Science Exchange powers R\u0026D outsourcing for the world’s top life sciences companies

Science Exchange

has finally entered the market, and within a day after its listing on , the trading volume exceeded $1 million and passed $10 million three weeks later. Moon Rabbit Uniswap It is especially impressive if you remember that Moon Rabbit is not another “money printing machine” — it is a niche project with a very specific practical application. But at the same time, we believe that Moon Rabbit is one of the most ambitious projects on the market — we offer blockchain infrastructure specifically designed to support all kinds of scientific research projects that try to make humans immortal. The Hope for Immortality Immortality or, at least longevity, has been the greatest human dream since the very first days of our species. A lot of powerful and influential people are very interested in longevity research and ready to invest heavily in it. So dozens of research teams all over the world work on different approaches to immortality and longevity. Some try to find a solution that will help humans to live 120-150 years on average since it is the proven — we don’t live that long only because of stressors and diseases. Thus, hundreds of brilliant scientists all over the world work on medical solutions that will make this theoretical limit a very real one. natural human lifespan Some teams focus on so-called “digital immortality” or “mind upload” — the development of hardware and software solutions that will allow you to create a digital “backup” copy of your consciousness, memories, and personality that will remain active even after the body dies. While it is not a biological immortality per se, it is still extremely intriguing. And some famous people are involved in this process. For example, William Shatner (Star Trek’s Captain Kirk) that will allow people to interact with his personality even after he dies. is having a hologram created Today no one knows which approach (or combination of approaches) will work out. Therefore, we at Moon Rabbit made it our goal to ensure that any longevity-oriented project can benefit from our infrastructure and efficiently exchange data with other teams to combine their efforts in different fields. High Quality Infrastructure The main problem of longevity research nowadays is fragmentation. Dozens of research teams work on it, but the issue is too complicated and comprehensive for any single team or institution to solve on their own. Cooperation is a must: for example, the research of human natural lifespan was only made possible by the cooperation of researchers from the US, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Russia. But data exchange in the science world is slow and troublesome. Additionally, the financial incentives model is completely broken within the longevity space, which lacks effective crowdfunding and crowdsourcing techniques that crypto generally and Moon Rabbit specifically offer. While most blockchains are generally slower than conventional means of data transfer, Moon Rabbit uses a Substrate-based scalability solution that permits a multi-level blockchain launch. This approach has successfully been tested in Polkadot and proved that the metric of transactions per second is no longer a limit. At the same time, like any other blockchain, Moon Rabbit offers a combination of speed and security. Especially when it comes to copyright protection - blockchain-based solutions in this field are extremely reliable. Basically, if every data entry is timestamped and can’t be edited afterward — copyright disputes are solved instantly. Moon Rabbit permits tokenization of Longevity-related IP data and permits Longevity-based startups to accelerate their growth. Moon Rabbit provides just the necessary infrastructure since it uses Polkadot architecture with independent blockchain-based jurisdictions. Why Polkadot? Moon Rabbit rolled out its own infrastructure using the Polkadot core architecture due to inherent advantages that Substrate provides: Substrate architecture offers higher throughput and scalability than other large programmable blockchains, like Ethereum. Blockchain interoperability. The substrate was specifically developed with other blockchain networks. This facilitates integrating existing networks already used by research teams and institutions and makes data exchange easier. Polkadot parachains (called jurisdictions in Moon Rabbit) reduce network congestion - there is no need to push all traffic through a single blockchain - every project can get its own network that will be integrated with all the others but won’t overload them. Moon Rabbit has additionally committed to onboard projects that failed to obtain their own Parachain on Polkadot, becoming a refuge for rejected projects. The founders of Moon Rabbit firmly believe in participation, inclusivity, and barrier-free usage of blockchains and web3 for entrepreneurs. The AAA token is a unique cryptographic particle within the Moon Rabbit system, as it combines properties of several other hugely successful tokens, such as ADA, BNB, and LINK, namely AAA is used for: Fees for processing transactions and storing data, half of which are permanently burned. Running Temples (validator nodes) on the network via DPoS system (staking $AAA). Rolling out a custom Jurisdiction (own blockchain or protocol) via locking $AAA tokens. Used for community governance votes to assist steering Longevity DAO. Used as a payment token for any goods or services built by partners of Longevity DAO. In addition, Moon Rabbit allows longevity-focused projects to launch blockchain networks specifically tailored for their needs quickly and without large expenses. “The Roadmap for August presents our aggressive strategy for our Web3 infrastructure rollout worldwide. It will enable entrepreneurs, crypto-enthusiasts and researchers worldwide to build new exciting ventures on Moon Rabbit. Our infrastructure is unparalleled, as we can support hundreds of Jurisdictions simultaneously. And unlike with Polkadot, they won't have to spend much on rolling out their own chain, wait for months for an auction or survive on small grants. My hedge fund Versetti &Co and our partners Goldsworth Capital will invest into seed rounds of any promising startups launching on Moon Rabbit!”, - said Angel Versetti, the Moon Rabbit founder. We hope that easy access to infrastructure will allow more small but talented teams to join the combined effort to ensure human longevity. Influencers’ support Let’s be honest, influencers’ support is paramount in the modern market. You can have the best technology, solving the most pressing issues of the most trending industry, but you can't even hope for market success if you don’t have influencers backing you up. We are quite fortunate in this regard since Moon Rabbit enjoys really powerful support, which makes its rapid success quite understandable. A lot of celebrities are interested in longevity research — after all, if you live like a Hollywood star, you want to live as long as possible. So Moon Rabbit was immediately noticed: for example, Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach recently shared his praise of Moon Rabbit in a video on Twitter. posted What’s next? The team isn’t going to rest on its laurels and plan to maintain momentum after successful market entry. At the end of August, a DPOS staking mechanism will be implemented. Thus, Moon Rabbit tokens will become not only an attractive investment to hold onto but a functional source of income as well. Bithumb Global, the biggest crypto exchange in Korea, has announced that they will list Moon Rabbit, while the 4th biggest exchange in Korea, ProBit, has already launched trading of AAA tokens. Moon Rabbit In addition to obvious financial benefits for all network participants, we hope that more investors will be attracted to kinds of longevity research projects. After all, the more resources scientists receive and the easier it is for them to combine their efforts — the closer we get to achieving the most ambitious of all human dreams.

