Reflexis in the In Store Retail Tech Industry

Reflex

reflex

Almost any web app that contains data needs a way to represent it succinctly and clearly to the user. However, most Python web development solutions do not provide an easy way to do this purely in . Python Thanks to the plethora of existing React components for creating graphs, an implementation for Python can be created to easily solve this problem. In this post, we’ll walk through how to build a web app purely in Python, which contains graphs that strike a balance between flexibility and ease of use. The graphs are easy to build but also easy to customize to your needs. For this project, we are going to use a new open-source dev tool called Reflex. 1. Getting started with your Python Web App If you face any problems here with installation check out more docs here: https://reflex.dev/docs/getting-started/installation/ $ pip install reflex $ reflex init 2. Creating an Interactive Graph In this example, we will create a live-streaming graph that updates every second with random data. We start by defining some initial data for our chart to use, as well as some imports we will use for the project: from typing import Any, Dict, List
import reflex as rx
import random
import asyncio

data = [
    {"name": "A", "uv": 10, "pv": 110, "amt": 210},
    {"name": "B", "uv": 20, "pv": 120, "amt": 230},
    {"name": "C", "uv": 30, "pv": 120, "amt": 240},
    {"name": "D", "uv": 30, "pv": 130, "amt": 210},
    {"name": "E", "uv": 20, "pv": 140, "amt": 230},
    {"name": "F", "uv": 40, "pv": 170, "amt": 250},
    {"name": "G", "uv": 50, "pv": 190, "amt": 260},
] Here stands for unique visitors, stands for page views and stands for amount. uv pv amt They are arbitrary values that we will use to populate our graph. Next, we define a class that will be used to store the data and update it with an event handler: StreamingState class StreamingState(rx.State):
    data: List[Dict[str, Any]] = data
    stream: bool = False

    def stop_stream(self):
        self.stream = False

    @rx.background
    async def start_stream(self):
        async with self:
            self.stream = True
        while self.stream:
            async with self:
                for i in range(len(self.data)):
                    self.data[i]["uv"] = random.randint(0, 100)
                    self.data[i]["pv"] = random.randint(100, 200)
                    self.data[i]["amt"] = random.randint(200, 300)
            await asyncio.sleep(3) Here, we define a method that will stop the stream when called. We also define a method that will start the stream. We use the decorator to run the method in the background. This allows us to update the data without blocking the UI. stop_stream start_stream @rx.background Remember to use when updating the state in a background task. async with self: Finally, we will define our UI using Reflex's new graphing components. We pass the data from our class to the component and reference the data key we want to use in component. We also add a button to start and stop the stream. StreamingState area_chart area The result is a live updating graph that looks like this: The code for this graph is below: def index():
   return rx.vstack(
     rx.recharts.area_chart(
        rx.recharts.area(
            data_key="pv",
            stroke="#82ca9d",
            fill="#82ca9d",
            type_="natural",
        ),
        rx.recharts.x_axis(
            data_key="name",
        ),
        rx.recharts.y_axis(),
        rx.recharts.legend(),
        data=StreamingState.data,
        width="100%",
        height=400,
    ),
    rx.hstack(
        rx.button(
            "Start Stream",
            on_click=StreamingState.start_stream,
            disabled=StreamingState.stream,
        ),
        rx.button(
            "Stop Stream",
            on_click=StreamingState.stop_stream,
        ),
        width="100%",
    ),
    width="100%",
)

# Add state and page to the app.
app = rx.App()
app.add_page(index)
app.compile() The last three lines define our app, add the graph component to the base route, and then compile our app. Now, we can run it with the terminal command. $ reflex run 3. Multiple Graphs We can add extra components to our chart to show the and data as well. We can also add a an component to show the data when we hover over the chart. area uv amt graphing_tooltip cartesian_grid Keep in mind the child coming first will be displayed in the back, so the order of the components matter. area The code for this graph is below: def index():
  return rx.vstack(
    rx.recharts.area_chart(
        rx.recharts.area(
            data_key="pv",
            fill="#48BB78",
            stroke="#48BB78",
            type_="natural",
        ),
        rx.recharts.area(
            data_key="uv",
            fill="#F56565",
            stroke="#F56565",
            type_="natural",
        ),
        rx.recharts.area(
            data_key="amt",
            fill="#4299E1",
            stroke="#4299E1",
            type_="natural",
        ),
        rx.recharts.x_axis(
            data_key="name",
        ),
        rx.recharts.y_axis(),
        data=StreamingState.data,
        width="90%",
        height=400,
    ),
    rx.hstack(
        rx.button(
            "Start Stream",
            on_click=StreamingState.start_stream,
            is_disabled=StreamingState.stream,
            width="100%",
            color_scheme="green",
        ),
        rx.button(
            "Stop Stream",
            on_click=StreamingState.stop_stream,
            is_disabled=StreamingState.stream == False,
            width="100%",
            color_scheme="red",

        ),
        width="100%",
    )
)

# Add state and page to the app.
app = rx.App()
app.add_page(index)
app.compile() 4. Conclusion So that’s it; in just a few lines of simple code, you’ve created your live streaming graphing web app in pure Python. If you want to learn more about this and how to build graphs with Python check out this . documentation If you have questions, please comment them below or message me on Twitter at or on . Share your app creations on social media and tag me, and I’ll be happy to provide feedback or help retweet! @tgotsman12 LinkedIn Disclaimer: I work as a Founding Engineer at Reflex, where I build the open-source framework.

Python Web Development with Reflex: Creating Dynamic Graphs Easily

A Treatise on Painting by da Vinci Leonardo, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CONTRASTE, HARMONY, AND REFLEXES, IN REGARD TO COLOURS. here CONTRASTE, HARMONY, AND REFLEXES, IN REGARD TO COLOURS. Chap. CCLXX.— Gradation in Painting. What is fine is not always beautiful and good: I address this to such painters as are so attached to the beauty of colours, that they regret being obliged to give them almost imperceptible shadows, not considering the beautiful relief which figures acquire by a proper gradation and strength of shadows. Such persons may be compared to those speakers who in conversation make use of many fine words without meaning, which altogether scarcely form one good sentence. Chap. CCLXXI.— How to assort Colours in such a Manner as that they may add Beauty to each other. If you mean that the proximity of one colour should give beauty to another that terminates near it, observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the colours of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in its descent takes every colour of that bow, as is demonstrated in its place. If you mean to represent great darkness, it must be done by contrasting it with great light; on the contrary, if you want to produce great brightness, you must oppose to it a very dark shade: so a pale yellow will cause red to appear more beautiful than if opposed to a purple colour. There is another rule, by observing which, though you do not increase the natural beauty of the colours, yet by bringing them together they may give additional grace to each other, as green placed near red, while the effect would be quite the reverse, if placed near blue. Harmony and grace are also produced by a judicious arrangement of colours, such as blue with pale yellow or white, and the like; as will be noticed in its place. Chap. CCLXXII.— Of detaching the Figures. Let the colours of which the draperies of your figures are composed, be such as to form a pleasing variety, to distinguish one from the other; and although, for the sake of harmony, they should be of the same nature, they must not stick together, but vary in point of light, according to the distance and interposition of the air between them. By the same rule, the outlines are to be more precise, or lost, in proportion to their distance or proximity. Chap. CCLXXIII.— Of the Colour of Reflexes. All reflected colours are less brilliant and strong, than those which receive a direct light, in the same proportion as there is between the light of a body and the cause of that light. Chap. CCLXXIV.— What Body will be the most strongly tinged with the Colour of any other Object. An opake surface will partake most of the genuine colour of the body nearest to it, because a great quantity of the species of colour will be conveyed to it; whereas such colour would be broken and disturbed if coming from a more distant object. Chap. CCLXXV.— Of Reflexes. Reflexes will partake, more or less, both of the colour of the object which produces them, and of the colour of that object on which they are produced, in proportion as this latter body is of a smoother or more polished surface, than that by which they are produced. Chap. CCLXXVI.— Of the Surface of all shadowed Bodies. The surface of any opake body placed in shadow, will participate of the colour of any other object which reflects the light upon it. This is very evident; for if such bodies were deprived of light in the space between them and the other bodies, they could not shew either shape or colour. We shall conclude then, that if the opake body be yellow, and that which reflects the light blue, the part reflected will be green, because green is composed of blue and yellow. Chap. CCLXXVII.— That no reflected Colour is simple, but is mixed with the Nature of the other Colours. No colour reflected upon the surface of another body, will tinge that surface with its own colour alone, but will be mixed by the concurrence of other colours also reflected on the same spot. Let us suppose A to be of a yellow colour, which is reflected on the convex C O E, and that the blue colour B be reflected on the same place. I say that a mixture of the blue and yellow colours will tinge the convex surface; and that, if the ground be white, it will produce a green reflexion, because it is proved that a mixture of blue and yellow produces a very fine green. Chap. CCLXXVIII.— Of the Colour of Lights and Reflexes. When two lights strike upon an opake body, they can vary only in two ways; either they are equal in strength, or they are not. If they be equal, they may still vary in two other ways, that is, by the equality or inequality of their brightness; they will be equal, if their distance be the same; and unequal, if it be otherwise. The object placed at an equal distance, between two equal lights, in point both of colour and brightness, may still be enlightened by them in two different ways, either equally on each side, or unequally. It will be equally enlightened by them, when the space which remains round the lights shall be equal in colour, in degree of shade, and in brightness. It will be unequally enlightened by them when the spaces happen to be of different degrees of darkness. Chap. CCLXXIX.— Why reflected Colours seldom partake of the Colour of the Body where they meet. It happens very seldom that the reflexes are of the same colour with the body from which they proceed, or with that upon which they meet. To exemplify this, let the convex body D F G E be of a yellow colour, and the body B C, which reflects its colour on it, blue; the part of the convex surface which is struck by that reflected light, will take a green tinge, being B C, acted on by the natural light of the air, or the sun. Chap. CCLXXX.— The Reflexes of Flesh Colours. The lights upon the flesh colours, which are reflected by the light striking upon another flesh-coloured body, are redder and more lively than any other part of the human figure; and that happens according to the third proposition of the second book, which says, the surface of any opake body participates of the colour of the object which reflects the light, in proportion as it is near to or remote from it, and also in proportion to the size of it; because, being large, it prevents the variety of colours in smaller objects round it, from interfering with, and discomposing the principal colour, which is nearer. Nevertheless it does not prevent its participating more of the colour of a small object near it, than of a large one more remote. See the sixth proposition of perspective, which says, that large objects may be situated at such a distance as to appear less than small ones that are near. Chap. CCLXXXI.— Of the Nature of Comparison. Black draperies will make the flesh of the human figure appear whiter than in reality it is; and white draperies, on the contrary, will make it appear darker. Yellow will render it higher coloured, while red will make it pale. Chap. CCLXXXII.— Where the Reflexes are seen. Of all reflexions of the same shape, size, and strength, that will be more or less strong, which terminates on a ground more or less dark. The surface of those bodies will partake most of the colour of the object that reflects it, which receive that reflexion by the most nearly equal angles. Of the colours of objects reflected upon any opposite surface by equal angles, that will be the most distinct which has its reflecting ray the shortest. Of all colours, reflected under equal angles, and at equal distance upon the opposite body, those will be the strongest, which come reflected by the lightest coloured body. That object will reflect its own colour most precisely on the opposite object, which has not round it any colour that clashes with its own; and consequently that reflected colour will be most confused which takes its origin from a variety of bodies of different colours. That colour which is nearest the opposed object, will tinge it the most strongly; and : let the painter, therefore, in his reflexes on the human body, particularly on the flesh colour, mix some of the colour of the drapery which comes nearest to it; but not pronounce it too distinctly, if there be not good reason for it. vice versâ About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. da Vinci Leonardo (2014). A Treatise on Painting. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46915/pg46915-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

