Auto Network, localisation, pricing keep Maruti unchallenged. Amid slowdown, rivals sit on the fence.

Competitors are monitoring the Toyota-Suzuki integration and are hoping for a slowdown in decision making. But a sluggish Indian market isnt attractive enough for them to put in money and effort to snatch Marutis market share. Indias largest carmaker, however, faces profitability hurdles, among other challenges. Last of a two-part series.

Startups such as WorkIndia, Betterplace, Awign, and Utter have ushered in the digital age for blue-collar job search. Today, millions of such workers are using the apps of these companies to find jobs, pick up skills, and run gigs. However, the segment largely remains a niche for impact investors, with mainstream VCs still watching from the sidelines.

RBIs proposed write-down of Yes Banks perpetual bonds has grave implications for Indias ailing financial system. The country cant be seen as indifferent to creditor obligations. It couldnt have come at a worse time just when India is making efforts to quickly expand its small bond market and tap international debt markets through a larger presence in global bond indices.

The deadly coronavirus has taken a toll on the global economy, with the Indian stock market also becoming a casualty. While the NSEs benchmark index, Nifty, is down by 7% over the last one month, the Quality Index has largely held steady. And investors, who paid high valuations for these stocks, are relatively unhurt.

Though zero-alcohol beer has grown immensely popular in the country within a short span, cola giants dismiss the segment as too tiny to worry about. But attractive pricing and rapidly shifting consumer preferences give the beer zero category a clear edge. Hence, industry participants believe it can create a dent in the market share of cola giants.

Visit link:

Inside the race to build the best quantum computer on Earth - Economic Times

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., March 11, 2019 A recent International Data Corporation (IDC) survey of IT and business personnel responsible for quantum computing adoption found that improved AI capabilities, accelerated business intelligence, and increased productivity and efficiency were the top expectations of organizations currently investing in cloud-based quantum computing technologies.

Initial survey findings indicate that while cloud-based quantum computing is a young market, and allocated funds for quantum computing initiatives are limited (0-2% of IT budgets), end-users are optimistic that early investment will result in a competitive advantage. The manufacturing, financial services, and security industries are currently leading the way by experimenting with more potential use cases, developing advanced prototypes, and being further along in their implementation status.

Complex technology, skillset limitations, lack of available resources, and cost deter some organizations from investing in quantum computing technology. These factors, combined with a large interdisciplinary interest, has forced quantum computing vendors to develop quantum computing technology that addresses multiple end-user needs and skill levels. The result has led to increased availability of cloud-based quantum computing technology that is more easily accessible and user friendly for new end users. Currently, the preferred types of quantum computing technologies employed across industries include quantum algorithms, cloud-based quantum computing, quantum networks, and hybrid quantum computing.

Quantum computing is the future industry and infrastructure disruptor for organizations looking to use large amounts of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to accelerate real-time business intelligence and innovate product development. Many organizations from many industries are already experimenting with its potential, saidHeather West, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms, and Technology at IDC. IDCs quantum computing survey provides insight into the demand-side of cloud-based quantum computing, including preferred technologies and end-user investment and implementation strategies. These insights should guide the product and service offerings being developed by quantum computing vendors, independent software vendors, and industry partners.

The IDC Special Study,Quantum Computing Adoption Trends: 2020 Survey Findings(IDC #US46049620), provides insights into near-term cloud-based quantum computing investment sentiments as well as end user cloud-based quantum computing adoption trends that will shape the future of the quantum computing industry. The study reports on findings from IDCs 2020 Quantum Computing End-User Perception and Adoption Trends Survey, which gathered insights from a multitude of sources, including surveys of 520 IT and business users worldwide and in-depth interviews with current quantum computing end-users.

The special study is part of IDCs Quantum Computing Special Report series, which also includes end-user insights from study of 2,700 European organizations, and secondary research focusing on quantum computing use cases. Additional findings can be found in the following IDC reports:The Rise of Quantum Computing: A Qualitative Perspective(IDC #US45652919),European Quantum Computing End-User Sentiment: In Search of Business Impact(IDC #EUR146014220) andEuropean Quantum Computing Use Cases Handbook, 2020(IDC #EUR146014420).

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is a provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDCs analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the worlds leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visitwww.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at@IDCandLinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights:http://bit.ly/IDCBlog_Subscribe.

Source: International Data Corporation

Read more:

IDC Survey Finds Optimism That Quantum Computing Will Result in Competitive Advantage - HPCwire

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., March 12, 2020 An Army project devised a novel approach for quantum error correction that could provide a key step toward practical quantum computers, sensors and distributed quantum information that would enable the military to potentially solve previously intractable problems or deploy sensors with higher magnetic and electric field sensitivities.

