The Arab Spring is about building democracy. A military coup is the antithesis of that. It undermines everything. The destruction of Egypt’s revolution means death for the Arab Spring.
You soldiers have claimed you are powerful, we have been defeated, we are mad people. But how can a mad man successfully coordinate recent attacks … we are going to kill more [soldiers].
~ Joint Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakul Karman of Yemen
~ Nigerian Islamic rebel leader Abubakar Shekau
Volume 3 • Number 14
August 12 - 25, 2013
05
NATION
Why President Aquino Needs Charter Change • Everybody loves to cha-cha-cha A look back at previous presidents’ unsuccessful charter-change initiatives
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03 perspective 15
TECHNOLOGY
Clicking for Causes Social media is being tapped to mobilize people to support worthy causes
14 supergraphic Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence provides expertise in strategy and management, enterprise development, intelligence, Internet and media. For subscriptions, research, and advisory services, please e-mail report@censeisolutions.com or call/fax +63-2-5311182. Links to online material on public websites are current as of the week prior to the publication date, but might be removed without warning. Publishers of linked content should e-mail us or contact us by fax if they do not wish their websites to be linked to our material in the future.
Strategic Analysis and Research by the Center for Strategy, enterpriSe & intelligenCe
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21
SCIENCE
America and Europe Pour Big Bucks Into Brain Projects • The brain in high-def 3D Canadian and German researchers come up with the first high-definition, 3D model of the brain in its entirety
28 body lab gotta 34 you see this
29
EDUCATION
Handwriting in the Digital Age: A Dying Art?
• Wanted: 21st century skills Skills have become the currency of the 21st century, according to a group of major industrialized nations, hence the need for skills that reflect the times
35 wow tech The CenSEI Report is now available for elite clients of major corporations at a special corporate gifts scheme. For details, please call or fax +632-5311182 or email marketing@censeisolutions.com
3
perspective
Daft Punk stiffs Stephen Colbert, who goes ahead and promotes their song anyway, kinda A corporate tussle involving the sister networks Comedy Central and MTV has become: a great example
lot of money, a big check,
release Daft Punk from its
which, funny story,
commitment, Colbert thundered:
I cashed, and in return, I
“I don’t care what MTV
promised them the song
allows ... My audience gets
of the summer … So I said
the song of the summer ...
to MTV, let’s reason here.
and I don’t even need Daft
These Daft Punk guys are
Punk to choose my show
French, they’re really not
over the VMAs to get it. This
into exclusive relationships.
is Colbchella, God damn it,
I thought we could have a
and it is time to dance!”
of damage control, a most clever
menage a show, and maybe
cross-promotion stunt, a public-
they could do us both,
Enthusiastic audience reaction
relations disaster, or possibly some
although working twice in
to the video notwithstanding,
combination of all of the above.
one month is a little more than the French are used to
As reported by the Associated Press
… The upshot is Daft Punk
in The Washington Post on Aug. 8,
had to choose which show
the tussle involved the short-notice
to go on and they chose not
cancellation of a scheduled Aug. 6
mine. That, of course, is a
appearance of French electronic-
crushing disappointment,
music duo Daft Punk on Comedy
brought to you by Hyundai.”
Central’s “The Colbert Report.” The duo were scheduled to appear
After trashing MTV over its
on the faux news-and-commentary
inability or unwillingness to
show hosted by Stephen Colbert
Colbert then continued to ruminate on “the end of my career – brought to you by Hyundai.” The only thing that could save him now, he declared, was “some other global pop sensation who could perform another mega-hit considered by many to be the song of the summer and who happens to be in the audience,” which was
to promote their big hit “Get Lucky” on Colbert’s StePhest Colbchella ‘013, a spoof of the popular U.S. summer music festival Coachella. Trouble is, the duo cancelled because they were scheduled to appear on MTV’s Video Music Awards on Aug. 25, which was to be its exclusive U.S. TV appearance. Kicking off the show, Colbert described the problem: “Hyundai gave me a
Stephen Colbert explains his dilemma and crushing disappointment over Daft Punk’s cancellation, brought to you by Hyundai ColbertNation.com
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4
“Get Lucky” could still wind up as the answers to someone’s barbet trivia question and followup. If you’re MTV, pulling rank on Comedy Central and Stephen Colbert was not well-advised, Video featuring Stephen Colbert dancing and lip-synching to “Get Lucky,” with a little help from Hugh Laurie, Jeff Bridges, Jimmy Fallon, Charlie Rose, Bryan Cranston, Jon Stewart, Henry Kissinger, and Matt Damon, plus a dancein appearance on “America’s Got Talent.” ColbertNation.com
but maybe people will just say it’s all in the name of satire, and that your subsequent silence is all part of the joke. And maybe people will forget by the time the Video Music Awards rolls
Robin Thicke’s cue to appear and
no comment). But as the A.V.
offer to perform his own up-and-
Club’s report put it, “no matter
coming hit, “Blurred Lines.”
the actual behind-the-scenes
If you’re Stephen Colbert, you’ve
circumstances, after he
just served notice that you
seemingly got the short end
won’t be trifled with so easily,
Planned or unplanned, the story of Daft Punk’s cancellation and
of the stick, Colbert definitely
Colbert’s “Get Lucky” spoof
got the best of the whole
became an Internet sensation,
situation.”
as ABC’s Good Morning America reported, even if the hosts couldn’t quite tell what was true or made up about the show.
Stephen Colbert doesn’t make you
faces of the guys who gave you the lemons.
forget by the time Aug. 25 rolls
an out-ed “surprise appearance” by
MTV, and Comedy Central had
If you’re Daft Punk, standing up
takes a hit, but maybe people will
there really was a cancellation, or
representatives for Daft Punk,
lemonade, and then toss it in the
appearance. So your reputation
forgiven for wondering whether
the Washington Post report,
life hands you lemons, make
had been prepared to go with your
as a news show, one might be
Central and MTV (according to
and damage control: When
song with a spectacular video that
really a comedy program disguised
Viacom sister networks Comedy
given your recipe for lemonade
look good, but he did promote the
Given that “The Colbert Report” is
Daft Punk, or even a tiff between
around. You sincerely hope.
around. You sincerely hope. Perhaps Oscar Wilde’s observation still holds here: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” Especially if there’s a big chance that by this
Robin Thicke happens to be in the audience, and volunteers to perform “Blurred Lines” on “The Colbert Report.” ColbertNation.com
time next year, “Daft Punk” and
The
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• August 12 - 25, 2013
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NATION
Why Aquino Needs Charter Change Administration initiatives might run headlong into constitutional issues By Atty. John Carlo Gil M. Sadian
President Aquino being welcomed at July 22 opening of Congress by Senate President Franklin Drilon and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte: With senators in tow, amendments may finally flow PTV
First of Two Parts STRATEGY POINTS Despite Palace insistence of low priority for charter change, key administration initiatives may need it to move forward Lifting constitutional restrictions on foreign capital would help the delayed Public-Private Partnership program Giving allied forces access to bases may no longer require cumbersome treaties if the charter is amended
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Halfway through his term, President Benigno Aquino III still enjoys high popularity based on opinion surveys and mainstream media coverage. Now, with both chambers of Congress headed by staunch Liberal Party allies Senate President Franklin Drilon and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, will Aquino use his unprecedented clout to amend the Constitution? While Malacañang has long maintained that tinkering with the Constitution is “not a priority” for President Aquino, his key initiatives may, in fact, need constitutional amendments to move forward. The continuing setback in the peace process with Muslim separatists in Mindanao and the cold reception of investors for the president’s Public-Private Partnership
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why aquino needs charter change POINT & CLICK Access online research via your Internet connection by clicking pictures, graphics, and words in blue
program are two major Aquino initiatives that might need charter change. Other initiatives that may benefit from constitutional amendment include strengthening alliances with America and Japan, including Aquino’s offer of access to Philippine bases and facilities. Since the U.S. never confirms or denies the presence of nuclear arms on its vessels and aircraft, allowing its ships, submarines, and planes to enter and stay in the country over extended periods may well violate the Constitution’s express “policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory”(Article II, Section 8). With Aquino’s administration coalition having unprecedented control over both chambers of Congress, it is not surprising that his supporters believe they can accomplish what previous administrations could not: to see a charter-change process through to consummation.
Telling sign: Joint Resolution No. 1.