Moon Rabbit's Trading Volume Exceeded $10M Following Its Listing On Uniswap

Excalibur is a free and open-source tool that can help you to easily extract tabular data from PDFs. I originally wrote this post for my . website Photo by on Patrick Tomasso Unsplash Borrowing the first three paragraphs from my previous blog post since they perfectly explain why extracting tables from PDFs is hard. The PDF ( ) was born out of to create “a universal way to communicate documents across a wide variety of machine configurations, operating systems and communication networks”. Basically, the goal was to make documents viewable on any display and printable on any modern printer. PDF was built on top of (a page description language), which had already solved this “view and print anywhere” problem. PDF encapsulates the components required to create a “view and print anywhere” document. These include characters, fonts, graphics and images. Portable Document Format The Camelot Project PostScript A PDF file defines instructions to place characters (and other components) at precise coordinates relative to the bottom-left corner of the page. Words are simulated by placing some characters closer than others. Similarly, spaces are simulated by placing words relatively far apart. How are tables simulated then? You guessed it correctly — by placing words as they would appear in a spreadsheet. x,y The PDF format has no internal representation of a table structure, which makes it difficult to extract tables for analysis. Sadly, a lot of open data is stored in PDFs, which was not designed for tabular data in the first place! Excalibur: Extract tables from PDFs into CSVs Excalibur is a web interface to extract tabular data from PDFs, written in Python 3! It is powered by . You can check out fantastic documentation at and follow the development on . Camelot Read the Docs GitHub : Excalibur only works with text-based PDFs and not scanned documents. (As Tabula , “If you can click and drag to select text in your table in a PDF viewer, then your PDF is text-based”.) Note explains How to install Excalibur After installing (see ), you can simply use pip to install Excalibur: ghostscript install instructions $ pip install excalibur-py : You can also download executables for Windows and Linux from the and run them directly! Note releases page How to use Excalibur After installation with pip, you can initialize the metadata database using: $ excalibur initdb And then start the webserver using: $ excalibur webserver That’s it! Now you can go to and start extracting tabular data from your PDFs. http://localhost:5000 a PDF and enter the page numbers you want to extract tables from. Upload Go to each page and select the table by drawing a box around it. (You can choose to skip this step since Excalibur can automatically detect tables on its own. Click on “ ” to see what Excalibur sees.) Autodetect tables Choose a flavor (Lattice or Stream) from “ ”: for tables formed with lines or for tables formed with whitespaces. Advanced Lattice, Stream, Click on “ ” to see the extracted tables. View and download data Select your favorite format (CSV/Excel/JSON/HTML) and click on “ ”! Download A table detection upgrade Camelot, the Python library that powers Excalibur, implements two methods to extract tables from two different types of table structures: , for tables formed with lines, and , for tables formed with whitespaces. Lattice gave nice results from v0.1.0 since it was able to detect different tables on a single PDF page, in contrast to Stream which treated the whole page as a table. Lattice Stream But last week, Camelot v0.4.0 was released to fix that problem. adds an implementation of the table detection algorithm described by Anssi Nurminen’s that is able to detect multiple -type tables on a single PDF page (most of the time)! You can see the difference in the following images. #206 master’s thesis Stream Both -type tables detected in v0.4.0 Stream as compared to Whole page being treated as a table in v0.3.0 Voted #1 on Labworm Excalibur was voted #1 on in the second week of November! Labworm is a platform that guides scientists to the best online resources for their research and helps mediate knowledge exchange by promoting open science. Labworm Why another PDF table extraction tool? There are both open ( , ) and closed-source ( , ) tools that are widely used to extract data tables from PDFs. They either give a nice output or fail miserably. There is no in between. This is not helpful since everything in the real world, including PDF table extraction, is fuzzy. Tabula pdfplumber Smallpdf Docparser Excalibur uses Camelot under the hood, which was created to offer users complete control over table extraction. If you can’t get your desired output with the default settings, you can tweak the “ ” settings and get the job done! Advanced For a more detailed account of why Camelot was created, you should also check out “The longer read” section of my . Use . previous blog post Ctrl + F The road ahead Reiterating from “The longer read” section I talked about above, it was a pain to see open-source tools not give a nice table extraction output every time. And it was frustrating to see paywalls on closed-source tools. I think that paywalls should not block the way to . I believe that Camelot was a successful attempt by us, at SocialCops, to address the problem of extracting tables from text-based PDFs accurately. Excalibur has made it more easier for anyone to access Camelot’s goodness with a nice web interface. open science But there’s still a lot of open data trapped inside images and image-based PDFs. And state of the art software is locked behind paywalls. optical character recognition ‘At this time, proprietary OCR software drastically outperforms free and open source OCR software and as such could be worth a public agency’s investment depending on the amount and type of OCR jobs the public agency is needing to perform.’ — How to Open Data — Working with PDFs So the next step is to make it easy for anyone to extract tables (or any other type of data for that matter) from images or image-based PDFs by adding OCR support to Camelot and Excalibur. If you would like to contribute your ideas towards this, do add your comments on . You can also check out the for guidelines around contributing code, documentation or tests, reporting issues and proposing enhancements. #101 Contributor’s Guide If Excalibur has helped you extract tables from PDFs, please consider supporting its development by ! becoming a backer or a sponsor on OpenCollective Also, stop publishing open data as PDFs and keep looking up! :) to Christine Garcia for providing feedback and suggesting edits. Thanks

