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Six years ago, President Obamas 21st Century Policing Task Force wrote a report detailing the necessary components of police reform. Since then, preventive methods like body cameras have been implemented to hold officers accountable. However, even with these changes, last summers protests made it clear there is still a need for wide-spread reform inpolicing.

Public safety, quite frankly, is not just law enforcement. Its not safe if there is lead in the water pipes. Its not safe if people dont have housing. Its not safe if there arent employment opportunities. Dr. CedricAlexander

Dr. Cedric Alexanderwas a member of President Obamas Task Force on 21st Century Policing. He recently wrote an op-ed titled Which side are you on? The question every police officer must answer. He says the findings from Obamas Policing Task Force are just as pertinent today as they were six years ago.We have a lot to be concerned about. Progress has been made, we would like to think. But yet, still, when we look and see many of the events that are going on today it still brings about a great amount of concern for us aboutpolicing.

Alexander says any police reform, which could have resulted from that report, was not followed through by the following administration.The (Trump) administration had an opportunity to hold up that report You had a previous attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who pretty much threw that report in the garbagecan.

Many advocatesfor police reform have called to defund the police, but Alexander says he doesnt necessarily agree with this sentiment. I do not think that police departments need to be defunded. What police departments need to be is reimagined, reorganized . Police cannot do it by themselves. We need to decide what policing needs to look like in the 21stcentury.

Alexander saysfunding community resources should also be considered crime prevention, not just the police. Public safety, quite frankly, is not just law enforcement. Its not safe if there is lead in the water pipes. Its not safe if people dont have housing. Its not safe if there arent employmentopportunities.

Web story written by NoraRhein

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Obama's 21st Century Policing Task Force Turned In A Critical Report Six Years Ago. Has Anything Changed Since Then? - WDET

03 May 2021

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

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Once again, the National Labor Relations Board's soleDemocrat, Chairman McFerran, has issued a dissent that sheds lighton how a Biden-Board likely will reverse precedent established bythe Trump-Board. This update is our third in a multi-part seriesdiscussing how Chairman McFerran's dissents are likely tobecome the law once President Biden appoints new Board members andthe Democrats are in the majority (seehereregarding confidentiality inarbitration agreements andhereregarding implementation of employeehandbooks). The latest example of this appears in the Board'sApril 16, 2021 decision,Alcoa Corporation, whichconsidered the enforceability of an employer's investigativeconfidentiality rules.

Alcoa interviewed a handful of employees as part of aninvestigation into the alleged misconduct by one of theirco-workers. The company interviewer told each employee that theconversation was confidential, and that the conversation should notbe shared with others, including supervisors and other employees.The employees also were told to decline to answer questions ifasked. Alcoa's stated reason for the confidentiality directiveswas that "historically hourly employees did not write outstatements on other hourly employees" (even though there wasno evidence of this).

These directives subsequently were challenged as restraining andcoercing the witnesses in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of theNational Labor Relations Act. After a trial, the administrative lawjudge agreed, finding the directives particularly problematicbecause they were not limited by time or place because they did nottell the witnesses that they could speak about the investigationonce it was over.

The Board majority, consisting of two Republican Members,disagreed, relying on two recent Board decisions: Apogee RetailLLC(2019), andWatco TransloadingLLC(2020). InApogee, the Board held thatinvestigative confidentiality rules that, by their terms, applyonly for the duration of any investigationarecategoricallylawful. That holding did not,however, extend to rules that would apply to non-participants orthat would prohibit employees from discussing the event or eventsgiving rise to the investigation.Watcoheldthat theApogeeframework applied to anemployer's one-on-one confidentiality instruction to anemployee, but noted that in the context of an oral directive,"it is appropriate for the Board to assess the surroundingcircumstances to determine what employees would reasonably haveunderstood concerning the duration of requiredconfidentiality."

In finding lawful the confidentiality directive given toemployees, theAlcoaBoard disagreed with theALJ that the directives were unlawfully unlimited in time andplace. In reaching this conclusion, the Board noted that theemployer ultimately provided notes of the interviews to the unionand took no action against a union steward for discussing theinterview. Thus, according to the Board, these facts demonstratedthat "employees would reasonably understand that theconfidentiality restriction was limited to the duration of theinvestigation." The Board declined to consider whether theemployer's stated need for the confidentiality directiveoutweighed employees' Section 7 rights, noting that "[t]heneed to encourage participation in an ongoing workplaceinvestigation is self-evident."

In what she referred to as "an especially tortured effortto excuse an employer's obvious infringement of the Act,"Chairman McFerran wrote a lengthy dissent, arguing againsttheApogeeandWatcoholdings,and also finding that even under those decisions, Alcoa violatedSection 8(a)(1). In terms of the Board's finding that employeeswould have understood that the confidentiality directives werelimited to the duration of the investigation, McFerran pointed tothe lack of evidence that any employee knew that the employer hadshared witness summaries or that a union steward had escapeddiscipline for talking about the interviews.