The signs are telling. Even before his reelection as House Speaker of the 16th Congress, Speaker Belmonte already set his sights on his first order of business. Three weeks before Congress convened, he filed Joint Resolution No. 1, calling upon his colleagues from both chambers of Congress to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution. Since he is highly unlikely to make a move against Aquino’s express wishes on pain of losing the Speakership, Belmonte’s action is seen by many as a pointer to the President’s silent support. And the charter-change timing seems perfect: the Liberal Party-led coalition holds both chambers of Congress for the first time since democracy was restored in 1986.
The
Notably, despite two decades of national dominance by the Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats of former presidents Fidel Ramos (1992-98) and Gloria Arroyo (2001-10), Lakas-CMD failed to have the charter amended for lack of control of the Senate, which traditionally maintains some independence because it has always had several presidential hopefuls with their own agenda. For its part, the administration of popularly elected Joseph Estrada (1998-2001) was not successful in its own charter-change push, probably for the above reasons, but also because of public opposition by then to any Palace moves toward constitutional change. But now, with administration clout and popularity, the charter-change train may yet complete its journey.
Consistent and cautious support for charter change.
Even the opposition is willing to support Belmonte’s resolution. Lakas CMD president Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, a proponent of charter change for many years now, said his party shall be consistent to its stand of pushing for constitutional reform. Even Vice-President Jejomar Binay, head of the administration rival United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) could be on board. In a press release, Vice-President Binay said House Resolution No. 1 is “laudable since Belmonte made it clear that it will just focus on economic provisions.” Nonetheless, Binay warned that any attempt to amend the charter could open a Pandora’s Box, adding that “Charter Change is a serious issue and we have to study it well… I will not rush into it.” Binay would likely oppose moves to change the form of government and electoral systems in ways that would block his own declared presidential ambitions.
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Three presidents, three ‘cha chas’ The justices ruled in Defensor-Santiago vs. Comelec that “RA No. 6735 is incomplete, inadequate, or wanting in essential terms and conditions insofar as initiative on amendments to the Constitution is concerned.” That barred the Comelec from entertaining any attempt for a People’s Initiative under RA 6735.
Ramos turns over to Estrada Malacanang
All past three Philippine presidents tried to amend the 1987 Constitution drafted, ratified and promulgated under Corazon Aquino, the first postMarcos leader and mother of President Benigno Aquino III. Toward the end of Fidel Ramos’s presidency, the rising popularity of Vice-President Joseph Estrada fanned fears that what Ramos achieved would be undone if the popular actor-turned-politician won the 1998 elections. Believing only Ramos could defeat Estrada, the president’s supporters started a movement to amass signatures for a people’s initiative, one of three modes of amendment besides an elected constitutional convention and convening Congress as a constituent assembly. The goal: remove the one-term limit for the president. On December 1996, the People’s Initiative for Reform, Modernization and Action (PIRMA) filed a petition asking the Commission on Elections
(Comelec) to commence the process of signaturegathering. PIRMA invoked Republic Act No. 6735 on the procedure for people’s initiative. But Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, presidential aspirant who put Ramos’ 1992 election under electoral protest, questioned the PIRMA petition before the Supreme Court.
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While Estrada had opposed PIRMA, he sponsored his own constitutional reform when he became president. His Constitutional Correction for Development (Concord) sought to remove economic restrictions on foreign ownership of certain industries, part of his aim of getting global capital for his objective of raising $48 billion to upgrade the country’s telecommunications, power generation and transport infrastructure. But Concord died when Estrada was ousted from office in January 2001, to be succeeded by his Vice-President, Gloria Arroyo. In 2004, Arroyo, newly elected to her own six-year term after assuming two-and-a-half years of Estrada’s term, made constitutional change part of the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan 2004-2010, devoting Chapter 25 to it. During the mid-2005 political crisis over Arroyo’s phone conversations with an election official regarding the 2004 national elections, the embattled leader called for charter change with Ramos’ support, and created a body to draft amendments for Congress to consider as a constituent assembly. Executive Order No. 453 created a Consultative Commission mandated “to conduct consultations and studies and propose amendments and revisions to the 1987 Constitution.” After three months of discussions on a number of comprehensive proposals, the 50-member body chaired by former University of the Philippines president Jose Abueva proposed three major amendments: shift from presidential government with a bicameral congress to a parliamentary government with a unicameral legislature; shift from a unitary state to a federal republic; and liberalization of nationalistic economic provisions.
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why aquino needs charter change
Arroyo eventually submitted to Congress only the shift to a unicameral parliamentary system. But the opposition-dominated Senate refused to go along with the administration-dominated House of Representatives in mustering the three-fourths vote required by the Constitution to constitute Congress as a constituent assembly or to call a constitutional convention. That led Arroyo’s camp to change tactics. In February 2006, the Sigaw ng Bayan (Cry of the People) movement, backed by the influential Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), started a nationwide signature campaign to reprise Ramos’ People’s Initiative. Proponents claimed to have gathered 6.3 million signatures, apparently aided by Memorandum Circular 2006-25 of the Department of the Interior and Local Government directing all barangay chairmen, mayors, and governors nationwide “to conduct Barangay Assemblies” on March 25. But in the Lambino vs. Comelec petition for the initiative, the Supreme Court ruled: “To allow this constitutionally infirm initiative, propelled by deceptively gathered signatures, to alter basic principles in the Constitution is to allow a desecration of the Constitution.” Former University of the Philippines president Jose Abueva, who headed Arroyo’s constitutional commission, explained the failure of charter change under her: “What loomed large and sinister in the political contention were President Arroyo’s motives and interest in changing the form of government … But there were other factors that blocked Charter Change. Foremost were the vested interests of those who wanted to maintain the political status quo. Another was the lack of understanding of the need for change in our political system and institutions.” With his public trust and approval rating, Aquino seems to have no credibility problem. So the remaining questions for charter change are: Will the President agree to it? And what about the vested interests who like the way things are?
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Proposals for economic liberalization, not for political amendments. President Aquino’s
allies have floated proposals concerning the liberalization of nationality requirements but distanced themselves from controversial political amendments. To win the Senate over, Speaker Belmonte agreed with then-Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile for both chambers to propose and vote separately on draft amendments, Senator Franklin Drilon, now Senate leader, disclosed in 2011. That Senate-House accord would address the 2007 bicameral conflict over how Congress as a constituent assembly should vote.Then the House decided to push through with the amendment process even without Senate support, arguing the three-fourths vote of Congress to initiate constitutional change meant joint voting, thus diluting the 24 votes of the Senate with the 250 votes of the lower House. The Senate refused to go along with the House, as some senators insisted that when the Constitution says that it can be amended by “Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members,” it meant that the two chambers must vote separately — as Enrile and Belmonte have reportedly agreed. Whether these preliminaries will culminate in charter change remains to be seen. But the imperative for amendments to advance Aquino’s major agenda looks more solid, as The CenSEI Report legal analysis seems to show.
• August 12 - 25, 2013
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Opening up the economy. Often used
as a springboard for more comprehensive changes in the charter, the liberalization of strict nationalist provisions under Article XII also stirs much debate, especially during this time of globalization. Joseph Estrada’s Constitutional Correction for Development (Concord) initiative in 2000 was the first to propose allowing foreign firms 100% ownership in industries reserved by the Constitution for Filipinos. In 2005, Arroyo’s Consultative Commission on Charter Change also advocated liberalizing amendments. Calls for loosening up continued under Aquino, especially in light of his flagship Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program. Since the PPP seeks to tap private investors in building traditional infrastructure projects, there are concerns that
the strict nationalistic provisions regarding land ownership, operation of public utilities, and investment in specialized institutions could prevent foreign investors from even considering the Philippines for their businesses. Just last year, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima admitted to the media that “that some foreign and local businessmen have been lobbying for relaxing the foreign ownership limit in the Constitution.” Economist Calixto Chikiamco of the Foundation for Economic Freedom also expressed the need to open up key sectors of the economy to foreign companies. “Right now, under the Constitution,” he argued, “Filipino firms are allowed to operate public utilities. So there is little competition in areas like airports, ports and telecommunications. And we need well-capitalized firms to be able to compete.”
