The basic rights of older persons need to be protected today, more than ever before, said the UN human rights chief on Monday, but existing legal safeguards render them, in effect, “invisible”.
Michelle Bachelet was addressing the Working Group on Ageing, at UN Headquarters in New York, the first to do so in person, since it began its “vital role”, in 2011, she said.
“Today, more than ever, older persons need stronger protection to fully enjoy their human rights”, she added. “But the reality is that international legal frameworks – which should protect everybody, without discrimination – still render older persons invisible.”
She noted that by 2050, there will be twice as many older persons aged 65 than there are now, and will outnumber young people aged 15 to 24.
“We should ask ourselves: what kind of world do we want to live in by then? I would like to imagine a world where older persons everywhere are guaranteed to live a life of dignity, with economic security.
“A world where they can continue their work and contribute to society for as long as they wish and are able to. Where they can live independently and make their own decisions.”
She called for action to end violence, neglect and abuse of older persons, where “quality health services, including long-term care, are easily accessible.”
“In a future like this, older persons should be able to actively participate and contribute to sustainable development”, she told the meeting, and, if needed, they should have access to justice, for any human rights violations they may suffer.
Distant vision
Currently, “we are far from this vision of a better reality” for the older generation, she warned, noting that the majority of the six million lives lost to COVID-19, were older persons.
“The crisis has exposed and deepened critical human rights protection gaps for older persons”, she said.
“It has demonstrated how age-related discrimination creates and exacerbates poverty and marginalization, and how it amplifies human rights risks. Older persons have been left at the edges of society at the time when they are most in need of our support.”
Climate change too, has left them more likely to face health challenges, and at risk of losing access to food, land, water and sanitation, and ways of making a living in old age.
Кровопролитной осаде Сараево исполняется 30 лет.
An elderly man waits for the tram in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo: World Bank/Flore de Préneuf
Existential threats
“Their fundamental well-being is at grave risk”, said Ms. Bachelet, not least in the context of Russia’s war being waged in Ukraine, where “older persons are facing a particularly appalling humanitarian situation.
“Long-term care facilities are suffering a lack of food, heating, electricity, water and medication. Many residents who have chronic health conditions rely on others for care and are struggling to access bomb shelters or safe areas.”
She point out that violence against older women and the lack of access to medical care and mental health and psychosocial support services, had severely impacted health, also in the war-wracked Tigray region of Ethiopia.
“And in Syria, older persons continue to suffer the consequences of destroyed and damaged health infrastructure.”
‘Urgent imperative’ to act
Strengthening the human rights of older persons, is therefore “an urgent imperative that we all must strive towards”, said the High Commissioner.
For too long, their rights have suffered from “inadequate protection”, and they continue to be overlooked and neglected in national policies.
“At the international level, they are simply forgotten”, she emphasized, pointing out that her Office, OHCHR, had conducted several studies pointing out the protection gaps.
Her report last month to the Human Rights Council on ageism and age-discrimination, produced conclusions that were “no surprise” she said.
The existing framework for older persons, is “wholly inadequate”, while international engagement has been “far from systematic” or coherent.
“Finally, the distinct lack of a dedicated human rights instrument for older persons – as well as clear limitations of existing ones – is a continued reminder that we are not doing enough to effectively protect their human rights.”
Ageism pervasive
Ageism is “woven into the very fabric of life” of older persons, said Ms. Bachelet, and all pervasive.
“The stereotypes resulting from ageism and discrimination are counterproductive and can even be dangerous. They significantly contribute to the vulnerability of older persons and are one of the main obstacles to their enjoyment of human rights.”
Currently, she said, none of the UN human rights treaties contain any specific provision on age discrimination or ageism.
“We need to fight against this. In Our Common Agenda, the UN Secretary-General called for a renewed social contract anchored in human rights. Older persons are integral to this.”
‘Intergenerational solidarity’
She called for the creation of a new and strong “spirit of intergenerational solidarity”, as a way of unlocking progress towards the protection of human rights, “at every stage of life”.
“My hope is that future generations will all be able to enjoy the equalities and human rights we are demanding for older persons as part of this week’s vital discussions.”
She said most importantly – together with the active and meaningful participation of civil society, national rights institutions, and other stakeholders – the journey to bolster rights, “needs to be guided by the voices and lived experience of older persons themselves.”
