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Dassault Systmes has acquired Diota, developer of assembly assistance and quality control software solutions for manufacturing and operations. The acquisition will expand Dassault Systmes 3DEXPERIENCE platform with actionable virtual twin experiences on the shop floor, enabling customers in the aerospace and defense, industrial equipment, and transportation and mobility industries to optimize the performance of complex industrial processes and boost their operational efficiency.

Founded in 2009 in France, Diota provides software solutions for digital-assisted operations and digital-based robotics inspection that help industrial companies enter a new era of digital transformation. Cutting-edge technologies such as interactive 3D, AR, computer vision, AI, and deep learning connect back office engineering and on-site operations in charge of production and maintenance of manufactured products for greater productivity, improved product quality and enhanced workforce guidance and safety. Its solutions are used by more than 100 companies in 16 countries including BAE Systems, Dassault Aviation, Iveco, Latcore, Naval Group, ORANO, Safran, Stellantis and Thales Alenia Space.

Dassault Systmes will integrate Diotas solutions into its DELMIA applications, which are used to collaboratively and virtually model, optimize, and execute manufacturing, supply chains, logistics, and services with new levels of intelligence and decision-making. This combination will enhance the use of digital mock-ups and their associated digital processes for manufacturing operations by delivering interactive, operations-level solutions that connect a virtual twin with real-world data in the field. Customers will be able to perform very complex operations right-first-time, as well as use the virtual twin as a quality referential to adopt continuous improvement methods, improve traceability and capitalize on intellectual property.

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Dassault Systmes Acquires Diota, Bringing Augmented Reality and Field Control Technology to Its Manufacturing and Operations Customers - Dassault...

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, September 16, 2022 A new unit separate from the day-to-day police force has been created and will soon be active to collect information from witnesses in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The creation of the unit is in an effort to bridge the gap between the police and the residents amid officials at the highest level admitting the people do not trust the police.

Trevor Botting, Turks and Caicos Islands Police Commissioner made the announcement in a press conference September 5 addressing recent violence in Five Cays

Weve now formed a dedicated team of trained officers who work discreetly with people who want to provide information. They are separate from the mainstream force and they deal with your information discreetly and professionally.

Botting and Premier Washington Misick both admitted during that press conference that there was a serious breakdown of trust in the islands police force.

Neither official speculated on the reason behind this breakdown. But in a concerning twist, dozens of residents during the live accused the Police Force of having serious confidentialities issues. Some of them gave outright examples of witnesses whose information had been leaked putting them in danger.

Despite this, Botting said the team has been extremely carefully selected.

Weve made this change and invested in making this change as we know how difficult it is in a small community and a community which is in fear, to provide information.

Botting admitted that police officers in the past had spoken inappropriately regarding witnesses but said.

This is why we have invested so heavily in a small heavily vetted unit they are extraordinarily well trained and extraordinarily well selected and their whole purpose is to deal with this kind of information. They are separate from the Force, effectively, they wont be on the streets.

The commissioner said the team was so confidential they would be reporting directly to him and not even he would be aware of who the witnesses were. He stressed that the team was trustworthy, describing them as unmatched in policing.

Residents were not totally convinced, in addition to leaks in the force the Islands low conviction rate was also a bone of contention addressed both by the commissioner and by viewers.

When queried about the low conviction rate the Commissioner referenced residents reluctance to speak to the force as a major problem. He stressed that while he understood that people were afraid challenges in the investigative process hampered convictions.

I am going to be blunt here. You cant just look at the police to solve all the crimes. If you look elsewhere around the world where they have good conviction rates its the cooperation of the community that starts to make a difference he said.

In 2022 alone there have been multiple failures to secure convictions based on missteps from all sides of the justice system. The consistent failures have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and put suspected molesters and murderers back on the street.

The Police Commissioner has promised that in the near future, a number will be circulated that will put witnesses in direct contact with the new team.

