KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s government is monitoring developments in the United States for potential changes in policies as a new administration prepares to take office in Washington, said Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.

He said that given the influence the US has on the global economy, any country in the world would conduct some level of due diligence on the impacts a change in the US administration might bring.

“That is part and parcel of planning. While we await the next few announcements, we will observe how the Trump administration will impact the global economy and ours,” he told reporters after the Sesi Libat Urus Industri Rancangan Malaysia Ke-13 today.

Rafizi said Malaysia must be nimble and agile to react and respond to any geopolitical and international developments that may arise from a change in administration, not only in the US but in any of its large trading partners. “And the US is a very large trading partner for us,” he pointed out.

However, Rafizi noted that many of Malaysia’s plans concerning semiconductors and energy transition are driven by domestic needs and are largely structural. “That means it’s something we have to go through to prepare our industry and economy to be more robust. So in that sense, I think all the key reforms that need to be done still have to be done.”

Additionally, he said, Malaysia’s 13th Malaysia Plan will include initiatives to position the country as a global provider of a comprehensive artificial intelligence-driven data centre ecosystem. “The government’s focus has always been to tap into the opportunities presented by the data centre boom.”

Rafizi emphasised that Malaysia aims to avoid simply attracting data centre without integrating into the data centre value chain and supply chain. “We have been working on a few catalytic interventions to create the ecosystem.”

Rafizi said that by the end of this decade, Malaysia aims to participate in the entire data centre value chain, first benefiting from existing and future data centers in the country. “But more importantly, for us to begin exporting our own data centers around the world.”

For the 13th Malaysia Plan that is being prepared, Rafizi said, the Ministry of Economy is not only holding engagement sessions with state governments but also ensuring that it includes input from key strategic industries.

The sessions focus on the electronics, aerospace and automotive industries, and the process will continue to align government and industry planning. “The main goal is to transition our industries from assembly-based to innovation and creation-based industries,” Rafizi said.

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The post Best Online Banks: Free Checking and High-Interest Savings Accounts appeared first on Clark Howard.

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Actor maintains filmmaker is close to his heart

The actor recalled how his faith allowed him to power through a traumatic illness

Agriculture committee says free trade mechanisms needed to boost competitiveness, curb inflation

Mehwish’s sequin skirt was perfectly complemented by a matching silk button-down that whispered "class"

From Iqra to Alia, brides are switching it up when it comes to their wedding day looks

From DJ Khaled posing in pink to Taylor’s tartan nightmare, who nailed last night’s looks

Heavy police presence and CCTV monitoring ensure security in Rahim Yar Khan's by-election.

The case against Backpage was built on lies, innuendo, and a willful misunderstanding of how the internet works. But that didn’t stop the government from destroying the company and its founders’ lives. Over the last few years, we’ve written about how the entire case against Backpage was a travesty of justice. The company actually worked […]

A representational image of a clutter of cosmetics on a table. — Unsplash/file

HELSINKI: The European Chemicals Agency said Wednesday that it had found hazardous and banned chemicals in hundreds of cosmetic products sold across Europe.

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As the month of October comes to an end with its sea of pink ribbons, it has reminded us once again of a critical issue that deserves more than just symbolic gestures: breast cancer awareness....

Lawyers movement forgotten as year dominated by clashes within legal community.

Style up with 2011s fashion forward trends.

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The flower-power generation definitely couldn't afford this VW Bus. Plus: the rest of the week's car news.

Infiniti is showing off its upcoming seven passenger crossover and we get behind the wheel of a Dodge Challenger 392 HEMI SRT8.

This week: A Blue Angels Mustang, a new Magnum and a big hello to Augusta, Ga.

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Plus: Cadillac Ciel Concept, weekend car events and more.

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Plus: Pink Camaro pace car, weekend car events.

Plus: Lots of other fun iron from Frankfurt and Ford's bold new infotainment venture.

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In a country where millions go to bed hungry every night, 40% of the total food produced is being wasted annually.