Foreign business chambers website follows charter change
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Arangkada.org
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why aquino needs charter change
The biggest business groups lobby for economic liberalization. In July, the country’s
biggest business organizations asked Aquino to push for the removal of the foreign ownership restrictions in the Constitution. This request came through a letter jointly signed by Alyansa Agrikultura, American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham), Australia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ANZCHAM), Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (CanCham), Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Philippines Inc (JCCIPI), Korean Chamber of Commerce Philippines (KCCP), Makati Business Club (MBC), Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), Philippine Association of Multinational Companies Regional Headquarters Inc (PAMURI), Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), and Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc (PhilExport). The 13 groups urged the president “to consider amending the economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution, which restrict greater private sector participation.” Understanding that the process for a constitutional amendment may take time, the groups also proposed “an initial and immediate course of action: to revise the Foreign Investment Negative List [FINL] by reducing the list of industries where foreign participation is limited,” referring to certain areas of investments where limited foreign participation may be removed by mere act of Congress through Section 10, Article XII of the Constitution.
Malacañang distances itself from charter change moves. Amid calls for liberalization of
economic restrictions, Malacañang is still distancing itself from proposals to amend the charter, stressing that amending the Constitution, even only its economic provisions, is not a priority under the Aquino
The
cenSEI Report
administration. Thanking the 13 business groups for their trust, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda nonetheless stated that, “What business really wants is a predictable environment, an environment where rules and regulations do not change midstream, and that is more important to business rather than constitutional change.” Nonetheless, despite Malacañang’s avowed position “that economic development can happen without necessarily amending the Constitution,” the liberalizers remain convinced that revisions to economic provisions are needed.
Who can explore, extract and own? Section
2, Article XII reserves to the government “full control and supervision” over the “exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources.” However, the same provision allows the government to enter into co-production, joint venture, or production-sharing agreements with Filipino citizens or with entities with at least 60% Filipino capitalization. In the case of La Bugal-B’laan Tribal Association vs. Ramos, the Supreme Court clarified that the president’s authority to enter into technical or financial deals with foreign corporations must accord the governmentenough control to direct and regulate the ventures and restrain undesirable activities. On land ownership, Section 3, Article XII reserves to Filipino citizens the right to acquire up to 12 hectares of alienable public lands, mainly agricultural. On the other hand, private entities, regardless of ownership, may lease up to 1,000 hectares of such lands for up to 25 years, renewable to another 25. Regarding real estate, Sections 7 and 8, Article XII reserves to Filipino citizens or entities with at least 60% Filipino capitalization the right to own private land. Under this provision, up to 40% of units in
• August 12 - 25, 2013
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a building may be owned by foreigners or foreign entities, which would then collectively possess no more than 40% of the entity owning the land on which the edifice stands. Aliens, however, are allowed to own private land only by hereditary succession. Notwithstanding this, a former natural-born citizen may also acquire private land with a limit of 3 hectares in rural areas and 5,000 square meters in urban areas. Changes in these provision could attract foreign investors put off by undue state interference in their enterprises, or would want to utilize a greater portion of buildings they erect than the 40% allowed, or actually own outright the land on which they build.
FOR FILIPINOS ONLY
Maximum Foreign Ownership Allowed by the Philippine Constitution
No Limit
40%
40%
Corporate/Private Land Lease
Corporate Land Ownership
Public Utilities
40%
40%
30%
0%
Education
Mining
Advertising
Media
Where can foreigners invest? Section 10,
Article XII grants Congress the power to reserve to Filipino citizens or entities with at least 60% Filipino capitalization certain sectors. While that means Congress can open up industries without need for charter change, an amendment opening up most or all sectors would remove the uncertainty that tends to discourage investment. Moreover, there are sectors like public utilities that are expressly reserved for Filipinos or Filipinocontrolled enterprises. Section 11, Article XII reserves for nationals or entities with at least 60% local
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equity any “franchise, certificate, or any other form of authorization for the operation of a public utility.” In the case of Tatad vs. Garcia, the Supreme Court clarified that the “right to operate” a public utility may exist independently and separately from the ownership of the “facilities” operated. That fine point, however, raises the question: Will an investor put up the mammoth cost of utility assets without majority control of the venture vested with the right to operate them? Charter change can eliminate that quandary. Regarding expert services and knowledge institutions, the nation may benefit from the entry of foreigners and foreign firms with leading-edge knowhow and capabilities. Hence, modifying provisions that keep foreigners out of information- and technologyintensive industries should also be reviewed. Section 14, Article XII limits the practice of all professions to Filipino citizens, except when Congress provides otherwise. Section 4(2), Article XIV reserves to Filipino citizens or entities with at least 60% Filipino capitalization the ownership of educational institutions, except schools established by religious groups and mission boards. A proactive provision of allowing, even inviting highly qualified professionals from abroad could be considered. On media, Section 11(1), Article XVI reserves to Filipino citizens or entities with 100% Filipino capitalization the ownership and management of mass media — an apparent anachronism in a world where media is increasingly borderless, thanks to the Internet. Section 11(2), Article XVI reserves advertising enterprises to Filipino citizens or entities with at least 70% Filipino capitalization. The same provision further requires that the executive and managing officers of any advertising firm must be Filipino citizens. The key question: How does this restriction, along with others
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why aquino needs charter change
like it, help the great majority of Filipinos, especially those seeking jobs, which greater foreign investment can generate?
A similar issue may arise with Section 25, Article XVIII. It provides: “After the expiration in 1991 of the Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America concerning military bases, foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate and, when the Congress so requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting State.”
Chinese TV coverage of U.S. Navy ships visiting Subic Bay port CCTV
The bases question. As Aquino expands ties
with allies, he could face HIgh Court questions. Even staunch ally Senate President Drilon said of ongoing defense talks: “When they craft the agreement, they must consider the constitutional boundaries.” How might such policies contravene the fundamental law? Section 8, Article II firmly states that “The Philippines, consistent with the national interest, adopts and pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory.” Occasional visits by nucleararmed vessels and aircraft could be glossed over, but regular rotations of such forces may be culpable. And the current policy of not asking Uncle Sam which assets carry atomic weaponry would then be just as criminally irresponsible as letting cargo into the country without checking if it has narcotics, firearms or explosives.
The
cenSEI Report
With the recent pronouncements of Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin that the United States and Japan may both be granted access to Philippine military bases, concerns have been raised that such moves might eventually lead to Aquino’s possible impeachment for culpable violation of the Constitution. However, simple reading of the constitutional provisions on foreign military access would prove may allay some of these concerns.
Conditions for foreign military bases. In
the case of BAYAN vs. Zamora involving the legality of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States, the Supreme Court clarified that Section 25 of Article XVIII allows foreign military bases, troops, or facilities in the country as long as “the following conditions are sufficiently met, viz: (a) it must be under a treaty; (b) the treaty must be duly concurred in by the Senate and, when
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why aquino needs charter change
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Philippine President Aquino (center standing) witness October signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro OPAPP
so required by congress, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum; and (c) recognized as a treaty by the other contracting state.” Military agreements now cover U.S. and Australian troops and military assets entering the country. Other states, such as Japan and South Korea, may come in under Washington’s push to expand regional alliances in its rivalry with Beijing. This is especially crucial considering President Barack Obama’s so-called “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region and the recent developments in China’s expansionism in the South China Sea. Still, it seems allowing more foreign troops on Philippine soil may not require constitutional amendments, just treaties ratified by the Senate and, if Congress decides, by referendum. On the other hand, with unforeseen contigencies in crisis situations, the Palace may want an amendment allowing urgent unilateral action by the Commander-in-Chief, such as emergency access to bases and military action not covered by treaties, subject to review by Congress.
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Preparing for Bangsamoro. The third Aquino
priority that will likely need constitutional change is peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. This possible need is acknowledged by the Annex on Transitional Arrangements and Modalities, an addendum to the 2012 Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro outlining major principles and provisions toward a final peace accord between the Philippine government and the rebel MILF. The annex stipulates the creation of the Transition Commission tasked with undertaking measures toward implementing the Agreement. And one of those measures may be constitutional amendment, as Section I-D states: “The TC shall work on proposals to amend the Philippine Constitution for the purpose of accommodating and entrenching in the Constitution the agreement of the Parties whenever necessary without derogating from any prior peace agreements.” What those amendments may be shall covered in the second part of this report, based on an analysis of the Framework Agreements, its annexes, and the Supreme Court ruling on the voided 2008 Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the Arroyo administration and the MILF.