Tashkent (Uzbekistan), 11 April 2022 – The region of Central Asia borders Afghanistan, the world’s largest opium poppy producer, and the area serves as a hub for illicit drug trafficking. For a more effective response to such transnational organized crime, strengthening regional cooperation across borders and among law enforcement agencies in Central Asia is critical.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has been supporting Central Asia’s vulnerable border areas against the trafficking of Afghan opiates, through strengthening border crossing points and establishing/enhancing intelligence-sharing and cross-border communication mechanisms allowing for the detection and interception of contraband.
In an integrated coordination response to drug-related challenges and border security issues, UNODC has supported the establishment of border liaison offices (BLOs), port control units, border posts and outposts, and interagency mobile teams in the Central Asian states. BLOs have been set up in geographically remote and potentially vulnerable border crossing points in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
To support strengthening the capacities of border crossing points in Central Asia, on 17 February 2022 the Government of Japan and UNODC signed a grant agreement for US$ 4.1 million. The grant will also improve regional cross-border cooperation by promoting the BLO concept and the development of information and communication networks for border agencies.
“In particular, the initiative will improve capacities of crossing points stationed along the border with Afghanistan through the provision of technical expertise and equipment, and drug interdiction skills development for border officers and law enforcement agencies,” explained Yusuf Kurbonov, UNODC’s International Programme Coordinator in Central Asia.
The agreement was signed by H.E. Mr. Yoshinori Fujiyama, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the Republic of Uzbekistan, and Ms. Ashita Mittal, UNODC Regional Representative for Central Asia, in the presence of the Ambassadors of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan.
“We expect this new project to strengthen operations of BLOs and border crossing points in the region and to bring about tangible results. We are expecting officers to benefit from the provision of leading-edge equipment as well as capacity building. I hope they will gain knowledge and skills needed to more effectively and efficiently combat trans-border crime,” said Ambassador Fujiyama upon signing the agreement.
Thanking the Government of Japan and Central Asian countries for their continued partnership with UNODC, Mittal said: “Fostering greater cross-border and interagency cooperation helps to make the region safer from the threats of drugs, crime and terrorism for the benefit of current and future generations. Supporting integrated border management is an integral part of UNODC’s work programme for Central Asia,” she noted.
** *** **
BLOs promote improved communication and cooperation between different national law enforcement agencies working along borders. They aim to foster direct cross-border communication between operations staff and share real-time information on drug traffickers to enable fast and effective intervention by law enforcement officers on both sides of the border.
UNODC strengthens the capacities of BLO officers through training programmes and provides equipment and specialized analytical software to enhance database analysis and intelligence-sharing at the regional level.
My mother was born in Sambir, Ukraine, and my father in Przemyśl, Poland. They both spent their childhoods as refugees.
They lived among displaced Ukrainians who fled to Austria and Germany as the Red Army advanced in July 1944. My grandparents’ decision to abandon their homes and leave everything behind saved my parents from the tyranny of Soviet occupation.
They were some of the 200,000 Ukrainians who chose to live in exile rather than be repatriated to the Soviet Union. They organized themselves around civic, education, cultural and political interests. Within these circles, Ukrainians produced newsletters, pamphlets and books to connect themselves with one another and to inform the world about the country’s history.
This publishing effort was in addition to work done by Ukrainians who immigrated for economic reasons to North America beginning in the 1890s, and those who lived abroad for political reasons during the revolutionary era in the early 1920s.
I am the custodian of these publications in my role as a librarian developing, making accessible and researching Ukrainian — and other Slavic-language collections at the University of Toronto Libraries.
Our library’s Ukrainian holdings — whether they were published in Ukraine under Austrian, Polish or Russian rule, in independence, or in refugee centres and diaspora communities — offer a perspective on Ukraine’s distinct history that sets it apart from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s belief that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia.”
Librarians and libraries across the world play a role in preserving and sharing Ukraine’s cultural history. They acquire western observations about Ukraine or material printed on its territories. And people can learn a lot from these resources.
French architect and military engineer, Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan’s map, Carte d’Ukranie, first represented the country as a discrete territory with delineated borders in 1660. It was commissioned by King Ladislaus IV of Poland to help him better understand the land and its people to protect the territory from enemies (particularly Russia).
