before

In recent years, however, deep learning algorithms have

the system is perfected, the application of the process in

been developed that, based in a library of old DNA parts

animals that is already taking place, in order to rid them

cut and then stitched back together by CRISPR-Cas9,

of genetic diseases, indicates that a future in which no

search for patterns in the process. “Fed� with huge

genetic -or other- disease will bother humanity, might

databases of old CRISPR cases, those algorithms try to

actually be closer to us than we think.

specify what the edit to the DNA is exactly and whether it is repeated. What they have found so far is that the majority of repairs are conducted in the same way, using the same, specific sequences within Cas9 and, thus, a pattern on them seems to, indeed, exist.

By locating this pattern, AI has also enabled scientists to predict the outcome that repairs in the DNA will have to the cell; in fact, those algorithms do that themselves.

However, it seems, the algorithms still show low accuracy levels, requiring improvements.

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Man Against Machine author: Martin Bianca Elvira It is no secret that in everyday life artificial intelligence is gaining more and more ground. But of course, here comes the question: Should we trust technology or not? Should we let it go and struggle in this success?The human purpose has always been knowledge, but where does this lead us? How far has AI come in meeting this challenge?

The involvement of AI is included in the medical field and reasoning with this uncertainty has long been considered a key challenge for artificial intelligence (AI), considering that imprecise knowledge is an important issue in clinical diagnosis.

Nowadays we have an insight into the potential for AI to reduce clinical uncertainty by assessing the melanoma detection performance of a deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) in comparison to a large group of dermatologists. Melanoma is a major challenge in public health, with continuous increases in rates of incidence and mortality fueling a heightened commitment to early detection and prevention.

The study found that “the average diagnostic performance of 58 dermatologists was inferior to a deep learning CNN. Therefore, deep learning CNNs seem a promising tool for melanoma detection.�

Google’s Inception v4 CNN architecture is based on the use of appropriate dermoscopic and diagnostic images.

The results of the study were based on the acuity and how specific was the diagnostic classification of the lesions

by CNN in comparison with 58 dermatologists. Surprisingly, more than half the doctors were outperformed by the performance of articular intelligence.

Considering how far we have come, it is far more plausible that in the future, by using AI, we will become capable of not only getting a better diagnosis, but most likely finding new cures, procedures and overall improvements on how we treat and look at issues our bodies may have. AI will most likely reshape/revolutionize the medical field as we know it.

In conclusion, we have reached a level where technology is a part of us and helps us to overcome ourselves even in borderline situations, where it is about quality of life. What could be better than this?

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ArtificialInteligence

Augmented Reality And Day-to-Day Life author: Daniel Zglimbea Augmented reality (AR) is a very hot topic these days, especially in areas like medicine or aeronautics (for training new specialists without any risks) or architecture (through seeing how a project would look like without spending the time and resources to actually implement it). But what is it exactly? By definition, AR is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. What this means is that AR makes virtual data perceptible by one or more of your senses (kind of like those funny Snapchat filters, but way more immersive). But let us explore ARs applications that can help you and me, usual persons, in our everyday life.

When it comes to daily AR users and the most widespread use of it, gaming clearly takes the first place, blending the real world with its characters to offer an engaging and immersive experience.

The most well-known game to use augmented reality is the Pokémon Go app. This Nintendo gaming app skyrocketed in popularity when it was released as a free mobile app in 2016 and users simply downloaded the app to hunt for Pokémon characters in their everyday surroundings. The app uses your GPS data to determine where you are and reveal the virtual characters within your real world. Pokémon Go had 60 million active users in 2017 and accounted for 84% of the entire mobile AR consumer spending that year. Many other mobile video games have tried to emulate Pokémon GO’s success since then, and this medium still represents the most common form of augmented reality gaming.

In the near future, mainstream video game fans will be able to join their friends in an alternate reality through AR facial recognition and be able to speak with their teammates through digital puppetry. By reading and analyzing a player’s face, this technology can replicate your body as a character within the video giving you the opportunity to have a virtual representation of yourself within the same virtual realm as your teammates all with the help of headsets, glasses or visors.

Another common use of AR in our everyday lives is during the shopping process. In-store, augmented reality can easily display information and other visuals on packaged items with a simple image scan. AR has been used to show what comes with a packaged product so customers know what to expect.

Ever the game-changer, Amazon is seeking ways to cut down on the amount of clothing returns it is receiving from its customers while making shopping easier through a “virtual changing room” app. This AR-based capability would scan your body measurements, assess additional data about your preferences and recommend a specific size or style to you. It will even be able to generate what the clothing would look like on you through a presentation layer. As a result, the clothing fit is estimated to be much more exact, resulting in a more accurate depiction of the outfit and a smarter purchase decision.