An Open-Source Tool to Extract Tables from PDFs into CSVs

After dropping a fortune on university to get a degree, the biggest takeaway I can say I have from my university experience is the very motto of my alma mater itself — . Ancora Imparo is Italian for ‘I am still learning’ Ancora Imparo Life until 2018 has been full of ups and downs, but mostly with me just floating through them. I’ve not been intentional about anything up until late 2017, where I’ve come to realize that the memories and experiences I’ve accrued need to be recorded and reflected on, lest I forget everything I’ve learned so far. So here’s my commitment on what’s made me who I am today, and a declaration of the path that I want to walk. Me in 30-Seconds I was born in Singapore, but I grew up in Kuala Lumpur. Basically spent my life moving around and stayed in a total of 5 countries. Growing up, studies were a piece of cake for me. I went by with the bare minimum amount of effort until overconfidence and arrogance caused me drop out of university in America. Got depressed. Picked up my shit (thanks Dylan) and was blessed enough to get a second shot back in Malaysia, studying Computer Science. Got to go for an exchange in the UK for a term of research in Machine Learning, did my last year in Australia. Basically things were looking up again. I was born into the generation of Millennials — I basically got to see how the world was like with and without . To be honest, the rate at which I saw technology change things around me both scared and mesmerized me. technology 2017 was when I realized that no matter how much I already knew about what I know about, no amount of knowledge will ever be sufficient for me to feel safe and secure with my position in life. 3 Pillars of Technology Realizing that technology is the engine behind the changes of the world, I pegged 3 subject areas where I deem as revolutionary and will more than likely push forward humanity to the very brinks of our imagination. These are: Artificial Intelligence 🤖 Technology 💱 (somebody please make a proper blockchain emoji) Blockchain Game Design 🎮 It’s pretty obvious why #1 & #2 are on that list, given the many advancements these 2 have already brought to life. Game design on the other hand is an area that I’m betting on for the future. It’s also the field that I have the most passion for. This basically encapsulates how I feel about it. video It’s the idea that you can teach someone something implicitly, without having to give instructions that charms me. Imagine if this can be applied to education, training or any form of knowledge sharing. Creating seamless experiences that despite being foreign, can immediately feel familiar and intuitive. Game Design is basically UX on steroids. Apple does an amazing job making things feel super usable and intuitive-without ever having to explicitly teach the user how to do things. While they might have a different term for what this is called, Game Design has been trying to solve this problem ever since the days of the Atari where in-game instructions were occupying precious space in a game cartridge. Rather than stand by and watch this revolution happen without being a part of it, at the end of 2017, I decided to start learning about of them. ALL My Goals . I’m not learning these technologies for the sake of learning only. I’m going to use what I learn to change the world. To become a master in these 3 pillars . I’m going to find ways to combine these 3 pillars and turn them into usable technologies that drive humanity forward. Combine these 3 pillars and give value to the world Changing the world is not something that I can simply hope to achieve alone. By writing about my experiences and sharing what I’ve learned, I want to inspire others to be a part of my journey too. Inspire others to embrace the technological revolution and be excited for it. My Commitment to these 3 Pillars of Technology and Learning For 2018, I’ve set targets for myself to pursue knowledge in these 3 fields that I deem revolutionary. Courses Complete 6 courses on any of the 3 pillars: Reinforcement Learning by David Silver from UCL Machine Learning by Andrew Ng on Coursera Fast.ai Become a Blockchain Developer with Ethereum and Solidity on Udemy TBD TBD I decided to pick my courses as I complete them because I realized that a lot of the material tends to overlap (I know this because I’ve checked out a few already) and I won’t know what I don’t know until I know something about the field. 😬 Books/Reading Read 6 Books on any of the 3 pillars or anything that will help me improve myself: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harrari ✔️ Final Fantasy V by Chris Kohler ✔️ Spelunky by Derek Yu Shadow of the Colossus by Nick Suttner TBD TBD Similarly, books get decided on the fly as I complete them too. You might notice that I have a 3 books from . If you’re ever looking for case studies or personal accounts of classic games, look no further. They’re currently one of my favorite indie publishers. boss fight books Naturally, my reading is not just limited to these few books. I often read shorter books or articles whenever it piques my interest. I also make it a point to read a recent research paper on Artificial Intelligence on every single day. Nurture.AI A few notable articles I recommend people reading: (If you notice, this article draws many inspirations from Daniel and his way of living and learning 💪) My Self-Created Artificial Intelligence Master’s Degree by Daniel Bourke I’m 32 and spent $200k on biohacking. Became calmer, thinner, extroverted, healthier & happier — Serge Faguet Pursuing Video Games 🎮 Finish 6 video games. I’m a mega video game connoisseur. I have over 200 games on steam, a PS4 as well as a Nintendo 3DS. In reality, I only play about a 3–5 hours a week. Collecting games is for more my retirement plan — where I intend to spend my time playing all my backlogged games while sipping on whiskey. 👌 Now this might seem like a fruitless goal, but I carefully curate the games I play and make sure that they are either some form of classic or derive some value to me in game design. While I doubt I can convince anyone to pick up any of these games if they are not already a gamer, I strongly recommend that you go read some articles about why these games are amazing: Final Fantasy IV Shadow of Collossus Final Fantasy XV Hyper Light Drifter TBD TBD Why any of these? Previously, I completely spent my days wasting away on video games and substances. With no intention, I was drifting through life. Just look at the number of hours I’ve clocked up on a game called Dota 2. The peak of playing of all 5666 hours wass getting into the top-32 in a national tournament, nothing that can secure my future. 2017 was the year I decided to stop all of that crap, and pursue things that fulfilled me. To be relevant in the years to come and not some drifter waiting around for things to happen to him. I got into crypto, AI and most importantly, . doing things Today, I run a global movement called AI Saturdays, spreading free AI education for all skill levels across 50+ cities in the world, work as an AI Research Fellow for a company called and I’ve got 2 projects on the side involving blockchain, AI and game design. Nurture.AI I have never felt more satisfied with life. Yet, I still crave more. I want to be there when a technological revolution happens. When the first person goes to Mars, when flights to the Moon are commercialized. ( 😂). Heck, I want to be behind it all, driving things forward. Elon Musk Just. Because. It’s. All. So. . Bloody. Exciting 😄 Find this useful? Feel free to smash that clap and check out my other works. James Lee is an AI Research Fellow at Nurture.AI . A recent graduate from Monash University in Computer Science, he writes about on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning. Follow him on Twitter @ jamsawamsa .