Other material in our libraries bears physical traces testifying to the horrors of Soviet rule. At the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, a Gospel Book printed in Pochaiv, Ukraine, between 1735 and 1758, and written in Church Slavic, bears a notation that it was given to the St. Michael’s Golden-domed Monastery in Kyiv, “to remain forever irremovable from the church.” However, this monastery was destroyed on Stalin’s orders in the mid-1930s and volumes from the library were sold by the Soviet government. ‘Carte d’Ukranie’ by Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan, published with his Description d’Ukranie (Rouen, 1660) The map is oriented from south to north to highlight the military importance of the Black Sea Basin for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. (Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan)
But books also enter library collections through more honest means — refugees sometimes donate their personal libraries to universities. At the University of Toronto, we have a hand-written, water-coloured issue of a Ukrainian prisoner-of-war periodical entitled Liazaroni (Vagabond) (1920). It was produced in an internment camp near Cassino, Italy, where tens of thousands of Ukrainians were held captive after fighting in the Austro-Hungarian army.
Among the close to 1,000 books and pamphlets that were published by Ukrainian people displaced after the Second World War, is a children’s story I remember reading from my youth, housed at the University of Toronto. The book, Bim-bom, dzelenʹ-bom! (1949), tells the story of how a group of chickens and cats help put out a house fire. A passage from the book can be applied to Russia’s war against Ukraine:
“Roosters, chickens, and chicks, and cats and kittens know how to work together to save their home. So, you, little ones, learn how to live in the world, and how in every danger to defend your native home!”
Maintaining and preserving online archives or digital objects during wartime is difficult. They are as precarious as print material because they rely on infrastructure in the physical world. Computer equipment attached to cables and servers needs power to work. Power outages or downed servers can mean temporary or permanent loss of data.
Over 1,000 volunteers, in partnership with universities in Canada and the United States, are participating in the crowd-sourced project called Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) to preserve and secure digitized manuscripts, music, photographs, 3D architectural models and other publications. So far, the team has captured 15,000 files, which are accessible via the Internet Archive.
Just as libraries have collected, preserved and shared knowledge held by their own institutions over the past century, they are now sharing this knowledge globally so that when the war is over, Ukraine can see its cultural treasures rescued and restored.
Ksenya Kiebuzinski Slavic Resources Coordinator, and Head, Petro Jacyk Resource Centre, University of Toronto Libraries, University of Toronto
The 14th Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly plenary session will take place in Buenos Aires (Argentina) on 13 and 14 April.
Members of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat), composed of 75 MEPs and 75 representatives of Latin American and Caribbean parliaments, will participate on 13 and 14 April in the Assembly’s fourteenth plenary session, under the title “A fair and inclusive economic recovery in peace”.
Participants include Javi López (S&D, Spain), Chair of the Assembly’s European component, and Óscar Darío Pérez Pineda, Chair of the Latin American part and member of the Colombian Congress. For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Assembly will meet in person.
Opening session and press conference
The Assembly will begin on Wednesday, 13 April, with speeches by EuroLat co-presidents Javi López and Óscar Darío Pérez Pineda, and a representative of the Argentinean Senate. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell will also participate via videoconference.
A press conference will follow the opening session. The two co-chairs will answer questions from the media at 12:30 p.m. local time (GMT -3) in the Hall of Honor of the Kirchner Cultural Center.
Digital platforms, environment and sexual and reproductive rights
EuroLat members will discuss criminal cooperation and the problem of hate speech online and offline. Given that both regions are underrepresented on the global digital market, the representatives will discuss how to establish suitable environments to attract, retain and incentivise the growth of digital platforms. Another issue on the agenda is the scrutiny of trade negotiations between the two blocks and the monitoring of trade agreements.
On social issues, discussions will focus on culture as a means to boost relations between the two sides. Furthermore, they will assess the challenges and opportunities arising from the pandemic for the reform of education systems. In addition, they will vote on a report on the circular economy and will address the “Rights of nature”.
In addition, a Working Group on Food Security and the Fight against Hunger has been set up to stress the need to facilitate the post-pandemic recovery process and to address the effects of the war in Ukraine on the global food market.
Other discussions will focus on the fight against drug trafficking, and the state of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as LGBTI rights in the EU and Latin America.
Creation and composition of EuroLat
The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) is the parliamentary institution of the bi-regional Strategic Partnership, established in June 1999 in the framework of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean Summits. EuroLat was created in 2006 and meets in plenary session once a year.
The 75 members of EuroLat’s Latin American component include representatives from Parlatino (Latin American Parliament), Parlandino (Andean Parliament), Parlacen (Central American Parliament) and Parlasur (Mercosur Parliament). As there are joint EU/Mexico and EU/Chile parliamentary committees, Eurolat also has representatives from the Mexican and Chilean congresses.