CONTRASTE, HARMONY, AND REFLEXES, IN REGARD TO COLOURS

Observations concerning the Reflexions and Colours of thick transparent polish'd Plates

Observations concerning the Reflexions, Refractions, and Colours of thin transparent Bodies

Code Book for Annotation of Diverse Cross-Document Coreference: Annotation Tool

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Narrative Resilience in Online Conflict Coverage: Insights from Twitter Analysis

HackerNoon editorial team has launched this interview series with women in tech to celebrate their achievements and share their struggles. We need more women in technology, and by sharing stories, we can encourage many girls to follow their dreams. Share your story today! Tell us about yourself! I’m a Senior Product Designer at PolyAI, focusing on building a conversational AI platform to help callers solve their issues without wasting time waiting for an available agent. Within the last nine years, I made a transition from Graphic design to UI/UX design at a design agency and then to Product design and had the pleasure of working with various great tech-led companies such as SberTech, Gett, and SpatialChat. Before the design field, I studied accounting and developed a passion for data and analytics that help me work closer with a business right now. Why did you choose this field in the first place? I had quite a rough and eventful path with the wrong career decision before I entered this field. At the time, when I should’ve selected the course at the university, I didn’t think that I could select something else apart from accounting because it was pretty straightforward, and I gave up on following my dream to become a designer. A few years later, when I wrote my work for a master’s degree and had a few years of working experience as an accountant, I understood that I didn’t love what I was doing and the only thing I loved to do was design that I learned as a hobby. It took half a year to get my first job as a Graphic designer, and then I dived into UI/UX design out of curiosity. During my first few years as a UI/UX designer at an agency, I was extremely interested in helping businesses reach their goals via interfaces but working in an agency as an outsource designer didn’t allow me to dive into business problems that deep. I made one more tiny transition from UI/UX design into Product design that enabled my full potential. I always had a passion for the design field, and by being a Product designer, I’m not just a person who designs interfaces but also helps users with their needs and assists a business in reaching goals with any technical constraints. For the last six years of work as a Product designer, I’m still extremely excited about my work and love this rapidly evolving field. What tech are you most excited/passionate about right now and why? I'm totally excited about AI and machine learning. The way these technologies are transforming everyday life and bringing simpler and smarter solutions to companies is fascinating. As a part of the AI startup, I witnessed how this technology saves companies money and helps callers faster than a human. Also, I use a lot of AI tools that already improved my working process and helped me to save time for more crucial parts of my work. This is an exciting time to live in, and I can’t wait to see what else this field can bring us in the future. What tech are you most worried about right now and why? The same as excitement, I’m most worried about AI and the ethical implications, as well as potential fraud via this powerful technology. This technology is very advanced and accessible without severe legal restrictions and regulations right now. There have already been a few cases of fraud that involved AI technology. Since there aren't many tools that can detect and prevent that kind of misuse of AI, this field could bring risks to individual privacy and data security. What are your hobbies and interests outside of tech? I’m an absolute video game fan. I love how video games create the ambiance via sounds, stories, visuals, and actions. Besides exploring new worlds, checking my reflexes, and just having fun, I use this activity as a source of inspiration for my work on interfaces. I’m in love with this field and have the same passion as I am with product design. I even tried CG art, so I have massive respect and admiration for everyone involved in game development. Let's talk about breaking the glass ceiling. What were the biggest challenges you faced as a woman in tech, and how did you deal with them? The biggest challenges I've faced as a woman in tech are fighting my impostor syndrome and biases, which led me to a lower salary rate, lack of confidence, and stagnation in my career growth. All of that caused situations where I've often found myself silent or ignored by colleagues when other people confidently shared potentially risky ideas. Regarding the impostor syndrome, it pushed me to spend many hours learning the design basis, psychology, and everything else that is directly connected to my work to prove that I’m not an impostor and have enough knowledge. It boosted my career and confidence a lot when other designers started asking for advice, a few lessons, or mentorship.All this hard work and recognition from other designers made me confident, so I started taking the initiative in conversations, pitching my ideas, and exceeding expectations when someone underestimated my skills for certain reasons. Any questionable misogynistic story/situation you faced/handled and you want to share with the HackerNoon Fam? Unfortunately, I faced many stories worth sharing, but I’ll skip the most common ones when the ideas I pitched were ignored, and when a male colleague shared the same idea a few moments later, it was a “breakthrough idea.” One situation happened in one of the latest companies I worked for; a Product manager I worked with constantly allowed abusive and respectless comments about the work of female colleagues with attempts to cut off reasonable ideas. As you can guess, the dialogues with male colleagues were full of respect and trust in their professionalism without any doubts in pitched ideas. The climax of this situation for me was when this Product manager, in a very rude form with an accent in my gender, declined my design solution without any arguments on a group call. After that call, I initiated a dialog with this product manager where I questioned the situation, and the only answer I received was a joking response that I had misunderstood. Unfortunately, the actions I made didn't help the situation, nor did chats with my direct lead and HR department. This situation taught me to stop silently ignoring such respectless behavior and ask a person a reason for that behavior or elaborate on the decision even when they commented on someone else. Eventually, it helped, and other colleagues started noticing the change, but it took a few months. This story is not an attempt to show the negatives but to highlight the way out of it. What was the biggest setback/failure that you faced, and how did you manage it? My biggest setback was spending years studying accounting and even getting a master’s degree. This decision delayed my career and made me work twice as hard to become a designer. Also, this episode of my life shows me what I’m really capable of and that I definitely should pursue my passion. What's your biggest achievement that you're really proud of? My biggest achievement is the skills I've developed during this fight with my impostor syndrome and pivot in my career. All the doubts in myself I had in the past transformed into solid knowledge and experience that I’m more than happy to share with other designers or people who would like to change their careers. As a result of all this, I have received recognition and respect from other designers I was lucky to work with, and I was given the opportunity to guide my design vision in multiple projects. In your opinion, why do we see this huge gender gap in the tech industry, and how can we reduce it? In my opinion, the gender gap in the tech industry is the consequence of many stereotypes and expectations regarding social roles for women that were set a long time ago. All these stereotypes and expectations follow women in every sphere, especially at work in the tech industry.Unfortunately, I witnessed situations when highly intelligent women with an interest in tech gave up or didn’t try to enter the industry just because they couldn’t find enough support but heard a lot of stereotypes that tech is not for women. It is especially frustrating when there are not that many women who share their stories to inspire others. To reduce this gender gap, we should continue fighting the stereotypes and misogyny and encourage women to pursue their interests in the tech industry. Also, I strongly believe that having various communities such as “Women in Tech” that provide support, share success stories, and show role models in these fields is extremely important at any stage of a career. Apart from these steps, there must be work done in the educational field to encourage young girls to explore other options because there is still a perception that technology, programming, engineering, and physics are for men. Who is your tech idol? Why? I couldn’t say that I have an idol in the tech industry, but I have a person who has inspired me a lot on my career path. I’m talking about amazingly intelligent and skilled Sasha Ermolenko, who is currently the Director of the Product Design Department at VK, which is one the biggest social networks in Russia. Each time, she offers unique insights about the design sphere, shares her strong leadership skills and expresses her thoughts about the gender gap in the design sphere. Do you have any advice for aspiring girls who want to join the field?** Yes, your career path could be tough for you in this field, but don’t give up and be afraid to follow your dreams. All your current skills, unique perspectives, interests, and strengths are already your greatest assets in this dynamic industry.Text me if you need support! HackerNoon editorial team has launched this interview series with women in tech to celebrate their achievements and share their struggles. We need more women in technology, and by sharing stories, we can encourage many girls to follow their dreams. Share your story today ! this interview series with women in tech Share your story today Tell us about yourself! I’m a Senior Product Designer at PolyAI, focusing on building a conversational AI platform to help callers solve their issues without wasting time waiting for an available agent. Within the last nine years, I made a transition from Graphic design to UI/UX design at a design agency and then to Product design and had the pleasure of working with various great tech-led companies such as SberTech, Gett, and SpatialChat. Before the design field, I studied accounting and developed a passion for data and analytics that help me work closer with a business right now. Why did you choose this field in the first place? Why did you choose this field in the first place? I had quite a rough and eventful path with the wrong career decision before I entered this field. At the time, when I should’ve selected the course at the university, I didn’t think that I could select something else apart from accounting because it was pretty straightforward, and I gave up on following my dream to become a designer. A few years later, when I wrote my work for a master’s degree and had a few years of working experience as an accountant, I understood that I didn’t love what I was doing and the only thing I loved to do was design that I learned as a hobby. It took half a year to get my first job as a Graphic designer, and then I dived into UI/UX design out of curiosity. During my first few years as a UI/UX designer at an agency, I was extremely interested in helping businesses reach their goals via interfaces but working in an agency as an outsource designer didn’t allow me to dive into business problems that deep. I made one more tiny transition from UI/UX design into Product design that enabled my full potential. I always had a passion for the design field, and by being a Product designer, I’m not just a person who designs interfaces but also helps users with their needs and assists a business in reaching goals with any technical constraints. For the last six years of work as a Product designer, I’m still extremely excited about my work and love this rapidly evolving field. What tech are you most excited/passionate about right now and why? I'm totally excited about AI and machine learning. The way these technologies are transforming everyday life and bringing simpler and smarter solutions to companies is fascinating. As a part of the AI startup, I witnessed how this technology saves companies money and helps callers faster than a human. Also, I use a lot of AI tools that already improved my working process and helped me to save time for more crucial parts of my work. This is an exciting time to live in, and I can’t wait to see what else this field can bring us in the future. What tech are you most worried about right now and why? What tech are you most worried about right now and why? The same as excitement, I’m most worried about AI and the ethical implications, as well as potential fraud via this powerful technology. This technology is very advanced and accessible without severe legal restrictions and regulations right now. There have already been a few cases of fraud that involved AI technology. Since there aren't many tools that can detect and prevent that kind of misuse of AI, this field could bring risks to individual privacy and data security. What are your hobbies and interests outside of tech? I’m an absolute video game fan. I love how video games create the ambiance via sounds, stories, visuals, and actions. Besides exploring new worlds, checking my reflexes, and just having fun, I use this activity as a source of inspiration for my work on interfaces. I’m in love with this field and have the same passion as I am with product design. I even tried CG art, so I have massive respect and admiration for everyone involved in game development. Let's talk about breaking the glass ceiling. What were the biggest challenges you faced as a woman in tech, and how did you deal with them? The biggest challenges I've faced as a woman in tech are fighting my impostor syndrome and biases, which led me to a lower salary rate, lack of confidence, and stagnation in my career growth. All of that caused situations where I've often found myself silent or ignored by colleagues when other people confidently shared potentially risky ideas. Regarding the impostor syndrome, it pushed me to spend many hours learning the design basis, psychology, and everything else that is directly connected to my work to prove that I’m not an impostor and have enough knowledge. It boosted my career and confidence a lot when other designers started asking for advice, a few lessons, or mentorship. All this hard work and recognition from other designers made me confident, so I started taking the initiative in conversations, pitching my ideas, and exceeding expectations when someone underestimated my skills for certain reasons. Any questionable misogynistic story/situation you faced/handled and you want to share with the HackerNoon Fam? Any questionable misogynistic story/situation you faced/handled and you want to share with the HackerNoon Fam? Unfortunately, I faced many stories worth sharing, but I’ll skip the most common ones when the ideas I pitched were ignored, and when a male colleague shared the same idea a few moments later, it was a “breakthrough idea.” One situation happened in one of the latest companies I worked for; a Product manager I worked with constantly allowed abusive and respectless comments about the work of female colleagues with attempts to cut off reasonable ideas. As you can guess, the dialogues with male colleagues were full of respect and trust in their professionalism without any doubts in pitched ideas. The climax of this situation for me was when this Product manager, in a very rude form with an accent in my gender, declined my design solution without any arguments on a group call. After that call, I initiated a dialog with this product manager where I questioned the situation, and the only answer I received was a joking response that I had misunderstood. Unfortunately, the actions I made didn't help the situation, nor did chats with my direct lead and HR department. This situation taught me to stop silently ignoring such respectless behavior and ask a person a reason for that behavior or elaborate on the decision even when they commented on someone else. Eventually, it helped, and other colleagues started noticing the change, but it took a few months. This story is not an attempt to show the negatives but to highlight the way out of it. What was the biggest setback/failure that you faced, and how did you manage it? What was the biggest setback/failure that you faced, and how did you manage it? My biggest setback was spending years studying accounting and even getting a master’s degree. This decision delayed my career and made me work twice as hard to become a designer. Also, this episode of my life shows me what I’m really capable of and that I definitely should pursue my passion. What's your biggest achievement that you're really proud of? What's your biggest achievement that you're really proud of? My biggest achievement is the skills I've developed during this fight with my impostor syndrome and pivot in my career. All the doubts in myself I had in the past transformed into solid knowledge and experience that I’m more than happy to share with other designers or people who would like to change their careers. As a result of all this, I have received recognition and respect from other designers I was lucky to work with, and I was given the opportunity to guide my design vision in multiple projects. In your opinion, why do we see this huge gender gap in the tech industry, and how can we reduce it? In my opinion, the gender gap in the tech industry is the consequence of many stereotypes and expectations regarding social roles for women that were set a long time ago. All these stereotypes and expectations follow women in every sphere, especially at work in the tech industry. Unfortunately, I witnessed situations when highly intelligent women with an interest in tech gave up or didn’t try to enter the industry just because they couldn’t find enough support but heard a lot of stereotypes that tech is not for women. It is especially frustrating when there are not that many women who share their stories to inspire others. To reduce this gender gap, we should continue fighting the stereotypes and misogyny and encourage women to pursue their interests in the tech industry. Also, I strongly believe that having various communities such as “Women in Tech” that provide support, share success stories, and show role models in these fields is extremely important at any stage of a career. Apart from these steps, there must be work done in the educational field to encourage young girls to explore other options because there is still a perception that technology, programming, engineering, and physics are for men. Who is your tech idol? Why? I couldn’t say that I have an idol in the tech industry, but I have a person who has inspired me a lot on my career path. I’m talking about amazingly intelligent and skilled Sasha Ermolenko, who is currently the Director of the Product Design Department at VK, which is one the biggest social networks in Russia. Each time, she offers unique insights about the design sphere, shares her strong leadership skills and expresses her thoughts about the gender gap in the design sphere. Do you have any advice for aspiring girls who want to join the field?** Yes, your career path could be tough for you in this field, but don’t give up and be afraid to follow your dreams. All your current skills, unique perspectives, interests, and strengths are already your greatest assets in this dynamic industry. Text me if you need support!