As did her dissents in the two earlier cases, McFerran'sdissent inAlcoa sets the stage for what thestandard is likely to be under a Biden Board. Specifically, citingto previous Board law addressing the employees' Section 7 rightto discuss investigations with coworkers and their union, McFerranexplained that "[t]raditionally, the Board has protected thatright by allowing employees to impose confidentiality requirementsonly if they could prove that a legitimate and substantial businessjustification outweighed employees' rights in the circumstancesof a particular case." This framework prevents a bright linerule as each case will depend on its facts. Summarizing her dissentinApogee, McFerran wrote inAlcoa:

I endorsed the Board's existing approach, exemplified incases likeBanner Estrella, which required employersto proceed on a case-by-case basis in imposinginvestigative-confidentiality restrictions on employees. Thisapproach properly accommodated the competing interests of employersand employees. It focused the Board, the employer, and employees onthe relevant circumstances of each case and so tended to minimizethe chilling effect on employees, who would better understand notjust "why nondisclosure is being requested, but also whatmatters are not appropriate for conversation."

As the McFerran dissent is likely to become Board law once Bidenappoints new Members, employers should review their investigativepolicies and practices. Notably, McFerran pointed out that"[r]ank and file employees do not generally bring law books towork or apply legal analysis to company rules as do lawyers, andcannot be expected to have the expertise to examine company rulesfrom a legal standpoint."

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence algorithms has turned this technology into an element of critical business processes. The caveat is that there is a lack of transparency in the design and practical applications of these algorithms, so they can be used for different purposes.

Whereas infosec specialists use AI for benign purposes, threat actors mishandle it to orchestrate real-world attacks. At this point, it is hard to say for sure who is winning. The current state of the balance between offense and defense via machine learning algorithms has yet to be evaluated.

There is also a security principles gap regarding the design, implementation and management of AI solutions. Completely new tools are required to secure AI-based processes and thereby mitigate serious security risks.

The global race to develop advanced AI algorithms is accelerating non-stop. The goal is to create a system in which AI can solve complex problems (e.g., decision-making, visual recognition and speech recognition) and flexibly adapt to circumstances. These will be self-contained machines that can think without human assistance. This is a somewhat distant future of AI, however.

At this point, AI algorithms cover limited areas and already demonstrate certain advantages over humans, save analysis time and form predictions. The four main vectors of AI development are speech and language processing, computer vision, pattern recognitionin addition to reasoning and optimization.

Huge investments are flowing into AI research and development along with machine learning methods. Global AI spending in 2019 amounted to $37.5 billion, and it is predicted to reach a whopping $97.9 billion by 2023. China and the U.S. dominate the worldwide funding of AI development.

Transportation, manufacturing, finance, commerce, health care, big-data processing, robotics, analytics and many more sectors will be optimized in the next five to 10 years with the ubiquitous adoption of AI technologies and workflows.

With reinforcement learning in its toolkit, AI can play into attackers hands by paving the way for all-new and highly effective attack vectors. For instance, the AlphaGo algorithm has given rise to fundamentally new tactics and strategies in the famous Chinese board game Go. If mishandled, such mechanisms can lead to disruptive consequences.

Let us list the main advantages of the first generation of offensive tools based on AI:

At the same time, AI can help infosec experts to identify and mitigate risks and threats, predict attack vectors and stay one step ahead of criminals. Furthermore, it is worth keeping in mind that a human being is behind any AI algorithm and its practical application vectors.

Let us try to outline the balance between attacking and defending via AI. The main stages of an AI-based attack are as follows:

Now, let us provide an example of how AI can be leveraged in defense:

The expanding range of attack vectors is only one of the current problems related to AI. Attackers can manipulate AI algorithms to their advantage by modifying the code and abusing it at a completely different level.

AI also plays a significant role in creating Deepfakes. Images, audio, and video materials fraudulently processed with AI algorithms can wreak information havoc making it difficult to distinguish the truth from the lies.

To summarize, here are the main challenges and systemic risks associated with AI technology, as well as the possible solutions:

The current evolution of security tools: The infosec community needs to focus on AI-based defense tools. We must understand that there will be an incessant battle between the evolution of AI attack models and AI defenses. Enhancing the defenses will be pushing the attack methods forward, and therefore this cyber-arms race should be kept within the realms of common sense. Coordinated action by all members of the ecosystem will be crucial to eliminating risks.

Operations security (OPSEC): A security breach or AI failure in one part of the ecosystem could potentially affect its other components. Cooperative approaches to operations security will be required to ensure that the ecosystem is resilient to the escalating AI threat. Information sharing among participants will play a crucial role in activities such as detecting threats in AI algorithms.

