Mediaboss Marketing

Technology workers are a hot commodity in the age of sky-high salaries and massive sign-on bonuses. One area where employers are struggling to connect with workers is showing them the possibilities of a mid- to long-term career arc and why staying is in their best interest.

Software engineer Ben Shive was at an inflection point in his career path after several years at a transport software company. A larger firm bought his company in 2020 and, as the acquisition progressed, he was left to maintain one particular piece of software essentially on his own. Shive felt maxed out.

Then an offer came through LinkedIn to join Meta as a software engineer. The possibility to pick projects was an enticing selling point.

"It's almost the complete opposite," said Shive of the dynamics of his new role. "You largely direct what you want to work on."

Workers in tech are quitting in drovesto upgrade their compensation, move to more senior roles or seek out more meaningful work. And it's a candidate's market. There are far more positions open than available talent.

To retain workers, executives must align skills and internal needs. A well built resource management practice can help ensure projects are assigned to the right people, and top talent has the runway to see what's next in their careers.

But communication, training and flexibility are essential.

Companies should allow talent to flow naturally to problem areas they can spot and solve, said Miles Ward, CTO at SADA, a cloud solutions provider. For cloud architects especially, retention hinges on giving professionals leeway to find a place of higher impact by themselves.

"It's too late to catch employees once they've already decided that the next right step for them is into another organization."

Adam Glaser

SVP of Engineering at Appian.

A project could be second or third place in priority to executive leadership, but first place in terms of an organization's ability to reap benefits, according to Ward. Assigning workers to specific projects is, perhaps, the wrong approach, he said.

Talent retention is an uphill battle, particularly in tech where workers have the lowest intent to stay in their jobs compared to other corporate functions,according to Gartner data. Employers across industries are seeking workers to backfill open roles, with job postings in June up 62% versus the same month last year, CompTIA found.

With demand up, there's even more urgency to make sure technology experts are satisfied in their roles. Staff can't feel engaged by the work they're doing unless they're aware of the ultimate purpose, said Ryan Downing, VP and CIO, Enterprise Business Solutions at Principal Financial Group, who oversees a team of 3,000 technologists for the financial services company.

"The key thing we really try to continue to focus on is: how do we have our team members really have a line of sight into why this work matters?" said Downing.

There's a clear connection between the daily projects a worker interacts with and how satisfied they feel in a job. Projects can also shape a person's long-term career path.

"Assignments are incredibly important to a person's career growth and happiness," said Joyce Brocaglia, founder and CEO at executive search firm Alta Associates.

And it may seem self-explanatory, but retaining talent as they develop and grow is good for business. After all, talent is typically the biggest investment a company makes, said Ward.

"If not carefully managed, it's really easy for people to work on stuff that doesn't make much business impact," said Ward.

"The key thing we really try to continue to focus on is: how do we have our team members really have a line of sight into why this work matters?"

Ryan Downing

VP and CIO at Principal Financial Group

To find the sweet spot where business needs are met and employees are happy there needs to be an ongoing conversation between managers and workers, Downing said.

The numbers back up this strategy: Employers acting on employee feedback on a regular basis were 11 times more likely to have high levels of retention compared to employers that fail to act on that feedback,a study from Perceptyx found.

In Shive's perspective, there's peril in letting one-on-one check-ins become simply a technical review of projects in progress.

"[Managers should] listen to what they're most interested in talking about both technically and personally," he said.

One tool that can help determine whether employees feel connected to their work is data analytics, said Adam Glaser, SVP of Engineering at Appian.

"The first step in understanding how to retain talent is knowing how talent is doing," said Glaser.

Training is next. If there's a mismatch between the tasks an employee is assigned to do and their skills, training in new areas with high-demand inside the company can help align company goals with employee satisfaction.

At Principal Financial Group, 1,700 employees have gone through AWS training in the last eight months, according to Downing. "We've seen over a 375% increase in AWS certifications from the previous year."

Despite technology leaders' best efforts, workers will still quit. The demand for talent is just too high. Switching to a proactive rather than reactive approach is key, according to Glaser.

"It's too late to catch employees once they've already decided that the next right step for them is into another organization," Glaser said. "We've done a couple of different things to try and invert that model."

While not officially referred to as "stay" interviews, the concept is the opposite of an exit interview. Leadership at Appian checks in on existing staff regarding specific questions about what they're excited about, what they're doing and what they would like to be doing instead. But companies need to be willing to make changes to their assignments.

"Assignments are incredibly important to a person's career growth and happiness."