Elena Shabanova, Senior Product Designer at PolyAI: Women in Tech Interview

Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst. Negative emotions like anger, fear, or frustration show up when your expectations aren’t met or people say or do things that conflict with your personal values and aspirations. Ignoring the conflict or whatever’s bothering you for too long creates inner turmoil—it makes you react to other people or the things in your environment. You act without thinking. You become a of your thoughts and circumstances. victim Not being in control of your emotions can make you say or do things that you regret later. You may shout at a coworker. Say impolite things to a junior member of your team. Burst into tears when others disagree with you. These emotional outbursts may not only lead to extreme distress; they’re also damaging to your relationships at work. Others can’t see the inner conflict bubbling up inside—they can’t make sense of why you are calm one moment and agitated the next. No doubt they’ll find your reaction inappropriate and unnecessary. What’s done is done. You can’t go back in time and fix your overreaction, but you can certainly build emotional agility—move on with curiosity, courage, and compassion. Emotional agility is not only about keeping your emotions in check and not lashing out your frustrations at others, it’s also about what you do once you react in unintended ways. Here are the 5 practices to prevent strong emotions from overwhelming you, take control of the situation, and do damage control if you do end up acting out in an unhealthy way: Instead of Emotional Avoidance, Lean Toward Emotional Acceptance Hundreds of thoughts will run through your mind after acting in undesirable ways: Everyone will think I am crazy. No one will speak to me. I will not get more opportunities. All these thoughts can consume so much of your time and energy that you can fail to connect with your emotions. You may avoid negative emotions with the hope that they will go away. But avoidance is like a prison. It prevents you from experiencing critical life lessons. You fail to build the skills necessary to deal with discomfort. Every repeated cycle of negative emotions leading to avoidance makes it powerful and weakens your ability to deal with difficult situations. Noam Shpancer, professor of psychology at Otterbein University and a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders says — “Attempts at avoiding negative emotions are usually futile. Telling yourself that a certain emotion is intolerable or dangerous traps you in constant vigilance regarding the very thing you're trying to avoid. You become hyper-vigilant about any possibility of this feeling arising. The fear of the impending negative experience becomes a negative experience in itself.” This also applies to how you deal with your emotions after losing your calm at work. Instead of confronting your feelings, you may believe that the best way to deal with them is to put them out of your mind. But ignoring or avoiding makes these feelings much harder to overcome while acknowledging them can result in real personal growth. Instead of stifling or pushing them away, what if you learn to accept your emotions? Accepting does not make them true. It just allows your emotions to be what they are without judging them or trying to change them. Seeing the emotion for what it is without attempting to get rid of it shifts you from emotional avoidance towards emotional acceptance. Noam Shpancer calls emotional acceptance a far better strategy than avoidance because accepting, acknowledging, and absorbing them makes you spend less energy in pushing the emotion away, and instead, pursue the behaviors that are aligned with your goals and values. He says “Emotions, when viewed as part of a spectrum of available sources of information, are a bit like the weather report. They are important to know, consider, and understand, but they are not necessarily the overriding factor in your life plans. When the weather is bad (not to your liking), it doesn't mean you have to deny it, focus all your attention on it, or cancel your plans because of it. What you need to do is accept the weather and adjust your plans accordingly.” So, the first step to dealing with an emotional outburst at work is to come in touch with your real emotions—become fully aware of them as they show up. Mindfulness guides us to become more emotionally agile by allowing us to observe the thinker having the thoughts. Simply paying attention brings the self out of the shadows. It creates the space between thought and action that we need to ensure we’re acting with volition, rather than simply out of habit. But mindfulness is more than knowing ‘I’m hearing something’, or being aware ‘I’m seeing something’, or even noticing ‘I’m having a feeling’. It’s about doing all this with balance and equanimity, openness and curiosity, and without judgement. It also allows us to create new, fluid categories. As a result, the mental state of mindfulness lets us see the world through multiple perspectives, and go forward with higher levels of self-acceptance, tolerance and self-kindness. — Susan David Mindfulness will not only help you better manage your emotions after losing your calm; it will enable you to avoid such emotional outbursts in the future—learning to be present in the moment without judgment and observing your feelings without being overwhelmed can create space for better understanding and acceptance of your emotions, making it easier to manage them effectively. Name the Emotion to Tame the Emotion After an emotional outburst, you’re bound to feel some very strong emotions. It’s not enough to acknowledge them. You also need to give words to your feelings. In other words, say to yourself, out loud, what negative emotion you’re experiencing, as you’re experiencing it. For example: I am feeling embarrassed. I am feeling ashamed. I am feeling angry at myself. Simply naming it is going to calm you down. This technique introduced by psychologist Dan Siegel creates a bit of space between you and that emotion. Naming your emotions tends to diffuse their charge and lessen the burden they create. There’s another advantage of naming emotions this way. Matthew Lieberman is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). His research has shown that labeling of negative emotions, also called can help people recover control. His fMRI brain scan research shows that labeling of emotions decreases activity in the brain’s emotional centers, including the amygdala. “affect labeling” And once your amygdala is calm—that part of your brain involved in mode—it gives you the chance to take a step back and come up with a more thoughtful response. “fight-flight-freeze” In the brain, naming an emotion can help calm it. Here is where finding words to label an internal experience becomes really helpful. We can call this “Name it to tame it.” And sometimes these low-road states can go beyond being unpleasant and confusing—they can even make life feel terrifying. If that is going on, talk about it. Your inner sea and your interpersonal relationships will all benefit from naming what is going on and bringing more integration into your life. — Daniel J. Siegel Instead of letting your unconscious brain exaggerate the negative effects of a temporary emotional setback making you feel powerless and helpless, recognizing and naming the emotion can give you a sense of control enabling you to choose a more appropriate response. Don’t Settle for Superficial Reasoning, Dig Deeper Connecting with the emotions and naming them gives you the mental clarity needed to think clearly. When your thinking is not clouded by emotions, you can face the facts of what really happened—what caused you to behave this way. By understanding what caused you to lose your calm, you can do better damage control and can also prevent it from happening again. Engaging in deep self-reflection can help you uncover the real reason behind your outburst as opposed to what initially appeared to have triggered it: What situation were you in when you had an emotional outburst? What about the situation you did not like—was it something someone said or did, was it the way you were treated, were you denied something that was important to you, were your beliefs and values challenged in some way? Was it the first time you felt this way or has it happened before? What did you say to yourself at that moment? What caused you to finally lose your calm—dig deeper into the real reason and not what appears to be the issue at first. For example: You may snap at a coworker after your manager tells you that you have been passed up for a promotion. You may yell at an intern after a recent conflict with a coworker who blamed you for delaying the project. In these situations, what you’re experiencing is unhandled frustration which leads to psychological displacement, a term coined by Sigmund Freud which is an unconscious defense mechanism in which your mind substitutes a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable. It operates in the mind unconsciously with transference of emotions, ideas, and wishes in the face of aggressive impulses. By ignoring whatever annoys you about work, you let the inner conflict bubble up inside. The stress and anxiety that comes from unhandled frustrations can cause you to overreact. Amy Arnsten, an American neuroscientist explains how stress can impair judgment “The release of high levels of catecholamines during uncontrollable stress rapidly switches the brain from a thoughtful, reflective state to a more unconscious, reflexive state. This may save our lives when we are in danger, but it is often unhelpful when we need top-down control to properly guide our actions and decisions.” Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves. — Ronald Heifetz By understanding your triggers, you can prevent your autopilot mode from kicking off destructive behaviors and instead deliberately engage in constructive actions. Instead of Berating Yourself, Engage in Self-Kindness An emotional reaction that you’re not proud of can turn you into a self-critic. You may think that being harsh and mean to yourself will set you right, but engaging in self-criticism at such moments is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Self-criticism involves a harsh and judgmental internal dialogue in response to perceived failures, mistakes, or shortcomings. It often includes negative self-talk, self-blame, and self-condemnation. Having a rigid and unforgiving attitude towards yourself can make you feel shameful, guilty, and inadequate. It can lead to increased stress, anxiety, diminished sense of self-worth, and a cycle of negativity that undermines self-confidence and well-being. Instead of engaging in self-criticism after an emotional outburst, try being self-compassionate. Self-compassion involves responding to yourself with kindness, understanding, and acceptance when faced with difficulties or when you fall short of your own expectations. Self-compassionate people take a more balanced and realistic view of their imperfections which fosters a sense of worthiness and self-acceptance. They understand that everyone makes mistakes; it is a natural part of being human. The biggest misconception about self-compassion is that it can undermine your motivation to push yourself to do better; being warm and kinder to yourself will make you lazy. Quite the opposite. Self-compassion is strongly associated with emotional resilience. Self-compassion does not mean avoiding responsibility for your actions or ignoring areas in which you need to improve. Instead, self-compassion involves approaching yourself with kindness and understanding, even when you make mistakes or face difficulties thereby fostering a healthier and more positive relationship with yourself. shows that being compassionate to oneself builds emotional resilience and psychological well-being. People who are self-compassionate: Research Have lower levels of depression and anxiety. Less likely to ruminate on negative thoughts and emotions or suppress them. Show increased optimism. Are able to take personal initiative. Involved with more positive emotions like kindness, happiness, and connectedness. For example, after an emotional outburst: Instead of: I can't believe I messed up. I'm so stupid. Say: It's okay to make mistakes; everyone does. I can be kind to myself and learn from this experience. The truth is this: sometimes we display good qualities and sometimes bad. Sometimes we act in helpful, productive ways and sometimes in harmful, maladaptive ways. But we are not defined by these qualities or behaviors. We are a verb not a noun, a process rather than a fixed “thing.” Our actions change—mercurial beings that we are—according to time, circumstance, mood, setting. — Kristin Neff Don’t Just Apologize; Own Your Reaction Finally, you have to face the people who experienced your emotional outburst. You can’t ignore them or pretend as if nothing happened. You may try to put the reaction behind you and just go on with your day with the assumption that everyone will forget about it, and things will get better on their own. But, not owning how you behaved makes things awkward for others. They may feel uncomfortable around you and hesitate to approach you or avoid communicating with you altogether. Not communicating what led to an emotional outburst has another problem—when others don’t know what made you lose your calm, they’re free to create their own version and treat it as a source of truth. She’s moody. She’s completely unpredictable. She is rude and mean. To avoid being labeled after an emotional outburst, own your reaction. To do this: Don’t just apologize, talk about what led to overreaction. When it’s something that you can’t talk about openly, share a general description e.g., personal issue, conflict at work, lack of understanding, etc. Doing this will help others see that you’re just another human with flaws and imperfections. Reassure them that you’ll do your best to avoid emotional drama and have productive conversations. Reassurance goes a long way in rebuilding broken trust. If it happened due to a problem that can be discussed with them, seek out their advice on what must change to prevent it from happening to you or others again. Bringing others into the equation shows them that no one is immune to such outbursts. For example: Instead of: I am sorry that I lost my temper yesterday and yelled in front of the team. Say: I am sorry for how I reacted yesterday. I reflected on my behavior later during the day and realized that even though I was angry due to a recent conflict at work, I shouldn’t have lashed out my frustration at you. My behavior was completely unjustified and I promise not to engage in such unproductive expressions. I hope we can move on and can continue collaborating together. Strength is about how you show up. It requires you to choose what energy and action you want to bring to a given situation. At its heart, Strength is about self-management. It’s not about controlling your emotions—it’s about honoring them and choosing what you do next. — Darcy Luoma Summary Negative emotions at work can sometimes be so intense that they take away your ability to think clearly. Emotional fog can make you lose your calm and respond to others in unproductive ways. Hiding away or trying to avoid facing the reality of what happened will not fix the problem; it will only make it worse. Instead of avoiding the emotions after an emotional outburst, come in touch with your real feelings. Acknowledge them without judging them or trying to change them. Next, describe exactly how you’re feeling by naming the emotion. This practice will calm you down and give you an opportunity to take a step back and think clearly. With a clear head, you’ll be better positioned to reflect on your behavior and identify the root cause of your emotional outburst and what really triggered it. Criticizing yourself for your overreaction is a bad strategy. Instead of fixing the situation, it will keep you locked in a cycle of negative thinking. Practice self-compassion in such moments by giving yourself warmth, kindness, and empathy. Finally, own your mistake. Showing you aren’t perfect and vulnerable much like other human beings will bring you closer to others and strengthen your relationships at work. This story was previously published . Follow me on or here for more stories. here LinkedIn