The approach, developed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Army funding, could mitigate certain types of the random fluctuations, or noise, that are a longstanding barrier to quantum computing. These random fluctuations can eradicate the data stored in such devices.

The Army-funded research, published in Physical Review Letters, involves identifying the kinds of noise that are the most likely, rather than casting a broad net to try to catch all possible sources of disturbance.

The team learned that we can reduce the overhead for certain types of error correction on small scale quantum systems, said Dr. Sara Gamble, program manager for the Army Research Office, an element of U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Commands Army Research Laboratory. This has the potential to enable increased capabilities in targeted quantum information science applications for the DOD.

The specific quantum system the research team is working with consists of carbon nuclei near a particular kind of defect in a diamond crystal called a nitrogen vacancy center. These defects behave like single, isolated electrons, and their presence enables the control of the nearby carbon nuclei.

But the team found that the overwhelming majority of the noise affecting these nuclei came from one single source: random fluctuations in the nearby defects themselves. This noise source can be accurately modeled, and suppressing its effects could have a major impact, as other sources of noise are relatively insignificant.

The team determined that the noise comes from one central defect, or one central electron that has a tendency to hop around at random. It jitters. That jitter, in turn, is felt by all those nearby nuclei, in a predictable way that can be corrected. The ability to apply this targeted correction in a successful way is the central breakthrough of this research.

The work so far is theoretical, but the team is actively working on a lab demonstration of this principle in action.

If the demonstration works as expected, this research could make up an important component of near and far term future quantum-based technologies of various kinds, including quantum computers and sensors.

ARL is pursuing research in silicon vacancy quantum systems which share similarities with the nitrogen vacancy center quantum systems considered by the MIT team. While silicon vacancy and nitrogen vacancy centers have different optical properties and many basic research questions are open regarding which type(s) of application each may be ultimately best suited for, the error correction approach developed here has potential to impact both types of systems and as a result accelerate progress at the lab.

About U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory

CCDC Army Research Laboratory is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. As the Armys corporate research laboratory, ARL discovers, innovates and transitions science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. Through collaboration across the commands core technical competencies, CCDC leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more lethal to win the nations wars and come home safely. CCDC is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command.

Source: U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory Public Affairs

Read the original:

Army Project Touts New Error Correction Method That May be Key Step Toward Quantum Computing - HPCwire

AI is one of the most happening domains in the world right now. It would take a lifetime to skim through all the machine learning research papers released till date. As the AI keeps itself in the news through new releases of frameworks, regulations and breakthroughs, we can only hope to get the best of the lot.

So, here we have a compiled a list of top exciting AI announcements released over the past one week:

Late last year, Google locked horns with IBM in their race for quantum supremacy. Though the news has been around how good their quantum computers are, not much has been said about the implementation. Today, Google brings two of their most powerful frameworks Tensorflow and CIRQ together and releases TensorFlow Quantum, an open-source library for the rapid prototyping of quantum ML models.

Google AI team has joined hands with the University of Waterloo, X, and Volkswagen, announced the release of TensorFlow Quantum (TFQ).

TFQ is designed to provide the developers with the tools necessary for assisting the quantum computing and machine learning research communities to control and model quantum systems.

The team at Google have also released a TFQ white paper with a review of quantum applications. And, each example can be run in-browser via Colab from this research repository.

A key feature of TensorFlow Quantum is the ability to simultaneously train and execute many quantum circuits. This is achieved by TensorFlows ability to parallelise computation across a cluster of computers, and the ability to simulate relatively large quantum circuits on multi-core computers.

Also Read Making A Case For Machine Learning Compilers With MLIR

As the devastating news of COVID-19 keeps rising at an alarming rate, the AI researchers have given something to smile about. DeepMind, one of the premier AI research labs in the world, announced last week, that they are releasing structure predictions of several proteins that can promote research into the ongoing research around COVID-19. They have used the latest version of AlphaFold system to find these structures. AlphaFold is one of the biggest innovations to have come from the labs of DeepMind, and after a couple of years, it is exhilarating to see its application in something very critical.

As the pursuit to achieve human-level intelligence in machines fortifies, language modeling will keep on surfacing till the very end. One, human language is innately sophisticated, and two, training language models from scratch is exhaustive.

The last couple of years has witnessed a flurry of mega releases from the likes of NVIDIA, Microsoft and especially Google. As BERT topped the charts through many of its variants, Google now announces ELECTRA.