What’s more, using a “virtual tours” option, prospective homebuyers can often view a property from the comfort of their desktop computer or mobile device before making the trek to see the home in-person. These clients can also use furniture placement apps to see how they would furnish one of their potential homes. In fact, IKEA is leading the charge in this respect using a digital furniture placement app called IKEA Place that also allows you to virtually “try before you buy.”

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And because we all love to travel and visit new and exciting places, augmented reality can help us in this aspect as well! To date, the most common use of AR within the tourism industry has been to introduce more interactive elements into hotels, improving the overall experience. Essentially, this gives hotels, resorts and other similar businesses the ability to provide customers with more information on demand. For example, a British resort made the wall maps it places in hotel rooms augmented reality compatible. When viewed through a smartphone or tablet, the wall maps include extra information about some of the local places of interest, serving as a tourist information tool.

Away from hotel environments, some companies within the travel industry are developing augmented reality apps which allow tourists to enhance physical locations and tourist attractions, allowing a user to point their smartphone at a building or landmark and learn more about it, in real-time. For example, a user may point their phone at a restaurant and instantly be provided with reviews or menus, or aim their tablet at a historic landmark and be presented with information about its history or see how it looked many years ago. This has the ability to greatly enhance the entire travel experience and allows tourists to take in information on the go.

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Deepmind’s AI: Reaches Top 99,8% In Starcraft 2 author: Andrei Tudosie Earlier this year in January, Google’s DeepMind AI AlphaStar had defeated two professional players, TLO and MaNa, at StarCraft II, a real-time strategy game. Two months ago, DeepMind announced that AlphaStar has now achieved the highest possible online competitive ranking, called Grandmaster level, in StarCraft II. This makes AlphaStar the first AI to reach the top league of a widely popular game without any restrictions The DeepMind researchers were able to develop a robust and flexible agent by understanding the potential and limitations of open-ended learning. This helped the researchers to make AlphaStar cope with complex real-world domains. “Games like StarCraft are an excellent training ground to advance these approaches, as players must use limited information to make dynamic and difficult decisions that have ramifications on multiple levels and timescales,” states the blog post.

The StarCraft II video game requires players to balance high-level economic decisions with individual control of hundreds of units. When playing this game, humans are under physical constraints which limits their reaction time and their rate of actions. Accordingly, AphaStar was also imposed with these constraints, thus making it suffer from delays due to network latency and computation time. In order to limit its actions per minute (APM), AphaStar’s peak statistics were kept substantially lower than those of humans. To align with the standard human movement, it also had a limited viewing of the portion of the map, AlphaStar could register only a limited number of mouse clicks and had only 22 non-duplicated actions to play every five seconds.

AlphaStar uses a combination of general-purpose techniques like neural network architectures, imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and multi-agent learning. The games were sampled from a publicly available dataset of anonymized human replays, which were later trained to predict the action of every player. These predictions were then used to procure a diverse set of strategies to reflect the different modes of human play.

Moreover, it uses a latent variable to encode the distribution of opening moves from human games.

This helped AlphaStar to preserve the high-level strategies and enabled it to represent many strategies within a single neural network. By training the advances in imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and the League, the researchers were able to train AlphaStar Final, the agent that reached the Grandmaster level at the full game of StarCraft II without any modifications.

AlphaStar used a camera interface, which helped it get the exact information that a human player would receive.

All the interface and restrictions faced by AlphaStar were approved by a professional player. Finally, the results indicated that general-purpose learning techniques can be used to scale AI systems to work in complex and dynamic environments involving multiple actors.

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Did You Know ?

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Computer Graphics author: Lazarela Rudic What exactly is computer graphics? The most common explanation is simple: drawing pictures on a computer screen.

Through time a lot of artist, designers fell in love with computer graphics. Manipulation of their piece of art has never been easier. Before using computers in art, everything was done in an analog manner with watercolors, markers, pencils, etc... Now, all of this information is digital and easy to transform because on the computer every drawing is a series of numbers and changing one number can make a difference.

All computer art is digital, but there are two very different ways of drawing digital images on a computer screen, known as raster and vector graphics.

Raster Graphics When it comes to raster graphics, the main term is pixel. Pixels are tiny colored dots or squares from which words and pictures are made up on screen.

An important thing in raster graphics is a bitmap. The way that computers represent decimal numbers using just the two digits zero and one is called binary representation. So, turning a picture into a computer file made up of binary digits - bits, is a bitmap. Most bitmaps are made of colored pictures and the more the colors that we need to represent, the more bits we need. The most common problem with this kind of graphics is memory because of the number of colors. Therefore, the machine limits picture performance.

Resolution is a characteristic that always goes hand in hand with pixels. It is the maximum number of pixels in an image. Depending on this, pictures can be more or less detailed. Different formats of pictures require different resolutions. Also, resolution is the most common thing that is talked about when it comes to quality of display.

