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Training in Big Data Could Become Important for Lawyers in the Future

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A number of law schools around the world have started to incorporate specific sections of data science into their programs because unlike how it was before, understanding data science is slowly becoming very important for lawyers.

The Power of Prediction: AI is Beating Lawyers

In a study conducted in the UK, it was found that artificial intelligence is currently better at reading and interpreting data, in order to make a valid prediction regarding the outcome of financial disputes at the court of law. The reputed lawyers managed to only predict 66.3% of the outcomes accurately, while the AI-powered software managed to do the same with 86.6% accuracy. That’s a wide gap, but it isn’t as bad as it seems.

Lawyers are Also Beating the AI Elsewhere

It is to be noted and understood that the comparative test was concluded, based only on simple financial cases where the facts were presented in an orderly fashion so that the artificial intelligence’s analytical abilities wouldn’t be put under stress. In real-world scenarios, however, where the unpredictability of human behaviour and the variable, incomplete nature of the complex data played a factor, the AI couldn’t even comprehend the situation.

A perfect example of that would be medical malpractice lawsuits, where AI cannot possibly gauge the emotional impact of a situation where a patient is suffering from continuous physical and/or mental pain, due to a neglectful situation that they shouldn’t have been subjected to in the first place. Miami medical malpractice attorney services offer a high satisfaction rating without the use of artificial intelligence because, in situations like that, robots simply have no direct application.

However, the AI can still be useful in such situations, as they can help attorneys dig up information and history relevant to the case and assist them in preparing the case file against a sued health institution. Therefore, the collaborative effort in between man and machine can produce the best results, but there is no possible way that in the majority of the real-world scenarios, artificial intelligence will be able to replace actual human lawyers for the foreseeable future.

The Lawyers Did Not have Sufficient Knowledge in Modern Data Science Interpretation

As was made evident by the various findings, the huge difference between the predictive accuracy was mostly because how unprepared current lawyers are in interpreting big data. Therefore, familiarizing future lawyers with the necessary concepts of data science and training them to interpret big data better will help them become better than their predecessors. It is for that reason, incorporating big data education and other concepts of analytics into a financial law course is definitely the right approach.

Additionally, it might even be a good idea to teach lawyers how they can work in collaboration with modern data interpretation software. Instead of seeing them as competitors, it’s time that lawyers and attorneys started seeing AI as it is: a very complex, capable, and intelligent tool that they can use to further augment their own intelligence and abilities to produce better results for their clients.

IMEX America Association Leadership Forum to provide leadership skills training as boards face an unprecedented rate of change

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Future-proofing is among the topics explored at the Association Leadership Forum, a free half-day of education and networking at IMEX America, exclusively for association leaders and created by the American Society for Association Executives (ASAE).

According to ASAE, the world in which associations operate is changing fast, and organizations need to understand the external forces that could make or break their future success. Future-proofing is crucial and forms the backbone of major industry initiatives, including ASAE ForesightWorks, an evidence-based research initiative to create a culture of foresight among associations.

Taking place the day before the show on September 9, the Association Leadership Forum is designed to enhance leadership skills, address the current disruptive business environment, and ensure that associations are nimble enough to achieve results in a competitive landscape.

Participants will be inspired and challenged by visionaries and role models from a variety of professional and trade association backgrounds. Developed as an interactive format, the forum leverages strategic conversations and collaborative peer learning to help senior association members apply advanced leadership concepts. Participants will leave inspired, motivated, and ready to embrace change to drive their association forward.

Offerings to Drive Change

The Association Leadership Forum, which is followed by an Association Evening reception, will cover the following topics:

• Susan Robertson, CAE, Executive Vice President, ASAE President, ASAE Foundation will deliver the Chairman’s opening remarks: Focus on the future for associations, discussing the importance of developing a long-term view of the opportunities and threats on the horizon and using scanning and forecasting to anticipate members’ future needs and preferences. She will provide an overview of ASAE research on the leading drivers of change in the association industry.

• Hannes Combest, Chief Executive Officer, National Auctioneers Association will introduce ASAE’s foundation’s ForesightWorks initiative to reveal how foresight can help drive change in Drivers of change affecting the future of your association. Combest will also discuss how artificial intelligence, evolving workforce dynamics, and shifts in content delivery and consumption are altering the association environment.

• Technology and the future of work will explore how technological advances are disrupting the traditional definition of work and outline what to expect from the impact of flexible working schedules, outsourcing and the gig economy.

• Picking up on that theme, in The societal impact of work redefined, Lynda J Patterson, President and Owner, AMPED, will discuss the impact of growth in the freelance economy on organizational success. Attendees will take away an understanding of how working culture has developed over the years and what to expect in the future.