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supergraphic
Your one-stop primer on password protection. With an eye on our growing dependence on online access for activities from e-mail to social media to banking, our Supergraphic for this issue comes from InstantCheckmate. com, a Nevada-based online site specializing in background checks based on publicly available information. A July blog post by Ashley Welter, “Is Your Password Really Protecting You?” provides us with an infographic that presents just about everything you need to know about password protection, along with statistics indicating why your passwords most probably need to be changed. (Click on the preceding link to pull up the entire infographic.)
The
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• August 12 - 25, 2013
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TECHNOLOGY
Clicking for Causes Social media is changing the way people help one other and respond to disasters
M
ore than half of the world’s 2.4 billion Internet users sign in to a social network regularly, as cited by Mashable in January. Facebook has reported 1.15 billion monthly active users as of June, while Twitter crossed the 200-million mark for monthly active users as of December last year. As these figures increase, organizations and individuals are looking at ways to harness social media’s reach in order to help people in need.
By Pia Rufino
Apart from promoting communications among friends and developing online brands of one stripe or another, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are also being used to gather people online for social causes, e.g., promoting public health campaigns, managing disaster response, and supporting charity works.
STRATEGY POINTS: Facebook and Twitter are being used to prevent future suicides, boost organ donations, and promote other health campaigns Social media is an increasingly effective strategy for charities to connect to supporters and an important tool in information dissemination during calamities For a successful social media campaign, one must have tangible goals, a well-defined audience, and unity of purpose, among other things
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Suicide prevention. Facebook is being used to detect early warning signs of suicide in at-risk members in the U.S. Early this year, the social media site partnered with a suicide-prevention group, Save, to provide data on the activities of users who later committed suicide, in order to help researchers identify social media patterns of people contemplating suicide, as reported in Bloomberg in January. Dan Reidenberg, the executive director of Save and a national leader in the counseling field, hopes that the partnership will enable the online community and families to identify early warning signs of suicide. This is not the first involvement of Facebook in suicide-prevention efforts. According to an April 2012 report in The Atlantic, the company set up a system in 2011 to connect potentially at-risk users with counseling services, based on referrals from friends. The suicide watch group National Suicide Prevention LifeLine developed a Facebook chat add-on that enables users to report updates to Facebook that they feel are indicative of suicidal behavior or to report suicidal content. These then trigger a connection to a trained counselor. There are two ways of accessing
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clicking for causes POINT & CLICK Access online research via your Internet connection by clicking pictures, graphics, and words in blue
the chat - either by clicking on the user’s post or by reporting it to the Facebook Help Center. The user is then contacted by a crisis center via e-mail, encouraging them to either call the help line or click on a link to start an online chat with a counselor. According to the Bloomberg report, Twitter and Google also have systems that direct at-risk users to counseling help, or allow others to report concerns to the company over the last few years. Twitter itself doesn’t do research on suicide prevention, but says that outside researchers or groups can conduct studies using Twitter data. For its part, Google’s search engine incorporates the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline into any searches involving “suicide” or related terms.
Organ donations. Facebook updates also helped
boost organ donor registration in the U.S. A Facebook initiative allowing users to say whether they were an organ donor on their timeline saw organ-donor registration increase 21-fold in just one day, according to a June 2013 study published in the American Journal of Transplantation. The study, conducted by the researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, suggests that social media might be an effective tool to address organ-donation shortages in the U.S. According to study leader Andrew M. Cameron, an associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, although “social media and social networks may be valuable tools in re-approaching refractory public health problems,” the large spike in donor registration “diminish over weeks, implying that more work is needed to assure sustainability or ‘virality’ in this case.” “The hope is that, by starting a conversation with friends and family through social media, the discussion will go viral, with a critical mass of people educating
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themselves about the benefits of organ donation and choosing to register as organ donors,” according to a May 2012 Johns Hopkins statement on the launch of the Facebook initiative, which grew from a joint effort of Cameron and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer. More than 114,000 people are waiting for hearts, livers and kidneys and other organs in the U.S. Every four hours, an individual waiting for a transplant dies, according to the statement. The need for organs keeps increasing, while the rate of donation over the past 20 years is almost flat, despite widespread public health campaigns, it added.
Online giving. For charities, social media is
becoming a channel for the public to encourage fundraising, as well as action-taking or awareness campaigns. According to a November 2011 statement from United Kingdom-based JustGiving, Twitter users are the most generous charitable donors on social media, but Facebook users are often more persuaded to give. Internal data from the U.K.’s largest online fundraising platform show that the value of donations coming from Twitter users averages £30.26 (US$46.92), followed by YouTube with £28.77 (US$44.61), LinkedIn with £25.21 (US$39.09), and Facebook with £18.33 (US$24). “Social giving, or donating to charity as a result of a call to action from social media, has increased exponentially over the past year, with Facebook the core driver. Donations driven from Facebook make up over a quarter of all donations made on JustGiving in September 2011 – a rise of 130 per cent over the past year, while by comparison Twitter currently drives less than 1 per cent. JustGiving estimates that by 2015, Facebook will be responsible for up to 50 per cent of all online donations,” the company said in its statement.
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The Social Charity 100 Index is a compilation of financial, brand and social media data of 300 charities during August 2012 www.visceralbusiness.com
Meanwhile, a comprehensive look into how U.K. charities use social media shows that social media is an effective tool for charities to connect with supporters. Findings from social business consultant Visceral Business’ “2012 Visceral Business Charity Social 100 Index,” show that U.K. charitable organizations have doubled their supporters on key social media channels in the past year. “We’ve continued to see significant increases of connected followers and supporters and social networks getting stronger. As social media platforms have developed, the key themes have been the consolidation of Facebook as a dominant social media channel, and the recognition of Twitter, too, as core platform that offers its own social influence marketing benefits,” the company says, adding that several charities used other channels, such as Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and Storify. The survey shows that charities use Twitter and Facebook as their main platform in communicating socially, followed by Wordpress and Community: “Charities that participated in our survey were in broad agreement that Facebook has the highest volume of traffic of any platform. It was also cited as the biggest driver of users to charities’ websites, as well as the best place to generate online discussions. Twitter is growing as a traffic driver to rival Facebook. It’s seen
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by some participants as better than Facebook for short conversations, and while Facebook is seen as more conducive to engagement, Twitter is regarded by many as much better for reaching people outside of their direct network.” At the same time, the company also qualified its findings, acknowledging that, “Overall, deep level engagement with users is still in its early days. An increasing level of comfort amongst charities in using rich media exists, e.g. video and imagery as well as real-time collaboration within their own communities, and inevitably poses new opportunities, but while a dependency on Facebook has its strengths now, there’s a risk of engagement attrition over time that perhaps asks for charities to think about developing mitigating strategies in the longer term.”
The effectiveness of online influence.
In a June 2013 blog posted on The Stanford Social Innovation Review by Julie Dixon, the deputy director of Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact Communication, discusses the effectiveness of online influence and suggests organizations should be encouraging social sharing. She cites a joint study by the university and Seattle-based public relations firm Waggener Edstrom Worldwide that looks into how active participants in social media and supporters of charitable organizations and campaigns are accessing
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WHICH PLATFORM PROVIDES THE BEST MEDIA RESULTS FOR YOU? Chart from “2012 Visceral Business Charity Social 100 Index,” Visceral Business, August 2013, p. 18.
information about causes today, and how they make decisions about supporting those causes. The researcher and adjunct professor shares findings from the “Digital Persuasion” survey, which covered 2,000 American adults, to help nonprofits engage their supporters online. First, she says that people who continue to support causes online and offline first hear about causes and charities they support through social media, surpassing other sources of information-online news sites, friends or family in person or via email, and traditional media. “Organizations must think about ways to ensure that their information will appear where their supporters are looking.” Moreover, Dixon says: “As organizations continue to think through their content strategies across the various social media platforms, it’s important to consider what types of content will compel the actions you want your supporters to take.” More than half of the respondents view stories as a key in motivating them to provide support offline, followed by videos and photos and seeing family and friends in their networks also taking action. Meanwhile, more than half of respondents “Liked” a cause on Facebook so that they could influence friends and family to also “Like” the cause. The number one reason that people reported sharing information about causes with their social networks was to influence others to support the causes.