Joyce Brocaglia

Founder and CEO at executive search firm Alta Associates

At SADA, a resource management practice helps the company understand where skills are going and how to ensure people are working on engaging projects, according to Ward.

"It's kind of like human resources but it's more about the day-to-day blocking and tackling of which skills are required for which projects in which sequence, to be able to get the maximum effect not only for our internal stuff, but certainly for the projects we take on for the customers," Ward said.

And with workers seduced by higher compensation elsewhere, the onus is on executives to connect workers with a path toward growth.

"That sets all of us up to operate efficiently," Wards said. "Even as new staff come in all the time and as a few staff [members] find their next best thing."

Read more:
Prevent the exit interview: How CIOs can rethink tech assignments to aid talent retention - CIO Dive

This retrospective study was approved by the Osaka University Clinical Research Review Committee, and the requirement for informed consent was waived by the Osaka University Clinical Research Review Committee. All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. Patients who underwent CT for evaluation of aortic or cardiac disease were eligible for inclusion in this study because we obtained a single scan in one breath-hold from the supraclavicular area to the symphysis pubis in these patients, whereas separate scans were obtained for the chest and abdominopelvic regions in other patients. Enrolled were 73 consecutive patients who underwent CT between January and February 2019 or between December 2020 and January 2021 (50 men and 23 women; age range, 2591years; mean age, 72.9years). The clinical indications for CT in these patients are listed in Table 1.

CT was performed using a 160- or 320-slice CT scanner (Aquilion Precision, Canon Medical Systems, Otawara, Japan, n=34, or Aquilion ONE GENESIS Edition, Canon Medical Systems, n=39). A pre-contrast scan was performed in all patients from the supraclavicular area to the symphysis pubis during a single breath hold. Tube current was adjusted individually using an auto-exposure control technique with a standard deviation setting of 15. The remaining scan parameters were as follows: tube voltage, 120kVp; rotation time, 0.5s; helical pitch, 0.83. Although post-contrast scans were also acquired in 31 patients, only the pre-contrast images were used in this study.

From the raw data of each patient, two sets of axial images were reconstructed, with a slice thickness/interval of 4/4 and 1/1mm. A hybrid iterative reconstruction algorithm (AIDR 3D, Canon Medical Systems) with a weak strength setting was applied. The remaining reconstruction parameters were as follows: kernel, FC03; reconstruction field of view, 350mm (pixel size, 0.680.68mm).

VTS is a conditional-GAN based algorithm. Thick-slice images with slice thickness/intervals of 310mm were randomly simulated from real thin-slice images by down-sampling with Gaussian smoothing. A pair of original thin-slice images and simulated thick-slice images were used to train the VTS generator in the GAN framework (Fig.1). The generator is an encoder-decoder type architecture with skip connections inspired by U-Net to reconstruct high resolution images. The role of the discriminator is to enable the generator to output virtual thin-slice images that are hard to distinguish from real ones. Both the generator and the discriminator are composed of 3D Convolutional Neural Networks. The conditioning labels (e.g. slice interval) associated with input thick images are fed into the discriminator to improve the accuracies of super resolution. While generator training, L1 loss was calculated in addition to adversarial loss, to minimize the pixel-wise intensity difference between the original (ground truth) and the generated thin-slice images, as these should be as close as possible. VTS software is a function of the PACS viewer (SYNAPSE SAI Viewer Version 1.0, FUJIFILM, Tokyo, Japan), which has regulatory approval in Japan. The training CT data for this software contained CT images of various body parts (head, chest, abdomen, and legs) obtained with scanners of various manufacturers. Thus, the software can be applied to any part of the body. The generated VTS images were isotropic with voxel size of 111mm. The details of the VTS technique have been presented at a previous conference, and the manuscript is available for reference on the preprint server14. VTS software was applied to the 4-mm-thick data set of each patient to generate 1-mm-thick VTS images.

Adversarial training framework for thickthin slice translation of CT images.

Two radiologists familiar with abdominal radiology (9 and 6years experience) independently reviewed the sagittal images reformatted from 4-mm-thick images and the VTS images and evaluated the visibility of the intervertebral spaces in each of four regions: cervical, upper thoracic, lower thoracic, and lumbar spine. They reviewed these images on a commercially available workstation (SYNAPSE VINCENT version 5.3.001, FUJIFILM), and assigned a score using the following 4-point scale: 4, all intervertebral spaces are visible; 3, most intervertebral spaces are visible but some are unclear; 2, most intervertebral spaces are unclear; 1, no intervertebral spaces are visible. The radiologists were informed that the images for evaluation were either 4-mm-thick or VTS images, but were blinded to the patients identity, medical background, and the reconstruction protocol used.