Wood from an ancient settlement on the Canadian island of Newfoundland testifies that long before Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean, the Vikings were the first to reach the New World, Reuters and AFP reported, citing a publication in Nature magazine.
Exactly when the Vikings embarked on the journey and built the village of L’Ans-au-Meadows in Newfoundland has remained a mystery to science.
Scientists now report that a new type of dating technique using a long-standing solar storm as a starting point reveals that the settlement was inhabited in 1021 AD – exactly a millennium ago and 471 years before Columbus’ first voyage. The technique is applied on three pieces of wood cut for the village. They all point to the same year.
The journey of the Vikings marks important stages for humanity. The settlement offers the earliest known evidence of a transatlantic crossing. It also marks the point where the globe is finally orbited by people who crossed into North America thousands of years ago on the land bridge that once connected Siberia to Alaska.
“These Northern Europeans, the first human society to cross the Atlantic, have received a lot of praise,” said study leader Michael Dee of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
The Vikings were sailors from the Scandinavian countries with exceptional skills in boat construction and navigation and established settlements in Iceland and Greenland.
“Many archaeologists believe that their main motivation for looking for new territories was to find new sources of timber. It is generally believed that they left Greenland, where suitable wood for construction was extremely rare,” he added.
Simple radiocarbon dating, the determination of the age of organic materials by measuring their content of a specific radioactive isotope of carbon, has proved too inaccurate in determining the age of L’ans-o-Meadows. The settlement was discovered in 1960, although it is widely believed to date back to the 11th century.
The new dating method relies on the fact that solar storms produce a distinctive radiocarbon imprint in the tree’s annual rings.
It is known that there was a strong solar storm – a burst of high-energy cosmic rays from the Sun – in 992 AD.
In all three studied tree pieces – from three different trees, after the annual ring with evidence of the solar storm, 29 rings were formed, which means that they were cut down in 1021. Their felling is not the work of natives, as the wood bears traces of metal blades that they did not have, Dee explains.
How long the Vikings lived in the village remains unclear, but it is likely that their stay was short – 10 years or less. Up to a hundred ancient Scandinavians were present at any given time. Their buildings were similar to those in Greenland and Iceland.
The study’s authors note that they were the first to determine the exact date on which the Vikings settled in America. Previously, they only guessed the approximate period of settlement, based on various myths, sagas and legends.
Historian, journalist, member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, Professor Nikolai Svanidze spoke in favor of the demolition of monuments to Lenin throughout the country just before the war started, reports the URA.RU portal.
“I am for the demolition of monuments to Lenin. The whole country is in his statues. And I think a boy with his mother will come. He will say: “Mom, who is this uncle?” And what will mom say to him? What are the merits of this uncle? His remains are in the Mausoleum. I would not answer. What he did? Ruined the country? He killed a huge number of people, ”Svanidze said. He called the demolition of the monuments inevitable, but could not predict when this will happen.
The professor stressed that so far the Russian authorities are not going to take this step. In his opinion, the government is confident that there is no need to bother people who consider Lenin an important figure and are simply used to monuments. “Therefore, we are not solving this issue now. When Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, nothing happened. Although then he was incomparably more popular than Lenin is now. Nevertheless, the authorities will not agree to this now, ”he summed up.
In August, a new monument to Lenin was erected in Smolensk. We are talking about a bronze monument created in 1965, the author of which is the artist of the USSR Navy Alexei Izmalkov. The sculptor depicted the leader of the proletariat in full growth, surrounded by delegates from the East. For many decades, the work was kept in storerooms.
Navigation for the blind, “translator” for dialogues with the deaf and eye substitutes…
According to the WHO, there are more than 2 billion people with visual impairments in the world. The organization estimates that more than 900 million people will have hearing problems by 2050. Smart gadgets empower these people and help them get by without outside help. One of the manufacturers of such devices is the Russian laboratory “Sensor-Tech”. She told Haytek about the devices, their differences from foreign counterparts and how implants can restore vision even to blind patients.
Denis Kuleshov – Director of the Sensor-Tech laboratory.
Alexander Popov is the chief designer of Sensor-Tech.
Andrey Demchinsky – Head of Medical Projects “Sensor-Tech”.