ELECTRA has the benefits of BERT but more efficient learning. They also claim that this novel pre-training method outperforms existing techniques given the same compute budget.

The gains are particularly strong for small models; for example, a model trained on one GPU for four days outperformed GPT (trained using 30x more compute) on the GLUE natural language understanding benchmark.

China has been the worst-hit nation of all the COVID-19 victims. However, two of the biggest AI breakthroughs have come from the Chinese soil. Last month, Baidu announced how its toolkit brings down the prediction time. Last week, another Chinese giant, Alibaba announced that its new AI system has an accuracy of 96% in detecting the coronavirus from the CT scan of the patients. Alibabas founder Jack Ma has fueled the vaccine development efforts of his team with a $2.15 M donation.

Also Read Adobe Applies Real-Time Layered Approach To Customer Journey Analytics

Facebook AI has released its in-house feature of converting a two-dimensional photo into a video byte that gives the feel of having a more realistic view of the object in the picture. This system infers the 3D structure of any image, whether it is a new shot just taken on an Android or iOS device with a standard single camera, or a decades-old image recently uploaded to a phone or laptop.

The feature has been only available on high-end phones through the dual-lens portrait mode. But, now it will be available on every mobile device even with a single, rear-facing camera. To bring this new visual format to more people, the researchers at Facebook used state-of-the-art ML techniques to produce 3D photos from virtually any standard 2D picture.

One significant implication of this feature can be an improved understanding of 3D scenes that can help robots navigate and interact with the physical world.

As the whole world focused on the race to quantum supremacy between Google and IBM, Honeywell silently has been building, as it claims, the most powerful quantum computer yet. And, it plans to release this by the middle of 2020.

Thanks to a breakthrough in technology, were on track to release a quantum computer with a quantum volume of at least 64, twice that of the next alternative in the industry. There are a number of industries that will be profoundly impacted by the advancement and ultimate application of at-scale quantum computing, said Tony Uttley, President of Honeywell Quantum Solutions in the official press release.

Also Read Artificial Intelligence Is Writing The Next Game Of Thrones Book, And It May Just Have Proved Some Long-Held Fan Theories

The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a panic globally and rightfully so. Many flagship conferences have been either cancelled or have been moved to a virtual environment.

Nvidias flagship GPU Technology Conference (GTC), which was supposed to take place in San Francisco in the last week of March was cancelled due to fears of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Whereas, Google Cloud also has cancelled its upcoming event, Google Cloud Next 20, which was slated to take place on April 6-8 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Due to the growing concern around the coronavirus (COVID-19), and in alignment with the best practices laid out by the CDC, WHO and other relevant entities, Google Cloud has decided to reimagine Google Cloud Next 20, the company stated on its website.

One of the popular conferences for ML researchers, ICLR2020 too, has announced that they are cancelling its physical conference this year due to growing concerns about COVID-19. They are shifting this event to a fully virtual conference.

ICLR authorities also issued a statement saying that all accepted papers at the virtual conference will be presented using a pre-recorded video.

comments

Read the original:

Top AI Announcements Of The Week: TensorFlow Quantum And More - Analytics India Magazine

The presidents budget request for fiscal 2021 proposed $738 million to fund the National Institutes of Science and Technology, a dramatic reduction from the more than $1 billion in enacted funds allocated for the agency this fiscal year.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committees Research and Technology Subcommittee on Wednesday held a hearing to hone in on NISTs reauthorizationbut instead of focusing on relevant budget considerations, lawmakers had other plans.

We're disappointed by the president's destructive budget request, which proposes over a 30% cut to NIST programs, Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., said at the top of the hearing. But today, I don't want to dwell on a proposal that we know Congress is going to reject ... today I would like this committee to focus on improving NIST and getting the agency the tools it needs to do better, to do its job.

Per Stevens suggestion, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Walter Copan reflected on some of the agencys dire needs and offered updates and his view on a range of its ongoing programs and efforts.

NISTs Facilities Are in Bad Shape

President Trumps budget proposal for fiscal 2021 requests only $60 million in funds for facility construction, which is down from the $118 million enacted for fiscal 2020 and comes at a time when the agencys workspaces need upgrades.

Indeed the condition of NIST facilities are challenging, Copan explained. Over 55% of NIST's facilities are considered in poor to critical condition per [Commerce Department] standards, and so it does provide some significant challenges for us.