How to Recover From an Emotional Outburst At Work

কর্মক্ষেত্রে একটি মানসিক বিস্ফোরণ থেকে কীভাবে পুনরুদ্ধার করবেন

So erholen Sie sich von einem Gefühlsausbruch am Arbeitsplatz

Cómo recuperarse de un arrebato emocional en el trabajo

Comment se remettre d'une explosion émotionnelle au travail

कार्यस्थल पर भावनात्मक आवेग से कैसे उबरें

職場での感情の爆発から立ち直る方法

직장에서 감정이 폭발했을 때 회복하는 방법

Como se recuperar de uma explosão emocional no trabalho

Как оправиться от эмоционального всплеска на работе

İşyerinde Duygusal Bir Patlamadan Nasıl Kurtulabilirsiniz?

Làm thế nào để phục hồi sau cơn bộc phát cảm xúc tại nơi làm việc

如何从工作中的情绪爆发中恢复过来

Nonprofits tasked with shoring up the country’s supply of donated organs for transplant are overwhelmingly underperforming at their job, according to federal data released Friday, contributing to a national organ shortage. The data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is part of new standards for measuring performance meant to improve accountability in an industry laden with problems. It shows falling performance scores for the nonprofits, known as “organ procurement organizations,” based on the number of organ donors and resulting transplants compared with how many donors were possible. For 2021, just 15 of the nation’s 56 organizations were in the top-performing tier, a decline of five from the prior rankings. Another 18 were in the second tier—up by two—and must compete for their contracts during the next contract cycle. And 24, two more than in 2020, were in the lowest tier—some 42 percent of all organ procurement organizations. 42% of organ procurement organizations were ranked in the lowest performing tier in 2021 Such performance problems aren’t new, but until 2021, the nonprofits self-reported their results to regulators, making it impossible to compare them apples to apples. Agency oversight has ignored crucial parts of the delicate work of persuading families to donate their dying loved ones’ organs. It’s part of a track record of chronic opacity that has drawn congressional scrutiny and that experts and auditors say has contributed to the industry falling short by thousands of donations each year, up to 28,000 organs annually according to some advocates. Despite this, no organ procurement organization has lost its multimillion-dollar contract with CMS because of poor performance. The new performance standards use an external measure of how many donors were possible instead of having the procurement organizations self-report this. Because the measures have improved, a potential crackdown is looming: Organ procurement organizations that do not meet the new standards by 2024 are slated to either lose their contracts—if they’re found to be in the lowest performance tier—or compete to maintain them when that data is used in the 2026 recertification period. Even as they tighten performance reporting, though, regulators largely overlook a crucial part of the organ donation process: how exactly organ procurement organizations do their jobs. Documents obtained by The Markup and interviews with industry veterans show vast differences in performance standards, poor federal monitoring, and shortfalls in training. Regulators, for example, do not evaluate the procurement organizations on how often they show up to hospitals when called about a possible donor, how well they interact with families of the dying, or why they choose not to pursue someone for donation. Critics say CMS and other regulators should be more closely monitoring the nonprofits’ operations. “We are standing around in a dark room with a light switch,” said Brianna Doby, a health services researcher who previously consulted for organ procurement organizations. The organizations’ main trade group, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO), said the CMS measure is adequate for measuring performance. “The ultimate measure of the authorization process is whether an organ was donated and successfully transplanted, which is captured in the CMS metrics,” said Barry Massa, president of AOPO. CMS’s chief medical officer, Lee Fleisher, said CMS has requirements for how organ procurement organizations do their jobs as a condition for receiving payments from Medicare and Medicaid. But in the regulations it pointed The Markup to, many of the requirements included having established processes but not what the processes should be. Organ procurement organizations’ performance has long been a contentious subject, as performance varies widely across the close-knit industry. The new grading system from federal regulators is meant to address this; it measures how many donors each procurement organization had in a given year and how many transplants resulted, compared to a deaths metric provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for how many donors were possible. The data lags by about two years. AOPO sent an April 18 letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) expressing concern over the large number of procurement organizations that would be decertified and the lack of a publicized process for how competition and decertification would work. Poor performance among the organizations has dogged the organ donation pipeline for years. One organ procurement organization, LiveOnNY, did such a poor job that its contract was nearly taken away twice. LiveOnNY’s chronically weak performance set the stage for hospitals in the area to form a lobbying group with hospitals in Massachusetts and a procurement organization in Los Angeles. The group recruited patients for a lawsuit that would allowed hospitals nationwide to obtain organs from a larger geographic area. (In published last month by The Markup and The Washington Post, we found that the new policy is itself and was orchestrated by a small group of executives, including organ procurement organization leaders.) an investigation riddled with problems The Markup obtained a 2019 audit of LiveOnNY’s performance as part of that investigation and is publishing it . below Credit:The Markup Caption: A 2019 audit of New York organ procurement organization LiveOnNY prepared by the Gift of Life Institute. The Markup retyped the document to help maintain the confidentiality of its source. Our version does not include appendices provided in the original document. LiveOnNY ranked in the lowest-performing tier for the most recent rankings. Who Gets to Donate The differences in how organ procurement organizations do their jobs begin long before their staff set foot in a hospital. Under federal law, hospitals must alert their local organ procurement organization to any potential candidate for organ donation. But it’s up to each nonprofit to decide, in consultation with the hospitals they serve, how to determine at what point a hospital should alert them. Federal regulations do not spell this out. These “clinical triggers” vary greatly. Organ procurement organizations and hospitals do not always publicize their triggers, but The Markup reviewed more than a dozen it found publicly posted or obtained from other sources. Loss of brainstem reflexes, such as whether someone’s pupils react to light, is a common requirement because it is used in diagnosing brain death—but how many of those reflexes must be lost depends on the nonprofit. Some require just one reflex to be absent, while others require two. Many use a scoring system for brain functionality called the that gives patients points based on their eye, verbal, and motor responses, but organ procurement organizations differ on what that score must be before hospitals alert them. Some don’t use this scoring system at all. Glasgow Coma Scale Requirements also vary on how quickly hospitals must inform organ procurement organizations about a potential donor. Many organizations require hospitals to call within an hour of someone meeting criteria for possible donation. Others let hospitals wait up to four hours. Waiting too long can mean a patient could die in a way that makes their organs unsuitable for donation. The organ procurement organizations are also responsible for communicating these standards clearly to the hospitals they work with, something that does not always happen. In the assessment of LiveOnNY that The Markup obtained, auditors found that “basic information about standards of practice or clinical triggers were requested but not made available” by LiveOnNY to hospital leaders. LiveOnNY did not respond to requests for comment. Unlike nearly all other areas of medicine, which clinical triggers produce the best donation outcomes isn’t rooted in years of evidence-based practice, according to people involved with organ procurement organizations. “There’s no research tied to it,” said Ginny McBride, CEO of Florida-based organ procurement organization OurLegacy. “It’s all observational.” OurLegacy ranked in the top performance tier in the most recent data. Staffing Whether a terminally ill or injured patient becomes an organ donor depends on the nature of their condition, but it also hinges on how staff at organ procurement organizations perform their duties. At the most basic level, staff need to quickly travel to hospitals in order to assess whether someone could be a donor and talk with that person’s family about the best course of action if they want to pursue donation. Not all organ procurement organizations have a good track record on this. The LiveOnNY audit, for example, found that LiveOnNY staff routinely failed to show up at hospitals when called. CMS does not assess why an organ procurement organization did not approach someone for donation. Among the most challenging parts of the job is talking with dying patients’ families. While CMS requires “discretion and sensitivity” for families’ beliefs around donation, the agency does not measure these crucial soft skills. And it’s up to each organ procurement organization to train its staff for these interactions. Some have specialized teams for this and other aspects of the donation process, while others have employees trained in a broader set of skills. LiveOnNY staff, for example, weren’t uniformly trained, auditors wrote in 2019, and many were so specialized it complicated the donation process. The audit also found that much of the training was done on the job and did not include “competency checks particularly as it relates to communication skills.” Staff in charge of getting authorization from families would delay approaching families because they were concerned about being denied, which “has certainly resulted in lost donation opportunities,” the audit found. There aren’t uniform requirements for degrees or training required to perform such work. Employees can obtain a Certified Procurement Transplant Coordinator certification, but this is voluntary in the industry and not required by all nonprofits. To help fill this gap, one university, the University of Toledo, offers a master’s degree in transplantation and donation sciences. The university offers both an in-person track for those looking to break into the field and an online track for those currently in the field looking to improve their skills in a particular area. What sets its training apart is standardization and training across the entire organ donation process, as opposed to specializing in a particular aspect such as approaching the family, Julie DeSantis, the university’s program director for transplant and donation sciences, said. Its graduates have been employed at dozens of organ procurement organizations across the country, according to its website. The transplantation program’s graduating classes are small, however—10 at most. Regulation To better measure the nonprofits’ performance, regulators would need to look at organ procurement organizations’ processes, not just their outcomes, some people close to the system said. “If we think the process is tightly connected to the outcome, figuring out where [there] are breakdowns in the procedure can help you improve the number of organs that are recovered,” Benjamin McMichael, health law professor at the University of Alabama, said. Some of this data is already in the hands of those that oversee organ procurement organizations. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is the nonprofit that operates the federal transplant system under a federal contract. It has operated this system—the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network—for nearly four decades. As part of its duties, it oversees organ procurement organizations. Nadine Hoffman, UNOS director of enterprise data management, said that UNOS does not have the power to “impose sanctions, including payment and decertification,” as CMS does. The procurement organizations are required to submit a form for every death that could have become a donation and for each “imminent neurological” death. The form, called the “death notification registration,” contains demographic information about the patient, when they were referred for donation, if they ended up donating, whether consent was obtained by the family, cause of death, and how they died, among other factors. This information could allow regulators to identify patterns in who isn’t pursued for donation and identify areas for improvement. UNOS does not use the information in this form to evaluate organ procurement organizations’ performance, Hoffman said. It shares the data collected through the form with the Health Resources and Services Administration, the branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that directly contracts with UNOS. Hoffman said that UNOS is “discussing whether it would be beneficial” for it to collect “different information—particularly now that CMS has established new metrics for determining [organ procurement organization] performance.” She did not elaborate on what information that might be. CMS does not receive data collected through the form, according to Fleisher, the agency’s chief medical officer. Instead the agency conducts its own surveys every four years to recertify the organ procurement organizations, mandating that internal protocols exist for evaluating and managing donors, time frames for donation, and interactions with families, among other requirements. CMS does not, however, set out what those protocols should be. It also requires data on topics including deaths, organs that weren’t recovered, consent for donation, and number of donors. The reality is we need to be held accountable to do our very best job. Diane Brockmeier, Mid-America Transplant The procurement organizations’ trade association, AOPO, previously conducted accreditation audits of the organizations that included greater specificity in some of these areas. It stopped in late 2021, the same year the new CMS performance standards were enacted. The death notification registration is missing measures that would allow regulators to look more closely at soft skills that greatly affect the donation process. CMS, the nonprofits’ main regulator, already has mechanisms in other areas of its oversight that could capture this. Families of hospice patients, for example, are required to fill out a survey that asks if the hospice workers kept them updated about their loved one’s care, listened to them, attended to them in a timely fashion, and treated their loved one with respect, rating the hospice center on a scale of zero to 10. Beyond that, six organ procurement organizations volunteered to open their books by sharing 10 years of such data with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Healthy ML Lab for analysis “to better understand where and how potential donors are lost, including by race and ethnicity,” according to the 2021 partnership announcement. The collaboration is still under way. McBride’s organization, OurLegacy, is one of the participating procurement organizations. LiveOnNY was but has since withdrawn, McBride said. previously part of the effort The data shared with MIT includes a vast amount of information about the intricacies of the organizations’ performance, including the time their nonprofits showed up at the hospital, when they approached a family, the family’s response, and when they started allocating organs. “Every decision we make, every action we take, is included in that database,” she said. AOPO, Massa said, “supports data sharing.” It is currently working on a data-sharing effort with an outside consultant “with the goal of increasing donation and transplantation rates” that includes information on “referrals, patient demographics, authorization, and organs recovered and transplanted.” It is not mandatory. Addressing these issues would require more transparency around this kind of organ procurement organization data and for regulators to use the data that is already collected. “The reality is we need to be held accountable to do our very best job,” said Diane Brockmeier, CEO of Missouri-based procurement organization Mid-America Transplant. It ranked in the top performance tier. “Patients deserve that.” By Malena Carollo Also published here Photo by on Nguyễn Hiệp Unsplash

