Audi claims self-drive speed record

21 October 2014 Last updated at 13:29 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor WATCH: The RS7 took a little over two minutes to complete a lap (video filmed by Audi and edited by BBC)

Audi has claimed a speed record for a self-driving car.

The German car giant says its RS7 vehicle topped 149mph (240km/h) while driving uncrewed round the Hockenheim racing circuit, south of Frankfurt.

The car took just over two minutes to complete a lap of the Grand Prix track.

Sunday’s stunt was organised to highlight the firm’s efforts to bring “piloted driving” to road vehicles. But one expert cautioned that several hurdles still needed to be overcome.

Audi – a division of Volkswagen – also put a human behind the wheel of the vehicle for a comparison lap. He took five seconds longer to complete the circuit.

A member of the car company’s research team explained that it believed the innovation could ultimately be used by the public.

“I know accident-free driving will remain a vision. But at least we can reduce the number of accidents in the future,” said Dr Horst Glaser.

“Piloted driving defuses situations like, for example, being in a traffic jam. Whenever the driver is distracted and inattentive the car could take over.

“Additionally the driver has a chance to relax. That means they are on full alert as soon as their attention is required again.”

Computer equipment in the rear of the car used data gathered from an array of sensors

The RS7 used a combination of cameras, laser scanners, GPS location data, radio transmissions and radar sensors to guide itself around the track, with the data processed by computing equipment that filled its boot.

The experiment marked a high point after 15 years of research by the firm in the US and Europe.

However, one industry-watcher noted that a speed test on an otherwise empty racetrack was very different to the day-to-day driving conditions such vehicles would one day experience.

“I think we will see driverless cars on our roads within a decade, but there’s clearly still a lot of work to do,” said Prof David Bailey from Aston Business School.

“You need to make sure they interact with other driverless cars as well as those piloted by humans – you’ve got to make sure the software absolutely works.”

He added that the insurance industry also needed to grapple with the concept.

“One of the big issues is what happens if there is an accident,” he explained.

“Who is responsible? Is it the driver even if they are not driving? Is it the car company? Is it the software company? There are a whole load of legal issues to sort out.

Mercedes is developing a computer-driven version of its S-class car

“But there could be big savings for the economy in terms of far fewer accidents and more efficient travel.”

Audi is far from alone in this field research.

Another German manufacturer, Mercedes, showed off a rival computer-controlled version of its S-class car recently.

Other car companies including Daimler, Volvo, Toyota, Tesla and BMW are also experimenting with artificial intelligence-directed vehicles, as are other tech firms including Google, Panasonic and Autolive.

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Audi claims self-drive speed record

Speed up NAITS, urge Trelawny farmers

STEWART CASTLE, Trelawny — FARMERS from this rural community are calling for the speedy implementation of the proposed National Animal Identification and Traceability System (NAITS).

Former Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the late Roger Clarke, announced plans for a new programme to tag animals and issue them passports, backed up by police prevention support, as the latest effort to break the back of praedial larceny.

“We need the Government to implement the traceability system. We need it,” prominent Trelawny farmer Herbert ‘Mass B’ Bell, told the Jamaica Observer West.

The call follows the theft of four animals — three cows in an advanced state of pregnancy and a bull — from a pasture in the Stewart Castle area of Trelawny last week.

One of the owners of the stolen animals, Morris Knowles, lamented his loss.

“I came to move my cow them this [Friday] morning and see four of them dead. Them just empty out them belly and gone with them body,” bemoaned the distressed farmer.

Meanwhile, Teddy Smith, another farmer whose animal was among the four stolen, said that over the past five years, livestock farmers have been dogged by praedial larceny in the community.

“We are losing cows for over five years now. Each time four, five even six at times. Sometimes they kill them and sometimes they don’t,” Smith said.

Meanwhile, “Mass B” said Government needs to take more radical actions against the praedial thieves.

“The Government need to make a drastic move on thieves. Mi don’t know what dem [Government] ah wait pon; fi dem thief and then dem ketch dem and give dem 50 years [imprisonment]?” a disgruntled Bell asked.