Some of the agencys decades-old facilities and infrastructures are deteriorating and Copan added that hed recently heard NISTs deferred maintenance backlog has hit more than $775 million. If the lawmakers or public venture out to visit some of the agencys facilities, you'll see the good, the bad, and the embarrassingly bad, he said. Those conditions are a testament to the resilience and the commitment of NISTs people, that they can work in sometimes challenging, outdated environments, Copan said.

The director noted that there have already been some creative solutions proposed to address the issue, including the development of a federal capital revolving fund. The agency is also looking creatively at the combination of maintenance with lease options for some of its facilities, in hopes that it can then move more rapidly by having its officials cycle out of laboratories to launch rebuilding and renovation processes.

It's one of my top priorities as the NIST director to have our NIST people work in 21st-century facilities that we can be proud of and that enable the important work of NIST for the nation, Copan said.

Advancing Efforts in Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing

The presidents budget request placed a sharp focus on industries of the future, which will be powered by many emerging technologies, and particularly quantum computing and AI.

During the hearing and in his written testimony, Copan highlighted some of NISTs work in both areas. The agency has helped shape an entire generation of quantum science, over the last century, and a significant portion of quantum scientists from around the globe have trained at the agencys facilities. Some of NISTs more recent quantum achievements include supporting the development of a quantum logic clock and helping steer advancements in quantum simulation. Following a recent mandate from the Trump administration, the agency is also in the midst of instituting the Quantum Economic Development Consortium, or QEDC, which aims to advance industry collaboration to expand the nations leadership in quantum research and development.

Looking forward, over the coming years NIST will focus a portion of its quantum research portfolio on the grand challenge of quantum networking, Copans written testimony said. Serving as the basis for secure and highly efficient quantum information transmission that links together multiple quantum devices and sensors, quantum networks will be a key element in the long-term evolution of quantum technologies.

Though there were cuts across many areas, the presidents budget request also proposed a doubling of NISTs funding in artificial intelligence and Copan said the technology is already broadly applied across all of the agencys laboratories to help improve productivity.

Going forward and with increased funding, he laid out some of the agencys top priorities, noting that there's much work to be done in developing tools to provide insights into artificial intelligence programs, and there is also important work to be done in standardization, so that the United States can lead the world in the application of [AI] in a trustworthy and ethical manner.

Standardization to Help the U.S. Lead in 5G

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., asked Copan to weigh in on the moves China is making across the fifth-generation wireless technology landscape, and the moves the U.S. needs to make to leadnot just competein that specific area.

We have entered in the United States, as we know, a hyper-competitive environment with China as a lead in activities related to standardization, Copan responded.

The director said that officials see, in some ways, that the standardization process has been weaponized, where the free market economy that is represented by the United States, now needs to lead in more effective coordination internally and incentivize industry to participate in the standards process. Though U.S. officials have already seen those rules of fair play bent or indeed broken by other players, NIST and others need to help improve information sharing across American standards-focused stakeholders, which could, in turn, accelerate adoption around the emerging technology.

We want the best technologies in the world to win and we want the United States to continue to be the leader in not only delivering those technologies, but securing the intellectual properties behind them and translating those into market value, he said.

More here:

NIST Works on the Industries of the Future in Buildings from the Past - Nextgov

Quantum computing is expected to be the new technology, fully integrated with the financial sector within five to ten years. This form of computer, also known as supercomputers, are capable of highly advanced processing power that takes in massive amounts of data to solve a problem in a fraction of the time it would for the best traditional computer on the market to resolve.

Traditional Computer vs. Quantum Computing

A typical computer today stores information in the form of bits. These are represented in the binary language (0s and 1s). In quantum computing, the bits are known as Qubits and will take on the processing of similar input but rather than break it down to 0s and 1s will break the data down significantly greater where the possibilities of computational speed can be almost immeasurable.

Quantum Computing in Banking

Lets examine personal encryption in banking for example. Using a security format called RSA-2048, traditional computers would be able to decrypt the security algorithm in about 1,034 steps. With our best computers on the market, even with a processor capable of performing a trillion calculations per second, these steps translate to 317 billion years to break the secure code. While it is possible, it is not practical for a cyber-criminal to make it worthwhile.

A quantum computer, on the other hand, would be able to resolve this problem in about 107 steps. With a basic quantum computer running at one million calculations per second, this translates to ten seconds to resolve the problem.

While this example centered on breaking complex security, many other use cases can emerge from the use of quantum computing.

Trade Transaction Settlements

Barclays bank researchers have been working on a proof of concept regarding the transaction settlement process. As settlements can only be worked on a transaction-by-transaction basis, they can easily queue up only to be released in batches. When a processing window opens, as many trades as possible are settled.