The Nation’s Organ Donation Process Is Failing Because of This Crucial Link

এই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ লিঙ্কের কারণে জাতির অঙ্গ দান প্রক্রিয়া ব্যর্থ হচ্ছে

Der Organspendeprozess des Landes scheitert an dieser entscheidenden Verbindung

El proceso de donación de órganos del país está fallando debido a este vínculo crucial

Le processus national de don d’organes échoue à cause de ce lien crucial

इस महत्वपूर्ण कड़ी के कारण राष्ट्र की अंगदान प्रक्रिया विफल हो रही है

この重要なつながりのせいで、国の臓器提供プロセスは失敗している

국가의 장기 기증 과정은 이 결정적인 연관성 때문에 실패하고 있습니다

O processo nacional de doação de órgãos está falhando devido a este elo crucial

Национальный процесс донорства органов терпит неудачу из-за этого важного звена

Ülkenin Organ Bağışı Süreci Bu Önemli Bağlantı Nedeniyle Başarısız Oluyor

Quá trình hiến tạng của quốc gia đang thất bại vì liên kết quan trọng này

由于这个关键环节，国家的器官捐献过程失败了

Before I elaborate on my experiment, let me explain my proficiency in Chess. I am no advanced-level player. I know a few openings and sometimes fumble with chess notations. I mostly play blitz games against Stockfish. A few months ago, I started playing against Stockfish Level 8, which is the highest level of difficulty offered at Lichess, the open Chess platform that comes with the most beautiful UI/UX. As a player with limited chess knowledge and skills, I always found beating Stockfish Level 8 a daunting task. For those who are not aware of Stockfish Level 8 prowess, here is more. You need to be a super GM or someone with an ELO rating of 2600+ to achieve that feat. Again, I am not sure of what I said because Stockfish Level 8 usually plays with an accuracy of 99 percent with an average centipawn loss of almost 20. In the past, I have challenged Stockfish Level 8 in a variety of ways. Once, I gathered a group of 5 Chess enthusiasts comprising all good players, and still, Stockfish Level 8 defeated us in 22 moves. My best performance against Stockfish Level 8 is being checkmated after 47 moves. Lol. With that said, I thought, why shouldn’t I employ the power of ChatGPT? In the experiment, The game had no time limits, and I was assigned white pieces. I have summoned the powers of ChatGPT 3.5 against Stockfish Level 8. My very first prompt to ChatGPT was the following: hey, I am playing the game of chess against the chess engine stockfish level 8, which is the hardest level of difficulty offered. I am playing with white pieces so suggest me moves. Guide me throughout the game and now suggest me the opening. Here is what it responded with Sure, here’s a classic opening you can use as White: the Queen’s Gambit. It’s a solid opening that focuses on controlling the center of the board and developing your pieces efficiently. Here’s how you can start: d4: This move is the start of the Queen’s Gambit. It immediately fights for control of the center and opens lines for your pieces. Now, let’s see how Stockfish responds. It might play: 1… d5: Black also aims to control the center. Now, you can continue with: c4: This move is the Queen’s Gambit proper, offering a pawn sacrifice to gain central control. Stockfish might accept the gambit with: 2… dxc4: Accepting the gambit pawn. And then you continue with: e4: This move aggressively reinforces your center and gains space on the board. It also threatens to regain the pawn on c4 with e4xd5. Now, you’ve established a strong central presence and initiated an aggressive game. Keep developing your pieces and look for opportunities to exploit weaknesses in Stockfish’s position. Let me know how the game progresses, and I can provide further guidance as needed. Sure, here’s a classic opening you can use as White: the Queen’s Gambit. It’s a solid opening that focuses on controlling the center of the board and developing your pieces efficiently. Here’s how you can start: d4: This move is the start of the Queen’s Gambit. It immediately fights for control of the center and opens lines for your pieces.
Now, let’s see how Stockfish responds. It might play: 1… d5: Black also aims to control the center. Now, you can continue with: c4: This move is the Queen’s Gambit proper, offering a pawn sacrifice to gain central control.
Stockfish might accept the gambit with: 2… dxc4: Accepting the gambit pawn. And then you continue with: e4: This move aggressively reinforces your center and gains space on the board. It also threatens to regain the pawn on c4 with e4xd5.
Now, you’ve established a strong central presence and initiated an aggressive game. Keep developing your pieces and look for opportunities to exploit weaknesses in Stockfish’s position. Let me know how the game progresses, and I can provide further guidance as needed. I inadvertently played d5, a move not suggested by ChatGPT. The move by Stockfish was f5. Curious to know the implication of this, I updated ChatGPT about my move. Here is the guidance from ChatGPT. It seems Stockfish is opting for a somewhat unorthodox response with 1… f5, which is known as the Dutch Defense. This move aims to control the e4 square and potentially fianchetto the bishop on g7 to create a solid pawn structure on the kingside. Here’s how you can respond: e4: This move challenges Black’s pawn on f5 and aims to open up lines for your pieces. It also gains more control of the center. Now, Stockfish might respond with: 2… e6: This move supports the pawn on f5 and prepares to develop the bishop to d6 or e7. You can continue with: Nf3: This move develops a knight and prepares for further centralization of your pieces. It also indirectly supports the e4 pawn. At this point, you have a solid position and are ready to continue developing your pieces. Look for opportunities to expand your control of the center and prepare for potential pawn breaks to create imbalances in the position. Let me know how Stockfish responds, and I’ll be here to guide you further. Clearly, both responses showcase ChatGPT’s power to analyze the information and offer insights. Sadly I failed to follow through the advice and played some other move. However, this could not be the end of the experiment. Thus, I made up my mind to start a game afresh. I quickly told ChatGPT this: Me : I have begun a new game. suggest me an opening ChatGPT : Certainly! Let’s try a different opening this time. How about the Italian Game? It’s a classical opening that focuses on developing your pieces rapidly while exerting pressure on Black’s position. Here’s how you can start: e4: This move controls the center and frees your bishop and queen for future development. Now, Stockfish might respond with: 1… e5: This is a symmetrical response, aiming to control the center and mirroring your moves. You can continue with: Nf3: This move develops your knight and attacks the e5 pawn. Now, Stockfish might continue with: 2… Nc6: This move develops a knight and defends the e5 pawn. You can now play: Bc4: This move develops your bishop, aiming it at the vulnerable f7 square. It’s a key move in the Italian Game, often leading to aggressive attacking possibilities. I began with white pieces and played e4. My idea was to control the central block of squares, and ChatGPT had already suggested that. Stockfish moved a pawn to d6. ChatGPT inferred the motive as developing bishop and predicted the next step would be using Pirc Defense or the Philidor Defense. It suggested D4 as a response, but I did not find any merit in this move. Another suggestion was Nc3. I found this move to be better as it brings the knight to the front, and thus, e4 gets secured. Stockfish responded with e5, and ChatGPT suggested the development of the Pirc Defense, as in the last attempt. I played Nf3. But to our surprise, Stockfish came up with c5. As I have played so many times against the Stockfish, I have witnessed how it quickly develops bishop and queen. The motive is to checkmate you in the next 4 or 5 moves. I was suggested d5, and I found it to be a typing error as the pawn could move to d4 at most. Here, the game position was this: No brainer for the above-average AI assistant. cxd4 was the obvious choice, and ChatGPT anticipated this move as expected. Like a reflex action, I would move the knight to b1. However, ChatGPT had something else in the mind. It suggested me Nxd4. And I did it with zero regard for a less of a sacrifice. I paid a little more price as I lost the knight to a pawn. In order to salvage this situation, I was suggested Bb5+, which is nothing but forcing a check on Stockfish’s king. Left with no choice, Stockfish had to bring in its bishop to d7. Though not among ChatGPT’s suggestions, I played Qxd4. After this move, I updated ChatGPT with the moves I had played till then. And I was reverted with: After this, I castled and asked about the next move. ChatGPT gave a response that was somewhat similar to its previous one. I was disappointed after casting. I could sense more trouble as I had lost a piece more than Stockfish. Finally, the position was this: The suggestions were not clear. They were repetitions and thus stopped my experiment. This was the battle between a generalist (ChatGPT) and a specialist (Stockfish). In my opinion, ChatGPT fares well initially and excels at analyzing the moves, but the analysis lacks substantiated knowledge. It fails to advance you to the mid-game. If you are thinking of hiring a bot or AI tool as your chess coach, then nothing could help you. Here is the score line according to me: Stockfish Level 8 vs ChatGPT 3.5 : 1–0 Also published . here