As I mentioned earlier, raster graphics in general are a large number of tiny dots or squares. Anti-aliasing is the technique that is used to blur the pixels on a curve to give the appearance of a smoother line. It’s mostly used to smooth the fonts on pixelated computer screens.

Vector Graphics In order to prevent the deficiencies of raster graphics, vector graphics may be used as an alternative method. It is pretty simple, instead of building up a picture out of pixels, we draw it by using simple straight and curved lines called vectors or basic shapes known as primitives. One of the main conveniences of this graphic is easy scaling because of mathematical formulas - algorithms are applied and computer programs can scale shapes to different sizes without making them look pixelated nor grainy.

Most modern computer graphics packages enable drawing an image using a mixture of raster and vector graphics because sometimes one approach works better than the other, and at other times, a mix of both types works best.

BĂŠzier curves is a well-known technique in which it is possible to draw curves on screen by tracing out and then filling in drown paths to incorporate them into something like a bitmap image before risterizing them.

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3D graphics Another popular type of graphics, 3D graphics, makes it easier to imagine how objects would look like in reality. Why is that? When we look at objects in the world around us, they don’t appear to be drawn from either pixels or vectors.

In order to make a computerized image look realistic, a lot more needs to be included than just additional pixels.

The main thing that is used to present 2D models as 3D is perspective which shows how objects recede into the distance toward a “vanishing point� on the horizon. Perspective is used in a combination with hidden-surface elimination where nearby things partly obscure ones that are further away.

Computer graphics are used in various ways in a lot of spheres of life. It is important to know its characteristics so that its implementation is in the correct condition for operation or usage. Every day improvements are made and today computer graphics are very interactive and user-friendly. For the future, we can only expect high-quality and proper usage of it.

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Graphic Design vs. Computer Science author: Lazarela Rudićψc Since I study graphic engineering and design, it was always interesting to me how graphic design is evaluated in computer science. There are many different opinions about how much graphic design is included in computer science: Is it even supposed to be there? Is graphic design web design? Do we know which one is better?.

If you are familiar with Design, it will be much easier to create good looking and user-friendly websites. On the other hand, when knowing HTML and CSS, which are programming languages mostly used in Web Design, you can write the code for any website and its design.

It is very interesting how in Web Design, in most cases, less is more. With pretty simple code you can do wonders in the layout of the website.

Individuals who find themselves torn between pursuing a career in coding and Graphic Design often do so because of their love for computers and the creative processes they involve. Coding is a lot more scientific than Graphic Design. On the other hand, graphic design affords the opportunity to use one’s artistic side and creativity throughout the construction and modification of images, words and shapes.

Graphic design is a field that involves effectively conveying messages to an audience through the use of words, space and image. Graphic designers use visual arts, typography and various page layout techniques to create their products such as logotype, posters, book covers and many various publications. Therefore, computer programs are used. The most common is definitely Adobe Illustrator, for vector graphics and Adobe Photoshop for raster. Interesting fact about graphic designers is that most of them are self-studied. There are many online tutorials for using the software. To learn how to use tools is the easiest part, what comes after is the real issue because the possibilities are unlimited.

Use of basic tools can give amazing results. Imagine what few more additional options can do.

When it comes to Computer Science, we can say that it is a bit wide of a domain. It can be about PC, PC functions, coding, networking; almost everything you can think of related to computers, mostly software. This field of study has a huge interest amongst the young, mostly because it looks like a safe future as it can provide a lot of job opportunities.

In between Graphic Design and Computer Science, lies Web Design. This fairly new domain can be simply explained as “ a good way of doing both things at once”.

Both graphic design and coding are beneficial in today’s modern world. There are advantages of learning and knowing each one. Coding products make everyday life easier. Using various applications for things we are doing on a daily basis gives us information, entertainment and so much different content. When it comes to graphic design studies, they are usually connected with graphic engineering so you are able to learn about the entire printing process, different types of printing, which printing technique is the best for the product and more.

In conclusion, the best thing is to do what brings joy.

Graphic Design and Computer Science are connected in so many ways, the one hardly goes without another. Being professional in any of these two fields is a beneficial skill and both of them are apprecciated in modern world.

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To Research The Search author: Maciej Zawilski Every day we use dozens of apps on our phones. And every day we visit dozens of websites on our computers. These apps and sites have one thing in common - virtually all of them have a tiny rectangle with an even smaller magnifying glass located somewhere in their interface - the search bar - which acts as a way to communicate with a complex structure called the search engine.