• Perhaps the critical question executive directors must ask themselves is: “How do you have the right conversation with your board about the future?” In The CEO perspective: Prime your board to probe the future, Shawn Boynes, FASAE, CAE, Executive Director, American Association of Anatomists will identify principles and practices to guide future-focused strategic conversations and decision making. Boynes will also offer tips to instill foresight as a discipline and cultural element and how to support a board’s effectiveness using research and tools from ASAE ForesightWorks.

• This year’s Panel Discussion, Using foresight and imagination to address leadership challenges, will address the trials and opportunities that come from engaging the boards of various organizations in conversations about how to face expected and unexpected challenges.

Making new connections at the Association Evening

Attendees can then network and celebrate the start of IMEX America at Association Evening. Association professionals can unwind with their peers, reconnect with old friends and forge new connections ahead of the show which runs September 10 – 12, 2019 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center at The Venetian® | The Palazzo® in Las Vegas, NV.

“Associations face challenges that are often vastly different from those of a typical business. Facing an unprecedented rate of change from factors such as changing workforce dynamics and advances in technology, association leaders must proactively embrace change. The ability to adapt and respond to these forces is critical to an association’s future,” says Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group. “Given the importance of associations to the meeting industry, and the importance of meetings to associations, we’re committed to offering the Association Leadership Forum as a way to examine and collaborate on some of these issues.”

The Association Leadership Forum takes place on Monday September 9. It is created by ASAE and sponsored by Meet Hawai’i.

IMEX America takes place September 10 – 12, 2019, with Smart Monday, powered by MPI on September 9. Registration for the show is free of charge and open to all who work in the meetings, events and incentive travel industry.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Emma Blake (UK): [email protected] ; Norman Birnbach (US): [email protected]      

Frankfurt Airport lays cornerstone for future Terminal 3

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From the left: Dr. Stefan Schulte (CEO Fraport AG), Karlheinz Weimar (Supervisory Board Chairman, Fraport AG), Dr. Thomas Schäfer (Hesse Finance Minister), Uwe Becker (Mayor of Frankfurt and member of Fraport AG’s Supervisory Board), Matias Wenzel (responsible construction site manager) and Prof. Christoph Mäckler (architect).

Fraport AG laid the cornerstone for Frankfurt Airport’s new Terminal 3, one of Europe’s largest privately financed infrastructure projects. Numerous guests and construction workers attended the ceremony, which marked the start of above-ground construction. To remind future generations of this milestone, a group of participants filled and bricked in a time capsule. They included Dr. Thomas Schäfer, Minister of Finance of the German state of Hesse, and architect Prof. Christoph Mäckler, as well as Fraport AG’s executive board chairman, Dr. Stefan Schulte, and its supervisory board chairman, Karlheinz Weimar. During periods of peak activity, up to 5,000 construction workers a day and around 75 tower cranes will be deployed at the Terminal 3 construction site.

During the ceremony, Fraport CEO Schulte stated: “We are building the future with Terminal 3―for Frankfurt Airport, the entire Rhine-Main region and far beyond. By employing state-of-the-art technology and intelligent processes to create an outstanding passenger experience, we are meeting the promise inherent in our slogan, ‘Gute Reise! We make it happen’. With the new terminal, we are adding sufficient capacity for about 21 million more travelers annually by the year 2023. Frankfurt is already an international leader in terms of connectivity. No other aviation hub in the world offers more destinations to business or leisure travelers than Frankfurt Airport. And Terminal 3 will further strengthen Germany’s most important gateway to the world.”

Finance Minister Schäfer said: “Today we aren’t just laying the cornerstone for a new airport building. We are also establishing the basis for more jobs, more opportunities, and greater economic vitality. The construction of Terminal 3 is an important step for strengthening the airport’s competitiveness and therefore also that of the state of Hesse as a center of economic activity. Over the next few years, Fraport AG will invest up to four billion euros in the project. This has the potential to create many new jobs while increasing the importance of Frankfurt Airport as Germany’s largest place of employment. But even though the airport is the powerhouse of Hesse’s economy, this doesn’t mean that it has free rein. The state government will continue to insist that the aviation industry uphold its strong commitment to reducing noise and environmental burdens.”

Terminal 3’s Pier G, with capacity for up to five million passengers, will be completed by 2021 in the southern part of Frankfurt Airport. This modern facility will later be integrated into Terminal 3’s premium product. The plans call for the main terminal building, along with Piers H and J, to be completed in 2023. As a result, the airport will then be able to handle up to 21 million more passengers than now. There will be an option to later add a Pier K, thus increasing the new terminal’s total capacity to 25 million air travelers.

Fraport supervisory board chairman Weimar added: “Frankfurt Airport is a premium air traffic hub. This is obvious from the growing number of travelers wishing to fly from and via Frankfurt. In view of the buoyant growth in passenger volumes, it is high time to enlarge our capacity. So it’s good news that one pier can be completed ahead of the rest. Pier G will begin operating and providing additional capacity as early as 2021. This leaves no doubt that we were right to opt for an architectural design that could be flexibly adjusted as required.”

