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138 new HD cameras installed in 2021 and 487 cameras are now in operation: 46 with AI test software

Eyes in the sky across most of High Fire-Threat Districts in Northern and Central California improve situational awareness and intelligence

SAN FRANCISCO, November 18, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--During extremely dry, hot, and windy weather, being able to differentiate wildfire smoke from fog and other false indicators is invaluable to analysts in Pacific Gas and Electric Companys (PG&E) Wildfire Safety Operations Center and fire agencies. Thats why PG&E is testing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning capabilities in the growing network of high-definition cameras across Northern and Central California to see how it can enhance fire-watch and response capabilities.

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HD smoke-spotting cameras on top of Mount Tamalpais are included in PG&Es artificial intelligence pilot program. (Photo: Business Wire)

This year, PG&E, in collaboration with ALERTWildfire, has installed 138 new HD cameras across High Fire-Threat Districts, in accordance with its 2021 Wildfire Mitigation Plan. Of those 138 cameras, 46 of them are included in the new AI testing program in partnership with Alchera and ALERTWildfire. A similar pilot was conducted with Pano through participation in EPRIs 2021 Incubatenergy Labs Challenge. PG&E began installing HD cameras in 2018, as part of its Community Wildfire Safety Program. As of October 31, 487 cameras are now in operation.

"Even with the two significant rainstorms in October and November, we are still in a historic drought and California, along with other western states, continue to experience an increase in wildfire risk and a longer wildfire season. We are using every new tool and technology at our disposal to improve situational awareness and intelligence to help mitigate and prevent wildfires, including this new AI capability," said Sumeet Singh, PG&E Chief Risk Officer. "Every bit of data and intelligence that comes to us could potentially save a life."

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The pilot program is already demonstrating the AIs potential to reduce fire size expansion. On August 4, 2021, PG&Es Howell Mountain 1 camera located in Placer County and equipped with Alcheras AI software, spotted smoke one minute before the actual fire dispatch and several minutes sooner than the manual movement of the camera. That smoke ended up becoming the River Fire. This is one example of many noted during both pilots confirming the value of early fire detection technology.

The expert staff in the companys Wildfire Safety Operations Center (WSOC), outside agencies and first responders use the fire-watch cameras to monitor, detect, assess for threats, and respond to wildfires. The AI test programs include PG&E determining a way to get the new data to the right people quickly and effectively. The quicker the data is received, the more rapidly first responders and PG&E can confirm fires and move the right resources to the right place.

"The software analyzes the video feed and if it thinks it sees smoke, we receive an alert via email and text, telling us it just detected smoke. Our analysts then pinpoint where the smoke is coming from and determine if its a car fire, dumpster fire, or even a vegetation fire. Based on the location, we can assess for threat to the public or PG&E facilities," said Eric Sutphin, Supervisor at PG&Es WSOC whos in charge of the camera installations. "The AI filters out a significant number of false positives, for example, ruling out dust, fog or haze."

Sutphin explained that the recent installation of the AI test software with its machine-learning capabilities means the WSOC team is getting smarter over time with more experience and more data gathered.

"We know the cameras are doing well at spotting wisps of smoke from long distances. We plan to assess our initial implementation, continue to gather the data, and develop a plan for using this leading-edge technology on a more expanded basis," he said.

The cameras provide 360-degree views with pan, tilt and zoom capabilities and can be viewed by anyone through the ALERTWildfire Network at http://www.alertwildfire.org. By the end of 2022, the company plans to have approximately 600 cameras installed, providing an ability to see in real-time more than 90% of the high fire-risk areas it serves.

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com/ and http://www.pge.com/about/newsroom/.

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MEDIA RELATIONS:415-973-5930

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PG&E Testing Artificial Intelligence Which Could Expand Wildfire Detection Capabilities to Growing Network of High-Definition Cameras - Yahoo Finance

On September 23 and 24 2021, The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), along with the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence and the Computing Community Consortium, launched a new virtual workshop focusing on improving collaboration between the fields of artificial intelligence and operations research, as part of the INFORMS AI Initiative.

The workshop was organized by a team of seven researchers from universities across the United States, including Assistant Professor in the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Phebe Vayanos, and USC Viterbi Professor of Computer Science, Sven Koenig.