Neurotechnologies that remove restrictions
A man is walking down the street. In one hand he has a white cane, with which he feels the way. In the other, there is a small black object that looks like a video camera. The person directs it first in front of him, then to the sides. Passers-by do not know that at this moment in the earpiece he hears prompts: “Car, distance – 5 meters. Man, distance – 3 meters. “
Another person comes to the MFC. “Hello,” the operator says with a smile, and this word appears on the screen facing the visitor. The man smiles back and starts typing the problem on the keyboard, which the operator will read on the computer monitor. An intermediary between the hard of hearing and the outside world is a small device that converts speech into text.
Both devices are developed and manufactured by Sensor-Tech. Its director Denis Kuleshov began to cooperate with organizations for disabled people while still at the institute: he helped conduct research. Gradually Denis realized that he wanted to work in this direction and develop for people with disabilities. Therefore, when in 2014 he was offered to join the scientific research of the new So-Unification foundation, he immediately agreed.
The So-Unification Foundation for the Deaf-Blind Support was established in April 2014. Deals with the socialization of the deaf-blind: opens regional support centers, creates opportunities for employment, leisure and creative self-realization; provides legal, psychological and targeted assistance.
The fund has accumulated various projects, including youth and scientific, related to the issues of deaf-blindness, in which Denis took part. “At some point, it was decided that it would be much more effective and more correct to develop this in the format of a separate laboratory that deals with these issues in a specialized manner,” Kuleshov recalls.
The nuances of household appliance
In 2017, the Sensor-Tech laboratory appeared, the founder of which was the So-Unity Foundation. Immediately, work began on the creation of gadgets for the hearing impaired and the blind. A grant from the Scientific and Technological Initiative was allocated for this within the framework of the Neuronet roadmap.
The condition for receiving the grant was co-financing of the project: 70% was allocated by NTI, the rest of the money had to be found by the developers themselves. The missing 30% was provided by the So-Unification Foundation.
The work of the laboratory had to be built from scratch: a design bureau and a pilot production were formed, where prototypes of devices were assembled. The first problem faced by the developers is the lack of experience in creating household appliances. Their previous experience in instrumentation was mainly related to the defense industry.
The first prototype of the device for the blind turned out to be too bulky and inconvenient to use. Having received feedback from users, the developers have seriously transformed it. It was necessary to make the device work without interruptions, be convenient and understandable to use.
Now the laboratory has developed a device for the blind and visually impaired – “Robin” and a device for people with hearing disabilities – “Charlie”.
“The market for devices for disabled people is not very large, all production is small-scale and expensive,” says Denis. This is the reason for the rather high price of the devices: “Robin” costs 150 thousand rubles, “Charlie” – 195 thousand rubles. Therefore, manufacturers are negotiating with the government to include their inventions in the list of technical rehabilitation means – in this case, the government will compensate for the purchase costs.
Tell me what you see
Outwardly “Robin” resembles a portable camera. Sensors scan objects, and artificial intelligence determines what is in front of the user – a car, a table, a computer, another person. There are more than 50 objects in the device memory. If you upload photos there, it recognizes the person and says his name. To use “Robin” in the dark, a flashlight was built into it. In this case, the gadget not only names the object, but also estimates the distance to it.
The first release of “Robin” was unsuccessful. In order for the device to detect an object, it was necessary to point the device, press the button and wait at least 2 seconds. But it turned out that this was inconvenient for users: immediately after pressing the button, they began to drive the device from side to side. Because of this, the information voiced by “Robin” turned out to be irrelevant: he was describing objects that he recognized before he was moved.
“We knew how to help the device and where to direct it, and people didn’t have that experience. Because of this, it seemed to them that the device was not working well, ”explains Alexander. Then the developers decided to change the principle of work. The feedback time from the device was reduced to a second, while the “Robin” only worked when the button was pressed. This option turned out to be clearer and easier for users.
“There are no direct competitors, that is, devices with the same functions, on the market. But there are analogues, for example, OrCam, ”says Alexander.
OrCam MyEye and OrCam MyReader are portable artificial vision devices produced by the Israeli company of the same name. They are small wireless cameras that can be attached to the temples. The first device reads printed and digital text, barcodes of goods, recognizes faces and reads the information received. The second is used only for reading texts. The gadgets support 17 languages and do not require an internet connection.
________________________________________
Voice turns to text
Charlie is for people with hearing impairments. People with experience in teaching for the hearing impaired participated in its development. Therefore, the developers were aware of the difficulties that arise in the process of communication and the requests of both parties.