– Horace Hines

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Speed up NAITS, urge Trelawny farmers

Soy could speed up spread of breast cancer – study

NEW YORK, United States, Wednesday September 10, 2014 – Experts have cautioned that eating soy, in the form of tofu or milk, could speed up the rate at which breast cancer cells spread in women already diagnosed with the disease.

The warning came after scientists at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York studied 140 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.

Between seven and 30 days before the women had surgery to remove their tumours, half of them were given soy protein powder containing genistein, while the other half received a placebo.

The researchers compared tumour tissues from before and after the operation. In the women who had taken the soy supplement, changes were found in the expressions of certain genes that are known to promote cell growth.

These findings suggested that soy protein could potentially accelerate the progression of the disease.

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In the words of the study, which was published in the September 4 edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute: “These data raise concern that soy may exert a stimulating effect on breast cancer in a sub set of women.”

Participants in the study had recently had breast biopsies, were diagnosed with stage one or two breast cancer, and were scheduled to have a mastectomy or lumpectomy in two to three weeks.

According to co-author of the study Jacqueline Bromberg: “Although the genes were being expressed, it is not clear that this will translate into actual tumour growth. But the concern is that there may be the potential.

“Only 20 percent of those patients who took the soy had really high levels of the genistein metabolite.”

Dr Bromberg said the reasons behind the disparity are unclear, adding that there is no way to predict who would have this reaction after consuming soy.

She went on to explain that of the women with high genistein levels, a few of them experienced changes in a specified set of genes that are known to affect breast cancer cell growth, death, or some aspect of breast cancer pathology.

Women who consumed around 51.6 grams of soy, the equivalent of about four cups of soy milk a day, exhibited the changes.

It was thought likely that those who eat soy regularly could “reasonably consume that amount” daily, particularly vegetarians and those who do not eat dairy products.

The scientists cautioned that women living in Asian countries could be especially at risk, due to the high levels of soy and tofu in traditional diets.

The research did not address the question of whether soy would have any effect on women who have not already been diagnosed with breast cancer.

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Soy could speed up spread of breast cancer – study

Obama seeks funds to speed deportations following upsurge of illegal migrants

US President Barack Obama wants Congress to provide more than US$2 billion to control the surge of illegal migrant (File photo)

WASHINGTON D.C., United States, July 1, 2014, CMC – After announcing plans earlier this month to detain and deport more illegal immigrants, including Caribbean nationals, US President Barack Obama wants Congress to provide more than US$2 billion to control the surge of illegal migrants entering the country.

On the weekend, White House officials announced that the funds would grant broader powers for immigration officials to expedite deportations of children entering the US without their parents.

But even with the new White House proposal, immigrant rights groups signaled, in more than 40 coordinated protests in 23 states, over the weekend that they were still hopeful for action by Obama to decelerate the pace of deportations.

“This is an urgent humanitarian situation,” said Cecilia Muñoz, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, as she commented on the surge of illegal immigrants.

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“We are being as aggressive as we can be, on both sides of the border,” she added. “We are dealing with smuggling networks that are exploiting people, and with the humanitarian treatment of migrants, while also applying the law as appropriate.”

Muñoz said the Obama administration plans to detain more illegal immigrants, “and to accelerate their court cases so as to deport them more quickly”.

She disclosed that the president will dispatch a letter on Monday to Congress alerting representatives that he will seek an emergency appropriation for rapidly expanding border enforcement and humanitarian assistance programs to cope with the influx of illegal immigrants, which White House officials say includes unprecedented numbers of unaccompanied minors.

Obama will also ask for tougher penalties for smugglers who bring children and other vulnerable migrants across the border illegally.

Caribbean American Congresswoman, Yvette D. Clarke, has been among advocates calling for the redesign of the immigration process in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling that Caribbean and other immigrant children who lost their places in the slow-moving immigration system, because they turned 21 before their parents received their immigrant visa, could not be given priority.

“We need to redesign the process to work efficiently, to eliminate these unnecessary delays,” she told the Caribbean Media Corporation. “It is my hope that Congress will resolve this problem with comprehensive immigration reform.”