Complex by their very nature, Traders can end up tapping into funds prior to the transaction being cleared. They will only be settled if the funds are available or if a collateral credit facility was arranged.

As you could probably handle a small number of trades in your head, you would need to rely on a computer after about 10-20 transactions. The same can be described for our current computational power in that it is now nearing the point where it will need more and more time to resolve hundreds of trades at a time.

With quantum computing using a seven-qubit system, it would be able to run a greater amount of complex trades in the same time it would for a traditional system to complete the trades. It would take the equivalent of about two hundred traditional computers to match the speed.

Simulating a Future Product Valuation

Researchers at JP Morgan were working on a concept that simulates the future value of a financial product. The team is testing quantum computers to perform complex intensive pricing calculations that normally take traditional computer hours to complete. This is a problem as each year greater complexity is added via newer algorithms, getting to the point where it is nearing an impossibility to calculate in a practical sense.

The research team has discovered that using quantum computing resulted in finding a resolution to the problem in mere seconds.

Final Thoughts

Banks are working on successful tests today with quantum computing to resolve extreme resource-intensive calculations for financial problem scenarios. Everything from trading, fraud, AML, etc. this is a technology not to be overlooked.

According toDeltec Bank, Bahamas - Quantum Computing will have positive impacts on portfolio optimization, risk analysis, asset pricing, and trading strategies is just the tip of the iceberg of what this technology could provide.

Disclaimer: The author of this text, Robin Trehan, has an Undergraduate degree in economics, Masters in international business and finance and MBA in electronic business. Trehan is Senior VP at Deltec International http://www.deltecbank.com. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this text are solely the views of the author, and not necessarily reflecting the views of Deltec International Group, its subsidiaries and/or employees.

About Deltec Bank

Headquartered in The Bahamas, Deltec is an independent financial services group that delivers bespoke solutions to meet clients unique needs. The Deltec group of companies includes Deltec Bank & Trust Limited, Deltec Fund Services Limited, and Deltec Investment Advisers Limited, Deltec Securities Ltd. and Long Cay Captive Management.

Media Contact Company Name: Deltec International Group Contact Person: Media Manager Email: Send Email Phone: 242 302 4100 Country: Bahamas Website: https://www.deltecbank.com/

Read the rest here:

Deltec Bank, Bahamas Quantum Computing Will have Positive Impacts on Portfolio Optimization, Risk Analysis, Asset Pricing, and Trading Strategies -...

Meditation and mindfulness apps are booming. The top 10 apps pulled in $195 million in 2019, up 52% from the year before. Now, top meditation app Headspaces former head of research, Nick Begley, is launching a new app that goes beyond mindfulness to specifically address the needs of those suffering from anxiety. The app, called Calmer You, offers a combination of activities, including not only guided meditation, but also journaling, cognitive behavioral therapy coursework and other health and wellness material.

The latter includes things like fitness videos, sleep stories and interviews with celebrities and inspirational people on their experiences with anxiety, among other things.

Begley worked for Headspace for two years, where he learned about the power of meditation apps to aid with self-development, he says.

I realized that it doesnt have to be limited to just mindfulness, explains Begley, as to how he got started with Calmer You. Theres so much good advice out there, but just passively digesting it watching videos or reading books which is what most of us do when we want to improve, simply doesnt deliver the changes that they promise, Begley says.

The problem isnt that the advice isnt good it typically is. But people struggle with putting the advice into action, Begley says. Thats where Calmer You aims to help.

The app includes a few different components, including a 28-session course that helps guide you step-by-step to better understanding anxiety and helping to learn techniques to manage it. This includes cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, compassion-focused therapy, analytic techniques and more. In addition, theres a toolkit with more than 50 quicker practices that are recommended based on how youre feeling in a given moment or whatever situation you may be in. A journal for tracking how you feel day-by-day is available, as well.

Customers subscribe to the app for $7.99 per month or $47.99 per year.

We didnt specifically aim to fill the gaps of Headspace, but this is what users have mentioned, Begley says. A lot of people find it hard to regularly meditate, and so we wanted to provide tools and practices in addition to mindfulness to help people with anxiety. We wanted to provide a premium quality app experience that provides a more comprehensive approach to specifically helping manage anxiety and the many ways in which it manifests, he adds.

Calmer You was developed in collaboration with anxiety expert and author Chloe Brotheridge, whose book The Anxiety Solution: A Quieter Mind, a Calmer You contributes to the apps name. The team was familiar with Brotheridges book and reached out to her to see if she would be open to building an app based on her actionable advice.