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SIBMX X Sunday Bikes: Three Days in Berlin

The new SIBMX X Sunday Bikes video just went online on Freedombmx, in which Mark Burnett, Markus Reuss, Daniel Portorreal and our team rider Miguel Smajli have produced a lot of crazy stuff in the streets of berlin last summer! Check it now! Enjoy the video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!

Video: Freedombmx

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Our bros Felix Prangenberg and Miguel Smajli were in California for over a month, to hang out, ride BMX and filming for their video projects. Both filmed a lot of insta jibs, which you can check out in the latest Freedombmx video. Check also the Interview about their USA trip on Freedombmx.


Enjoy the Video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!



Video: Freedombmx



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Yeah, we're happy, because on Saturday March 11th, 2023 the King of Wheel BMX Contest will take place in the Skatepark Stuttpark in Stuttgart. The classes are BMX Women, BMX Kids (up to and including 13 years), BMX Amateurs and BMX Professionals. Everyone come over and let's have a good time.

Hardfacts

What: BMX Contest at the "Stuttpark" skate park in Stuttgart (free entry)
When: Saturday, 11th of March 2023 from 10 a.m.
Where: Skatepark "Stuttpark", Kegelenstraße 19, 70372 Stuttgart (Trainstation Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt)

Riding in the Stuttpark is only permitted with plastic pegs and pedals, if you don't have plastic pegs you can buy some at the Stuttpark

Schedule

10:00 a.m.: Stuttpark Opens
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.:   WARM UP KIDS
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.:   CONTEST KIDS
12:00 - 12:30 p.m.:   WARM UP AM
12:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.:   CONTEST AM
4:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.:   WARM UP WOMEN
4:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.:   CONTEST WOMEN
5:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.:   WARM UP PRO
5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.:   CONTEST PRO
9:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.:   Meet & Greet with Drinks & Music in the kunstform BMX Shop in Stuttgart (5 minutes by S-Bahn)

We are not hosting an official after-show party this time, but since the shop is located right in the center of Stuttgart, we would like to recommend visiting the nearby clubs or bars, which are plentiful.

Contest

Classes: BMX Professional, BMX Amateurs, BMX Kids (up to and including 13 years), BMX Women
Qualification: 1 Run of approx. 1 Minute (possibly shorter depending on the number of registrations). The best 10 riders advance to the final.
Final: 2 runs of 1 minute, best run counts.

Prizes: non-cash prizes and vouchers, 1500 Euro prize money for BMX PRO
Simple Session Qualification: Top 3 in BMX PRO will automatically be qualified for the Simple Session, flight & hotel will be taken care of by kunstform BMX Shop.

Judges: Markus Wilke, Wendelin Mok, Konsty Rudobashta
Moderator: Simon "Huddl" Zimmerman

Supported by: Shadow Riding Gear, Mankind, Cult, Odyssey, eclat, Fit, United, Fiend, freedombmx, kunstform


Register online now

To get you in the mood, here is the video from the freedom BMX Awards in Stuttgart

See you on March 11th, 2023 in Stuttgart!

Greetings

Your kunstform BMX Shop Team

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Science for Environment Policy features a policy brief explaining the biases around biodiversity databases in their latest issue 331, from 6 June 2013. "Biodiversity databases: language and location help explain biases" features a new study arguing that low numbers of English speakers, large distances from the database host and low security acting as key barriers to data collection and among the main reasons for the underrepresentation of some countries in biodiversity databases.

Source: Amano T., Sutherland W.J. (2013) Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280: 20122649. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2649

 

 

Issue 72 of the CBD Technical Series is now out focusing on "EARTH OBSERVATION FOR BIODIVERSITY MONITORING : A review of current approaches and future opportunities for tracking progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets". The issue shows how earth observation technologies can and should fit into systems for biodiversity monitoring, as well as demonstrates how these approaches could further improve relevant indicators for the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. It illustrates a clear track from observations done by remote sensing platforms through Essential Biodiversity Variables to biodiversity indicators and ultimately to the assessment of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and ultimately in support of evidence-based decision making. EU BON is also featured in this report.

The goal of the CBD Technical Series is to contribute to the dissemination of up-to-date and accurate information on selected topics that are important for the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the equitable sharing of its benefits. A large and growing body of evidence has clearly established the need to disseminate synthesis publications relevant to CBD objectives and selected reports presented at CBD meetings.