Disaster response. Social media is increasingly
becoming an important tool in information dissemination during calamities. According to a 2012 literature review, “Social Media Use during Disasters,” by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism based at the University of Maryland, the public is even more active online during disasters, increasingly turning to social media for real-time information. The report provides examples
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of social media consumption during key catastrophic events such as the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. During Haiti’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people and displaced another 1.7 million, Twitter was the primary avenue for people to interact with others regarding the earthquake, with 2.3 million tweets that included “Haiti” or the number to text-message donations to the Red Cross. Based on the review, certain types of social media serve different purposes during disasters. For example, when a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, social-media users made the story the number one topic across blogs, Twitter, and YouTube. But analysis revealed each medium was used for different purposes, such that people: • Turned to blogs for emotional release and support, • Logged onto Twitter to find and distribute breaking news, and • Watched and posted YouTube videos specifically to view and share shocking disaster visuals. The research identifies multiple reasons as to why the public uses social media during disasters including access to real time information and firsthand information and ensure safety of friends and family members. Moreover, the public also use social media to organize emergency relief and ongoing assistance efforts and to seek emotional support and healing.
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Conversely, the research also reveals the reasons why public might not use social media for disaster communication: privacy and security fears, accuracy concerns, access issues, and knowledge deficiencies.
Creating your own cause campaign.
Looking to create your own cause campaign on social media? Whether it is for a good cause or as a Characteristics of potential online cause supporters and how organizations means to promote can best engage with them, based on your business, Georgetown University’s Center for there a few things Social Impact Communication and to remember in Waggener Edstrom Worldwide joint 2012 study csic.georgetown.edu order to achieve a successful campaign. In a May article in Forbes, Deanna Zandt, author of “Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking,” shares three essential components for successful campaigns.
The first is to set tangible goals. Many well-meaning groups, she says, often paint their goals in broad strokes, which leaves little room for casual bystanders to interact with the campaign. Moreover, it is important to have, even at the height of the campaign, a mix of content available for people’s varied levels of engagement—from bystanders to donors.
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Second, metrics tools should be utilized in order to measure the impact of the campaign, such as Rowfeeder and Google Analytics. Lastly, make it easy for your supporters to get the word out about the campaign by creating sample posts or suggested Facebook or Twitter text for them to share with their network. Installing share buttons on your website will also make the process more convenient for them. Likewise, a May 2010 Mashable piece compiles its own tips for social media cause campaigns. For example, partnering with a non-profit organization with a strong social media base will be beneficial since many people will support cause campaigns because they support the organization. Unity of purpose also helps streamline the campaign, so make an effort to connect the theme, sponsor, and non-profit organization. Further, target a well-defined audience in the various social media platforms for optimal results. Strategies of big nonprofit organizations are also noteworthy. A March piece in Brandwatch says savvy non-profits are using social channels to attract new supporters, raise awareness around issues, and put pressure on politicians and corporations. Amnesty International, for instance, uses social media to open up dialogue with people in power in front of their followers. Greenpeace, meanwhile, provides additional social profiles for certain regions. This allows the organization to focus on issues at the grassroots level. Oceana, an international organization focused on ocean conservation, capitalizes on powerful images to get attention from its supporters. As Zandt reminds us, “Dig deep into your human spirit, and possibly outside of your neatly-defined messaging frame, to find those messages that touch our hearts, and not just poke at our brains.”
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what’s hot/what’s cool Photo Credit: The Telegraph, Associated Press
What’s cool is this assortment of gadgets for women, as presented on Aug. 4 in USA Today’s Tech Now series, ranging from portable power packs and wireless speakers disguised as stylish handbags, to vests with hidden pockets for all sorts of devices, to buttons you can attach to anything then track via smartphone so you never misplace things again, to smartwatches synchronized to your smartphone.
A heart-shaped diamond pendant (l) and an Art Decostyle emerald and diamond necklace (r) were among the jewels stolen on July 28 in an 89-million euro heist of a diamond exhibition in a Cannes hotel.
Whether you believe diamonds are forever, a girl’s best friend, or the only justification for working out, they’re hot, with these photos – courtesy of the United Kingdom’s The Telegraph’s August 6 report – of some of the diamond-encrusted jewels stolen on July 28 from a diamond exhibition at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France. The jewels, which were stolen in broad daylight, belonged to an Israeli-Russian billionaire, and were said to be worth 89 million euros (US$118.332 million). The photos – of a heart-shaped diamond pendant, two diamond-encrusted rings, and an Art Deco-style emerald and diamond necklace – were released by Lloyd’s of London, the insurer of the jewels, who also offered a 1-million euro reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the thieves and the recovery of the jewels. The Telegraph qualified its report with the caution that oftentimes, stolen jewels aren’t returned, citing a Londonbased diamond expert’s observation that there are only two to three days to trace stolen diamonds before they’re “swiftly cut, polished, and turned into something different … easily done if the thieves have the right connections.”
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Photo Credit (from top): Everpurse, Jackery Mini portable charger, and Scottevest, USA Today
What’s also cool is Google’s upcoming Android device manager service and app for protecting misplaced smartphones, as reported in TechHive on Aug. 2. According to the report, the service will allow users of phones running Android 2.2 or later to choose between having the phone ring at maximum volume (if you think you just misplaced it), track it on Google Maps (if you’re not sure where you lost it), or wipe the device from afar (if you think the device has been stolen), as long as the phone is logged into your Google account. The report does point out that Apple already offers its own “Find my iPhone” capability, which comes with the added option of just locking the device remotely (as opposed to nuking it outright), and that there are third-party mobile security apps for Android phones, but says that Google’s own upcoming service will be most welcome, nonetheless.
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Big Brain Projects Seek to Unravel the Mysteries of the Mind Capturing the human brain in action could revolutionize neuroscience By Marishka Noelle M. Cabrera
STRATEGY POINTS United States President Barack Obama unveiled a bold research initiative to provide scientists with a picture of the human brain in action, which can uncover new ways to diagnose and treat brain disease A European endeavor, the Human Brain Project, aims to simulate a working human brain with supercomputers The projects can have a huge impact on treatment and diagnosis of brain disease, drug research, and development of new computing technologies
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nderstanding how the brain works has been, arguably, one of mankind’s greatest challenges. As such, a bold new scientific project led by the United States government, the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, hopes to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity. Doing so will help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, epilepsy, autism, and traumatic brain injury. Unveiled on April 2 by no less than United States President Barack Obama, this research initiative is “designed to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain,” according to a fact sheet on the BRAIN Initiative released by the White House. It will “accelerate the development and application of new technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought.” In addition, the fact sheet says, these technologies will provide more opportunities for scientists to explore how the brain records, processes, uses, stores, and retrieves vast quantities of information, as well as shed light on the complex links between brain function and behavior. The project was launched with approximately $100 million in the fiscal year 2014 budget. The key investments to set the project in motion are: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with $40 million to develop new tools and training opportunities, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with $50 million to understand the dynamic functions of the brain and demonstrate breakthrough applications, and the National Science Foundation, with approximately $20 million for research involving physical, social, biological, and behavioral sciences.
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Big Brain Projects Seek to Unravel the Mysteries of the Mind
Understanding the BRAIN Initiative
POINT & CLICK Access online research via your Internet connection by clicking pictures, graphics, and words in blue
The infographic shows the basic components of this bold research project The White House
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‘The next great American project.’ According to
an April 2 Nature report on Obama’s announcement, the initative, which he called “the next great American project,” is expected to cost billions of dollars over more than a decade. After all, the project is considered to be a signature administration project, being compared to the U.S. quest to put a man on the moon in the 1960s. Obama reiterated the benefits of such a project for the American economy, likening it to the Human Genome Project, which was launched in the early 1990s. Every dollar spent in mapping the human genome returned $140 back to the U.S. economy, he said, thus, investing in American innovation will allow the U.S. “to grow [its] economy, create new jobs, and to ignite a rising, thriving middle class.” “When we invest in the best ideas before anybody else does, our businesses and our workers can make the best products and deliver the best services before anybody else,” he concluded.
Originally dubbed the Brain Activity Map Project, the project will enlist the help of the brightest minds in the field of neuroscience. Commitments from the private sector are also crucial. The Allen Institute for Brain Science will commit $60 million annually over four years, while the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, at least $30 million annually, the Kavli Foundation, $4 million annually for ten years, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has committed $28 million.