My Journey on Learning and the 3 Technologies that will Drive Humanity Forward

With the advent and development of blockchain, the world began to strive for openness, transparency, and decentralization in many industries. In just a few years, blockchain from Bitcoin and payment systems began to open up more and more facets of its usefulness to humanity, making finance decentralized and the world of art and creativity more open to talented people. In less than 10 years, concepts of , DeFi, metauniverses, and web 3.0 have become widespread. So it is unsurprising that the subsequent discovery was DeSci - decentralized science. NFT Recent years have seen breakthroughs in many areas of science - such as the discovery of RNA vaccines, genetic engineering advances, and successful fusion experiments. But I will examine whether science is evolving as a fundamental field or its long-established system is slowing the emergence of necessary new research in this article. What are the problems in science and basic research? Science is very centralized and often controlled by state institutions. Scientists' hands are essentially tied because they depend on funding and approval from certain regulators who decide what to study and what not to study. States often have favorite industries, such as medicine and IT, and there are rogue fields, such as climate change research. The community of scientists pushing the new concept of DeSci talk about several global problems with modern science. Getting funds hinders science development and remains one of the most significant concerns for scientific researchers. Scientists spend a lot of time filling out grant applications. But they may never see money for their ideas because their field touches someone else's business interests, their ranking is not high enough in the global community, or the field of research does not care about government institutions. One of the biggest challenges is funding basic research. The use of blockchain technology, advances in DeFi, NFT, and the organization of specialized DAO blockchain projects can help create sustainable channels for the flow of funds. Similarly, the problem of funding scientific research can be solved by selling commercial research or receiving royalties through blockchain for the use of scientists' research data. This is another global problem that DeSci can solve. Many scientific studies are private. Making them accessible is one of the main objectives of the DeSci with the help of DAO decisions. This could also include using smart contracts to move away from intermediaries who profit from information exchange and peer review of computer science research. At the same time, it is expensive to publish in the most influential scientific journals, so not all talented people can afford to tell the world about their discoveries. For example, an article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet costs $6500, and an article in Nature costs $11000. In addition, these journals are sometimes criticized for their dependence on national health institutions or other funding sources. Another problem is access to information about the research. Fighting political pressure and censorship with blockchain data is possible. Thanks to blockchain data, scientists and researchers can anonymously and securely store, share and access their scientific challenge data from anywhere in the world. At the same time, the research approach is often subjective. This also applies to the conditional lists of approved scientists and areas of science that high-ranking officials in ministries want to develop and various conspiracy theories about the influence of big pharma on lobbying their interests in the study of finding cures for chronic diseases. A third problem is a political interference in science and a lack of transparency. The DAO network in DeSci can help solve the problems of centralized science DeSci is betting on DAOs - stand-alone, autonomous organizations that will solve individual research challenges. And the variety of tools that blockchain provides will help make science more independent. For example, blockchain in science can: Already existing science DAOs provide several funding options, from crowdfunding and research token staking to the sale of utility NFTs. For example, under the terms of smart contracts, part of the earnings from commercially successful scientific discoveries will be able to go back to the DAO. Another example is fundraising for scientific projects - in theory, anyone with a rare disease would be able to participate in funding research to find a cure more quickly. Use DeFi tools to address research funding challenges. Currently, scientists review their colleagues' work for free, and the profits are captured by an intermediary - some scientific community or journal. Blockchain with smart contracts would be able to eliminate the expensive middleman and connect scientists with reviewers around the world. It would make science faster. Eliminate the middleman between researchers and reviewers. Right now, scientists' reputations depend on the h-index, which considers the number of publications and significant awards. This method is not wrong in and of itself, but it has drawbacks. For example, some scientists have to increase the number of publications without paying much attention to the quality of research just to get access to funding. Publishing for the sake of ranking is an empty job that hinders science. DeSci activists propose replacing the