The court’s ruling could affect untold numbers of young immigrants across the United States, including the children of New York City teachers recruited to fill classroom vacancies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, who have ‘aged out’ of the immigration system.

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Obama seeks funds to speed deportations following upsurge of illegal migrants

80 dead in Spain train crash; speed likely factor

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (AP) — A train that hurtled off the rails and smashed into a security wall as it rounded a bend was going so fast, that carriages tumbled off the tracks like dominos, killing 80 people, according to eyewitness accounts and video footage obtained Thursday.

An Associated Press analysis of video images suggests that the train may have been travelling at twice the speed limit for that stretch of track.Spain’s government said two probes have been launched into the cause of Wednesday night’s crash near this Christian festival city in northwest Spain. The Interior Ministry raised the death toll to 80 in what was Spain’s deadliest train wreck in four decades, while 95 remained hospitalised, 36 in critical condition, among them four children.State-owned train operator Renfe said the crash happened at 8.41 pm.Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a native of Santiago de Compostela, toured the crash scene alongside rescue workers and went to a nearby hospital to visit those wounded and their families.“For a native of Santiago, like me, this is the saddest day,” said Rajoy, who declared Spain would observe a three-day period of mourning. He said judicial authorities and the Public Works Ministry had launched parallel investigations into what caused the crash.Eyewitness accounts backed by security-camera footage of the moment of disaster suggested that the eight-carriage train was going too fast as it tried to turn left underneath a road bridge. The train company Renfe said 218 passengers and five crew members were on board. Spanish officials said the speed limit on that section of track is 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour.An Associated Press estimate of the train’s speed at the moment of impact using the time stamp of the video and the estimated distance between two pylons gives a range of 144-192 kph (89-119 mph). Another estimate calculated on the basis of the typical distance between railroad ties gives a range of 156-182 kph (96-112 mph).The video footage, which the Spanish railway authority Adif said probably came from one of its cameras, shows the train carriages start to buckle into the turn.Murray Hughes, consultant editor of Railway Gazette International, said it appeared that a diesel-powered unit behind the lead locomotive was the first to derail. The front engine itself quickly followed, violently tipping on to its right side as it crashes into a concrete security wall and bulldozes along the ground.In the background, all the rear carriages can be seen starting to decouple and come off the tracks. The picture goes blank as the engine appears to crash directly into the camera.After impact, witnesses said a fire which engulfed passengers trapped in at least one carriage most likely from the diesel fuel carried in the locomotive units.“I saw the train coming out of the bend at great speed and then there was a big noise,” one eyewitness who lives beside the train line, Consuelo Domingues, told The Associated Press. “… Then everybody tried to get out of the train.”Santiago officials had been preparing for the city’s internationally celebrated Catholic festival Thursday but cancelled it and took control of the city’s main indoor sports arena to use as a makeshift morgue. There, relatives of the dead could be seen sobbing and embracing each other.The US State Department said five American citizens were among the injured.The Interior Ministry, responsible for law and order, ruled out terrorism as a cause.It was Spain’s deadliest train accident since 1972, when a train collided with a bus in southwest Spain, killing 86 people and injuring 112.Rescue workers spent Wednesday night searching through smashed carriages alongside the tracks.As dawn broke, cranes brought to the scene were used to lift the carriages away from the tracks. Rescue workers collected passengers’ scattered luggage and loaded it into a truck next to the tracks.Rescuers described a scene of horror immediately after the crash. Smoke billowed from at least one carriage that had caught fire, while another had been torn into two parts.Residents of the residential neighbourhood closest to the rail line struggled to help victims out of the toppled cars. Some passengers were pulled out of broken windows. Television images showed one man atop a carriage lying on its side, using a pickaxe to try to smash through a window. Other rescuers used rocks to try to free survivors from the fiery wreckage.Nearby, rescue workers lined up bodies covered in blankets alongside the tracks.Spanish media said the train had two drivers aboard and both survived.Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jamaicaobserverFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamaicaObserver

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80 dead in Spain train crash; speed likely factor