This is a part of Calmer Yous parent company PSYTs agenda turning self-help books into apps.

The Calmer You team, via PSYT, also includes psychologists. But the app itself isnt yet validated through things like randomized control trials, for example. Thats something theyd like to do further down the road, however.

Calmer You is also more geared toward women, as much of Brotheridges own work was particularly focused on anxietys impact on young women.

For as long as I can remember, Ive struggled with anxiety and I had to work out what worked best for me, said Brotheridge. This is why as a therapist, I teach people many different techniques so they can find what works best for them, not just mindfulness. While it took a lot of work to include multiple approaches in the app, I think its essential to help empower people to find the practices that work best for them and their situation, she says.

Since the apps launch into beta testing in November 2019, the company has been adding tools to respond to what users said they needed help with, including two new rebalancing tools (one for calming social anxiety, another to help communicate confidently), a worry journal for evening use and several more guided meditations and sleep stories.

The app shouldnt be used instead of visiting a doctor for severe cases of anxiety, but could be slotted into a users routine if theyre already using a meditation app, like Headspace, to aid with feelings of anxiety on a regular basis.

Calmer You is a free download on iOS with a subscription business model.

View original post here:

Calmer You fills in the gaps in meditation apps for anxiety sufferers - TechCrunch

In this excessively digital age, its become harder than ever to get a good nights sleep. Most of us spend our days staring at a computer screen, only to go home and scroll through our phones and catch up on our favorite shows (both of which involve staring at, you guessed it more screens). All that blue light seriously messes with our circadian rhythm, making it difficult for us to achieve the quality, deep sleep we so desperately need to function.

Relax Melodies wants to help change that. This sleep and meditation sound generator uses a variety of different tools and techniques to help you drift peacefully off to dreamland in no time, and a one-year subscription is available now for just $29.99.

Relax Melodies lets you construct your ideal happy-place soundscape. You can start by choosing a sound that relaxes you, add a piece of nature, like a babbling brook or croaking frogs (hey, whatever gets you there). With over 100 ambient sounds and white noise options to choose from, you can create as many custom soundscapes as your heart desires.

Of course, if thats not strong enough for you, you can always pop on one of their many guided meditations created specifically to help you relax and drift off peacefully, or one of their comforting bedtime stories narrated by some of the most soothing voices and written specifically to send you off to dreamland.

In fact, what Relax Melodies does is backed by actual science their massive library of carefully crafted ASMR sounds and binaural beats are scientifically proven to lower your anxiety and induce deep sleep. Which is probably why the app comes highly recommended by doctors and neuropsychologists.

Its also pretty highly recommended by people just like you. With over 100,000 reviews on the Mac App Store, a 4.8-star rating, and 50 million happy sleepers, this app has been helping plenty of people find sweet relief at the end of the day.

Normally $60, a one-year subscription to this incredible relaxation app is on sale now for just $29.99. Or, you can get it for life for only $124.99. Do yourself a favor and upgrade the overall quality of your life by getting better sleep tonight.

Original post:

Say goodbye to bad sleep with this doctor-recommended meditation app - New York Post

Home Blog How Meditation Changes the Brain Last updated: 9 Mar 2020

~ 4 min read

A group of neuroscientists wanted to figure out whether years of meditation had changed the brain of an expert monk. Led by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they connected 256 electrodes to a Tibetan monk named Matthew Ricard, who had given up a career in science and spent decades meditating in the Himalayas. Dr. Davidson and his colleagues were astonished by Ricards brain signature, having never seen anything like it before. The activity in his left prefrontal cortex (responsible for subduing negative emotions) and abnormal gamma wave levels (suggesting signs of bliss) led them to dub him the happiest man in the world.

But this wasnt an isolated finding. As it turns out experienced meditators across the board show fascinating improvements to their brains. And even novices who learn meditation, practicing over the course of a few weeks, begin to see changes take place.

Research has shown that there are several ways that meditation can change the brains structure and function:

Its important to note that it can take many years to produce these more permanent changes in brain structure. Yet some of the studies mentioned above showed changes starting to occur after just a few weeks of meditation practice.

Its incredible how quickly the brain adapts when you use it in novel ways. By repeatedly applying their attention in a particular way, meditators can build an improved brain bit by bit.

This is not unlike the athlete who can shape their body with the repeated exercise of certain muscles in the gym. Our brains are very similar, adapting to how they are used. The consensus among neuroscientists just a couple decades ago was that the brain had stopped evolving by adulthood, but these discoveries suggest that we continue to shape our brains up until our last breath.