h-index with the NFT, which would consider not only an author's publications but also other important work, such as expertise, teaching successes, mentoring, and participation in research by other scientists. Validate a scientist's reputation in an unbiased manner. DeSci can encourage scientists worldwide to join teams of like-minded scientists, regardless of their background or the political climate in their countries. It is possible, for example, in the form of online co-laboratories and cloud labs. This borderless sharing of knowledge will drive progress. Scientists will be able to find solutions to fundamental problems faster, publish collaborative results, and protect authorship through the opportunities that NFTs provide. Make science truly open to the world. These are 4 benefits of DeSci that make this new area prospective. DeSci has been experimenting with blockchain data technology to improve the scientific environment and science in general. With the new methods, DeSci expects to empower scientists from different industries and achieve new scientific results to accelerate progress. What scientific challenges are already being addressed by DeSci? Decentralized science is just beginning to develop, but organizations are already emerging that bring together scientists around the world. The DeSci ecosystem consists of several foundations, research centers, and platforms for publishing scientific data. Some DAOs aim to solve specific difficulties related to the science system. For example, to solve the funding problem, to provide a platform for the publication of scientific research, to gather an independent board of experts, etc. Other DAOs focus on specific areas of science, such as climate problems, breakthrough medicine, or longevity research. Here are a few examples of organizations. Currently, about 40 scientists on the website are looking for funds for their projects. Anyone can donate and support important future discoveries. For example, the studies include the search for antibodies to the still incurable Alzheimer's disease, effective treatment for autoimmune diseases, and psoriasis therapy. Several projects have already raised the necessary funds for the first phase of trials. The Molecule Project is a fundraising platform for biotechnology research. Longevity is one of the popular topics for DeSci, and is quickly raising the necessary funds. 5,000 scientists have gathered under the society's wing, 200+ projects have been published, and over $2.5 million has been raised in a short time. VitaDAO is exploring life extension. The founders of this organization have nothing to do with science, but they understand blockchain technology. With the help of the crypto community, they raise funding for the most audacious research to find new cures for a disease that is killing millions of people worldwide. Antidote DAO is looking for effective cures for cancer. This field includes air and water pollution, biodiversity reduction, the food crisis, and other vital eco-problems of recent decades. The community has issued tokens that scientists worldwide can earn for helping the DAO fight climate change. Dynamiculture stimulates research in the field of environmental protection. Conclusion The products of decentralization are used by many people in different fields of business, art, and science. Just as cryptocurrencies and DeFi are changing modern finance, NFT the art market, DAO the business environment, the DeSci phenomenon emerged at the intersection of science, art, and entrepreneurship to change approaches to health science development and research. This movement emerged in response to the excessive concentration of funding in the dominant centers of science and information needed to advance scientific challenges  primarily because they can limit access to funding for their purposes. These days, access to funding, data, and cutting-edge tools can be limited for various reasons, as recent practice has shown, including political ones. Simply put, DeSci is a decentralized environment that allows the creation of an automated system for addressing the scientific challenge and fair distribution of funds for scientific research. To this, we can add the possibility to freely expand the cooperation of scientists in these fields without any borders and intermediaries. So far, scientists have only just begun to come together in decentralized communities. DeSci activists are assembling panel discussions at significant blockchain conferences to gather talented researchers quickly and, most importantly, investors who will believe in their ideas. The work has just begun, so none of the organizations can yet boast prominent scientific accomplishments, but the scientists have started to find funding, which means results will emerge. Soon, the term “DeSci” will be as popular as “ICO” in 2018. I also recommend you to read: What are Quantum-Resistant Blockchains? A Japanese Startup has Figured Out How to Feel Real Pain in VR How NFTs can change Steam Community Market?

The DeSci Guide: Is Decentralized Science the New Web 3.0 Trend?

La guía DeSci: ¿Es la ciencia descentralizada la nueva tendencia de la Web 3.0?

Le guide DeSci : la science décentralisée est-elle la nouvelle tendance du Web 3.0 ?

DeSci गाइड: क्या विकेंद्रीकृत विज्ञान नई वेब 3.0 प्रवृत्ति है?

DeSci ガイド: 分散型科学は新しい Web 3.0 トレンドですか?

O Guia DeSci: A ciência descentralizada é a nova tendência da Web 3.0?

Hướng dẫn DeSci: Khoa học phi tập trung có phải là xu hướng Web 3.0 mới không?