The Human Brain Project – simulating the human brain with supercomputers. A similar European initiative announced early this year, the Human Brain Project, is a billion-euro initiative aimed also at advancing knowledge of the brain and how it functions. The project aims to create a simulation of the human brain using high-powered computers. According to the Human Brain Project website, by understanding how the human brain works, “we
President Obama announces the BRAIN Initiative and talks about the importance of American innovation Nature
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The Human Brain Project aims YouTube
Big Brain Projects Seek to Unravel the Mysteries of the Mind
can gain profound insights into what makes us human, develop new treatments for brain disease and build revolutionary new computing technologies.” Led by Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the Human Brain Project was proposed in the Future and Emerging Technologies Flagship Initiatives competition in 2010, and is one of only two research projects selected by the European Commission to receive one billion euros over 10 years, according to a January report in Nature.
Developing an integrated, multi-level understanding of the brain. In an April 2012 report to the European Commission, the project’s goal is “to create a new technical foundation for brain research and its application in medicine and computing.” Today, most of what we know about the brain is about its individual levels.
to provide a revolutionary new tool in neuroscience
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However, neuroscience, medicine, and information and communication technology (ICT) all “require an integrated multi-level understanding of the brain.” Moreover, for European industry to play a leading role in the world economy, the report argues, it must take the lead in developing technologies that will accelerate brain research. As such, ICT-based brain science must become a strategic component in European research. The project proposes “an integrated system of ICT-based research platforms providing radically new services to neuroscientists, clinical researchers and technology developers.”
Measure it, map it, make sense of it. As
mentioned in the Nature report, current technology allows scientists to record the activity of up to hundreds of neurons in action. With the BRAIN Initiative, mapping the function of thousands or hundreds of thousands of neurons simultaneously or as they function at the speed of thought may one day become possible. Despite incredible advances in neuroscience, the Human Brain Project website adds, what is still lacking is a “unified understanding of the brain that can span its multiple levels of organisation, from genes to cognition and behaviour.” The Human Brain Project will, thus, offer the “first-ever comprehensive plan to unify data, knowledge and theory of the brain.” According to a July 17 article in Nature, what the two projects will try to do with the human brain is to measure it, map it, and then make sense of it. Scientists will attempt “to work out exactly how the billions of neurons and trillions of connections, or synapses, in the human brain organize themselves into working neural circuits” that allow people to think, feel, create, and reason. Moreover, researchers want to understand the ways in which brain circuitry changes as a person progresses through life.
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BigBrain, the first 3D atlas of the human brain As part of the Human Brain Project, scientists have developed the first high-definition 3D model of a human brain in its entirety, according to a July 23 report in Euronews. Named BigBrain, this 3D atlas shows the organization of neurons with microscopic precision, says a June 21 Nature report, and could clarify or even redefine the structure of brain regions obtained from decades-old anatomical studies. Moreover, the atlas will serve as a reference with which other data sets can be aligned. As such, the BigBrain team is planning to work with the Allen Institute, which maintains its own brain atlas, to link information from both databases. Researchers from Canada and Germany, says the Euronews report, have constructed the 3D model based upon the preserved brain of a 65-year-old woman. The brain, preserved in paraffin wax, was sliced into ultra-thin sections, after which scientists used modern imaging technologies to analyze each individual piece. The sections were put back together to form a digital model of the highest possible resolution. According to the abstract of the research, which is published in the journal Science, reference brains are indispensable tools in brain mapping. However, available reference brains are “restricted to the macroscopic scale and do not provide information on the functionally important microscopic dimension.” What the scientists were able to build was an ultrahigh-resolution 3D model of a human brain at a nearly cellular resolution of 20 micrometers, based on the reconstruction of 7,404 histological sections. The resulting model is a free, publicly available tool (registration is required nonetheless), which “provides considerable anatomical insight into the human brain, thereby allowing the extraction of microscopic data for modeling and simulation.”
BigBrain, the first high-definition 3D model of the human brain, will serve as a framework upon which layers of information can be added as new discoveries are made Euronews
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Better diagnosis, treatment of brain diseases expected. A better understanding of how the brain works can lead to better diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases. In a July interview with Science Omega, Richard Walker, spokesperson for the Human Brain Project, believes brain modeling will have a wide-reaching impact on drug research. Walker explains how data from brain scans obtained from hospitals can be used to look for biological signatures of a particular disease, such as Alzheimer’s. “So, if you have a particular form of Alzheimer’s, we could look at how your brain is different, in respect to someone who has a different form of Alzheimer’s, or in respect to someone who is healthy. That is very valuable in itself, as today it is very hard to objectively diagnose people with any brain disease,” he explains. In terms of objective testing, Walker explains how current diagnosis usually depends on the symptoms of the patient.
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However, very often people with the same symptoms may have very different problems in their brains, while people with the same condition may each exhibit different symptoms. Sufficient data that may be produced from the project could help distinguish patients with objectively different diseases.
Reaching the goal of these ambitious projects will require innovative new technologies that range from nanotechnology to genetics to optics
Moreover, experiments that cannot be done on real patients may be conducted with the use of a brain model, and, in turn, get a handle on treatments. “For treatment of an individual with a particular disease and symptoms, there are a huge number of treatment combinations available. Unless we have an indication that a certain option may work, it would be completely unethical to try this regime on patients, as it may be too dangerous,” Walker explains. “On the model, we can do it free of risk, so we will have a tool for the industry to test new treatments,” he continues.
Innovative new technologies will be required. The July Nature news feature tells us that reaching the goal of these ambitious projects will require innovative new technologies that range from nanotechnology to genetics to optics. These technologies will capture the “electrical activity coursing through neurons, prod those neurons to find out what they do, map the underlying anatomical circuits in fine detail and process the exabytes of information all this work will spit out.” Neuroscientist Konrad Kording of Northwestern University in Chicago says, “The human brain produces in 30 seconds as much data as the Hubble Space Telescope has produced in its lifetime.”
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Put another way, these bold projects will test the limits of big data. A team of Japanese and German researchers found that simulating a mere second of real brain activity would require the computing power of the world’s fourth-fastest supercomputer. An August 2 report in Gigaom says researchers have simulated one second of real brain activity on a network equivalent to 1% of an actual brain’s neural network using the Japanese peta-scale K supercomputer. In a press release on the project, the achievement gives neuroscientists a glimpse of what is possible in the future with the next generation of supercomputers, called exa-scale computers.
A threat to diversity in neuroscience? Still, others remain wary of these ambitious brain projects. A February 2012 feature in Nature reveals many neuroscientists think that Markram’s vision in the Human Brain Project is ill-conceived, striking them as “grotesquely cumbersome and over-detailed.” Diversity would be threatened, according to the report, if so much scarce neuroscience research money were to be diverted into a single endeavor. Given how little is known about the brain, “we need as many different people expressing as many different ideas as possible,” says Rodney Douglas, codirector of the Institute for Neuroinformatics, a joint initiative of the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In Obama’s BRAIN Initiative, there are reservations about the clarity of the final outcome of the project. In an April 2 article in The Guardian, experimental
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and computational neuroscience researcher Erin McKiernan raised questions, such as what a complete map of the brain will look like, how the dynamic picture of the brain will be accounted for, or how recording the activity of all neurons will produce understanding of behaviors or diseases. A March 18 article in The New York Times, meanwhile, talks about the Human Brain Project and how critics believe that the project is “too open-ended” and that “it makes little sense without clearly defined criteria for success.”
Manipulating the brain with false information. Further, ethical issues surrounding the possibility of manipulating neurons in humans as a result of being able to accurately map them should be considered. For instance, researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have discovered how to alter animals’ memories by turning on neurons that are associated with the memories and updating them with new information, ScienceDaily reported on Aug. 1. The new findings, published in the journal Science, show that a mouse can be made to fear a cage by giving the foot a shock while at the same time reactivating a memory of the cage to associate the two. According to the report, researchers knew that memories are stored by the brain in a small set of neurons. However, identifying the exact neurons linked to specific memories has been technically challenging. “Understanding how this information is encoded could be key to understanding how
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human memory works as well as memory disorders,” the report posits. Similarly, a September 2012 ScienceDaily report showed how scientists from Harvard University have been able to take over an animal’s brain and instruct the animal to turn in any direction they choose. With the use of precisely targeted lasers, they were also able to implant false sensory information that fooled the animal into thinking food was nearby. “If we can understand simple nervous systems to the point of completely controlling them, then it may be a possibility that we can gain a comprehensive understanding of more complex systems,” says team member Sharad Ramanathan, an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and of Applied Physics. The benefits from the projects, once completed, will be far-reaching. New knowledge brought about by radical improvements in brain science could be transformative when used in an ethical manner. It may signal the end of brain diseases as we know them, and new computing technologies that will be produced can, likewise, be life-changing. The sheer magnitude of the projects is enough to fuel hopes that new information about the brain will lead to better diagnosis and treatment of disorders. After all, the desire to improve the quality of life is, ultimately, what drives our ambitions to decipher one of mankind’s most complex mysteries.