The workshop included over 60 participants from academia, industry and government, all working within the fields of AI and operations research.

The event was the first of a three-part series focused on how AI and operations research can aid decision-making and maximize societal impact in the face of a world that is being transformed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and technological change, as well as the need to address widening inequalities and sustainable solutions for our food, water and energy needs into the future.

Participants in the September workshop reviewed the current state of research across both fields and discussed where research and education opportunities could be harnessed. The participants also identified the grand societal problems for which operations and AI research could present promising solutions covering societal challenges such as supply chains, sustainable energy, health care and crisis management, equitable transportation, and the modeling of human behavior on digital and physical platforms.

The next two workshops are expected to be held in the first half of 2022.

For more information about the event, read the full reporthere.

Published on November 17th, 2021

Last updated on November 17th, 2021

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Workshop Series Explores the Future of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research - USC Viterbi | School of Engineering - USC Viterbi School of...

Sanofi invests $180 million equity in Owkins artificial intelligence and federated learning to advance oncology pipeline

PARIS November 18, 2021 Sanofi announced today an equity investment of $180 million and a new strategic collaboration with Owkin comprised of discovery and development programmes in four exclusive types of cancer, witha total payment of $90 million for three years plus additional research milestone-based payments. Owkin, an artificial intelligence (AI) and precision medicine company, builds best-in-class predictive biomedical AI models and robust data sets. With the ambition to optimize clinical trial design and detect predictive biomarkers for diseases and treatment outcomes, this collaboration will support Sanofis growing oncology portfolio in core areas such as lung cancer, breast cancer and multiple myeloma.

To accelerate medical research with AI in a privacy-preserving way, Owkin has assembled a global research network powered by federated learning, which allows data scientists to securely connect to decentralized, multi-party data sets and train AI models without having to pool data. This approach will complement Sanofis emerging strength in oncology, as the companys scientists apply cutting-edge technology platforms to design potentially life-transforming medicines for cancer patients worldwide.

"Owkins unique methodology, which applies AI on patient data from partnerships with multiple academic medical centers, supports our ambition to leverage data in innovative ways in R&D, said Arnaud Robert, Executive Vice President, Chief Digital Officer, Sanofi. We are striving to advance precision medicine to the next level and to discover innovative treatment methods with the greatest benefits for patients.

Sanofi will leverage the comprehensive Owkin Platform, in order to find new biomarkers and therapeutic targets, building prognostic models, and predicting response to treatment from multimodal patient data. Sanofis investment will support Owkins development and goal to grow the worlds leading histology and genomic cancer database from top oncology centers.

Owkins mission is to improve patients lives by using our platform to discover and develop the right treatment for every patient, said Thomas Clozel, M.D., Co-Founder and CEO at Owkin. We believe that the future of precision medicine lies in technologies that can unlock insights from the vast amount of patient data in hospitals and research centers in a privacy-preserving and secure way. This landmark partnership with Sanofi will see federated learning used to create research collaborations at a truly unprecedented scale. The future of AI to transform how we develop treatments is incredibly bright, and we are proud to partner with Sanofi on this mission.

This collaboration agreement will allow Sanofi to work closely with Owkin in identifying new oncology treatments across four cancers.

We look forward to working with our colleagues at Owkin to analyze data from hundreds of thousands of patients, said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., Global Head of Research and Development, Sanofi. Sanofi's investment in the company includes a three-year agreement that will help discover and develop new treatments for non-small cell lung cancer, triple negative breast cancer, mesothelioma and multiple myeloma. This partnership will help accelerate our ambitious oncology program as we advance a rich pipeline of medicines to address unmet patient needs.