DeSci 指南：去中心化科学是 Web 3.0 的新趋势吗？

Xandr/AppNexus is serving up infected ads across major websites Some predict that AT&T’s up-and-coming ad platform Xandr — formerly AppNexus — will Google and Facebook to become the next Big Kahuna of digital advertising. This should terrify all of us: two years after 65% of its demand-side inventory was in 2014, AppNexus was caught in a cyberattack that flooded its supply-side partners with and other nasty deliverables. But four years later, after an acquisition by one of the world’s largest telecom companies, it has surely learned it’s lesson — right? According to my research, no it has not: AppNexus is still a kind of digital Mos Eisley serving up infected ads with malicious redirects across its partner sites. eventually surpass exposed as fraudulent fake ads carrying ransomware AppNexus was acquired by AT&T in 2018 for about $1.6 billion For background, I about the re-emergence of “ ” or “ ” on Weather.com. This well-known spyware redirects mobile users to a malicious site where their data is scraped, either to be sold on the Dark Web or in preparation for an upcoming cyberattack. This is stuff, and while the Weather Channel is partially responsible for carrying the ad, it’s upstream partners — in this case, Xandr/AppNexus — are even more responsible for sending it down the line. So before going any further, let me clarify what AppNexus actually does. published an article just one month ago IcePick-3PC eGobbler nasty What is AppNexus? Programmatic or personalized advertising is a complicated technology. Not only does it require back-end infrastructure to identify a website’s visitors, but it also requires a real-time marketplace that matches users with perfectly-targeted ads. This is where AppNexus comes in: while the company provides multiple services, it is mainly known for its exchange, where ad networks line up to purchase website placement, and publishers line up to fill their ad slots. How Ad Exchanges work, courtesy of Integral Ad Science Bringing so many advertising partners together in one place is an impressive feat which helps to drive down the cost of advertising while raising revenue for publishers. But the approach also comes with a serious downside: to infiltrate at once, all a hacker or malicious agent has to do is find a large enough exchange that can’t be bothered to check its own ads for malicious code. And — while AppNexus claims to use called “Sherlock,” — it hasn’t done a very good job over the past four years, and it’s not doing a good job today. thousands of publications a malware detection system IcePick-3PC Lives The IcePick-3PC adware continues to circulate through Alexa 500 websites two years after it’s initial discovery. Here’s how it works: when a visitor loads a site, that site makes a call to its advertising partners who pass along a seemingly legitimate ad that is actually laden with malicious code that redirects the user to a fake site. While there, the malware runs various “checks” on the user to determine what kind of device they have, their operating system, battery level and location. Finally, it opens a remote-peer connection to steal the user’s IP address and store it for later use. The following screenshot shows the packets I received during an IcePick-3PC session, and the buck stops with AppNexus: By now, IcePick-3PC is old news that should be on everyone’s radar. It should be immediately detected and eliminated by every decent AdTech company on the planet. If it were removed at the source, it would soon disappear — but clearly, that't not happening. Consequently, the malware has a wide circulation that impacts publishers, advertising agencies and — most importantly — end users. Test: AppNexus Malware Rate In my previous article, I mentioned that IcePick-3PC loaded in nearly 1 out of every 1000 sessions on Weather.com. For this article, I was curious to find out how many malicious ads originated from AppNexus specifically, including IcePick-3PC and similar adware (which I will discuss in future articles). I set my scanner running on three different machines, and collected the data from twelve different websites. In the end, I analyzed about 10,000 web sessions, and found that . nearly 2 out of every 100 ads from AppNexus are infected by malicious code This is nearly double the average rate of malvertising for other ad networks, which ranges from 0.5 - 1%, . And - considering that the average web user will see nearly 5,000 ads per day - the average rate is already unacceptably high. Unless something changes, Internet users are being exposed to between 175 and 300 infected advertisements each week. depending on the source If AppNexus is anything to go by, things are not changing for the better: is it any wonder that the number of financial theft victims has in recent years? climbed AdTech’s Failure To kill the monster of malicious advertising, you have to cut off its head. And in this case, the head is Xandr and its overlords at AT&T. Something huge is happening right under their noses, and they aren’t doing to stop it. Maybe they just need a push in the right direction — if so, that’s what this article is meant to provide them, because the fact that this is happening shows a systemic failure in the advertising ecosystem which users and publishers have to pay for. anything Presumably, fake ads hog slots and provide little revenue to publishers. But that’s not the worst of it at all: the worst thing is that they jeopardize the financial information, identity and personal safety of visitors which AdTech depends on for revenue. Years ago, I started using the AdBlock extension alongside millions of other users, which for publishers who depend on advertising to stay afloat. If the industry wants to fix a crisis of user trust and keep programmatic advertising viable for the long term, they’ll have to start by taking responsibility for the quality of their inventory and eliminate malware at the source. caused a crisis First published at InfoSec Write-ups