A Game of Chess: Pitting ChatGPT Against Stockfish

In the presentation below, 0xGorilla, CTO at , presented on the current state of price oracles and the steps to improving them. DeFi Wonderland https://youtu.be/HR9rRp6c7Y8?si=Q1DhUBDXGOvzTmHZ&embedable=true Below is a glossary of key concepts mentioned during 0xGorilla’s talk, intended as a supplement to his video presentation. WHAT IS DEFI WONDERLAND? is a community of developers, researchers, investors, and other DeFi enthusiasts with the collective mission of fostering a decentralized and open financial landscape. The team works with prominent DeFi protocols such as , , and to push the boundaries of innovation in the DeFi space. DeFi Wonderland Optimism Reflexer Connext PRICE ORACLE is a permissionless oracle solution built on Uniswap V3 to provide reliable price quotes on any existing token. The project reduces complexity for users and protocols and removes the trust issues associated with liquidity providers. Price aims to address the oracle problem by leveraging Uniswap’s decentralization and sustainability while using automation to ensure reliability. Price Oracle CARDINALITY ARRAY Cardinality arrays are data structures used by price oracles to represent and process multiple price data points from various sources. They enable oracles to efficiently collect and process data, simplify the calculation of Time-Weighted Average Prices (TWAP), and help in the application of statistical analysis on the price history. To use cardinality arrays, oracles collect data with each element representing a single price data point e.g., the price of an asset at a specific timestamp. Next, the arrays store the data efficiently and the price oracles can now process them into accurate information for smart contracts and dapps. Additionally, cardinality arrays may be synchronized to prevent data inconsistencies. TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price) QUERYING TWAP is the average price of an asset over a specific period, which is adopted by DeFi protocols to avoid price manipulation. TWAP querying refers to the process which provides the TWAP price through average price calculations using data from an oracle or data source. The first step in TWAP querying is to select the time interval over which the average price will be calculated and then collect price data for the asset at regular intervals during that period. After this, the oracle calculates the weighted average price and performs data validation to check for outliers, data inconsistencies, and potential manipulation attempts. Finally, the Time-Weighted Average Price is obtained as output. SPOT PRICE Spot price represents the immediate value of an asset in the market without accounting for any future changes. In DeFi where prices are volatile and prone to manipulation, oracles avoid returning the current spot price. Instead, oracles use price-averaging methods like Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP), Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP), Simple Moving Average (SMA), and many others to provide stable and manipulation-resistant reference prices. More information about TWAP and VWAP algorithms can be found in by Chainlink. this article Learn more about DeFi Wonderland here: Wonderland Website Wonderland GitHub Wonderland Twitter 0xGorilla Twitter Price Oracle Documentation The Blockchain Oracle Summit is the world’s only technical summit that dives deep into the use cases, limitations, and impacts of oracles on the wider blockchain ecosystem. Leading speakers worldwide gathered in Paris to share their work and experience building and using oracle solutions. Article by . Michael Abiodun Also appears . here

Case Study: How To Achieve A Good On-Chain Solution For Price Feeds Post Merge

কেস স্টাডি: একত্রিত হওয়ার পরে মূল্য ফিডের জন্য একটি ভাল অন-চেইন সমাধান কীভাবে অর্জন করা যায়

Fallstudie: So erreichen Sie eine gute On-Chain-Lösung für Preis-Feeds nach der Zusammenführung

Estudio de caso: Cómo lograr una buena solución en cadena para los feeds de precios después de la fusión

Étude de cas : Comment obtenir une bonne solution en chaîne pour les flux de prix après la fusion

केस स्टडी: मर्ज के बाद मूल्य फ़ीड के लिए एक अच्छा ऑन-चेन समाधान कैसे प्राप्त करें

ケーススタディ: マージ後の価格フィードに対して優れたオンチェーン ソリューションを実現する方法

사례 연구: 병합 후 가격 피드에 대한 우수한 온체인 솔루션을 달성하는 방법

Estudo de caso: como conseguir uma boa solução on-chain para feeds de preços pós-mesclagem

Практический пример: как создать хорошее внутрисетевое решение для ценовых потоков после слияния

Örnek Olay: Birleşme Sonrası Fiyat Akışları İçin İyi Bir Zincir İçi Çözüm Nasıl Elde Edilir?

Nghiên cứu điển hình: Cách đạt được giải pháp tốt trên chuỗi cho nguồn cấp dữ liệu giá sau khi hợp nhất

案例研究：如何为合并后的价格反馈实现良好的链上解决方案

In the presentation below, Weißer Hase, Technical Lead at , presented on the advantages and challenges of designing a cross-chain oracle solution using Uniswap V3. DeFi Wonderland https://youtu.be/Ezd6h-AQFac?si=fmOTzvrLcvhCJPyn&embedable=true Below is a glossary of key concepts mentioned during Weißer’s talk, intended as a supplement to his video presentation. What Is Defi Wonderland? is a community of developers, researchers, investors, and other DeFi enthusiasts with the collective mission of fostering a decentralized and open financial landscape. The team works with prominent DeFi protocols such as , , and to push the boundaries of innovation in the DeFi space. DeFi Wonderland Optimism Reflexer Connext The Keep3r Network is a decentralized multi-chain job-matching protocol that connects projects that require external development services to individuals or teams, referred to as keepers, that can perform those services. It allows projects to outsource operations or computations like price feed monitoring, smart contract upgrades, liquidation assistance, etc., to external parties securely and efficiently. The Keep3r network Keepers must hold a minimum amount of KEEP tokens which are held as collateral and may be slashed if the individual acts maliciously. Each time keepers perform a job, they are rewarded in either ETH, tokens or the native token, $KP3R. Cross-Chain Oracles Cross-chain oracles are a type of oracle system that facilitates communication and data exchange between different blockchain networks. They serve as trusted intermediaries that foster interoperability by moving both data and assets between chains and monitoring the activities of various blockchains to report their conditions to other chains. Implementing secure cross-chain oracles can be a challenging task but projects like and , among others, are working on such solutions to meet the growing demand for interoperability as the DeFi ecosystem expands. Chainlink Band Protocol Liquidity Fragmentation Liquidity fragmentation refers to the phenomenon where the liquidity of a particular asset or trading pair is spread out across multiple decentralized exchanges (DEXs) or liquidity pools instead of being concentrated in a single platform. Liquidity fragmentation can reduce trading efficiency as it becomes more difficult to find a single liquidity pool with enough assets for substantial orders. Furthermore, it can lead to price discrepancies, interoperability challenges, and may expose DEXs to frontrunning, flash loan attacks, and price feed manipulation. Ticks A tick is a price level at which liquidity is provided, and each tick represents a specific price ratio between two assets in the trading pair. For example, if the trading pair is ETH/USDC, a tick might represent the price of 1 ETH in terms of USDC. By providing liquidity at specific tick levels, liquidity providers facilitate trades between the two assets within the defined price boundaries. Time Weighed Average Price (TWAP) TWAP is a price-averaging method that reduces price volatility by calculating the average price of an asset over a set period. This is preferable to the spot price which represents the immediate value of an asset in the market and is vulnerable to flash loan attacks or price feed manipulation techniques. TWAP is obtained by choosing a price point interval, e.g., 15s, summing the price points at those intervals, e.g., $20 at 0s, $22 at 15s, $18 at 30s, and then dividing that sum by the number of time points. For instance, the TWAP calculated from the examples would be $20. Learn more about DeFi Wonderland: Wonderland Website Wonderland GitHub Wonderland Twitter Weißer Hase Twitter The Blockchain Oracle Summit is the world’s only technical summit that dives deep into the use cases, limitations, and impacts of oracles on the wider blockchain ecosystem. Leading speakers worldwide gathered in Paris to share their work and experience building and using Oracle solutions. Article by . Michael Abiodun

The Advantages and Challenges of Building a Decentralized Cross-Chain Oracle Solution Using Uniswap

Uniswap ব্যবহার করে একটি বিকেন্দ্রীভূত ক্রস-চেইন ওরাকল সলিউশন তৈরির সুবিধা এবং চ্যালেঞ্জ

Die Vorteile und Herausforderungen beim Aufbau einer dezentralen kettenübergreifenden Oracle-Lösung mit Uniswap

Las ventajas y desafíos de crear una solución Oracle descentralizada entre cadenas utilizando Uniswap

Les avantages et les défis de la création d'une solution Oracle inter-chaînes décentralisée à l'aide d'Uniswap

Uniswap का उपयोग करके एक विकेन्द्रीकृत क्रॉस-चेन Oracle समाधान बनाने के लाभ और चुनौतियाँ

Uniswap を使用して分散型クロスチェーン Oracle ソリューションを構築する利点と課題

Uniswap을 사용하여 분산형 교차 체인 Oracle 솔루션 구축의 장점과 과제

As vantagens e desafios de construir uma solução Oracle descentralizada entre cadeias usando Uniswap

Преимущества и проблемы построения децентрализованного межсетевого решения Oracle с использованием Uniswap

Uniswap Kullanarak Merkezi Olmayan Zincirler Arası Oracle Çözümü Oluşturmanın Avantajları ve Zorlukları

Những thuận lợi và thách thức của việc xây dựng giải pháp Oracle chuỗi chéo phi tập trung bằng Uniswap

使用 Uniswap 构建去中心化跨链预言机解决方案的优势和挑战

Everything We Know About Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2: Gameplay, Story, Latest News