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body lab Cross-sections of the brain with highlighted areas in the auditory, motor, and limbic regions representing the areas activated when listening to music continuously
Your brain on music. Music, it’s
said, has charms to soothe the savage breast, said 17th century playwright William Congreve, but we’ve never actually figured out how the trick is done. Until now. An Aug. 7 ScienceDaily report discusses a new study by a team of researchers from Finland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, who used functional magnetic resonance imaging to record the brain responses of individuals listening to a wide variety of music, ranging from Antonio
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Vivaldi to The Beatles, with Astor Piazzolla, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, The Shadows, and Miles Davis inbetween. Combining the imaging with computer modeling, the researchers found areas in the auditory, motor, and limbic regions that were activated while listening to music continuously, and also discovered differences in how the brain processed vocal versus instrumental music. The researchers’ findings, which were reportedly published in the journal NeuroImage (link is to an abstract of the study), appear to be the result of expanding a 2011
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study that used the same method to study the brain when exposed to Argentinian tango music. “The new method provides a powerful means to predict brain responses to music, speech, and soundscapes across a variety of contexts,” the report quoted Dr. Vinoo Alluri of the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, who led both the 2013 and the 2011 studies, as saying. So let’s roll over Beethoven and (liber)tango the night away, because now they can see that’s what we’re talking about.
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Handwriting in the Digital Age Is handwriting really necessary in this age of computers and smartphones? By Jerome Balinton
STRATEGY POINTS Technology has changed the way people record events, communicate and share information. Handwriting is arguably becoming irrelevant in school, and even in ordinary life, with the rise of computers, smartphones and tablets Researches argue that handwriting remains essential because it exercises visual, motor, and memory circuits and influences cognitive development
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he Philippines’ national hero Dr. Jose Rizal lived his life fighting for sovereignty by writing works that illuminated national consciousness and ignited the Philippine revolution against the Spaniards. If Rizal were living in today’s age of information technology and advanced communication, he would probably be driving a great deal of Web traffic onto a blog site hosting his musings and reflections. Clearly, there have been great changes in the way people communicate and share information from Rizal’s time (1861-1896) to the present generation. The tedious task of writing long letters and novels, or keeping in touch with loved ones evolved from handwriting to emailing, texting, and chatting.
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Things have changed. The dynamics of technology used in computers, smartphones, and Internet made communication fast, easy, and reliable. However, as we gain from restless technological innovations, we unconsciously lose important components of our past. Technology’s advantages have become the primary factor why some skills we used to learn and do are becoming obsolete as years pass by. For instance, it has become irrelevant to load film – let alone unload or even develop it – when all you need to do is make sure your digital camera or smartphone is properly charged before you point and shoot. The iconic film manufacturer Kodak filed for
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From Typing to Swiping - The Future of Handwriting in the Digital Age POINT & CLICK Access online research via your Internet connection by clicking pictures, graphics, and words in blue
bankruptcy in 2012, after market demand for camera film dropped. In the same way, due to personal computers at home and schools, teaching handwriting – particularly cursive (longhand) – also has become irrelevant. And this is evidently clear in countries with advanced economies and technological capabilities.
From writing to typing.
The changes in the preferences or priorities of educators, policy-makers, and even ordinary people in communicating and recording events have been functions of consumer convenience and reliability. If handwriting is considered obsolete or even in decline, blame it on computer keyboards, smartphone touch screens, and the Internet in general. According to a November/December 2011 Intelligent Magazine article, as reproduced on The Economist’s Intelligent Life blog, it wasn’t printing and typewriters that harmed handwriting, even as they gradually replaced calligraphy. The decline in writing, according to Intelligent Magazine, “started when keyboards were allowed, then required, in schools, and when they became small and light enough to slip in a pocket, replacing the notebook…” Students take notes through laptop computers or tablets, or just take photos of the notes written on the board, while research papers are typed. Messaging applications like Skype, Facebook, or Viber are preferred means of communication with loved ones across the globe, replacing handwritten letters. Dave Broadway, managing editor of British printing and mailing company Docmail, says, “It’s a shame that handwriting is in general decline, but that’s come about from the need for convenience and communication that is clear and quick.” Convenience and clear and quick communication are now provided by machines, which a March 2008 BBC report saw as a threat to the art of handwriting.
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Handwriting not dead yet, but on the decline. While
news reports suggest that technology has killed handwriting, “killed” might be an overstatement, because handwriting isn’t quite dead yet. However, manifestations clearly show that handwriting in the academe and in ordinary life situations is on the decline. According to a brief, “Should Cursive Handwriting Still Be Taught in Schools?” by Christie Blazer of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, there has been a decline in handwriting instruction in the U.S. because of questions among educators regarding the usefulness of teaching handwriting to students in a digital world. Blazer enumerated some reasons why teaching handwriting should be eliminated. Those are as follows: cursive writing is becoming irrelevant and obsolete because the new form of “writing” now is typing; typing is more efficient, cursive writing is very difficult for some student, and the transition from manuscript to cursive writing interferes with the development of students’ handwriting skills. A longitudinal study, “The Status of Elementary Keyboarding,” conducted in May 2003 in the U.S. indicates that over the ten-year period from 1993 to 2003, more elementary schools included keyboard instruction in the curriculum, beginning with an early awareness in kindergarten through second grade.
Voluntary standards stress relevance and future needs. Forty-five out of 50 states in the U.S.
have adopted the Common Core standards, which do not require cursive instruction but leave it up to the individual states and districts to decide whether they want to teach it,” The Washington Post reported in April. The Common Core standards aim to teach skills that are “robust and relevant to the real world,
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reflecting knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.”
motor skills, literacy, brain development, memory enhancement, and facilitation of self-expression.
The decline on the use of handwriting, particularly cursive, isn’t only felt in the academe. As mentioned earlier, it is also evident in ordinary situations experienced by ordinary people. For instance, in a survey conducted by Docmail, in July 2012, it was found out that two-thirds of the 2,000 people surveyed said that if they do still write something by hand, it’s usually for their eyes only, as a scribbled reminder or a quick note. The Docmail research also posts a striking observation: “One in three hasn’t had cause to hand write anything properly for over six months.”
Margaret Rock’s “The Dying Art of Handwriting,” which appeared in Time’s Tech section in July, emphasizes that handwriting isn’t just a matter of style. Handwriting is “a complex skill that affects your cognitive development and exercise your visual, motor, and memory circuits. When you write, you build hand-eye coordination and practice fine motor skills.”
But do we really need to write? The U.S. National Association of State Boards of Education, through its policy update released on September 2012 says that the arguments against requiring handwriting instruction are based on what might be called “common sense logic” rather than on research. The policy update says that the heart of the argument is simply that with the ubiquity of digital communications, cursive is “old” technology that students no longer need when it comes to being college and career ready—the vast majority of business communications are through digital media, college instructors expect papers and reports to be typed, and more and more tests are going online.
In a video interview that is a part of “Handwriting in the 21st Century Summit,” Gerry Conti, Ph.D., director of the Human Movement Laboratory at Wayne State University, says, “It’s [handwriting] is very important for memory and is especially important for developing for fine motor skills.” The claim of Conti was supported by Karin Harman James, Ph.D. of the Department of Psychology and Brain Science in Indiana University who says that there’s a lot of research that show fine motor skills is very important for cognitive development in general. “The Importance of Teaching Handwriting in the 21st Century,” from Washington, D.C.-based market research firm Hanover Research, reviewed available literature on the importance of teaching handwriting, offers the benefits of formal handwriting instruction. Some of the motor and cognitive tasks associated with handwriting are the following:
Other benefits of learning to write by hand. But the policy
update also presents what it calls “a growing body of research from the last 10 to 15 y ears that points to the educational benefits of learning to write by hand – benefits that go well beyond just the ability to write and read cursive,” including developing cognitive and
CONTENTS
NATION
TECHNOLOGY
• • • • • • • • •
Ideation Text production Punctuation Panning Spelling Grammar Self-monitoring Orthographic-motor integration, and Evaluation
SCIENCE
EDUCATION
From Typing to Swiping - The Future of Handwriting in the Digital Age
Meanwhile, in terms of students’ cognitive development, evidence-based research has shown that handwriting skills can: • Increase brain activation • Impact performance across all academic subjects • Provide a foundation for higher-order skills, and • Influence reading, writing, language, and critical thinking.