The device picks up speech at a distance of 2 m and displays it as text on the screen. The gadget can also be used by the deaf-blind – for this, a Braille display is connected to the “Charlie”. It allows you to read information with your fingers and enter a response.
Braille was developed in 1824. It is a system of convex points and voids between them. Each character is encoded using a 3×2 trellis. The combination of dots within each cell corresponds to a letter or punctuation mark. If the text changes the writing, for example, from Latin to Cyrillic, this is also indicated by a special symbol.
The developers say that there are no analogues of “Charlie” on the market either. Numerous programs that translate speech into text are designed primarily for human-computer interaction, and not for two people to communicate with each other.
The first machine capable of recognizing voice appeared in the 1950s at Bell Labs. The device determined numbers from zero to nine. At the same time, the machine understood the inventor much better: when he spoke, the reproduction accuracy was about 90%. The device correctly recognized the speech of other people only in 70–80% of cases.
Until the 90s, speech recognition was based on templates: sound waves were translated into a set of numbers, and the result was displayed when the speech matched the sample. Therefore, for the correct interpretation of voice signals, it was required to eliminate background noise, speak slowly and clearly.
Dragon’s NaturallySpeaking was the first speech recognizer that did not require pauses between words. It appeared in 1997 and is still in use today.
Machine learning and AI technologies have significantly improved the speech recognition system and made it possible to adapt algorithms to the individual manner of communication of each person. The result was the emergence of voice assistants: Google Assistant, Siri from Apple, Alexa from Amazon, “Alice” from Yandex. In addition, there are special applications, for example, ListNote, SpeechNotes, for speech recognition, translation of a voice into a text message. Some applications, such as Speechlogger, can even perform simultaneous translation from one language to another.
With the help of “Charlie” the interlocutors will be able to communicate with each other without resorting to the help of an intermediary. In addition, the device can be used for remote communication, for example, for lectures at universities or holding meetings. It is enough for the presenter to put “Charlie” next to him, and the listeners – to connect to the program by the link. The decoded speech will be displayed on the screen of a smartphone or computer in real time.
See the world again
Also “Sensor-Tech” participates in scientific research related to the use of neurotechnologies for the return of vision.
It all started in 2016 at an international conference in the United States. There, representatives of the So-Unity Foundation met with an American company dealing with bionic vision. They agreed to conduct an experiment in Russia to implant bionic chips in blind people.
“The device may not be applicable to all blind people, it is a rather narrow pool of diseases, mainly retinitis pigmentosa. The peculiarity is that with it, only one layer of cells dies, which transforms light into an electrical signal. The rest of the cells remain alive, ”explains Denis.
Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited disorder associated with the X chromosome. With this pathology, retinal cells are gradually destroyed, collecting the image and transmitting it along the optic nerve to the brain. The disease begins with loss of lateral and night vision and eventually leads to complete blindness. There are no effective preventive measures against retinitis pigmentosa, as well as treatment methods. The implantation of microchips is still under development, and doctors also suggest that gene therapy and stem cell therapy may be a breakthrough.
________________________________________
As a result, in the databases of the So-Unification and Art, Science and Sport foundations, they found two people with the right diagnosis, who did not have concomitant pathologies. In 2017, the implants were installed in Grigory Ulyanov and Antonina Zakharchenko. The funds for the operation were allocated by the Alisher Usmanov Foundation.
________________________________________
Alisher Usmanov’s Art, Science and Sport Foundation was founded in 2006. Finances educational and scientific projects (cooperates with MGIMO, MISiS), supports museums and theaters (Sovremennik, Tretyakov Gallery, Igor Moiseev’s ensemble and others). The foundation also promotes healthy lifestyles and organizes competitions, including for people with disabilities.
________________________________________
During the operation, an implant with electrodes is placed on the patient’s retina. It is associated with special glasses with a built-in camera. Information from the camera is transmitted to a microcomputer, which processes the image and sends signals to the implant. Electrical impulses are transmitted along the optic nerve to the brain, where a picture is formed.
There are 60 electrodes in the implant, which can be compared to a 60-pixel picture – by the number of points that the implant stimulates. With its help, you can get an image of only large enough objects – windows, doors, tables, cars. Smaller objects may fall out of the “matrix” formed by the electrodes, or the data is insufficient to identify them.
Since the patient does not have cells responsible for color rendition, the image is black and white. But in comparison with complete blindness, even such limited vision from the point of view of a healthy person significantly expands the capabilities of patients. They can orient themselves in space even in unfamiliar conditions without outside help or additional devices and become quite independent.