Two radiologists familiar with abdominal radiology (16 and 9years experience), different to the radiologists who performed the qualitative assessment, independently measured the height of the first thoracic (Th1) and first lumbar (L1) vertebrae on sagittal reformatted images made from each of the 4-mm-thick, true 1-mm-thick, and VTS data sets. Height was measured at the anterior border of each of these vertebrae. The absolute values of the difference between the measured heights on the 4-mm-thick and true 1-mm-thick images (D1) were calculated, as well as the absolute values of the difference between the measured heights on VTS and true 1-mm-thick images (D2). The absolute percentage errors between the measured heights on the 4-mm-thick and true 1-mm-thick images (%Error1) was also calculated by dividing D1 by the measured height on true 1-mm-thick images, as well as the absolute percentage errors between the measured heights on VTS and true 1-mm-thick images (%Error2). Measurements were performed using a workstation (SYNAPSE VINCENT version 5.3.001).

The same two radiologists who performed the qualitative assessment also independently evaluated the possible presence of compression fracture using the sagittal reformatted images constructed from each of the 4-mm-thick images and the VTS images. They classified the likelihood of compression fracture in all vertebrae using the following 4-point confidence score scale: 1, probably no fracture present; 2, indefinite presence of fracture; 3, fracture probably present; and 4, fracture definitely present. Before the assessment, they were informed that a confidence level of 3 or 4 would be considered a positive finding for the calculation of sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV). The criteria for compression fracture used in this study were: 1, ratio of the anterior height of the vertebra (AH) to the posterior height (PH) <0.75; 2, ratio of the central height of the vertebrae (CH) to AH or PH<0.8; 3, height of a vertebra reduced by >20% compared with those above and below15. The reference standard was determined by two other radiologists (16 and 9years experience) who evaluated the presence or absence of compression fracture on sagittal images reformatted from the true 1-mm-thick images, in consensus.

Visual scores regarding the visibility of intervertebral spaces were compared using Wilcoxon signed rank test. The absolute values of the difference in measured vertebral heights (D1 and D2) were compared using paired t-test. The absolute percentage errors of the measured vertebral heights (%Error1 and %Error2) were also compared using paired t-test. Interobserver agreement for each of D1 and D2 was evaluated by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). To analyze diagnostic performance for detecting compression fracture, jackknife free-response receiver-operating characteristic (JAFROC) analysis was performed using JAFROC software (JAFROC Version 4.2.1, http://www.devchakraborty.com). This software computes the figure of merit (FOM), which is defined as the probability that a lesion is rated higher than the highest rated non-lesion on a normal image16. In the present study, JAFROC1 was used rather than JAFROC or JAFROC2 because of its high statistical power for human observers17. For all tests, a P value less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Go here to read the rest:
Three-dimensional conditional generative adversarial network-based virtual thin-slice technique for the morphological evaluation of the spine |...

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

A massive group of hundreds of illegal migrants streamed across the southern border in Texas on Wednesday marking one of the largest groups to flood into the U.S. in recent months, and a dramatic snapshot of the historic crisis facing officials at the southern border.

The hundreds of illegal border crossers were being guided into the water by smugglers, often referred to as "coyotes," at the river in Eagle Pass, Texas, footage of which was captured by Fox News.

Federal sources told Fox there were 2,258 illegal crossings in Del Rio Sector on Tuesday alone. Over a seven-day period, there were more than 13,000 crossings in the sector.

The staggering numbers provide a glimpse into the crisis, which shows no sign of slowing down as crossers from countries including Cuba and Venezuela reach the U.S.

MEXICO TO CONTRIBUTE $1.5 BILLION FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AT US SOUTHERN BORDER

July 13, 2022: Migrants stream across the Texas border. (Fox News)

There were more than 239,000 migrant encounters in May alone. The numbers for June have not yet been released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The crisis escalated shortly after the Biden administration entered office early last year, and has seen consistently high numbers since then. Republicans have blamed the rolling back of Trump-era policies by the administration, as well as narrowed interior enforcement policies and calls for amnesty from Democrats.

The Biden administration has focused its response on targeting "root causes" like poverty, violence and climate change, which it believes is driving the crisis. The White House also views the problem as a regional issue, and has sought a response from other countries.

