One of the most commentated news regarding Instagram for the past weeks was their investigation on whether to ban likes counter on the platform or not, but mostly from the perspective of marketing strategy. It turns out that the social media platform is actually considering this new feature as a means to avoid a much bigger problem: cyberbullying.

A recent studied carried by Pew Research Center showed that fifty-nine percent of teens reported to have experienced at least one of six types of abusive online behavior, cyberbullying included. Another concerning fact brought by the study shows that 16% of these teens were already subject of physical threat of some kind due to incidents in social media.

In addition to that, a report published by the Journal of Abnormal Psychology has highlighted the popularity of smartphones among teenagers – a statistic that only grew during the past seven years. “More U.S. adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s, versus the mid-2000s, experienced serious psychological distress, major depression or suicidal thoughts, and more attempted suicide,” stresses the study’s lead author, Jean Twenge, who also wrote the book iGen, in which he ponders about the influence of smartphones in teenage and child mental health.

Besides hiding how many likes a photo has received, Instagram is also considering another feature: a “nudge” alert that is activated while the user is still writing a comment that is flagged as potentially aggressive. According to the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, this could give an extra incentive for people to think twice before committing to an attack.

“Of all the obnoxious activities that can be carried out on the web, cyberbully is in my opinion the worst”, says Ealixir’s CEO and founder Enea Angelo Trevisan. “Cyberbullying targets those who cannot defend themselves: often minors or minorities. This is why one of our priorities as a company is to invest our technology in the fight against this plague.” In that sense, Ealixir gives support to individuals by making an early detection of offensive and troublesome contents, so they can be immediately erased and monitored to avoid further reloading. 

For Trevisan, the case for cyberbullying starts in schools, and this is the reason why Ealixir is also responsible for organizing sessions with children, so they can be warned about the dangers of the internet. “At this young age, kids think of internet as a huge playground. We teach them not to trust strangers and to think about the consequences of their virtual actions, exactly like in real life,” he explains.

Moreover, families also need to be aware of their children’s presence on the internet – they should not underestimate the possibilities and dangers of giving a smartphone to a child or a teen. “This is due to the fact that older generations were born and raised without the web, so they struggle to identify with their children. With Ealixir, we try and fill in this gap most of all through prevention, but also actively by deleting offensive contents and/or preventing harassment.

Besides monitoring and removing offensive contents published online, Ealixir also gives support to families and individuals who found themselves victims of cyberbullying by offering contact with specialized lawyers that can handle a case with expertise in the court. However, as much as in the case for health, prevention is the best scenario when coming to cyberbullying too, so internet literacy becomes an important competence to be learned by children for a healthier future of the web.

Sources: https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/how-instagram-plans-to-take-a-stand-against-cyberbullying

The field is now seeing phenomenal growth and investment as newer, slicker and cheaper technologies, such as electrospinning, are allowing for more and more applications, particularly in the field of drug delivery. 

Use of nanofiber is no new technology, in fact microfibers have been in use – particularly in the textile industry for many years. Even in the global filtration and separation technology market current forecasts for the coming year is that there will be growth of around 6% in demand, and that is before you factor in the explosion in alternative global drug delivery methods due to the increase in chronic diseases, new pharmaceutical products and technological advances. Major manufacturers are exploring the potential of the production of nanomaterials by electrospinning as the next big step forward for their business. 

What is electrospinning and how does it work? 

Put quite simply, electrospinning is the method by which nanomaterials are made. It is incredibly versatile, and the range of raw materials that can be used is very wide ranging, and can allow for different properties of the finished product. 

Starting with a polymer melt, using materials such as collagen, cellulose, silk fibroin, keratin, gelatin, or polysaccharides for example, chain entanglement takes place in the solution. An electrical force is then applied to pull threads of electrically charged materials into a jet that can be whipped or spun into fibers as the solvents in the solution are evaporated.

Finally the dry fiber is formed into a membrane or material, depending on the intended use. The material will have some great functional properties, such as a large surface area-to-volume ratio, high porosity and strength. 