AT&T’s Ad Exchange is Overrun With Data Stealing Malware

In times past, say the 1980s, there had been various attempts by computer nerds, cryptographers, scientists and technologists, to create a decentralized system for transactions and interaction on the internet. Their mantra had always been to create a better world, where there is privacy and absence of interference by centralized authorities. While some might have succeeded in implementing this new era of human interaction, they suffered some setbacks as the system encouraged illicit and criminal activities. Criminals took advantage of the anonymity that this system provides to carry out illegal operations. Therefore, this new era faced huge condemnation and criticism by the government and its bodies alike. However, these group of scientists and cryptographers never gave up on their goal of ensuring online privacy. They continue to provide new ways and methods to achieve their aim. Bitcoin is a by-product of this school of thought. Brief history of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has a of struggles featuring notable events and serious debates on its adoption. Bitcoin was built on the past history and proposals of its predecessors such as and . The anonymous founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto only improved on the past cash systems. rich history bitgold B-money There were series of events that led to the development of Bitcoin. The evolution of bitcoin saw the establishment of new businesses and organizations. Sadly, most of them could not live up to the hype. Some of the known participants were even imprisoned. In its early days, anyone could mine bitcoin. A simple personal computer could mine Bitcoin. As people sought after faster means to solve the complex mathematical calculations and puzzles involved in Bitcoin mining, there was a direct influence on the introduction of new computers and machines. There has been a used for mining bitcoin. The recent is the application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) which are specially designed for bitcoin mining. beautiful succession of computer phases However, despite the struggles, bitcoin continues to enjoy global adoption. People are ready to explore the possibilities inherent in a digital and decentralized cash system. This system will provide a way to make purchases and perform transactions that do not reveal the identity of the parties involved. Objective of Bitcoin Bitcoin is operated on a decentralized network of computers called nodes or servers. These nodes can be owned by anyone provided they have the financial capability to carry its costs. The following are the objectives of the Bitcoin network: Bitcoin was developed to create a digital currency that is not backed by any real-world entity like gold or local currencies. Digital currency: It gives freedom over our finances through decentralization. That is, there is no central body or authority in-charge of recording or controlling transactions. All bitcoin transactions are recorded on a blockchain. A blockchain is a public ledger, like an electronic board that contains history of all successful bitcoin transactions. Decentralization: It provides anonymity for users as transactions on the bitcoin blockchain does not contain information about the real identity of users. Anonymity: Bitcoin was created after 2008 financial crisis and is aimed at protecting our finances against inflationary monetary policies. These policies are concerned with our local currencies and banknotes. Inflationary monetary policies: Bitcoin was created to allow transactions between two persons from different location in the world, as long as both parties have a bitcoin wallet. Borderless transactions: Difference between bitcoin and other local currencies Below are the differences between local currencies and Bitcoin: Bitcoin Local currencies Bitcoin is decentralized. Local currencies are controlled by central authorities such as banks or government. Transactions are recorded on a public ledger ensuring transparency. They rely on centralized banking systems. There is a fixed supply limit at 21 million in order to curb inflation. Central authorities can influence money supply. Transactions are not traceable. Transactions are traceable. Bitcoin is highly volatile and suffers from rapid price inflation. Local currencies are more stable. Fluctuations are only affected by economic factors. Achievements of Bitcoin Bitcoin has been able to achieve some of its objectives and introduced significant developments. Some of them includes: Bitcoin has succeeded as a store of value. Many investors buy bitcoin, store them, and sell them when the price hikes. Store of value: Bitcoin has gained an overwhelming recognition as a medium of exchange. It is used for online purchases, transactions, etc. El-Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender. Recognition: Bitcoin has garnered interest from entrepreneurs. Many companies have started to invest in bitcoin and create services for the bitcoin network. They include mining companies, crypto wallets, etc. Growth of new firms: The aim of creating a decentralized currency has been achieved. Bitcoin is not under the control of any central authority thereby reducing abuse of power by these bodies. There are no bank charges. Decentralization: How is bitcoin mined? New supplies of bitcoin are mined every 10 minutes. Definitely not from the soil like gold and other natural resources 🌝🌝. Therefore, how is bitcoin mined? Understanding bitcoin mining reveals the mechanics of bitcoin. It shows how daily bitcoin transactions contribute to the total supply of bitcoin. It is complicated, but I'll help you understand by using a simple illustration: Two friends, John and Mary have a bitcoin wallet. John decides to gift Mary some amount of Bitcoin. John initiates a transaction by sending 0.1BTC to Mary. Before Mary receives the BTC, some processes occur in the background. Recall that bitcoin runs on a network of servers or computers called nodes. These nodes patiently wait for bitcoin transactions to be initiated. Just as we have with John and Mary, immediately John initiated the transaction, the nodes begin to compete to solve solve some complex mathematical calculations. The node that completes the calculation the fastest gets a chance to record the transaction as a new block on the public ledger. This is the winning node. However, a consensus is reached by at least six nodes to ensure the validity of the transaction through a process called proof-of-work, before it's recorded. Finally, the winning node gets rewarded with bitcoin and Mary receives her 0.1BTC gift in her wallet. This is how bitcoin is mined. But how much BTC does each node get as a reward? This is where bitcoin halving, and the bitcoin mechanics comes in. Bitcoin Mechanics Bitcoin mechanics discusses the rules binding bitcoin mining. These rules are hardcoded and can only be changed by a large consensus. The future of bitcoin depends on these set of rules. They contribute