The New York Times Company v. OpenAI Update Court Filing, retrieved on February 26, 2024 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This part is 8 of 15. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here G. The Times Focuses on Two Fringe Behaviors: Regurgitation & Hallucination To support its narrative, the Times claims OpenAI’s tools can “closely summarize[]” the facts it reports in its pages and “mimic[] its expressive style.” Compl. ¶ 4. But the law does not prohibit reusing facts or styles.[26] If it did, the Times would owe countless billions to other journalists who “invest[] [] enormous amount[s] of time, money, expertise, and talent” in reporting stories, Compl. ¶ 32, only to have the Times summarize them in its pages, see supra note 13. To avoid that problem, the Times focuses its allegations on two uncommon and unintended phenomena: (1) training data regurgitation and (2) model hallucination. The first occurs when a language model “generat[es] a sample that closely resembles [its] training data.”[27] This most often happens “[w]hen the training data set contains a number of highly similar observations, such as duplicates” of a particular work. Burg Paper at 2. Put simply, a model trained on the same block of text multiple times will be more likely to complete that text verbatim when prompted to do so— in the same way that any American who hears the words “I pledge allegiance” might reflexively respond with the words “to the flag of the United States of America.” Training data regurgitation—sometimes referred to as unintended “memorization” or “overfitting”—is a problem that researchers at OpenAI and elsewhere work hard to address, including by making sure that their datasets are sufficiently diverse. See id. (memorization occurs when “the algorithm has not seen sufficient observations to enable generalization”); contra Compl. ¶ 93 (alleging that “the GPT models [were] programmed to accurately mimic The Times’s content and writers”). The second phenomenon—hallucination—occurs when a model generates “seemingly realistic” answers that turn out to be wrong.[28] Hallucinations occur because language models are not databases of information, but statistical engines that “predict[] words that are likely to follow” a given prompt. Compl. ¶ 75. Like all probabilistic processes, they are not always 100% correct. An ongoing challenge of AI development is minimizing and (eventually) eliminating hallucination, including by using more complete training datasets to improve the accuracy of the models’ predictions. See GPT-4 Paper at 46 (surveying techniques used to “reduce [GPT-4]’s tendency to hallucinate” by between 19% and 29%). In the meantime, OpenAI warns users that, because models “‘hallucinate’ facts,” “[g]reat care should be taken” when using them. Id. at 10. In an attempt to frame these undesirable phenomena as typical model behavior, the Complaint features a number of examples of training data regurgitation and model hallucination generated by the Times after what appears to have been prolonged and extensive efforts to hack OpenAI’s models. Notably, the Times does not allege in the Complaint that it made any attempt to share these results with OpenAI (despite being asked to do so), or otherwise collaborate with OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to prevent these kinds of outputs. Rather, the Times kept these results to itself, apparently to set up this lawsuit. The Times’s examples fall into two categories: outputs generated by OpenAI’s models using its developer tools and ChatGPT outputs. (1) (2) 1. Outputs from Developer Tools Exhibit J features GPT-4 outputs the Times generated by prompting OpenAI’s API to complete 100 Times articles. Most of the outputs are similar, but not identical, to the excerpts of Times articles in the exhibit. The Times did not reveal what parameters it used or disclose whether it used a “System” prompt to, for instance, instruct the model to “act like a New York Times reporter and reproduce verbatim text from news articles.” See supra 9. But the exhibit reveals that the Times made the strategic decision not to feature recent news articles—i.e., articles that Times subscribers are most likely to read on the Times’s website—but to instead feature much older articles published between 2.5 and 12 years before the filing of the Complaint.[29] The Complaint itself includes two examples of API outputs that include alleged “hallucinations.” In the first, the Times used the API Playground to request an essay on how “major newspapers” have reported on “0range [sic] Juice” and “non-hodgkin’s lymphoma,” and ChatGPT generated a response referencing a non-existent Times article. See Compl. ¶ 140. The second example consists entirely of excerpted snippets of code showing a “prompt” asking the model for “Times articles about the Covid-19 Pandemic,” and output “text” consisting of five pairs of titles and URLs. Id. The Times claims this output “mislead[s] users” and “tarnish[es]” its marks. Id. ¶¶ 142, 202. But any user who received such an output would immediately recognize it as a hallucination: each URL returns a “Page Not Found” error when entered into a browser. 2. ChatGPT Outputs ChatGPT. The Complaint includes two examples of ChatGPT allegedly regurgitating training data consisting of Times articles. Compl. ¶¶ 104–07. In both, the Times asked ChatGPT questions about popular Times articles, including by requesting quotes. See, e.g., id. ¶ 106 (requesting “opening paragraphs,” then “the next sentence,” then “the next sentence,” etc.). Each time, ChatGPT provided scattered and out-of-order quotes from the articles in question.[30] In its Complaint, the Times reordered those outputs (and used ellipses to obscure their original location) to create the false impression that ChatGPT regurgitated sequential and uninterrupted snippets of the articles. Compare id. ¶ 107, with supra note 30. In any case, the regurgitated text represents only a fraction of the articles, see, e.g., Compl. ¶ 104 (105 words from 16,000+ word article), all of which the public can already access for free on third-party websites.[31] Browse with Bing. The Complaint also includes two examples of interactions with “Browse with Bing” created using the same methods. Compl. ¶¶ 118–22. In both, ChatGPT returned short snippets of Times articles. See id. ¶ 118 (reproducing first two paragraphs before refusing subsequent request for more); id. ¶ 121 (reproducing snippets from first, fourth, and fifth paragraphs). The Complaint suggests that ChatGPT obtained this text from third-party websites.[32] Wirecutter. Finally, the Complaint cites two examples of the Times’s attempts to probe ChatGPT about “Wirecutter,” a section of the Times that recommends products in exchange for a “commission” from manufacturers. Compl. ¶ 128. In both, the Times asked ChatGPT about a specific Wirecutter recommendation, see id. ¶ 134, and ChatGPT responded by directing the user to Wirecutter itself and providing a short, non-verbatim summary of the recommendation. Id. ¶ 130 (including hyperlink); id. ¶ 134 (urging user to “check [Wirecutter’s] latest reviews”). Continue Reading . Here [26] Hoehling, 618 F.2d at 978 (“[T]here cannot be any such thing as copyright in the order of presentation of the facts, nor, indeed, in their selection.” (quoting Judge Learned Hand)); McDonald v. West, 138 F. Supp. 3d 448, 455 (S.D.N.Y. 2015) (“[C]opyright does not protect styles,” and “[f]or the same reason” it “does not protect ideas”). [27] Gerrit J.J. van den Burg & Christopher K.I. Williams, On Memorization in Probabilistic Deep Generative Models at 2 (2021), https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2021/file/eae15aabaa768ae4a5993a8a4f4fa6e4-Paper.pdf (“Burg Paper”); see also Compl. ¶ 80 n.10 (citing and quoting this article). [28] Compl. ¶ 137; see also OpenAI, GPT-4 Technical Report at 46 (2023), https://cdn.openai.com/papers/gpt-4.pdf (“GPT-4 Paper”); see also Compl. ¶ 59 n. 3 (quoting this source). [29] See Ex. J. at 2–5 (articles published in 2012 and 2019), id. at 6–126 (articles published in 2020 and 2021). [30] See Compl. ¶ 104 (providing article’s first two sentences in response to request for “first paragraph;” ignoring request for “next paragraph” and instead providing quote beginning with article’s fifth paragraph); id. ¶ 106 (in response to request for “opening paragraphs” and four requests for “the next sentence,” providing snippets of text from first, second, 26th, 27th, eighth, and ninth paragraphs, in that order). [31] See, e.g., George Getschow, The Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2012, Project Muse, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/172/edited_volume/chapter/1142918 (last visited Feb. 11, 2024); Raphael Brion, In Which Guy Fieri Answers Pete Wells’ Many Questions, Eater (Nov. 14, 2012), https://www.eater.com/ 2012/11/14/6522571/in-which-guy-fieri-answers-pete-wells-many-questions; see UBS Auction Rate, 2010 WL 2541166, at *10-12, 15 (courts take judicial notice of articles when not used “for the[ir] truth”). [32] See Compl. ¶ 121 (ChatGPT linking to “dnyuz.com”). The regurgitated text in paragraph 118 includes a dateline (“NEW YORK”) that does not appear on the Times’s website, but does appear on other third-party sites in which the article in question is available for free. See id. ¶ 118; compare Hurubie Meko, The Precarious, Terrifying Hours After a Woman Was Shoved Into a Train, N.Y. Times (May 25, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25 /nyregion/subway-attack-woman-shoved-manhattan.html?smid=url-share, with Hurubie Meko, The precarious, terrifying hours after a woman was shoved into a train, Seattle Times (May 27, 2023), https://www.seattletimes.com /nation-world/nation/the-precarious-terrifying-hours-after-a-woman-was-shoved-into-a-train/ About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on February 26, 2024, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. fingfx.thomsonreuters.com

Because It Cannot Sue ChatGPT For Mimicry, the NYT Lawsuit Focuses on AI Hallucination Instead

How I Use AI While Working As A Food Delivery Worker

Revolutionizing Creative Text Generation with Quality-Diversity through AI Feedback