Recent findings demonstrating the brains incredible neuroplastic (the ability for the brain to reorder itself by forming new neural connections) capacity give rise to a new concept mental fitness. It means each of us can train the mind like a muscle through meditative exercises.

Indeed, meditation is an umbrella term, like exercise, and there are over 800 different techniques by one account, each training the mind in a unique way. Mindfulness meditation is most commonly practiced in the western world, but there are also zazen, mahamudra, vedic, loving-kindness, visualization practices, dzogchen, tonglen, mantra practices, and hundreds of others. Just as running, swimming, and tennis strengthen the body in different ways, so too do these methods of meditation.

But what is the mechanism is behind meditations ability to change the brain?

When neurons fire together, they wire together mental activity actually creates new neural structures What flows through your mind sculpts your brain. Thus, you can use your mind to change your brain for the better. Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Meditation is just self-directed neuroplasticity. In other words, you are directing the change of your brain by inwardly and consciously directing attention in a particular way. Youre using the mind to change the brain, like a child crafting a Playdough structure. Research has shown that the way you direct your attention and thoughts can significantly impact and change the brains development.

The concept of self-directed neuroplasticity means that youre literally in control of your own evolution, responsible for the shape and function that your brain takes on. For example, if you focus hard in a concentration meditation, you will exercise the attentional networks of the brain and strengthen those neural networks. This helps explain the amazing findings mentioned above that show meditations ability to change your brains structure and function.

While meditation produces some immediate changes in neurotransmitters (altered states), with practice it also produces long-lasting structural (new connections) and even functional (entirely rearranged neural networks) changes. This re-wiring of states into more permanent traits takes consistent effort.

Self-directed neuroplasticity also helps us understand why mental training is a full-time occupation. How you use your mind regularly influences the number and strength of your synaptic connections as the brain is always evolving per your interactions with the outside world.

So if you dont have the brain you want now, maybe it isnt focused or full or mental energy, then the good news is that you can in fact change your brain with meditation. Although a thick hippocampus might not attract a mate, its a worthwhile improvement that can impact something thats with you at all times determining your entire reality in each moment: your mind.

References:

Liam McClintock is the Founder & CEO of FitMind, a mental health and meditation technology company. He has trained as a meditation instructor in multiple styles, including Vipassana and Vedic meditation. Liam received a B.A. from Yale University and is completing an M.S. in Applied Neuroscience at King's College London. His work has been featured in Time, Vice, Daily Mail, and Men's Health.

APA Reference McClintock, L. (2020). How Meditation Changes the Brain. Psych Central. Retrieved on March 14, 2020, from https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-meditation-changes-the-brain/

Read the original:

How Meditation Changes the Brain - PsychCentral.com

Minho, a region in the north of Portugal, is a place of rough beauty, where myriad shades of green run up the hills, dotted with watercourses and millennia-old boulders covered in moss and lichen. Its feral and unpolished, a testament to the unwavering strength of everything that grew there before humankind came along. But humankind did come along, some five hundred thousand years ago, and has sought to dominate this fertile and wild place ever since. It is in Minho, not far from the place where Portugal was founded in 1143, that Australian-born, Bali-based architect Nicholas Burns has recently erected a chapel and a meditation room, the first in a number of commissions he is developing for the same client. One of the initial intents was that it wasnt a religious building, as such, Burns tells me. It started as a spiritual refuge; yet now it has a religious component to it.

The project stands on a hill inside a thirty-hectare private estate, overlooking a denser urbanization down in the valley and the many green hills around it. When I visited with the architect on a recent Saturday morning, the air was crisp; a morning of humid and mysterious, fast-moving fog that enveloped rocks, trees and humans had given way to a soft sunlight piercing through the treetops. The resulting undulating light patterns swayed gently in the soft grass, and walking the rough-cut granite path up to the chapel awakened all your senses. For Burns, this was an important aspect of this place. He describes sense of time, sense of seasons and sense of place as the elemental things that are important for people to feel naturally deeper within themselves, rather than an aesthetic that is more the rational response to experience.

View gallery

The chapels vertical scale takes an unexpected leap, shooting upward to the sky with its sinuous concrete roof.