Sensor-Tech hoped that the operation would make it possible to register implants in Russia and make them available within the framework of high-tech medical care. But a problem arose: the Ministry of Health considered that two operations were not enough to draw a conclusion about the safety of the implants. The Americans, in turn, refused to conduct further experiments, since there was no guarantee that this method would eventually be approved.
“In terms of eye implants, the story is over. But this is even good, because it has a continuation in the form of cortical implants, which are placed in the brain. This is where the visual processing of information takes place. Chips can be used for any kind of blindness, in contrast to the eye. This is a more high-tech solution, ”says Denis.
Already in 2021, the company presented the first development in a new direction. This is the first neuroimplant for the brain ELVIS in Russia, it helps restore vision to blind and deaf-blind people. The device has an implant that is installed in the brain, a hoop with two cameras to be worn on the head – they take over the function of the eyes and a microcomputer that analyzes the image and transmits it to the brain. The technology makes it possible to distinguish the silhouettes of objects, people and to understand the location of objects.
While the system is being tested on rodents, tests on monkeys will follow. In 2024, 10 blind volunteers are planning to install a cortical implant.
Cortical visual implants are placed in the cerebral cortex. They stimulate the visual areas, resulting in visual sensations. According to experts, this will allow changing the brightness of images and providing color rendering, which is impossible when using bionic implants. The first operations for the implantation of cortical implants were carried out back in the 70s of the last century. And in 2018, the American company Second Sight publicly installed modern neuroimplants for the first blind volunteers. The technology is undergoing clinical trials.
Scientific research and overseas markets
There are other developments among the laboratory’s cases. For example, a free application for mobile phones was developed together with a cellular operator to help blind people determine the denomination of banknotes. It is available on iOS and Android.
To find out the denomination of a bill, just point your smartphone camera at it. The AI will identify the banknote and name it. And if you point the camera at several bills at the same time, the device will immediately calculate their amount.
If the application is used by a visually and hearing impaired person who cannot hear the voice acting, the denomination of the bill can be recognized by vibration – for different denominations there are own modes.
If the phone cannot recognize the bill, it can be photographed and added to the database via the “Help for Developers” function. Usually the need for this arises when issuing new or rare commemorative notes.
In addition to the production of devices, Sensor-Tech is engaged in scientific research in the field of deaf-blindness. “We want to make it clear to healthy people how those who have impaired vision or hearing perceive the world in general,” says Andrey.
So, the laboratory created simulators of visual impairments: the See My World VR simulator and its mobile version SMW Pro. “Noise” is superimposed on the live image or on a static image. As a result, the picture is distorted according to the specific visual defect. For example, it becomes blurry or a black spot appears in the center of the image.
“We simulate the symptoms of how a person with various visual impairments sees. Literally: how to look through the eyes of a person who has cataracts, myopia, astigmatism, glaucoma, ”says Andrey. Also, using the simulator, you can trace the dynamics of the disease over time. This helps doctors and students to better study the clinical picture, and the patient’s close relatives – to literally look at the world through his eyes.
“To make the image as reliable as possible, the clinical picture of the disease is used to create it. Additionally, we clarify the result with the patient, so that he can confirm whether he sees so, if his vision is not severely impaired yet, ”explains Andrey.
Now developers want to promote their devices in the European and US markets. It is planned to put the gadgets on Amazon and, in addition, to reach government bodies and public organizations dealing with the problems of people with disabilities. Denis is sure that the market for applied developments will only grow. And the director of the Sensor-Tech laboratory sees his mission in making the life of people with disabilities easier thanks to technology.
They are exquisite, melting in the mouth and delivering uncontrollable pleasure to the palate.
Eclairs are the living history of classic French cuisine, whose contribution to cooking around the world is, to put it mildly, huge.
The elongated steamed pastry and egg custard filling becomes a real sensation wherever it appears.
Skilled confectioners are constantly trying to improve the recipe, experimenting to find the perfect balance between taste, airy texture and appearance.
Today, chocolate eclairs remain perhaps the most popular. As you can guess, in the form of glaze, here one of the main characters is chocolate. But even if some are disappointed that it is missing in the filling, the classic egg custard manages to fill this gap without any problems.
In fact, éclair from French means “lightning”. However, why the cake gets exactly this name is not entirely known. Some say it is because of the speed with which the eclairs are eaten, and others – because of the glare and gloss of the glaze.