Building defense capabilities: The evolution of AI can turn some parts of the ecosystem into low-hanging fruit for attackers. Unless cooperative action is taken to build a collective AI defense, the entire systems stability could be undermined. It is important to encourage the development of defensive technologies at the nation-state level. AI skills, education, and communication will be essential.

Secure algorithms: As industries become increasingly dependent on machine learning technology, it is critical to ensure its integrity and keep AI algorithms unbiased. At this point, approaches to concepts such as ethics, competitiveness, and code-readability of AI algorithms have not yet been fully developed.

Algorithm developers can be held liable for catastrophic errors in decisions made by AI. Consequently, it is necessary to come up with secure AI development principles and standards that are accepted not only in the academic environment and among developers, but also at the highest international level.

These principles should include secure design (tamper-proof and readable code), operational management (traceability and rigid version control) and incident management (developer responsibility for maintaining integrity).

David Balaban is a computer security researcher with over 17 years of experience in malware analysis and antivirus software evaluation. He runs MacSecurity.net and Privacy-PC.com projects that present expert opinions on contemporary information security matters, including social engineering, malware, penetration testing, threat intelligence, online privacy, and white hat hacking. Mr. Balaban has a strong malware troubleshooting background, with a recent focus on ransomware countermeasures.

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How AI is Mishandled to Become a Cybersecurity Risk | eWEEK - eWeek

The Discovery Accelerator will serve as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinics new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health. Over the next decade, researchers will use IBMs cloud, robotics and quantum computing tech to remotely design and synthesise molecules, analyze the molecular features in viral and bacterial genomes to boost drug discovery, and break down and potentially obtain deeper insights from structured and unstructured data at a faster rate than ever.

Through this innovative collaboration, we have a unique opportunity to bring the future to life, said Tom Mihaljevic, M.D., CEO and president of Cleveland Clinic. These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences. The Discovery Accelerator will enable our renowned teams to build a forward-looking digital infrastructure and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned one of the greatest races in the history of scientific discovery one that demands unprecedented agility and speed, said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. At the same time, science is experiencing a change of its own with high performance computing, hybrid cloud, data, AI, and quantum computing, being used in new ways to break through long-standing bottlenecks in scientific discovery. Our new collaboration with Cleveland Clinic will combine their world-renowned expertise in healthcare and life sciences with IBMs next-generation technologies to make scientific discovery faster, and the scope of that discovery larger than ever.

Quantum will make the impossible possible, and when the Governor and I announced the Cleveland Innovation District earlier this year, this was the kind of innovative investment I hoped it would advance, said Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted, Director of InnovateOhio. A partnership between these two great institutions will put Cleveland, and Ohio, on the map for advanced medical and scientific research, providing a unique opportunity to improve treatment options for patients and solve some of our greatest healthcare challenges.

Source : Cleveland Clinic : Engadget

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First retail IBM quantum computer headed to Cleveland ...

Man of the Year nominees

Amos Gray

Brian Page

County Judge Darryl Mahoney

Corey Alderdice

David York

Clay Farrar

Matt Barrett

Mike Allbritton

Mike Dugan

Shane Ethridge

Tim Culbreth

City Manager Bill Burrough

Bo Robertson

Corey Alderdice

The University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees appointed Corey Alderdice as director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts in 2012. He is now the school's longest-serving director. Since joining ASMSA's community of learning, he has worked to bring national prestige to the state's only public residential high school for talented students while developing new programs in computer science, entrepreneurship, global learning, and visual arts that underscore the unique opportunities available through the school's "college bridge" experience. During his tenure, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, and the Jay Matthews Challenge Index have named ASMSA among the nation's top 25 and "public elite" high schools. He is married to Stephanie Patterson Alderdice, an accomplished communications coach and owner of SixtyOne Celsius, a boutique marketing and digital strategy firm named after Hot Springs' world-famous thermal waters. They have one son, Elliott, who is 10 years old.

Matt Barrett

An Arkansas native, Matt Barrett was born in Magnolia, and his family later moved to the Hot Springs area. Barrett attended Magnet Cove High School, where his leadership qualities led to his being elected student body president. He was named an all-district athlete, and played three sports. Along with taking part in numerous school activities. Barrett started college at Jones Jr. College in Mississippi where he played football. He returned to the Hot Springs area to complete his education at Henderson State University. Barrett's career has centered on Marketing, having owned his own internet marketing firm, where they specialized in hospitals and the production of newspaper websites and marketing. Barrett later joined the Riser Automotive Group, where he has served for over 12 years as their marketing and internet director.