Every day we type down the items we wish to find in an online store, we use Google to gain knowledge about particular topics, we check out our favourite celebrities on Instagram and look up funny cat videos on YouTube. But how does the search engine know how to answer our questions in a satisfying way? How does Google know that by typing “dancing queen” we most probably meant a fabulous Swedish pop song, and not a literal twisting and twirling monarch? And how does it find so many possible matches so quickly?

The cogs and springs Typically, the search engine is based on an inverted index - a data structure best known to be used in scientific books. Somewhere near the ending cover, one can find a list of specific terms accompanied by a list of pages where that term is mentioned. This way, the reader can easily and quickly search for specific information. The same logic applies here. Search engines save in their memory tokens - with a list of documents that contain these tokens - often using special databases, such as Elasticsearch or Solr.

But first, what are tokens? On a very basic level, tokens are essentially equal to words. However, this way we won’t get far. If the user searches for “duck”, and our document refers to those birds solely in plural form - “ducks” - it won’t get matched. Similarly, if there’s any misspell in the document, all we’re getting is null and void.

That’s why search engine indexing is more difficult - it consists of many processing steps, most notably: - tokenizing - separating strings of text, usually by whitespace, into separate tokens, - stemming - removal of prefixes and suffixes, such as aforementioned “-s” for plural words in English, - filters - one of the examples is removing words that are part of the language, but don’t bear much meaning such as “the”, “with” or “and”. These words are called “stop words”.

After such processes, we are ready to fill up our inverted index.

And the score is…

Now that we have our data structure, we need to know how to use it. The basis of the scoring system is often a numeric statistic called TF-IDF, which consists of two parts: - term frequency - how frequent the term is, compared to the document size. If a document mentions the searched word many times, while being comparatively small in its volume, there’s a higher chance that it’s a good match.

- inverse document frequency - which measures how frequent the term is in all documents. Its main purpose is to prevent frequently used words from overtaking the scoring process. For instance, in a database of pets, words such as “animal” don’t help us much in finding the best match.

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There are a few ways to create TF-IDF out of the two, but the most popular one is to divide TF by a natural logarithm of IDF. There are however lots of different factors in determining the score of a document, and they depend on our needs. For instance, if TF-IDF was the only factor at Google, someone with vile intentions could hide words that have nothing to do with the website’s content somewhere on the page - just to increase their score. Online stores may not have to be wary of such third parties, but maybe they want to increase sales of a specific product by artificially increasing its score? And news sites definitely want to promote the latest articles, even if they don’t match as well.

Document

TF

IDF TF-IDF

A brown fox jumps over a lazy dog

1/8

3/2

0.308

A brown cat plays with a brown dog

2/8

3/2

0.617

A red fox jumps over a green fence

0/8

3/2

0

TF-IDF scoring of a word “brown” between the documents. To simplify the scoring, stop words removal has been omitted.

Notice that the third document doesn’t include the searched word and therefore its TF-IDF is equal to 0.

But wait, there’s more!

There’s a ton going on for search, and we can find even more exciting topics on the horizon. Semantic search has been increasing in popularity with the introduction of better NLP mechanisms, allowing the search engine to understand the meaning behind searched words and try to answer the question in addition to providing the list of documents.

Personalized search is another example of the growing environment - being able to understand the user and match the results based on their characteristics is extremely valuable, both for companies trying to target their customers with best-suited product, and for the user him- or herself by providing them with more satisfying results.

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Esports: Technology And Infrastructure That Power Competitive Gaming author: Marko Rajkovic Spotlight… Cameras on… Games, action… And… Network? Cables? 5G? Electronic sports, commonly known as just esports, is a form of sport where the primary aspects of it are facilitated by electronic systems, as well as the input of players and teams and the output of the esports system, are mediated by human-computer interfaces. To simplify this broad description, esports is where competitors play video games while being watched by a live audience, in person and/or online.

While evolving, media and computing technology became more complex and capable of handling higher bandwidth and frame rates. Network speed is very crucial for the infrastructure that powers competitive gaming. The biggest issue that affects gameplay is, of course, latency, because of the very high demands of the system that is trying to work in high definition, detailed graphics and a large group of users. Cloud companies are focused on building network stability and reducing latency as much as 20% of the standard acceptable lag. Today, fractions of seconds count, so low latency is very important to achieve.

The impact of 5G can be significant mainly because processing is significantly faster than current data transmission speeds. When you mix 5G with edge computing, the experience will be even faster for competitors, as the processing need will be handled by processors closer, thereby reducing latency even further.

If one is tempted to think that esports is a largely online phenomenon, we must remind ourselves that the offline aspects are essential as well. Tournaments and leagues are hosted in large-scale stadiums which can hold thousands of fans. Just when we think of the sheer number of cables that are required to hook up all those gaming rigs, all the modems, routers, servers for live-streaming, and more. For these events to be successful, a crucial part of the infrastructure is cable management. Cables cannot be left exposed due to tripping hazard for contestants, staff and the audiences. All major tournaments employ people who solely focus on that.