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did poorly on the fine motor writing tasks in prekindergarten had an average GPA of 2.30 in math and 2.12 in Reading – C averages. More impressively, those who did well on the fine motor writing tasks in pre-kindergarten scored in the 59th percentile on the Reading SAT in second grade (just above average) and in the 62nd percentile on the Math SAT. Kids who did poorly on the fine motor writing tasks in pre-kindergarten scored in the 38th percentile on the Reading SAT in second grade and in the 37th percentile on the Math SAT.
Better academic skills. In an January 2012 interview (video of which is available below), Laura Dinehart, assistant professor at Florida International University (FIU), tells Jean-Paul Renaud of Florida International University Magazine that, “Kids who had greater ease in writing had better academic skills in second grade both in reading and in math.” Renaud reported that Dinehart discovered that 4-year-olds who demonstrate strong handwriting skills are more likely to excel academically in elementary school. Research on the importance of handwriting is just beginning to emerge, and Dinehart’s findings establish a new link in understanding how penmanship plays a role in a child’s academic development.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic are more closely intertwined than ever possible Florida International Univeristy Magazine
According to the report, Dinehart took a sample of 1,000 2nd grade students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools and linked their grades and academic scores back to the information gathered from them when they were still in pre-kindergarten. The results of the study indicate that students who received good grades on fine motor writing tasks in pre-kindergarten had an average GPA of 3.02 in math and 2.84 in reading – B averages. Those who
The
cenSEI Report
Maybe down, but not out
Now that that computers and smartphones have taken over pen and notebooks, discussions and opinions in the Internet suggest that handwriting may be down, but not out, and will never be. They maintain that handwriting will remain a huge part of human development, in recording events, and as an essential means of communication, even if not used as extensively as before.
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From Typing to Swiping - The Future of Handwriting in the Digital Age
Wanted: 21st century skills Handwriting will still be promoted in the academe and used in ordinary life, most particularly in developing nations, where some countries are still struggling to connect villages to power grids and the online world, where not all citizens are able to purchase computers and smartphones. Jam Kotenko’s June feature in Digital Trends, “Can pen and paper survive in a world of touchscreens and tablets?” argues that one’s handwriting reflects one’s personality, and from there, differences from others. She cites a graphologist, Kathi McKnight, who observes that, “Handwriting is actually brain writing. It’s not the hand, but the nerve impulses from the brain that control the pen and what it splashes onto the paper.” She also cites Gregory McNaughton, Calligraphy Initiative Coordinator at Reed College’s Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, who doesn’t fear for the future of the handwritten word, because he sees people still have a strong tendency to create beautiful things with their hands. “The invention of photography was hailed as the end of drawing, but has drawing died, or lithography, copper plate engraving?” McNaughton asks rhetorically.
CONTENTS
Technological innovations in the 21st century provide the springboard for developing new skills that are expected of workforces now and in the future. Because “skills have become the global currency of the 21st century,” according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the guaranteed way for students to succeed is making sure that they graduate with the skills necessary in the workforce. It is essential that what students learn is relevant to them as individuals and members of society, in their present and future contexts, according to Zhou Nan-Zhao, director of the International Center of Teacher Education, East-China Normal University in his “Four ‘Pillars of Leaning’ for Reorientation and Reorganization of Curriculum: Reflections and Discussions.” Several studies suggest that basic and new skills are both expected from the workforce. As new skills are required, these studies emphasizes that basic skills should still be learned, including writing. The 2010 critical skills survey conducted by the American Management Association indicates that proficiency in 3Rs or reading, writing, and arithmetic has traditionally been the entry-level threshold for entering the job market, but the new workplace requires more from its employees. The AMA survey posits that skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, communication, and collaboration, and creativity and innovation (the four Cs) will become even more important to organizations in the future. The term ”21st century skills” is described in varied ways. According to Elena Silva in her “Measuring Skills for the 21st Century, workforce and managementtraining groups often call 21st century skills “soft” or “interpersonal” skills. Vocational education programs call them “applied” skills or “workforce” skills. Many youth development programs refer to them as “life and career” skills. And researchers often use the term “non-cognitive” skills. “Technology literacy” is a frequently mentioned 21st century sub-skill. But it’s defined in myriad ways. To various educational organizations and businesses, it’s information-science skills, digital media fluency, advanced computer and Internet communications, and “technacy,” a newer term used to describe a deep knowledge of technological systems. The bottom line of this is that “building the right skills can help countries improve economic prosperity and social cohesion,” according to the OECD’s website skills.oecd, which is dedicated to fostering skill development among OECD member-countries. The OECD says that countries will achieve improved economic prosperity and social cohesion through strengthening skills systems, which involves: • Designing and implementing and evidence-based national skills strategy • Funding skills through public and private sources and designing effective incentives for employers and individuals • Providing good information for public, business, and policy-makers
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TECHNOLOGY
SCIENCE
EDUCATION
you gotta see this Maybe she’ll make a moon out of green cheese?
A link from Twisted Sifter brings us to the work of Rhiannon, “a 25-year-old Australian Zoology graduate and self-taught baker,” who has found a niche in making spherical layer cakes in the shape of planets Jupiter and Earth. The Twisted Sifter post provides a link to Rhiannon’s cakecrumbs.me blog, which contains more information on the planet cakes, including a tutorial. The Jupiter model has reportedly gone viral on the I f*cking love science Facebook page, garnering over 78,000 likes last we checked. At this point, all we can say is, if this is what happens when zoologists learn to bake, what can we expect if and when the geologists decide to get in on the act?
Photo credit: Jennifer Hannux and Twisted Sifter
Over and under the rainbow. A
stitched panorama of a rainbow in Vermont, United States, along with its reflection in a river, provides a stunning recent “Picture of the Day” at the Twisted Sifter site, courtesy of photographer Jennifer Hannux and her iPhone.
Photo credit: Cakecrumbs.me and Twisted Sifter
Time after time, with the pictures to prove it. Again,
from the Twisted Sifter site, here’s a link to a photo series worth seeing and then reflecting on afterwards, Time is a Dimension, from photographer Fong Qi Wei. The series features composites of otherwise fixed landscapes, cityscapes, and seascapes spliced with slices of time to make for some fascinating images. All the better to tweak, if not actually expand, our consciousness of time. (The Twisted Sifter link provides a sampling of photos from the series, to which we’ve provided the direct link, but might still be useful to check out nonetheless because it provides some links to related topics that might also be of interest.)
The
Photo credit: Fong Qi Wei and Twisted Sifter
cenSEI Report
• August 12 - 25, 2013
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wow tech
A gas to end all emissions? In an Aug.
11 report, Wall St. Cheat Sheet tells us of a gas that will eliminate greenhouse gases and fossil fuel emissions, courtesy of a Swedish company that is now looking to bring its technology to market. According to information from its website, HydroInfra Technologies claims to have developed HydroNano Gas (HNG) through a pioneering, costeffective way to extract hydrogen from water, creating a recent discovery, Exotic Hydrogen, which enables HNG to instantly neutralize carbon emissions. The process involves injecting HNG into emission outlets from canisters arrayed around the outlets to clean up the burning of fossil fuels by instantly neutralizing the carbon emissions at three phases, per the following diagram. The company seeks to market HNG to power plants, international shipping companies, and other industrial processes that generate pollution. It’s been said that if something is too good to be true, it probably is, but then again, in this case, until the snags and hitches come out to prove that proposition, it doesn’t cost us to dream of the possibilities, if only because if this discovery is in fact for real, it would certainly be amazing.
The
Source: hydroinfra.com
cenSEI Report
• August 12 - 25, 2013