Bill Burrough

Bill Burrough is a registered Native American and lifelong resident of the city of Hot Springs. Burrough began his employment with the city of Hot Springs in 2002. He spent his first 10 years with the city as the Solid Waste director and seven as the deputy city manager. During this time, Burrough served as the interim city manager on two occasions and was officially named the city manager in December 2018. He also serves as the president of the Arkansas City Managers Association, president of the Mid-Arkansas Water Alliance and is a member of the board of directors for the Ouachita River Valley Association. In addition, he is a member of the Rotary Club of Hot Springs National Park. Burrough and his wife, Tonya, have four children, Jordan, Chase, Dawson and Rylee. Burrough and his wife are "proud grandparents" of a 2-year-old grandson, Parker. He is an outdoorsman, enjoys playing golf, however time spent with Parker is his most favorite.

Tim Culbreth

In 1981, Tim Culbreth accepted the position of executive director of Teen Challenge of Arkansas in Hot Springs. The residential program later changed its name to Adult and Teen Challenge of Arkansas and has grown from a six-client capacity to 56 clients. The campus has expanded from 19 acres in 1981 to a 45-acre campus with multiple structures to better serve the learning and living needs of clients and staff. During the pandemic, he expanded the program from a four-month, first phase recovery program to a 10-month full phase program that includes vocational and resource management training. He will retire at the end of June after serving 40 years as the leader of this organization that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019. He is an avid bicyclist who also enjoys backpacking, cross-country skiing, hiking, camping, fly fishing, black and white western movies, and most importantly, spending time with his three grandsons. He and Sallie, community relations director for Cooperative Christian Ministries and Clinic, have two adult children.

Christopher Shane Ethridge

Christopher Shane Ethridge, 39, has a private law practice in Hot Springs and is also a part-time public defender assigned to the Garland County office. He and his wife, Bethany, have one child, Sophie, who is 12 years old and attends Lake Hamilton. They have been in Garland County since shortly after he graduated law school and have made this their home. He graduated from Little Rock McClellan before attending college and law school at UALR. He enjoys going fishing and duck hunting as much as possible.

Amos Gray

Amos O. Gray IV is the executive director and co-founder of High Impact Ministries (HIM), a 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organization that equips and empowers the next generation. Gray was born, raised, and went to school in Little Rock. He grew up in a small community called the Panky Addition and was one of seven children raised by a single mother. Gray has over 31 years of experience working with the next generation and the adults who work with them. As a teenager and young adult, he overcame life's toughest situations to become the person he is. He moved on to graduate high school when others said he wouldn't, and later earned his Bachelor's degree and a number of certifications in working with teenagers and their families. He is a straight-talker, giving students and adults insight and information that will inspire and motivate them, but most of all, empower them to push away from at-risk behaviors that will eventually lead them down the road of darkness, depression, and despair.

Darryl Mahoney

County Judge Darryl Mahoney was elected to office in 2018. As county judge, he presides over the Garland County Quorum Court and oversees countywide services including the Road Department, Solid Waste/Landfill, Environmental Inspections, Emergency Management, Planning and Development, and all county facilities and administrative departments. Prior to holding office, Mahoney served on the Garland County Quorum Court for 10 years, chairing the Environmental Services, Public Works, and Buildings Committee and serving on the Finance Committee. "Throughout his time in office, Mahoney has been committed to partnerships that positively affect the growth, economic development, and quality of life in Garland County." Working with entities including the city of Hot Springs, the Hot Springs Metro Partnership, and the West Central Arkansas Planning and Development District, Mahoney has contributed to the implementation and enhancement of essential services for citizens through interlocal agreements and alliances while supporting the retention and expansion of Garland County businesses. Mahoney started his private business in 1985, owning and operating Burks and Mahoney, Inc. for 25 years. He went on to serve as president of MALO Properties and BAM Management, providing operations management for commercial and residential rental properties.

Bo Robertson

Bo Robertson resides in Lonsdale with his wife, Jessica, son, River, 11, and daughter, Lillian, 9. He has a love for his family and the great outdoors. He enjoys spending his free time coaching various youth sports and fishing on the river. Robertson has an extensive history in Emergency Management and is committed to his role in public service. "He takes pride in maintaining an excellent professional relationship with elected officials, fire, law enforcement, EMS, the private sector, and the local community."

David York

David York is a senior commercial loan officer for Arkansas Federal Credit Union in Hot Springs. He takes pride in being able to serve and assist small businesses in the Hot Springs area while helping them realize their dreams, achieve their goals and see their businesses thrive. Living in Hot Springs for over 50 years, he is a graduate of Hot Springs High School in 1981 and received his B.S.B.A from Henderson State University in 1985. His 25-year career in Finance has included time spent with General Motors Acceptance/Ally Financial, Regions Bank and currently Arkansas Federal Credit Union. York is a past president and member of the Hot Springs Sunrise Rotary Club and present member of the Oaklawn Rotary Club and is a graduate of Rotary District 6170's Jeff Farris Leadership Academy.

Continued here:
Man of the Year nominees - Hot Springs Sentinel