About Owkin

Owkin is a French American startup that specializes in AI and federated learning for medical research. It was co-founded in 2016 by Dr Thomas Clozel M.D., a clinical research doctor and former assistant professor in clinical hematology, and Dr Gilles Wainrib, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence in biology. Owkin has recently published groundbreaking research at the frontier of AI and medicine in Nature Medicine, Nature Communications and Hepatology. The Owkin Platform connects life science companies with world-class academic researchers and hospitals to share deep medical insights for drug discovery and development. Using federated learning and breakthrough collaborative AI technology, Owkin enables its partners to unlock siloed datasets while protecting patient privacy and securing proprietary data. Through sharing high-value insights, the company powers unprecedented collaboration to improve patient outcomes. Owkin works with the most prominent cancer centers and pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the US. Key achievements to date include HealthChain and MELLODDY; two Owkin led federated learning consortia fuelling unprecedented collaboration in academic research and drug discovery, respectively. For more information, please visit Owkin.com and follow @OWKINscience on Twitter.

About SanofiSanofi is dedicated to supporting people through their health challenges. We are a global biopharmaceutical company focused on human health. We prevent illness with vaccines, provide innovative treatments to fight pain and ease suffering. We stand by the few who suffer from rare diseases and the millions with long-term chronic conditions. With more than 100,000 people in 100 countries, Sanofi is transforming scientific innovation into healthcare solutions around the globe.

Media Relations ContactsSally BainTel: +1 (781) 264-1091Sally.Bain@sanofi.com

Nicolas Obrist Tel: + 33 6 77 21 27 55Nicolas.Obrist@sanofi.com

Investor Relations Contacts ParisEva Schaefer-JansenArnaud DelepineNathalie Pham

Investor Relations Contacts North AmericaFelix Lauscher

Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 77 45 45investor.relations@sanofi.comhttps://www.sanofi.com/en/investors/contact

Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. These statements include projections and estimates and their underlying assumptions, statements regarding plans, objectives, intentions and expectations with respect to future financial results, events, operations, services, product development and potential, and statements regarding future performance. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words expects, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates, plans and similar expressions. Although Sanofis management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Sanofi, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, future clinical data and analysis, including post marketing, decisions by regulatory authorities, such as the FDA or the EMA, regarding whether and when to approve any drug, device or biological application that may be filed for any such product candidates as well as their decisions regarding labelling and other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of such product candidates, the fact that product candidates if approved may not be commercially successful, the future approval and commercial success of therapeutic alternatives, Sanofis ability to benefit from external growth opportunities, to complete related transactions and/or obtain regulatory clearances, risks associated with intellectual property and any related pending or future litigation and the ultimate outcome of such litigation, trends in exchange rates and prevailing interest rates, volatile economic and market conditions, cost containment initiatives and subsequent changes thereto, and the impact that COVID-19 will have on us, our customers, suppliers, vendors, and other business partners, and the financial condition of any one of them, as well as on our employees and on the global economy as a whole. Any material effect of COVID-19 on any of the foregoing could also adversely impact us. This situation is changing rapidly and additional impacts may arise of which we are not currently aware and may exacerbate other previously identified risks. The risks and uncertainties also include the uncertainties discussed or identified in the public filings with the SEC and the AMF made by Sanofi, including those listed under Risk Factors and Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in Sanofis annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2020. Other than as required by applicable law, Sanofi does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements.

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Sanofi invests $180 million equity in Owkin's artificial intelligence and federated learning to advance oncology pipeline - GlobeNewswire

In total, the frequency of sentences related to artificial intelligence between July 2020 and June 2021 was 31% decrease than in 2016 when GlobalData, from whom our data for this article is taken, first began to track the key issues referred to in company filings.

When fashion and accessories companies publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Artificial intelligence is one of these topics - companies that excel and invest in these areas are thought to be better prepared for the future business landscape and better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.

To assess whether artificial intelligence is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of fashion and accessories companies, two measures were calculated. Firstly, we looked at the percentage of companies which have mentioned artificial intelligence at least once in filings during the past twelve months - this was 74% compared to 68% in 2016. Secondly, we calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that referred to artificial intelligence.

Of the 10 biggest employers in the fashion industry, Wacoal Holdings Corp was the company which referred to artificial intelligence the most between July 2020 and June 2021. GlobalData identified 22 artificial intelligence-related sentences in the Japan-based company's filings - 1% of all sentences. Hermes International SA mentioned artificial intelligence the second most - the issue was referred to in 0.1% of sentences in the company's filings. Other top employers with high artificial intelligence mentions included Yue Yuen Industrial (Holdings) Ltd, Pou Chen Corp and Christian Dior SE.