So, what’s next? As the industry grows, offline and online gaming events are becoming more popular than imagined, major companies such as Amazon and Microsoft are creating technologies that will push the boundaries of the game experience for both competitors and viewers.

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Ethics

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All Hacking Related author: Cristina Ivanov First, let’s break down the stereotype that already invaded your mind by now. Oftenly pictured as a young man, sitting in a dark room in the basement of his mom’s house, wearing a hoodie, a hacker’s image has been strongly defined over the years by media and movies. But the truth is, anyone can be a hacker, even people like you and me.

Second, despite what society makes you think, hackers aren’t inherently bad. Although hacking often refers to the unauthorized intrusion into a network or computer, the word shouldn’t be associated with “criminal” or “bad guy”, as many organizations actually hire hackers as a part of their staff!

Therefore, hackers are generally put into three categories: “white hat”, “grey hat”, and “black hat”. This usually refers to the relationship between the hacker and the systems they are attacking, but also if whether or not they are breaking the law. The terms come from old spaghetti westerns, where the bad guy wears a black cowboy hat, and the good guy wears a white hat. So, let’s find out what all of this means.

White hats: These guys use their skills to find flaws, vulnerable areas, and weak spots in the organization’s security system. This is done to find and fix the weaknesses and prevent malicious hackers from breaking in the security system. Interestingly enough, white hat hackers earned over $19 million in bounties in 2018.

Grey hats: This hacker type is the most commonly found type on the internet. Usually there are no major personal gains with grey hats. On one hand, sometimes they will look for vulnerabilities in a system without the owner’s permission or knowledge, offering to correct the defect for a nominal fee. On the other hand, famous grey hat hackers have exploited systems only to make the information public, and to bring to light vast datasets of information that contains wrongdoings. They have mixed intentions in their actions, which leads to the public having mixed feelings towards them.

Black hats: Simply put, these are the bad guys. They break into systems purely with negative intentions, like stealing credit card information or altering public databases. Black hats are in one way or another responsible for all the negative attention hacking receives in public views. Fun fact: The Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information that could lead to the arrest of FBI’s most wanted black hat hacker, Nicolae Popescu. Popescu was the ringleader of more than 70 Romanian hackers who overall, succeeded in stealing more than $3 million from wire fraud, passport fraud, money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit service marks. If you’ve got tips about this guy, don’t forget to hit the FBI up.

What’s interesting is that although it’s an “industry” everyone’s aware of, most of the people involved didn’t choose it as a career path from the beginning. It just simply and naturally has progressed into one from a random habit. 58% call themselves “self-taught,” but many report they’ve taken at least some computer science classes. So if you feel brave enough, there might be a place for you out there. Experts approximate 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs openings in 2021, so might as well start hacking!

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Self-Driving Car Dilemmas: Morals Choices Are Not Universal author: Cristina Ivanov Driving a car means being responsible not only for yourself but also for others and you take that responsibility upon you. But if there’s a scenario, including a self-driving car, in which someone’s death was inevitable, who would take the blame? People might walk away by saying that it is a software mistake rather than a human one.

Rarely do we encounter such dilemmas. But unfortunately, this one, self-driving car dilemmas reveal that moral choices are not universal. Studies have been carried out to determine what will be the opinion of people in general, and critics have come to ask questions about the ethics of various scenarios.

The authors of the study, however, continue to support the idea that everything was based on the decisions that each driver is required to make daily. The findings show that, depending on the cultural nuances and the laws of the geographical area, the creators of these vehicles must adapt to receive the public’s acceptance.

Thus, after the study, it was concluded that the answers are divided into 3 broad ethical categories: North America with Europe where Christianity has been dominant through history, as for the second group, it consists of Japan, Indonesia and Pakistan with Confucian or Islamic traditions, and the third group consists of Central and South America, as well as France and the former French colonies. The first group showed a stronger preference for sacrificing older lives to save the younger one than the second group, for example, which goes to prove just how much ethics depend on culture and geographic locations.

Currently, such vehicles are not accessible to the public, but companies are really intrigued by these studies and it is good to know what they will face. A spokesperson specializing in the ethics of cars at Audi in Ingolstadt, Germany, says that from a statistical point of view, the number of accidents would decrease greatly, but surely such events would have more attention.

In conclusion, most people will perceive these ideas and cars depending on the environment in which they lived and the ability to adapt to technology. In some cases, you might think it is the fault of those in the car, hence a more complicated moral dilemma.

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Inspiration

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Inspiration

The Inspiration We Needed author: Iulia Iamandei From time to time we need a push to move further, to accomplish our goals. Sometimes we get inspired by people who amazed the world with their determination. But what can it be an inspiration for us? The majority consider that the over-achievers and the extraordinary-talented are the ones that can by no mistake reach their full potential, but the contrary is proven.