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TCI Governor believes out of control gun violence needs these 8 things - Magnetic Media

GENEVA (16 September 2022) Peoples right to privacy is coming under ever greater pressure from the use of modern networked digital technologies whose features make them formidable tools for surveillance, control and oppression, a new UN report has warned. This makes it all the more essential that these technologies are reined in by effective regulation based on international human rights law and standards.

The report the latest on privacy in the digital age by the UN Human Rights Office* looks at three key areas: the abuse of intrusive hacking tools (spyware) by State authorities; the key role of robust encryption methods in protecting human rights online; and the impacts of widespread digital monitoring of public spaces, both offline and online.

The report details how surveillance tools such as the Pegasus software can turn most smartphones into 24-hour surveillance devices, allowing the intruder access not only to everything on our mobiles but also weaponizing them to spy on our lives.

While purportedly being deployed for combating terrorism and crime, such spyware tools have often been used for illegitimate reasons, including to clamp down on critical or dissenting views and on those who express them, including journalists, opposition political figures and human rights defenders, the report states.

Urgent steps are needed to address the spread of spyware, the report flags, reiterating the call for a moratorium on the use and sale of hacking tools until adequate safeguards to protect human rights are in place. Authorities should only electronically intrude on a personal device as a last resort to prevent or investigate a specific act amounting to a serious threat to national security or a specific serious crime, it says.

Encryption is a key enabler of privacy and human rights in the digital space, yet it is being undermined. The report calls on States to avoid taking steps that could weaken encryption, including mandating so-called backdoors that give access to peoples encrypted data or employing systematic screening of peoples devices, known as client-side scanning.

The report also raises the alarm about the growing surveillance of public spaces. Previous practical limitations on the scope of surveillance have been swept away by large-scale automated collection and analysis of data, as well as new digitized identity systems and extensive biometric databases that greatly facilitate the breadth of such surveillance measures.

New technologies have also enabled the systematic monitoring of what people are saying online, including through collecting and analysing social media posts.

Governments often fail to adequately inform the public about their surveillance activities, and even where surveillance tools are initially rolled out for legitimate goals, they can easily be repurposed, often serving ends for which they were not originally intended.

The report emphasises that States should limit public surveillance measures to those strictly necessary and proportionate, focused on specific locations and time. The duration of data storage should similarly be limited. There is also an immediate need to restrict the use of biometric recognition systems in public spaces.

All States should also act immediately to put in place robust export control regimes for surveillance technologies that pose serious risks to human rights. They should also ensure human rights impact assessments are carried out that take into account what the technologies in question are capable of, as well as the situation in the recipient country.

Digital technologies bring enormous benefits to societies. But pervasive surveillance comes at a high cost, undermining rights and choking the development of vibrant, pluralistic democracies, said Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif.

In short, the right to privacy is more at risk than ever before, she stressed. This is why action is needed and needed now.

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Spyware and surveillance: Threats to privacy and human rights growing, UN report warns - OHCHR

Addis Ababa, Durban, Brazzaville, and Stellenbosch, 15 September 2022. A major scientific report from Africa is featured in the journal Science today. This scientific report show how the rapid expansion of genomics surveillance in Africa allowed the continent to describe the introduction and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 variants in African countries in real-time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The scientific publication includes over 300 authors from Africa and abroad who worked together to describe and analyze over 100,000 genomes and characterize SARS-CoV-2 variants in real-time. This was the largest consortium of African scientists and public health institutions working together to support data-driven COVID-19 response in Africa.

This publication shows how the large investment, collaboration and capacity building in genomic surveillance on the African continent enabled real-time public health response. Particularly it describes the setting up of the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Africa PGI) and the development of the continental network by the Africa CDC and the Regional Office for the World Health Organization in Africa (WHO) to expand access to sequencing and cover surveillance blind spots, in parallel with the growth of the number of countries that are able to sequence SARS-CoV-2 with in the country.