to bitcoin's deflationary nature, that is, preventing unnecessary inflation caused by too much bitcoin in circulation. Bitcoin Halving. The first set of nodes got 50 BTC as reward in 2009. The second set got 25 BTC. The reward keeps getting halved every 4 years. The current reward stands at 6.25 BTC per block and is expected to be 3.125 this year. This algorithm is hardcoded in the bitcoin blockchain. In essence, this would help to accomplish the goal of a fixed supply limit of Bitcoin. Fixed supply limit According to the bitcoin blockchain the total supply of Bitcoin would be capped at 21 million. This goal is estimated to be accomplished by 2140. As surprising as it may sound, the total supply of bitcoin is not up to 21 million. Mining difficulty Each bitcoin transaction is added to a pool of unconfirmed transactions. The nodes compete and the winning node adds the transaction as a new block. Each block is added to the blockchain approximately every 10 minutes. The latest super computers for bitcoin mining are the ASICs. If by chance there is any improvement in the computing power of these computers, the bitcoin blockchain would also adjust its difficulty level automatically. Thereby ensuring that new blocks are added within the 10 minutes window. The easiest way to mine Bitcoin You must be wondering, "since bitcoin mining is such a complex process, how can I mine bitcoin?". The complexity and hardware maintenance cost of mining bitcoin is what turns most people off. What if I told you, you could mine bitcoin without having to deal with hardware maintenance? There are intermediaries that handle the complex part of bitcoin mining while you sit back and watch your balance grow. Beware as most of these companies are scammers. I’ve had a fair share of experience with them. Fortunately, I never got scammed. Almost like they all follow the same template. When you register with them, you are presented with a dashboard that reads how your bitcoin is mined. Once it’s time to withdraw, they ask you to deposit a specific sum of BTC before you can withdraw your balance. One of the few trusted intermediaries is . They operate 9 data centres/miners with thousands of Bitcoin mined and successful payouts to customers. GoMining However, there is a catch! Role of NFTs and Liquid Bitcoin Hash rate in bitcoin mining also known as Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital assets that represent ownership or serve as proof of authenticity of a specific piece of content. NFTs uses the blockchain technology in its operations. NFTs Liquid Bitcoin hashrate (LBH) on the other hand refer to the computational power or speed at which Liquid Network validate transactions and secure the Liquid Sidechain. It is a measure of the network’s capacity, similar to the hashrate in the main Bitcoin blockchain. On ,  NFTs can now be used to own a portion of the mining power of machines used in mining Bitcoin. You can easily purchase an NFT for a type of mining machine. This represents your ownership, and the right to a share of the Bitcoin mined using the machine. The NFTs represent the LBH and they allow holders to mine Bitcoin every day. They can be bought or sold. GoMining For example, if you purchase an NFT for a mining machine. They help you mine bitcoin every day. You only need to pay electricity fees to keep them mining BTC for you. The quantity of Bitcoin mined depends on the efficiency of the machine whose NFT you are holding. These NFTs can be bought or sold. Pool mining vs Solo mining. In the traditional mining, there are two types of mining: Pool and Solo mining. Solo mining involves mining on your own with your machine, while Pool mining involves joining resources to participate in the bitcoin mining process. This feature is also available on the platform where you can decide to buy NFTs and mine on your own or pool resources with a group of people while you participate in games, contests etc as a group. With a strong and effective pool, you can earn 10 times more than when you mine alone. GoMining Criticisms against Bitcoin While Bitcoin is adopted by many as the future of finance, there are claims that question its sustainability. Some of these claims include: : Bitcoin is highly volatile. It has a history of price fluctuations. While the current price of Bitcoin stands at $42,000+, this figure can significantly increase overnight or otherwise. Volatility I have a friend who is into cryptocurrency. He is the reason why I’m up to date with the latest news in the crypto space. One night he predicted that the price of Bitcoin would rise the following morning. We pondered over it but ended up doing nothing about it. The next morning, the price of Bitcoin indeed rise. It hurt so badly knowing we could have benefited from this opportunity. But remember it’s not guaranteed. What if it we took action, and the market turned against us? Bitcoin mining requires high computational powers thereby consuming power. This could have serious environmental impact. Energy consumption: : The Bitcoin network itself is secured. It uses cryptographic methods to transfer Bitcoin. However, it has no power over organizations that offer services such as Bitcoin wallets to people. There are cases where some of these companies got hacke, with people's Bitcoin stolen. Security Conclusion: Future of Bitcoin As with most investments, the future of Bitcoin is uncertain. However, it is an interesting space to explore. With the surge of new cryptocurrencies in the market and recent trends, it is obvious that this decentralized cash system has come to stay. Most of these cryptocurrencies offer more scalability and sustainability and is a threat to Bitcoin as the king of all cryptocurrencies. I have a strong intuition that the environmental impact of the Bitcoin network can be and would be looked into. Moreover, Bitcoin didn't become a million-dollar industry overnight. It scaled through obstacles to become the king of crypto. My advice is to make wise and informed decisions when investing in Bitcoin. Especially for those who buy to withhold.

Bitcoin is Not Rocket-science: Making Mining Accessible and Understandable for All

On the Future Prospects of Manufactures, as Connected with Science

Algorithmic Wizardry: Exploiting Graph Theory in the Foreign Exchange 

অ্যালগরিদমিক জাদুকর: বৈদেশিক মুদ্রায় গ্রাফ থিওরি শোষণ

Algorithmische Zauberei: Nutzung der Graphentheorie im Devisenhandel

Magia algorítmica: explotación de la teoría de grafos en el mercado de divisas

Magie algorithmique : exploiter la théorie des graphes dans le domaine des changes

एल्गोरिथम विजार्ड्री: विदेशी मुद्रा में ग्राफ़ सिद्धांत का शोषण

アルゴリズムの魔術: 外国為替におけるグラフ理論の活用

알고리즘의 마법: 외환에서 그래프 이론 활용

Magia algorítmica: explorando a teoria dos grafos no câmbio

Алгоритмическое волшебство: использование теории графов на валютной бирже

Algoritmik Sihirbazlık: Dövizde Grafik Teorisinden Yararlanmak

Thuật toán thuật toán: Khai thác lý thuyết đồ thị trong ngoại hối

算法魔法：在外汇交易中利用图论

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