Our inspiration is the people that raised from little hope and with a lot of hard work.

In this article, I want to present to you a different story of people with a passion to aid you in your path to triumph.

This person started as a simple individual but with a strong force of boldness, dedicating their attention, time and energy to their work. For most of us this is called “passion”, a quality I believe everyone has it.

ADA LOVELACE Born under the name of Augusta Ada King-Noel and later Countess of Lovelace and known throughout history as Ada Lovelace, she revolutionised our everyday lives.

EARLY YEARS The famed poet Lord Byron expected his baby to be a “glorious boy” and was disappointed when his wife gave birth to a girl. Ada had an unusual upbringing for an aristocratic girl in the mid-1800s. At her mother’s insistence, tutors taught her mathematics and science. Such challenging subjects were not standard fare for women at the time, but her mother believed that engaging in rigorous studies would prevent Lovelace from developing her father’s moody and unpredictable temperament. Ada was also forced to lie still for extended periods of time because her mother believed it would help her develop self-control. From early on, Lovelace showed a talent for numbers and language.

HER DEVELOPMENT Her excellence was clearly visible at a very young age as at 12 she conceptualized a flying machine. After studying the anatomy of birds and the suitability of various materials, the young girl illustrated plans to construct a winged flying apparatus before moving on to think about powered flight. “I have got a scheme,” she wrote to her mother, “to make a thing in the form of a horse with a steam engine in the inside so contrived as to move an immense pair of wings, fixed on the outside of the horse, in such a manner as to carry it up into the air while a person sits on its back.”

Due to her skills, she got to meet scientists like Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Faraday and the author Charles Dickens. She was presented at Court at the age of seventeen “and became a popular belle of the season” in part because of her “brilliant mind” BABBAGE AND THE ANALYTICAL ENGINE Ada Lovelace immediately became fascinated by Babbage’s ideas –known as the father of the computer, inventor of the difference engine which was meant to perform mathematical calculations.

When translating an article on Babbage’s analytical engine, Ada described how codes could be created for the device to handle letters and symbols along with numbers. She also theorized a method for the engine to repeat a series of instructions, a process known as looping that computer programs use today. Perhaps more importantly, the article contained statements by Ada that from a modern perspective are visionary. She speculated that the Engine ‘might act upon other things besides number. the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent’.

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The notes are around three times longer than the article itself and include (in Note G) in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers using the Analytical Engine. Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely considered to be the first computer programmer and her method is recognised as the world’s first computer program.

Note G also contains Lovelace’s dismissal of artificial intelligence. She wrote that “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths.” This objection has been the subject of much debate and rebuttal, for example by Alan Turing in his paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”.

Ada was the first to explicitly articulate this notion and in this, she appears to have seen further than Babbage.

She has been referred to as ‘prophet of the computer age’. Certainly, she was the first to express the potential for computers outside mathematics. In this the tribute is well-founded.

Sadly, her contributions to computing weren’t recognized until a century after her death. Lovelace’s ideas about computing were so far ahead of their time that it took nearly a century for technology to catch up. While Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s analytical engine gained little attention at the time they were originally published in 1843, they found a much wider audience when republished in B.V. Bowden’s 1953 book “Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines.” As the field of computer science dawned in the 1950s, Lovelace gained a new following in the digital age.

LEGACY During the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense developed a high-order computer programming language to supersede the hundreds of different ones then in use by the military. When U.S. Navy Commander Jack Cooper suggested naming the new language “Ada” in honour of Lovelace in 1979, the proposal was unanimously approved. Ada is still used around the world today in the operation of real-time systems in the aviation, health care, transportation, financial, infrastructure and space industries.

Since 1998 the British Computer Society (BCS) has awarded the Lovelace Medal, and in 2008 initiated an annual competition for women students. BCSWomen sponsors the Lovelace Colloquium, an annual conference for women undergraduates. Ada College is a further education college in Tottenham Hale, London focused on digital skills.

In conclusion, although it wasn’t common in that time the domain Ada chose to work on, she dedicated everything and thought outside the box, even further than what her tutor ever imagined. She predicted and had revolutionary ideas. She was strong, courageous and never left her guard down. We can also learn from her late recognition that we should believe in our own powers as something we create today may reach its peak later on. So, continue working on that project, do that idea you had in mind!

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Inspiration

How Was COVID19 Seen Through EESTEC author: Iulia Iamandei I would like to start by acknowledging the strength in our community lately. We are all well aware of the events in the previous period of time. This time wasn’t easy, it’s a sudden change that we had to adapt to quickly, but we’ve only proven that together we can overcome this obstacle in our lives.