BIDEN, MEETING WITH MEXICAN PRESIDENT, URGES HELP FROM REGION TO STOP BORDER SMUGGLING

On Tuesday, Biden met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, during which he highlighted joint efforts with Mexico to stop human traffickers and an operation launched in April to stop smugglers of both migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl.

"But as you know, Mr. President, we need every country in the region to join us in tracking this multi-billion dollar smuggling industry that's preying on our most vulnerable, including the 53 souls who died in a tractor trailer in San Antonio last month," Biden said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

At that meeting, Mexico committed to providing $1.5 billion in funding for border infrastructure for processing and security.

Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, with a focus on immigration. He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY

Excerpt from:
Massive group of hundreds of migrants streams across southern border as crisis intensifies - Fox News

WASHINGTONToday, U.S. Senator and Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations Committee Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced theSolving the Border Crisis Act. This bill will secure the southern border by resuming construction of the border wall, strengthening management and enforcement capacities, and upholding the rule of law.

The Biden administrations dismantling of the effective immigration system it inherited has created a full-blown disaster at the southern border. The past few months of illegal migrant encounters have broken every record in the book, and there is no end in sight unless we secure our border with strong immigration policies,said Risch.Using several of the findings of my recent migration report, Im proud to introduce the Solving the Border Crisis Act to prevent this national security and public health disaster from getting any worse.

The skyrocketing amounts of fentanyl and unlawful migrants coming over our border must stop. The irresponsible and dangerous border policies of this administration are allowing Mexican transnational criminal organizations to traffic record numbers of unlawful migrants and deadly, illicit narcotics into communities in Ohio and throughout the country,"said Portman."Thats why Im proud to introduce this bill to implement the recommendations from our recent border report to end the catastrophe at our border to ensure the safety and security of all Americans."

The Solving the Border Crisis Act will:

Text of the bill can be foundhere.

A one pager on the bill can be foundhere.

Background:Under the Biden administration, illegal immigration has reached some ofthe highest levels ever recorded. In the first eight months of FY 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has already encountered more than1.4 million illegal immigrantsat the southern border compared to almost 1.7 million in FY 2021. Last month, Risch and Portman published a report titledBidens Border Crisis: Examining Policies that Encourage Illegal Migrationoutlining how the administrations policies have exacerbated the crisis at the southern border and incentivized illegal migration. Read the full report,here.

# # #

See the article here:
Risch, Portman Lead Bill to Combat Crisis at the Southern Border - Jim Risch

Photo: Hrvoje Jelavic/PIXSELL

ZAGREB, 15 July 2022 - Asmall unit of the Slovenian army on Fridaystarted removing the anti-migrant wire fence on the Slovenian side of the border with Croatianear the small border crossing Vivodina-Krmaina andthe town of Metlika.

Slovenia's Interior Minister Tatjana Bobnarattended theremoval of the fence, saying that it had a great symbolic meaning.

Bobnar said that the removal of anti-migrant barriers, which Prime Minister Robert Golob described as inhumane and as notservingthe purpose for which they were set up, is a sign of a change in the new government's policy towards migrants and refugees, as it has committed to the highest respect for human rights and speeding up the processing of asylum requests.

She added that around 51 kilometres of razorwire currently exists on the border with Croatia,that the army can remove 150 to 200 meters per day, and estimates that it will take at least 150 working days to remove.

"Our intention is to first remove the wire fence" and then to "gradually remove" the metal panel fence, in cooperation with local communities, she said.

About 2.5 million hasbeen allocated to have the panel fence removed, she added.

According to data recently published by Slovenia's Interior Ministry, a total of 135,372 meters of panel fence and 60,595 meters of razorwirewere erected on the border with Croatia. The wire fenceswere installed at the end of 2015 by the then Slovenian government, led by Miro Cerar, due to fears of the migrant crisis at the time.

The expansion of the initial anti-immigrant barriers after Cerar's government continued by succeeding governments.The razor wire fence was later gradually replaced with less hazardous panel fencing.

In September last year, the government of former Prime Minister Janez Jana donated about 40 kilometres of anti-migrant barriers to Lithuania from its stockpiles so that it could more effectively protect the 508-kilometre-long land border with Belarus. At that time, Lithuania was experiencing an uncontrolled influx of refugees who were deliberately sent across the border towards the West by the regime of Belarusian President Lukashenko.

For more, check out our politics section.

Read the rest here:
Slovenia Starts Removing Wire Fence on Border with Croatia - Total Croatia News