The CBD Technical Series is intended to:

• Foster scientific and technical cooperation;
• Improve communication between the Convention and the scientific community;
• Increase awareness of current biodiversity-related problems and concerns; and
• Facilitate widespread and effective use of the growing body of scientific and technical information on conserving and using biological diversity.

The full report is available here.

Five  projects focused on citizen science began their life in autumn 2012 as a part of the topic ENV.2012.6.5-1 "Developing community based environmental monitoring and information systems using innovative and novel earth observation applications". Their goals include developing novel technologies and applications in the domain of Earth Observation; exploiting portable devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) and enabling effective participation by citizens in environmental stewardship based on broad stakeholder and user involvement in support of both community and policy priorities.

These projects are:

OmniScientis - combining the active participation of the stakeholders, especially citizens, with the implementation of innovative technologies to improve the governance of odour nuisance. OMNISCIENTIS implements an odour monitoring and information system allowing feedback in real-time, based on a web-based Service Platform.

Citclops - developing an observatory based on citizens’ science applications for the bio-optical monitoring of coast and ocean. Specifically, the Citclops action develops systems to retrieve and use data on the colour, transparency and fluorescence of seawater using low-cost sensors and smart phones along with contextual information.

COBWEB - seeking to design, develop and validate the necessary software infrastructure to facilitate and make possible the opportunistic harvesting and quality control of crowdsourced environmental data.

 

Full article available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-12-S15-S1 

 

On Tuesday 30 September 2014, the European Parliament Intergroup on "Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development", in collaboration with the European Commission and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), organised a full day conference entitled: "Nature-Based Solutions: Innovation potential for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Europe."

Bringing together 140 participants including representatives from the European Institutions, local and regional authorities, research institutes, NGOs and International organisations, as well as private sector representatives, this conference aimed at promoting the solutions that nature can offer in tackling major challenges, such as climate change and natural disasters, in ensuring food security to an increasing population, in protecting the health of European citizens, and the conservation of biodiversity in the EU and at the global level.

An innovative workflow reveals new research potential of the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD). A recently published article in the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) used specimen records downloaded from BOLD in tabular format and imported these into a human-readable text developed in manuscript within the Pensoft Writting Tool (PWT). Data were used to study the species distributions of ten Nearctic species of braconid wasps from the Microgastrinae subfamily.

BOLD is originally designed to support the generation and application of DNA barcode data. However, the repository also holds unexplored treasures of additional data that provide unique potential for many other research uses.

Currently almost 4 million sequences (over 3.4 million of them DNA barcodes) are stored in BOLD, including coverage for more than 143K animal species, 53K plant species, and 16K fungi and other species, and this impressive storage of information is continuing to grow every day.

A team of researchers, led by Dr Jose Fernandez-Triana from the University of Guelph, Canada, have now explored how the unique amount of data stored on the BOLD platform can be utilised for new research purposes. Choosing tiny parasitic wasps for their case study they selected a sample of 630 specimens and 10 North American species. Data stored on BOLD were then used to uncover a significant number of new records of locality, provinces, territories and states.

The research was then secured a fast publication via BDJ, a community peer-reviewed, open-access, comprehensive online platform, designed to accelerate publishing, dissemination and sharing of biodiversity-related data of any kind.

"Import of structured data into human-readable text is important but it does not represent the whole story. More importantly, the data can be downloaded straight from the article text by anyone for further re-use, or be automatically exported to data aggregators, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). In this way, data platforms could get more peer-reviewed content from scholarly publications and scientists will be properly credited for their efforts" said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder of Pensoft Publishers.

Original Source:

Fernandez-Triana J, Penev L, Ratnasingham S, Smith M, Sones J, Telfer A, deWaard J, Hebert P (2014) Streamlining the use of BOLD specimen data to record species distributions: a case study with ten Nearctic species of Microgastrinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e4153. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e4153

Additional information:

The workflow is part of the Data Publishing Toolkit elaborated within the EU FP7 funded project EU BON (Grant agreement No 308454).