Across all fashion and accessories companies the filing published in the second quarter of 2021 which exhibited the greatest focus on artificial intelligence came from Pou Chen Corp. Of the document's 2,590 sentences, four (0.2%) referred to artificial intelligence.

This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on artificial intelligence and how important the issue is considered within the fashion industry, but it also has limitations and should be interpreted carefully. For example, a company mentioning artificial intelligence more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the company's ventures into artificial intelligence have been successes or failures.

In the last quarter, fashion and accessories companies based in Western Europe were most likely to mention artificial intelligence with 0.06% of sentences in company filings referring to the issue. In contrast, companies with their headquarters in the United States mentioned artificial intelligence in just 0.05% of sentences.

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Filings buzz in fashion and accessories: 48% decrease in artificial intelligence (AI) mentions in Q2 of 2021 - just-style.com

Eyes of the City: Visions of Architecture After Artificial Intelligence

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This book tells the story of Eyes of the Cityan international exhibition on technology and urbanism held in Shenzhen during the winter of 2019 and 2020, with a curation process that unfolded between summer 2018 and spring 2020. Conceived as a cultural event exploring future scenarios in architecture and design, Eyes of the City found itself in an extraordinary, if unstable, position, enmeshed within a series of powerfully contingent eventsthe political turmoil in Hong Kong, the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Chinathat impacted not only the scope of the project, but also the global debate around society and urban space.

Eyes of the City was one of the two main sections of the eighth edition of the Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture (UABB), titled Urban Interactions. Jointly curated by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, Politecnico di Torino and South China University of Technology, it focused on the various relationships between the built environment and increasingly pervasive digital technologiesfrom artificial intelligence to facial recognition, drones to self-driving vehiclesin a city that is one of the worlds leading centers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. [1]

The topic of the exhibition was decided well before the two events mentioned above made it an especially sensitive one for a Chinese, as well as an international, audience. The Biennale opened its doors in December 2019, just after the months-long protests in Hong Kong had reached their climax and the discussion on the role of surveillance systems embedded in physical space was at its most controversial. [2] In addition, the location the UABB organizers had chosen for the Biennale also caused controversy. The exhibition venue was at the heart of Shenzhens Central Business District, in the hall of Futian Station, one of the largest infrastructure spaces in Asia as well as a multi-modal hub connecting the metropoliss metro system with high-speed trains capable of reaching Hong Kong in about ten minutes.

The agitations occurring on the south side of the border never spilled over into the first outpost of Mainland China. Nevertheless, as the curation process progressed and the opening day approached, the climate grew more tense. In those weeks, it was enough for an exhibitor to merely include as part of his/her proposal a drawing of people on the street standing under umbrellas to prompt heated reactions, with the image reminding visitors of the 2014 pro-democracy movements symbol. Immediately prior to the opening, the stations police fenced off the Biennale venue, instituting check-points for visitors (fortunately, this provision lasted only two weeks before people were permitted again to roam freely inside the station). Despite these contingencies, Eyes of the City managed to offer what a Reuters journalist defined as a rare public space for reflection on increasingly pervasive surveillance by tech companies and the government. [3]

Then, in the second half of January 2020, what began as a local sickness in the city of Wuhan [4] 1,000 kilometers north of Shenzhenspread across the country and beyond, rapidly becoming a global pandemic. Trains between Futian and Hong Kong were discontinued [5], the Biennale venue was shut, while in a matter of weeks, the role of emerging technologies in regulating and facilitating peoples work and social lives became one of the most-discussed topics worldwide, after the grim tally of infections and deaths. In the design field, COVID-19 was seen as exposing and amplifying, on a transcontinental scale, trajectories of change that were already underway.

In an unforeseeable fashion, the occurrences of history in southern China between late 2019 and early 2020 made the question of the city with eyes even more timely and pressing. In the midst of these events, the exhibition had to reinvent itself, experimenting with its form and content in order to continue carrying out its program and contribute to the growing debate. A product of this context, this book is the result of similar processes of continuous adjustment, reflection-in-action, and exchange.