One thing we know for sure – the name describing the cake appeared in 1860, and before that it was called pain à la duchesse or petite duchesse (from French – “the bread of the duchess” or “the little duchess”).
However, it is still unclear who is the chef who invented the prototype of the original recipe. However, it is assumed that this is the French chef Antonin Karem, who is well known for his other recipes, such as cakes “Napoleon” and “Charlotte”.
Nowadays, eclair is reviving its popularity, reappearing on the confectionery scene with various shapes, with exotic fillings, as well as a variety of glazes, fruit temptations and ice cream.
In all its varieties, however, one thing remains the same and that is the dough – the key component without which the eclair will not be what we have known for centuries.
Steamed dough, which is used to make cakes, differs mainly in that it is prepared on the hob and has the ability to increase its volume during baking alone, without the need to add additional soda, yeast or baking powder.
The content of the products needed to make it is reduced to milk, water, sugar, butter, eggs, salt and flour.
Regardless of the shape in which the dough is baked, the result is an ethereal, almost hollow crispy sweetness, which after cooling is ready to be filled with the filling of your choice. The thicker the filling, the better, but not only because it is tastier, but also because it prevents the lower part of the eclairs from getting wet.
This way there is no danger of them falling apart in your hand when you eat them or turning into an unattractive sticky mess.
Many people worry about making steamed dough at home, which automatically deprives them of the pleasure of eating eclairs at home more often. In fact, the procedure is not so complicated and with a little guidance, love and good mood the result will amaze you.
Because what warms the soul best and powerfully raises the production of serotonin in the body, if not the perfectly prepared homemade eclair?
The definitions of the Sixth Ecumenical Council of 631 state: “We seal the doctrine with our consent by preaching the one Christ, the incarnate Son of God.
The seventh-century father, St. John of Damascus, said in his exposition of the Orthodox faith: God incarnated. “
St. Theodotus preaches that “if someone considers himself a Christian, and by the way does not accept in the Divine Virgin the dignity and the name of the Mother of God, this person, contradicting the dogmas, in vain flaunts this holy name.”
The veneration of the saints in the Orthodox Church is expressed in different ways: reverent remembrance of their feat in order to generate in us a desire to imitate them according to the measure of our strength; liturgical celebration of their memory; erecting temples in their honor; painting icons and murals in temples; worship before them; lighting candles in front of their images – candles whose light is a symbol of the spiritual light emitted by the saints.
In calling for such reverence, the Orthodox Church in no way teaches us to worship them as deities (there is only one God), but only as faithful servants and friends of God, who became saints by personal effort and with the help of God’s grace received in and through the sacraments. Honor to the saints is, on the one hand, a glorification of God, whose greatness they have reflected in their earthly life, and on the other – a glorification of themselves as living images of God (Prot. N. Malinovsky. Essay on Orthodox dogmatic theology, Second half , S. Posad, 1908, pp. 262).
Another dimension of reverence for the saints includes our prayer call to them. Unlike national heroes and intellectual artists, to whom we pay only homage and praise for their work and strive to imitate them according to the needs and specifics of the time, in the Church Orthodox Christians pray to the saints and have their intercession before God. This also has its psychological justification. Believers in Jesus Christ are connected to each other not only through common faith, but also through mutual love.
The veneration of the saints also consists in the veneration of their relics. The reason for this is the miracles that happen through the incorruptible relics of the saints. According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the relics of saints should be venerated as well as icons, but neither them nor the icons should be given a service that is given only to God.
Nestled on a hill full of various historical tales he has experienced, the Italian city of Matera is a place we can hardly resist.
The city is one of the oldest in the world and is known as “West Jerusalem” due to its position on the rocks and its famous sassi cave houses.
Matera is located in the southern Italian region of Basilica, which is one of the poorest regions in the country.
It was included in the UNESCO list in 1993, and in 2019 became the European Capital of Culture together with the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv.
In 2019, there was a larger influx of tourists, but the coronavirus pandemic stopped everything. However, Mayor Domenico Benardi said he hoped to attract more tourists because the latest James Bond film was being shot there, noting that the seventh art has always been important to the city.
Some of the filming took place in London, Norway and the Faroe Islands.
In the trailer itself, however, the most noticeable is the city of Matera, whose narrow streets are bustling with James Bond.
This is Matera’s first appearance in a James Bond film, but otherwise the city has served as a film background many times.