The publication highlights that sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa was needed to not only combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent, but establish a platform to address the emerging, re-emerging, endemic infectious disease threats, such as Ebola, HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century. said Dr. Yenew Kebede, Head Division of Laboratory Systems Acting Head for Surveillance and Disease Intelligence at the Africa CDC

This study was led by two labs that setup the network for genomics surveillance in South Africa, the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at Stellenbosch University and the KwaZulu Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform (KRISP) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in close coordination with the Africa CDC, WHO AFRO and 300 other institutions across the continent.

The enormous leap Africa made in genomic surveillance during the past two years is the silver lining in the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. The continent is now better prepared to face down both old and emerging pathogens. This is a model of how when Africans are in the driving seat we can come up with lasting change and stay a step ahead of dangerous diseases.

It has been an inspiring experience to share knowledge, support and learn from colleagues in all parts of the continent continuously during the pandemic. We witnessed small

countries with no previous genomics experience become empowered in sequencing and bioinformatics methods, and start to actively participate in regular pathogen genomic surveillance for SARS-CoV-2. I think it will be a real model of how scientists and public health officials across countries can have a unified front against infectious diseases in the future., says Houriiyah Tegally, Bioinformatician at KRISP and CERI and first-author on this publication.

The results also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most relevant being the detection of Beta and various Omicron subvariants. The publication highlights that most of the SARS-CoV-2 variants causing epidemic in Africa were introduced from abroad.

The scientists proceeded carefully in analysing genomic and epidemiological data collected in over 50 countries that experienced quite heterogenous epidemics in order to reconstruct transmission dynamics of the virus in the most accurate way. The phylogeographic methods that we employ to investigate the movement of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants into, out of, and within the African continent account for uneven testing and sampling proportions across countries, arising from the realities of doing genomic sequencing in the middle of a pandemic, often in low resourced settings., explains Dr. Eduan Wilkinson, head of bioinformatics at CERI at Stellenbosch University and senior author on this publication.

The initial waves of infections in Africa were primarily seeded by multiple introductions of viral lineages from abroad (mainly Europe). The Alpha variant that emerged in Europe in the end of 2020 ended up causing infections in 43 countries with evidence of community transmission in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Gabon and Angola. For Delta, the bulk of introductions was attributed to India (~72%), mainland Europe (~8%), the UK (~5%), and the US (~2.5%). Viral introductions of Delta also occurred between African countries in 7% of inferred introduction. For Omicron the scientific results indicate more reintroductions of the variant back into Africa, at least 69 (95% CI: 60 78) from Europe and 102 (95% CI: 92 112) from North America than from other African countries. This was amplified for Omicron BA.2; the results suggest at least 99 separate introduction or reintroduction events of BA.2 into African countries, ~65% of which are from Europe and ~30% from Asia.

The ironical part of these results is that most of the introductions of variants in Africa were from abroad, but Africa was the most discriminated and penalized continent in the world with travel bans. Instead of unscientific and inappropriate reactions, we should be building on the infrastructure established in Africa so that the continent can rapidly pivot to other epidemics without the fear of being punished said Prof. Tulio de Oliveira, Director of the two institutes, CERI and KRISP, that lead the consortium analysis with the Africa CDC and WHO AFRO.

This study is a testament to Africa CDCs impact in rapidly expanding access to sequencing technologies by African Union Member States, and creating a platform for coordination and collaboration by all stakeholders. said Dr. Ahmed Ogwell, Acting Director of the Africa CDC

About Africa Pathogen Genomic Initiative (Africa PGI)

In 2020, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a multi-sectoral partnership Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Africa PGI) to integrate pathogen genomics and bioinformatics into public health surveillance, outbreak investigations, and improved disease control and prevention in Africa. Africa PGI is a collaboration between the Africa CDC Institute of Pathogen Genomics, ASLM, US CDC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Illumina Inc, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, and others.

About the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at Stellenbosch University.