The book challenges the traditional notion of exhibition catalog, crossing the three temporal and conceptual dimensions that were also tackled by the exhibition as a whole. The book is composed of three parts, which loosely represent the different laboratories of the exhibition: the curatorial work that preceded it, the open debate that accompanied it, and the content that made it relevant. Overall, the book adopts Eyes of the City as a trans-scalar and multidisciplinary interpretative key for rethinking the city as a complex entanglement of relationships.

The first part expands on curatorial practices and reflects on the exhibition as an incubator of ideas. The opening essay is written by the exhibitions chief curator Carlo Ratti and academic curators Michele Bonino (Politecnico di Torino) and Yimin Sun (South China University of Tecnology): it positions Eyes of the City as an urgent urban category and proposes a legacy for the show which reframes the role of architecture biennales. The second essay is written by the exhibitions executive curators: it reconstructs visually the exhibitions design process and its materialization of our open-curatorship approach.

The second part of the book expands on a discussion that accompanied the entire curatorial process from spring 2019 to summer 2020, through a rubric on ArchDaily. Tens of designers, writers, and philosophers, as foundational contributors, were asked to respond to the curatorial statement of Eyes of the City: the book contains a selection of these responses covering topics as diverse as the identity of the eyes of the city and the aesthetic regimes behind them by Antoine Picon and Jian LIU . The evolution of the concept of urban anonymity by Yung-Ho Chang, and Deyan Sudjic, the role of the natural world in the technologically-enhanced city by Jeanne Gang, and advances in design practices that lie between robotics and archivization by Albena Yaneva and Philip Yuan

The third part unpacks the content of the exhibition through eight essayscorresponding to the sections of the exhibitionwritten by researchers who were part of the curatorial team. These essays position the installations within a wider landscape of intra- and inter-disciplinary debate through an outward movement from the laboratories of the exhibition to possible future scenarios.

Eyes of the City has striven to broaden discussion and reflection on possible future urban spaces as well as on the notion of the architectural biennale itself. The curatorial line adopted throughout the eighteen-month-long processan entanglement of online and on-site interactions, extensively leaning on academic researchconfigured the exhibition as an open system; that is, a platform of exchange independent of any aprioristic theoretical direction. The outbreak of COVID-19 inevitably impacted the material scale of the project. At the same time, it underlined the relevance of its immaterial legacy. Eyes of the City progressively re-invented itself in a virtual dimension, experimenting with diverse tactics to make its cultural program accessible. In doing so, it spawned a set of digital and physical documents, strategies and traces that address some of the many open issues the city with eyes will face in the future. This book aims at a first systematization of this heterogeneous legacy.

Eyes of the City: Visions of Architecture After Artificial Intelligence

Bibliography

AUTHORS BIOS:

VALERIA FEDERIGHI is an architect and assistant professor at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She received a MArch and a Ph.D. from the same university, and a Master of Science in Design Research from the University of Michigan. She is on the editorial board of the journal Ardeth-Architectural Design Theory-and she is part of the China Room research group. Her main publication to date is the book The Informal Stance: Representations of Architectural Design and Informal Settlements (Applied Research Design, ORO Editions, 2018). She was Head Curator of Events and Editorial for the Eyes of the City exhibition.

MONICA NASO is an architect and a Ph.D. candidate in Architecture. History and Project at Politecnico di Torino. She received a MArch with honors from the same university and had several professional experiences in Paris and Turin. As a member of the China Room research group and of the South China-Torino Collaboration Lab, she takes part in international and interdisciplinary research and design projects, and she was among the curators of the Italian Design Pavilion at the Shenzhen Design Week 2018. She was Head Curator of Exhibition and On-site Coordination for the Eyes of the City exhibition.

DANIELE BELLERI is a Partner at the design and innovation practice CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, where he manages all curatorial, editorial, and communication projects of the office. He has a background in contemporary history, urban studies, and political science, and spent a period as a researcher at Moscows Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture, and Design. Before joining CRA, he ran a London-based strategic design agency advising cultural organizations in Europe and Asia, and worked as an independent journalist writing on design and urban issues in international publications. He was one of the Executive Curators of the Eyes of the City exhibition. Currently, he is leading the development of CRAs Urban Study for Manifesta 14 Prishtina.

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Eyes of the City: Visions of Architecture After Artificial Intelligence - ArchDaily