Nanomaterials are revolutionising the advancement of new materials, and for companies looking to be the leaders in new developments and pushing industry forward with new technologies this is an area that will help them stay at the top of their game.  

Why is it worth the research and development?

With virtually limitless applications, electrospinning can be used in any industry. Not just in the production of textiles, where breathable, lightweight or protective clothing might be required, but also in the creation of filtration systems, and in medicinal and pharmaceutical products. 

It even has use in the packaging of food and other consumables, and there is some research being put into the creation of food. There are already companies who have managed to scale their electrospinning processes. 

The versatility of the process and the potential for creating groundbreaking new products is only part of the story. One of the other reasons this is a good direction to take your research and development team is because it is relatively quick and easy to set up with the help of a good electrospinning equipment company. There is a range of machinery available, from small worktop ‘proof of concept’ electrospinning machines for small laboratories, to large pre-production scale machines. It means that start up and installation costs are far lower in comparison to many other production processes. 

The user interface of this machinery has also advanced with the times, making it far simpler to operate and carry out the processes with a passing knowledge of polymers and electrostatics. Training up the workforce takes no time at all. The world is already seeing the benefits of this technology, particularly in the field of health and medicine. For example wound patches or organ membranes are artificially made and used during surgical procedures. Due to the molecular structure of the material it can graft with biological living tissue. And of course in the use of pharmaceutical implants and patches for the slow release of medicine. This is a field that will continue to grow as new discoveries are made.

Virtualization is not a new thing, it has been around for some time now, and is one of the key ways a business can protect their IT infrastructure and reduce costs.

Opting for cloud vdi (virtual desktop infrastructure), is absolutely the way forward for businesses, but there could be many reasons why you haven’t been able to make the change yet.

Maybe you have not had a good enough network to support externally hosted desktops and applications, or you are a smaller business that is only just beginning to think of moving to a virtual enterprise structure. It could also be that you are suffering from the hangover of an older infrastructure with your own onsite servers and just coming to the end of the asset life time. Either way your next move should be to look at virtualization and here is why.

The savings can be substantial

Without a doubt the biggest reason is the cost savings you will make. Any company or business needs to be fully aware of the bottomline, and while the project to virtualize will need a little investment, long term it will save your business a lot more.

For example, you will no longer need onsite servers. Hardware is expensive to replace, and in order to keep up with technological investment they need to be replaced every few years. They also need to be upgrades, require server engineers to manage them, a specialised location to store them with adequate cooling and they use a lot of electricity. And this is before you even begin to think about the licences for the operating systems and applications.

Increased reliability and security

With security becoming so much more important, especially if you are holding any personal data, you need to be sure that you have adequate security measures in place to protect your IT services. Through application virtualization a data centre via the cloud, you can make sure that those provisions meet exactly what you need.

You can also increase the uptime and availability for your users, through better mirroring and failover provisions. Data centres are geared towards maximum uptime, and even should something go wrong with a server, users will like never even know as the services move over to alternative servers. To create and host this type of infrastructure yourself will require a whole IT department!

Increased productivity for your workforce

By moving to desktop virtualization your employees will be able to access their documentation and applications from almost any device. From mobile devices, tablets, laptops they will be able to do whatever they need, whenever and wherever they need it. For companies operating internationally or with a lot of travel involved this is absolutely vital.

It can also set the scene for flexible working – already proved to make the workforce much more productive. It also means that should a device breakdown, it is simple enough to switch to another.

Management of company devices is also a lot simpler, with setup and deployment happening remotely. All your installations, updates and patches, back ups and virus scans can be controlled centrally. It also means much better management of software assets.

In addition your service provider should be able to provide a whole range of support for your IT teams, with access to many disciplines and expertise to keep you running at your maximum 24 hours a day if needed.

Desktop virtualisation is definitely the way forward for any business. It makes end user environments much more secure. Reliability and uptime is better, which also keeps those end users happy and productive in their own work. No more lost working hours due to broken servers. Approached strategically, this can revolutionise your business and its operations well into the future.