During this time we’ve all realised the importance of staying united. Checking on your teammates, having a short online meeting, playing games with friends, or having watch-parties are some of the activities I’ve stumbled upon in EESTEC recently. This really proves that even in the darkest days we are able to not let ourselves down. Physically we may be separated, but our bonds can never be broken, so we become stronger with the help of each other.

As we had to adapt to a lot of things these previous months, we also had to postpone a lot of upcoming events we were excited about. Four of our operational events were cancelled: IT Sprint 3.0 (LC Trieste), 2nd CRedit ( LC Sarajevo), 12th Training for Trainers ( LC Athens), 2nd AIM (LC Belgrade), as well as our Live Regional Meetings held

by JLC Bursa, LC Tirana, LC Lille, Observer Guimaraes and LC Ljubljana, and even our workshops: Industry 4.0n (LC Madrid). The saddest cancellation of them all would be our get-togethers organized twice a year, the opportunity every branch awaits to meet all their international friends: The Congress!

Even though these events were postponed or cancelled we want to let the Organisers know that your work wasn’t in vain, we appreciate everything you’ve done until this moment and we hope that this didn’t discourage you! As mentioned before, we all stand together now and in enough time we’ll remember this as a bad dream.

In this article, we are going to show the exact atmosphere in EESTEC at the moment, so I went further and interviewed representatives from each type of events we’ve had to cancel. How are the other branches handling this? How are the OCs of the events right now? And what impact had the free time upon them?

So, how are other branches dealing with this situation?

Fabrice Taingland, LC Lille At the end of March, our University was supposed to organize a handover day for the University Associations, which was obviously cancelled. We have set up another action plan to pass on the knowledge and expertise to the new board. At this moment it is forbidden to travel in France, we communicate only via social networks and we’ve already canceled every live meeting.

Javier Antón Yuste, LC Madrid In the first days, we were able to meet all together and to go to the office we have in our university but quickly, the situation in Spain got worse and the buildings gradually closed.

We thought we could do our events (SSA and our workshop) after the quarantine period which was set until 23rd of March, but they also postponed this date and we took difficult but necessary decisions: postponing indefinitely the events until the situation is more stable. We didn’t want to risk the integrity of our participants nor our organisers.

Janna Korkovili - Soft Skills Trainer at EESTEC Training Team LC Athens is used to working, studying or simply spending time together in our offices, having a high level of interaction between us, which is not possible now and this affects our activity a lot. It’s currently the main challenge: maintaining the bond and the positive atmosphere among the members of our LC. After all, the people are the ones who will bring back the life in our branch.

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How did the postponement of their events affect the branch/OC/members?

How are you feeling?

Georgia Saranti, CP of T4T OC on the postponement of Training for Trainers We all agreed about the postponement and we thought that this will be a great opportunity for us to make this event even better! The negative impact of this situation is that we can not see each other and some of us are feeling that we are losing our connection as a team, but we are trying to stay as connected as possible via video calls and messages!

As for the participants, I think everybody understood the situation and how hard it was for everyone to take this decision. We thought that this is for the best as our mind wouldn’t be 100% on the event. Now everybody is waiting patiently for the new date.

Janna Korkovili - Soft Skills Trainer at EESTEC Training Team T4T was ready. One week had been left until the beginning of the event and we were all so proud of having prepared almost everything in advance - it rarely happens in training events that the sessions are fully designed before the live preparation days. One day we are super positive and passionate about what is coming and the next day we read the guidelines about cancelling any gathering of people in the next days in the country... The first reaction was a shock for all of us, no certain emotions.

However, right away we turned the whole situation into a great opportunity for the event and everyone went for it.

We got hyped about organizing the event during the summer along with building a plan for further preparation of the participants. New books and other materials, more knowledge on different topics, new activities and challenges for the co-trainers and the entire new generation of trainers, are on our way and we could not be more excited about all these.

Alvaro Alonso OC of the workshop “Industry 4.0n”, LC Madrid When everything began we were sure that it would not affect our two events(Workshop and SSA) since there was still more than a month to go, but day after day we saw the news and we were becoming aware that carrying them out was going to be very complex and we decided to postpone it for our good. The general feeling of the main organizers and team leaders is, obviously, frustration because we have done so much work for nothing. But our intention is to be able to relocate it before the end of our school year.

Fabrice Taingland on the postponement of Live Regional Meetings of Region III After our president’s announcement, we immediately took the decision to postpone the Live Regional Meeting. This has strongly affected LC Lille because we are a small LC and organizing a week-long event takes a lot of our time and budget. We have been preparing for this event since September.

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But against all odds, we managed to stay together and strengthen our connections. We didn’t let this virus attack our community.