CERI primary goal is to challenge the status quo on epidemic response and innovation in Africa and allows Africa to control its own epidemics and pandemics. Our vision is to effectively respond to epidemics through pathogen genomic surveillance to enhance biomedical discovery, improve the treatment, diagnosis and prevention of human diseases in Africa. CERI is a centre of Stellenbosch University and its state-of-the-art laboratory are based at the new Biomedical Research Institute Building at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences campus.

About the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

KRISP has been created by the coordinated effort of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). KRISP is based on a state-of-art building at Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at UKZN, Durban. KRISP has one of the worlds most advanced genetic sequencing systems in order to enable and support world-class genomics research in Africa. Our objective is to use Next Generation sequencing and bioinformatics to answer scientific questions that are of local, national and international importance.

About World Health Organization (WHO) African Region (WHO AFRO)

World Health Organization contributes to a better future for people everywhere. Good health lays the foundation for vibrant and productive communities, stronger economies, safer nations and a better world. As the lead health authority within the United Nations system, our work touches peoples lives around the world every day. In Africa, WHO serves 47 Member States and works with development partners to improve the health and well-being of all people living here. The WHO Regional Office for Africa is located in Brazzaville, Congo. Learn more at http://www.afro.who.int and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

For media enquiries to Africa CDC Africa PGI, please contact:

Dr. Sofonias K TessemaProgram Lead, Africa PGI+251962458542sofoniast@africa-union.org

For media enquiries to CERI and KRISP, please contact:

Paul HarrisCommunication Officer

CERI Centre for Epidemic Response and InnovationStellenbosch UniversityKRISP KZN Research Innovation and Sequencing PlatformNelson R Mandela School of Medicine, UKZN, Durban.+27 31 260 4898+27 82 806 6290paul@htagmedia.co.za

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A continent-wide collaboration on genomics surveillance show the power of African science and how the majority of COVID-19 variants were introduced...

WASHINGTON, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that the House Committee on Oversight and Reform will mark up her District of Columbia Home Rule Expansion Act, which would be the biggest expansion of D.C. home rule since passage of the D.C. Home Rule Act in 1973, at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 20, 2022. The bill would give D.C. the exclusive authority to prosecute D.C. crimes, give D.C. the exclusive authority to grant clemency for D.C. crimes, and eliminate the congressional review period for D.C. legislation.

D.C. shouldand willbe a state, Norton said. However, until Congress grants D.C. statehood, which is closer than ever, there is no constitutional or policy reason Congress should not expand D.C.s authority to govern its local affairs. Thank you to Chairwoman Maloney for marking up this important bill.

The D.C. Home Rule Expansion Act would give D.C. the same authority states and territories have over certain local governmental functions. Under the Constitution, Congress has plenary authority over both D.C. and the territories. Congress has already used its plenary authority to give the territories the self-governing authorities this bill would give D.C.

First, the D.C. Home Rule Expansion Act would give D.C. the exclusive authority to prosecute D.C. crimes. Currently, the U.S. Attorney for D.C. has the authority to prosecute most D.C. crimes committed by adults and some by juveniles, while the D.C. Attorney General has the authority to prosecute most D.C. crimes committed by juveniles and some by adults.

Second, this bill would give D.C. the exclusive authority to grant clemency for D.C. crimes. Currently, the president exercises the authority to grant clemency for D.C. crimes.

Finally, this bill would eliminate the congressional review period for D.C. legislation. D.C. legislation takes effect after a congressional review period, unless a joint resolution of disapproval is enacted into law during the review period. The review process imposes significant costs on both D.C. and Congress, but only three D.C. disapproval resolutions have been enacted since passage of the Home Rule Act, and none since 1991.

This Congress, in addition to passing Nortons D.C. statehood bill, the House has twice passed Nortons bill that would give the D.C. mayor control over the D.C. National Guard. The House has also, at Nortons request, twice passed bills that would prohibit the use of federal funds to carry out the provision in the Home Rule Act that authorizes the president to federalize the D.C. police department.

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Norton Announces Markup of Her Bill Expanding D.C. Home Rule - House.gov