Architect Christoph Mäckler explained the terminal’s design as follows: “What passengers want before and after flying is, more than anything else, rest and relaxation. This was an essential leitmotif for designing Terminal 3, alongside maximizing the technical and functional flexibility of the building complex. The light-flooded interior spaces feature high-quality materials in warm natural hues to evoke a pleasant ambiance that invites passengers to relax and stay a while. In this respect, the new terminal will be the first of a new generation worldwide.”

Fraport Ausbau Süd GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fraport AG, is responsible for managing, supervising and monitoring the construction project. The approved budget amounts to between 3.5 and four billion euros, Fraport’s largest single investment at Frankfurt Airport. Some 500 individual contracts are being awarded for a wide variety of tasks, which is benefitting a large number of small and midsized construction companies, including in the Frankfurt region.

MEDIA CONTACT: Fraport AG, Angelika Heinbuch, Spokesperson, Press Office, Corp. Communications, 60547 Frankfurt, Germany, Telephone: +49 69 690-28417, E-mail: [email protected] ,  Internet: www.fraport.com , Facebook: www.facebook.com/FrankfurtAirport

TSA: New airport security scanner poses “privacy risks” to passengers

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US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is demanding modifications of a new airport security system because it poses “privacy risks” to passengers by showing too much of them on display, a newly published document has revealed.

Following a demonstration, the Transportation Security Administration has requested changes to the contract because the scanner they received “has privacy risks associated with the Graphical User Interface,” says the document dated March 26 and made public by Quartz on Monday.

While the document provides no further details on the exact nature of the privacy risks, the TSA required the scanner’s manufacturer to add additional security features before it would consider using the device in a “live environment.”

Using another government database, Quartz identified the contractor – whose name is redacted in the document – as Virginia security firm ThruVision. The document refers to ThruVision’s TAC scanner, which the company describes as a “proven people-screening camera that sees any type of item.”

The device is supposed to be part of TSA’s “Future Lane Experience” (FLEx), an effort to speed up security checks that have become a major headache for passengers in many airports.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority partnered with the TSA last year to deploy ThruVision’s portable TS4 scanner, which the TSA claims to have vetted “extensively” prior to using it on LA commuters. It is unclear whether the TSA had similar concerns about the TS4 before the device was used in the field.

Revelations about the TSA concerns over the new scanner come after last week’s report by ProPublica that accused the agency’s current hardware of “discriminating” against African-Americans by misreading their hair, requiring a disproportionate number of pat-downs.

The ACLU slammed the TSA in 2009 for using scanning technology to conduct “virtual strip searches” that provided TSA employees with photos of passengers’ genitals, breasts and buttocks. More was revealed in 2010, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) published TSA documents which further detail the scanners’ invasiveness.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Expression of interests launched for new carrying-capacity studies for La Digue, Mahe and Praslin

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The Seychelles Ministry for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine have recently launched 2 expression of interests for carrying capacity studies to be undertaken on La Digue as well as Mahe and Praslin. The aim of the studies is to determine the current status of the islands and the acceptable amount of tourism development that can occur while still remaining sustainable, and assist the government in taking informed decisions on all future tourism development projects.

The Carrying-Capacity Study for La Digue dates back to 2013 and the results have led to the policy directive of setting a moratorium on the development of tourism accommodation establishments to 5 rooms per developer. This moratorium is supposed to be valid for a period of five years and the time has come to commission a new Carrying-Capacity Study.

Moreover, in 2018 the President announced that La Digue would be a model of sustainability as part of the National Vision 2033.  An eco-tourism strategy specific to the island for the next 15 years has been developed and the Carrying-Capacity Study on La Digue will aim to align with the established vision and provide recommendations to policy makers pertaining to future development on the island in view of assuring its sustainable development.

As for Mahe and Praslin, the Carrying-Capacity Study was commissioned in 2016 and set to be reviewed in 2020.  The results of the Carrying-Capacity Study has led to a number of policy directives and a set moratorium on the number of rooms that can be developed per promoter which is 20 rooms for Northern Mahe and 24 rooms per promoter for  the rest of Mahe and Praslin.

The carrying-capacity analysis will determine the ability of the ecosystem of La Digue, Mahe and Praslin and the various segments thereof to withstand all impacts of additional tourism development activities. The studies will apply the perspectives of Physical carrying capacity, Ecological carrying capacity, Social carrying capacity and Economic carrying capacity in order to develop a balanced overall assessment.

Consultants interested to undertake the study have to submit their expression of interest to the Department of Tourism by Friday, April 26, 2019 by 1500 hours. Results of the two carrying capacity studies will determine whether or not to maintain the moratorium currently in place on La Digue, Mahe and Praslin.

Travel News | eTurboNews