Javier Antón Yuste, LC Madrid I love to see the effort that people are putting into initiatives, for making the time of others pass quickly. All in all, we are in the same situation and we should support each other in these bad times.

Janna Korkovili, LC Athens I simply love how we are maintaining the strong bond between us and enhance our relationships with more sharing, more fun and always being next to each other in such hard periods. Our Association is used to the online work and the great challenges, so I am confident that we will get out of this crisis even stronger.

Indeed, this isn’t the situation we wanted but it surely shouldn’t let us down. Passion, Enthusiasm, Professionalism, Team Spirit, Integrity - these are the qualities of an EESTECer and this is the moment when we need to show that we have them inside of us. These aren’t easy times, but we aren’t used to unwinding either. Our EESTEC lives made us tough and that brings us hope of overcoming this together.

To conclude, this article is written in appreciation of all the people that worked so hard for the postponed/cancelled events, for the boards in all the branches we have, for every single member of EESTEC and for our International Board that is helping us handle this.

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Soft Skills To Nail Your Interview author: Enes Nuralp Most individuals would not acknowledge a marriage proposition from somebody they had never met. Similarly, in the event that an individual looks extraordinary on paper, it may not be enough for them to be accepted, since that piece of paper _ the CV_ doesn’t give enough information about who the candidate really is, as a person . A work offer is also a possibly life-altering occasion that needs cautious pondering. Interviews give you an opportunity to display your potential, so that interviewers would be capable of measuring how well your aptitudes adjust with the company’s needs.

Every first meeting seems like an interview. For instance, when you meet with a person for the first time, your conversation shows many things about yourself. In the business interview, your mindset, words that you choose, energy and mood that you display, are the parameters of your first impression on people. Because the first impression is really important in all kinds of encounters.

There are few tips to have a good first impression in a business interview like speaking with the right body language, researching the company and your interviewers, and preparing smart questions to ask them, etc… Body language is particularly important in a meeting as your interrogator will be paying as much consideration to nonverbal prompts as to what you’ve got to say. The handshake is a simple symbol of introduction, a polite way to acknowledge the other person. This is a suitable beginning of an interview. During the interview, eye contact is one of the most important points to make a good impression.

Researching the company and your interviewers is one of the finest ways to become a stand-out candidate during the hiring process. By putting on your analyst cap and exploring potential managers, you’ll find subtle elements about your future employers and that will get you ready for all circumstances.

The last question you will continuously be asked amid a meeting is whether or not you’ve got any questions for the inquisitor. This is your chance to truly stand out–so don’t blow it by saying you don’t, or that your questions have as of now been answered. Even if you don’t have any questions, there should always be a question you can ask at the end of an interview. These methods can be changeable depending on the people. Because everyone has different methods.

In our social life, are conversations with people formal like these? The answer to this question is “NO”. Professional Life and Social Life are different from each other. However, the main focus point of both of them is “human”.

During our interviews,meetings,and so on, we shan’t forget two points, which are “Who am I talking to ? , and “Where am I?”. According to the answers of these two questions we can determine the type of behaviours we should adopt during the conversation.

In EESTEC Soft Skills Academy, the topics of soft skills are integrated into every part of life. Because, this academy does not only help you with the Soft Skills needed for career development. EESTEC Soft Skills Academy is the best mentor to gain skills that you can integrate at any points of your daily/professional life with its sub-events in local academies overviewed by various EESTEC Branches.

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Inspiration

EESTech Challenge Project author: Selin Duvar Four years ago, with the need of a technological project in our Association, EESTech Challenge (EESTEC Technology Challenge) was born. This Project aims to enhance the academic aspect of our Association, strengthen our network and create opportunities for European students to gain knowledge in the field of the EECS. EESTech Challenge’s structure consists of Local Rounds and the one and only Final Round. By organizing a Local Round, EESTEC branches have the opportunity to gain an outstanding reputation among students, professors, and companies. Students around Europe can prove their teamwork skills, test their knowledge, share different cultural experiences and create new friendships.

EESTech Challenge’s main topic has been changing throughout the previous editions: from Machine Learning to Internet of Things, as well as Big Data. This year’s edition is based on Artificial Intelligence: Human-Computer Interaction.

This year, we have received applications from 18 branches for Local Rounds. Although some branches were able to organize their respective Local Rounds, sadly the pandemic situation around the world affected the schedules of the rest of the organizing branches. However, some of them will be organized as online hackathons and the rest of them will keep their planned (live) structure. The new dates aren’t familiar yet, but all of the Local Rounds are expected to be finished by October when the Final Round will take place in Krakow, Poland.

During the Final Round, all the winning teams of Local Rounds will come together to compete and test their knowledge. In Polish lands, only one of these teams will rise as a champion of the challenge.

The question is — are you #ReadyForTheChallenge?

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