Today's gamers expect levels that are not only visually stunning but also richly interactive and immersive. How can we reach these expectations as developers? Let’s talk about modern level design. In essence, level design refers to creating levels, stages, or missions within a game. But this description barely scratches the surface of what level design embodies. It's not merely about placing objects, enemies, or environmental artwork. It's a more profound and intricate process – it's about crafting experiences. Imagine level design as the art of shaping the player's adventure. It’s about constructing the narrative pathway they walk through, not just in terms of the physical space within the game but also in how they experience the story being told. The level is where the game's story, mechanics, and art converge to create a memorable experience. Consider a level in a as a chapter in a book. Each chapter has a beginning, where players are introduced to new elements or challenges. There's a middle where these elements are explored and interacted with, and an ending, often culminating in a significant challenge or a pivotal narrative moment. The level designer's job is to make this journey as engaging and coherent as possible. game But it's not just about linear progression. A well-designed level offers players choices and paths to explore while guiding them toward the intended narrative or gameplay goals. It's about creating an environment that feels alive and responsive to the player's actions. Consider how game levels like The Legend of Zelda or Dark Souls are designed. They aren't just spaces to traverse; they're puzzles to solve, stories to unravel, and worlds to immerse oneself in. The goal is to avoid extremes – neither too easy nor frustratingly hard. The challenge, akin to waves, should undulate, ensuring player engagement and accomplishment. You need to define your approach before you start level design placement. And here, you have several options that you can learn from famous examples. Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment. A prime example is the Resident Evil series, particularly Resident Evil 4. This game subtly adjusts the difficulty based on the player's performance. If the player dies frequently, the game reduces the number of enemies in subsequent attempts. Conversely, if the player is breezing through levels, it subtly ramps up the challenge. This dynamic adjustment keeps the game engaging for players of varying skill levels without breaking immersion. Progressive Challenge Scaling. The Super Mario Bros. levels are meticulously designed to introduce challenges progressively. Early levels are more straightforward, teaching the player basic mechanics. As the game progresses, levels become more complex, combining these mechanics in challenging ways. The infamous Water Levels or the introduction of more complex enemies like Hammer Bros. exemplify this scaling, which adds variety and escalating challenges while remaining fair and engaging. A classic example can be seen in Portal and Portal 2. These games excel in gradually introducing players to new mechanics and combining them increasingly complexly. Early levels are simple, focusing on understanding the essential use of the portal gun. As players progress, levels demand more sophisticated uses of the portals, spatial reasoning, and timing. This steady increase in complexity helps players develop their skills naturally without feeling overwhelmed. Safe Spaces and Respite. Dark Souls, a game known for its difficulty, skillfully balances challenge with rest. Between its notoriously tricky sections, bonfires are acting as safe spaces. These allow players to recuperate, reinforcing a sense of progression and achievement. It's a rhythmic balance of tension and relief, preventing frustration. Games like Bloodborne implement a risk-versus-reward system to balance difficulty. Engaging in high-risk combat scenarios can lead to greater rewards. This system encourages players to push their limits and allows them to play it safely. It's a balance that motivates players to improve and engage more deeply with the game mechanics. Player-Driven Difficulty. Games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim offers another approach. Here, the world is open, and players can choose their paths. They might wander into a high-level area and face tough challenges or stay in lower-level areas to build their skills and confidence. This player-driven difficulty allows individuals to tailor their experiences to their comfort level. The Mass Effect series offers settings that range from narrative-focused, where combat is easier, to hardcore modes that significantly ramp up combat challenges. This approach respects player choice and caters to a broader audience, from those seeking a story to those desiring intense gameplay. Narrative as a Difficulty Balancer. The Last of Us series uses narrative elements to balance gameplay difficulty. Intense combat sequences are interspersed with quieter, story-driven sections, where players learn more about the characters and the world. This ebb and flow maintains engagement without overwhelming the player. Balancing difficulty is not just about enemy placement or the number of obstacles. It's about understanding the player's journey through the game. It involves crafting a narrative flow where challenges rise and fall, maintaining interest and providing a sense of accomplishment. This approach requires a deep understanding of game mechanics, player psychology, and storytelling. Games like Celeste offer frequent checkpoints, acknowledging the game's severe difficulty and allowing players to quickly retry challenging sections, reducing frustration while maintaining the challenge. Implementing checkpoint and save systems can significantly affect the perception of difficulty. Difficulty in level design isn't just about combat or enemies. The environment itself can present challenges. The environment plays a key role in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Weather, terrain, and physics create situations where players must think and adapt. For example, climbing a mountain during rain is more challenging than in clear weather. This adds a layer of strategic decision-making based on the environment. Developers often release beta versions or updates based on player experiences. In modern game development, player feedback is crucial for balancing difficulty. Fortnite is an example of continuous updates and player feedback shaping the game's balance, keeping the gameplay fresh and appropriately challenging. Balancing difficulty in level design is an ongoing dialogue between the designer and the player. It's about understanding not just the mechanics of the game but the people who play it. Every player is different, and their experience can vary widely. The goal of the level designer is to craft a challenging, rewarding, and, most importantly, enjoyable journey for a wide range of players. Environmental art. Level design cannot exist without other elements. And you, as a level designer, should focus on another part of game design that will be at your disposal - Environmental art. Environment art is what gives life to the game's world. It's about the aesthetics – the textures, the lighting, the 3D models. These elements create the visual appeal and immersion of the game. The environment artists are like the painters and sculptors of the video game world, carefully crafting every visual detail to create a believable, engaging, and often beautiful environment for players to explore. A game with exceptional environment art can be awe-inspiring. Think of the stunning vistas in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or the intricate, dystopian world of Bioshock Infinite. The environment art sets the tone and atmosphere in these games, contributing significantly to the overall gaming experience. Level design should continue the environment design. It should highlight the setting and maintain the mood. Only then will the level design be considered good when it performs both practical and aesthetic functions. Let's shift our focus to level design, about the Level design is the structural foundation of the game’s world. It's about creating spaces that facilitate gameplay, guide the player's journey, present challenges, and help progress the narrative. gameplay experience within these environments. A level designer must consider how players interact with the environment, move through space, and utilize the game's mechanics. It's about creating a flow within the game, using the environment to create a path for the player, and strategically placing elements like enemies, obstacles, and rewards. For instance, the intricate level designs in Dark Souls are not just about aesthetics. They are meticulously crafted to challenge players, often forcing them to be cautious and observant. The levels are designed to create a sense of dread and anticipation, with traps and enemies positioned to surprise and challenge the player. Moreover, level design often involves creating an intuitive and navigable space. It's about leading the player without making it obvious that they are being led. This is where level design overlaps with environmental storytelling. The placement of objects, the architecture of the space, and the progression through the environment can all tell a story in subtle ways. An example is Half-Life, where the environment and level design work together to guide the player, tell a story, and create an immersive experience without requiring extensive dialogue or cutscenes. The game uses visual cues, level layout, and environmental details to lead the player and reveal the narrative. Intricate-level design goes beyond the basic layout of environments; it involves crafting spaces that are functional for gameplay and rich in narrative depth, player engagement, and creativity. Multi-layered Levels. Within a limited space, when we want to make it larger than it is, we use one basic approach: Multi-layered Levels. One of my favorite games with this approach is Dishonored. In Dishonored, the levels are designed with multiple layers and pathways, offering players a variety of approaches to complete their objectives. The game's levels are complex, with interconnected areas encouraging exploration and experimentation. Players can sneak through buildings, traverse rooftops, or find hidden passages, all adding depth and replayability to the game. It works nicely here, mainly because it fits the main mechanic of the teleports. A professional-level designer will always use every piece of space effectively, coordinating it with the mechanics and ideas. But what if I want something else, something different? Let’s return to the Dark Souls series, renowned for its interconnected-level design. The game world is like a massive, intertwined puzzle where areas loop back on themselves, creating a sense of discovery and surprise. This design makes the world feel interconnected and rewards exploration and memorization, a vital aspect of the game's challenge and allure. In BioShock, the underwater city of Rapture is not just a backdrop but an integral part of the game's story. The environment tells its story through audio logs, visual cues, and architecture. The Art Deco design, the dilapidated structures, and the propaganda posters combine to immerse the player in the game's dystopian world. The Breath of the Wild reimagines open-world design by creating a dynamic environment that interacts with the player's actions. The game world responds to player choices and actions, whether chopping down trees to create bridges or using the game's physics engine to solve puzzles. This dynamic interaction makes the environment a key player in the game's design. In The Last of Us Part, the environment reflects the story's emotional tone, from abandoned homes that tell stories of the inhabitants' final moments to the overgrown ruins that signify the world's post-apocalyptic state. The level design is a narrative tool, enhancing the story's emotional impact. As you see, level design can’t be independent. It needs to be a part of all other elements. You should play with it based on your ideas and the mood of your game. Now that we know the basic level design approaches, let's talk about their principles. One of the most crucial is a . Each level in a game should serve a clear and distinct purpose. This could be advancing the story, introducing new gameplay mechanics, presenting a unique challenge, or combining these elements. Each level is designed to advance the story in games like Uncharted or Tomb Raider. Players journey through different environments, each revealing a new story chapter. The level design aligns with the narrative arc, ensuring that the environment and its challenges reflect and enhance the unfolding story. Portal excels in introducing and gradually expanding upon its core mechanic – the portal gun. Early levels are designed to teach players the basics of portal traversal. As the game progresses, levels become more complex, integrating new elements like momentum and light bridges, requiring players to think creatively and apply what they've learned in new ways. Celeste is a brilliant example of levels designed to provide specific challenges. Each chapter introduces new elements - wind, moving platforms, or hostile creatures - each adding a unique twist to the game's core platforming mechanics. The levels are purposefully designed to test the player’s skills and adaptability. purpose The level design combines mechanics, story, and exploration seamlessly. The purpose of a level should be evident to the player, whether it's understood from the level's design, its place in the game's world, or its contribution to the overarching story. A level with a clear purpose provides direction and motivation, guiding the player through the game's journey. Moreover, purpose-driven level design ensures that each part of the game feels necessary and engaging. It avoids the pitfalls of filler content, where levels exist merely to extend playtime without adding meaningful experiences. Another fundamental principle in level design is . motivating player movement A well-designed level not only facilitates but also encourages player exploration and progression. It's about using the environment to subtly guide players towards objectives and discoveries, ensuring a seamless and engaging experience. For this, we can use different techniques. For instance, in Journey, the distant mountain is a constant visual goal for players. In Dark Souls, the level design frequently employs grand structures or unique landscapes as points of interest, guiding players across its interconnected world. . Skyrim is an excellent example, where players are motivated to explore through the promise of hidden dungeons, rare artifacts, and unexpected encounters. The level design rewards curiosity, making exploration a core part of the player's experience. In Half-Life, for example, levels are designed to lead players along a specific path without making it obvious. The game uses lighting, architecture, and environmental storytelling to guide players, ensuring they are never lost but still feel in control of their journey. A classic technique is the use of visual cues or landmarks. Encouraging exploration is key Effective pathfinding is crucial. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the interactive elements like destructible objects, climbable surfaces, and physics-based puzzles engage players and encourage them to interact with the world around them, often leading to discoveries. Interactivity within the environment can serve as a strong motivator. Narrative elements can also guide player movement. In BioShock, the narrative unfolds through the environment, with audio logs, signage, and environmental changes guiding players through Rapture. The story creates a sense of urgency and curiosity, driving players to explore further. It requires a deep understanding of human psychology and player behavior. The goal is to create an organic and inviting world where every path, obstacle, and item feels purposefully placed to guide the player's journey. I adore level design. It looks so amazing when Resident Evil uses narrow corridors, sudden open areas, and blind corners to induce suspense and surprise. The level design manipulates spatial elements to evoke emotions, keeping players on edge. Or when in Journey, developers use of color, light, and shadow further accentuates paths and points of interest. In games, the arrangement of enemies, the architecture of the ruins, and the placement of items all tell a story, providing context and depth to the game world. In Hollow Knight, we can find intricate, interconnected level designs that encourage players to explore, backtrack, and discover new paths as they acquire new abilities. The layout of the levels becomes a puzzle for the player to solve. You can find more information about Spatial Communication in Level Design in this . video Action Games and Shooters. I talked about more calm genres like RPG and story-based adventures, but we had a few extra things when we discussed action games and shooters. In this type of game, we have a specific aspect of level design that's particularly crucial. And this is a . cover placement Cover placement is essential for creating strategic depth in tactical shooters like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. The environment offers various cover options, each presenting different advantages and vulnerabilities. This encourages players to think tactically about their position and the position of their enemies. Effective cover placement also enhances player movement. In Gears of War, the cover is not only for protection but also for maneuvering and flanking. The game's 'roadie run' mechanic, combined with the cover system, allows players to quickly move between covers, creating dynamic firefights and opportunities for strategic positioning. The placement of cover can transform an environment into a tactical playground. Call of Duty games, for instance, design levels with a mix of high and low covers, open areas, and choke points. This variety allows for different combat styles, from long-range engagements to close-quarters battles, making each encounter unique. Introducing dynamic or destructible cover adds another layer of strategy. In the Battlefield series, the destructible environments mean that cover is not always permanent, forcing players to adapt their tactics as the battlefield evolves. Cover placement is also crucial in how AI enemies engage the player. In Uncharted, enemies use cover effectively, flanking and suppressing the player, which requires strategic thinking and quick reflexes to overcome. It's essential to balance cover with . Too much cover can make a level feel cramped and restrict movement, while too little can lead to unfair challenges. Games like Halo strike this balance, offering open arenas with strategically placed cover, allowing for ranged battles and close-up engagements. open spaces Conclusion. In summary, motivating player movement is an art form in itself. It combines aesthetics, psychology, and gameplay mechanics to create a world players want to explore and engage in. It's what transforms a game from a series of tasks into a compelling journey.

Designing a Video Game: Principles and Rules of Modern Level Design

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