Image: Peter Bennetts

The slithering promenade that Burns extends on the way to the building brings to mind similar exercises in different geographies, such as the pathway leading to Ryue Nishizawas incredible Teshima Art Museum in Japan. With the building tucked away between trees and gigantic granite boulders, the first thing that comes into view is a large concrete wall, peppered with circular markings that recall Tadao Ando or is it Luis Barragn, and his wide free-standing slabs where the trees cast their shadows? But get closer, and the chapel shoots up into the sky, with a sinuous concrete roof rising up to a scale that feels completely out of place. The reason for this unexpected leap is made apparent once you cross the entrance threshold: an incredible baroque gilded wood altar caps the far end of the chapels main volume, its dimensions more fitting to a monumental basilica than a private chapel. It is an unbelievably ornate masterpiece of early eighteenth-century Portuguese religious art, property of the client and recently restored. The shape of the roof was a direct result of the altar, Burns tells me to describe the sweeping motions of the concrete above us. Its not something that I couldve thought of in isolation.

The chapels entrance, defined by a protruding corten steel chamber that resounds with the sound of your footsteps, opens up to a luminous vertical volume concealing the baptismal font in a nook. A flight of steps grants access to a second, darker horizontal volume capped by the altarpiece. The element dominates the space with its size and scale, dramatically illuminated by side openings as if to float. In this area, Burns reprised the vertical rhythm of the altarpieces turned wood columns to create an enfilade of stone candleholders that leads the eye to the baptismal font at the opposite end of the building, and designed a simple altar as well as the seating. The naked concrete surfaces that are so dominant in the exterior and so unusual in these parts of the country give way to limestone throughout the interior, including the floor and the walls, softening the space considerably. The silence inside is stunning, leaving out all the vibrant nature outside; but this contemplative setting is subtly disrupted by some of the elements in the space. The rough-cut stone of the altar, the rope in the chair seats, the way the candleholders hesitate between a round and a rectangular shape these over-designed elements draw attention away from the spaces obvious central element. To the left of the altarpiece, a dark wooden door leads to a small paved courtyard and the other building in this ensemble: a meditation room.

View gallery

A baroque gilded wood altarpiece caps the far end of the chapels main volume. An ornate masterpiece of early eighteenth-century Portuguese religious art, the recently restored altar informed the undulation of the chapels roof.

Image: Peter Bennetts

This second building is fundamentally different. Here, Burns evokes a more local and traditional use of stacked shale, which defines the courtyard walls and the meditation room volume in a much darker palette. We deliberately made it a little bit rough, Burns says, more like a landscape wall rather than a building. Inside, the space is clad in dark wood ceiling, walls and floor and once the door is closed, you are left alone with your thoughts. Light pours in through a vertical corner window, revealing a massive boulder outside that appears to float atop a tranquil pool. Here, the sounds of water and birds overlap to create a pleasing atmosphere, simpler and warmer than that of the chapel. The only reappearing element is the candleholders, in a line, which mirror those in the religious space. The candles, Burns tells me, were made out of beeswax by his son in Bali.

What to make of this ensemble, with its striking array of contrasts, its mix of architectural styles, its attempted grand gestures? Clearly, Burns is extremely ambitious: we see glimpses of Ando, Nishizawa, Barragn, but also nods to Le Corbusier in the swooping concrete roof of the chapel and the glass elements in the door, which bring to mind Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France. In contrast, the lower volume of the meditation room evokes more vernacular typologies: its horizontal orientation blends well with the surroundings in the same way that Peter Zumthor builds in Graubnden, Switzerland, or the early works by lvaro Siza hide under the landscape. But where is Burns in the middle of all this effort? Perhaps because of the apparent lack of constraints, or possibly because of the private nature of the commission, the architects hand is lost and no clear intention emerges. And while Burns tells me, The form of the building is not placed on the site, its derived from the site, a study of the property is no replacement for a deeper study of place which could have greatly benefited the end result.

View gallery

Judiciously placed vertical windows connect the silent, contemplative internal spaces with the vibrant nature outside.

Image: Peter Bennetts

Minho, in the north of Portugal, is a region where other architects have intervened: Pritzker Architecture Prize-winners Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, and even Sizas master, Fernando Tvora, have all worked with and within these geographies numerous times. Using a contextual approach, they succeeded in creating buildings that take advantage of the natural conditions, not seeking to overpower them, but yielding to them in order to thrive. This knowledge of the constraints is partly what has allowed them to create memorable works in the region; it is also a knowledge that I observe is absent in Burns Chapel and Meditation Room. While the architect seeks to innovate in the use and combination of materials concrete, corten steel, shale, limestone, granite, wood I question their appropriateness for this context, as their durability will be harshly tested. The ensemble atop the hill is the product of an ambitious set of intentions, their dissonant resolution in contrast to the harmonious nature around it.

Read the rest here:

Sacred ambition: Chapel and Meditation Room - Architecture AU